The Seventh Tide (25 page)

‘Right. Library closures,’ she said, setting the ferret down on the log beside her. ‘I’m all ears.’

For a moment, Hurple paused, gathering his memories. Then he began to talk… about the Librarian.

She was a short, blobby sort of woman who wore comfortable clothes.

‘She had a favourite old sweatshirt with the words “So Many Books, So Little Time” printed on it –I remember that.’

Hurple didn’t know how old the Librarian was, or whether she’d ever had a life before the Ardnamurchan Library and, if so, what that life could have been. Jay gathered she was a bit mad – ‘three steps to the side, you might say’ was how Hurple put it. He called her D. D. Hamilton, because that’s what she called herself. Apparently the initials stood for Doris Delores, but Hurple spent his kittenhood assuming they were short for Dewey Decimal.

Jay let that pass, and tried to come to grips with the important stuff.

‘So, you used to live with a librarian?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Who was a human. A human librarian in a library. For humans.’

Hurple nodded.

‘You were her pet?’

‘No. I was her colleague.’

Jay stared at him for a moment, but he didn’t elaborate.

‘But what on earth
did you
do in a
library?!
’ she asked.

Hurple looked surprised at her surprise. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘during the day I kept the Librarian company, and at night I read the books.’

There was a pause.

‘Isn’t that a bit… unusual?’ asked Jay carefully.

Hurple shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But I didn’t really
know
what ferrets usually did. To begin with, I mean. Not till I’d read up on them. I hadn’t ever
met
one. The Librarian was the first being I opened my eyes to. All I can think of is I imprinted on her somehow.’

‘Imprinted…’Jay frowned. ‘Like chickens that are hatched under ducks and grow up thinking they
are
ducks until they go on to the farm pond and drown? Like that?’

‘Good heavens, no!’ said Hurple indignantly. ‘I’m an excellent swimmer!’ There was a pause. ‘Not, of course, that that’s relevant. I just thought I’d, you know, mention it.’

‘I guess we have to accept it. You’re…’Jay paused, looking for the right words, ‘kind of unique.’

‘No one can be
kind of
unique, but I take your point. I am
not
an ordinary ferret.’ He paused for a second. ‘D. D. Hamilton always seemed to appreciate that.’

For a moment the slightly incongruous figure of the Librarian filled both their minds.

‘So, did she know what you were doing? Did you talk to her?’

Hurple shook his head. ‘I only discovered speech afterwards. And though I think she
suspected
I was not an ordinary beast – maybe even the fact I could read – it was as if she didn’t want to look into it all too much, you know? In case it wasn’t so.’

Jay nodded. She knew what that felt like.

‘We were very happy. It was a wonderful library in a spectacularly beautiful place – which of course has long been underwater in your time. You’ll just have to take my word for how beautiful it was. Much better suited for luxury holiday flats or a posh hotel, or so the developers thought. You could hear them grinding their teeth every time they drove by in their big cars.’

He sighed. ‘But
we
didn’t worry. We thought nobody could touch us. After all, what could be more important than books?’ He stopped talking. He looked as if he didn’t want to start again.

Jay stroked a finger down his head. ‘You don’t have to tell me, you know. If you don’t want to –’

‘No. No, I do,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s just… I haven’t spoken of this to very many people…’

She stayed still, letting Hurple gather his thoughts. Then he took a deep breath and continued.

At first nothing happened. But it wasn’t the sort of thing you can easily keep a secret. When the developers
heard the government had cut off our funding they couldn’t believe their luck. There was a lot of squabbling about exactly
who
was going to get our site, and that gave us a bit more time, but eventually the highest bidder rose to the top like scum, and was ready to kick us out. Problem was, we weren’t ready to go.’

‘But I thought you said you had no funding!’

‘We didn’t. But she was never a big eater, the Librarian, and I’d been catching my own rabbits for years and… she’d decided to gamble.

‘She thought that if she refused to remove the books, the developers would never dare destroy the building. She thought that everybody
respected
books the same way she did. That they might consider hurting her, but they’d
never
consider hurting the books.’

‘What happened?’

‘She gambled, like I said… and she lost.’

As Hurple talked, Jay felt as if she’d been there herself. She could see it so clearly – the Library, and Dewey Decimal, and Hurple. And their mad plans.

‘When… it… happened, she didn’t seem to think of herself at all. She just yelled at me to get out.

‘ “Go! Save yourself!” she said.

‘For a moment, I honestly didn’t understand what she meant. Go? Go where? The Library was my home – the Librarian was my family! I just stood there, chittering uselessly, until she picked me up and looked me in the eyes.

‘ “Back wall,” she said. “By the window. Where the Celtic Mythology section meets Sci-fi/Fantasy, there’s a gap. It’s tight, but an exceptional ferret should just fit. I’m counting on you,” she said.

‘And then she gave me such a look. It had hope in it, and resignation and belief and at the same time acceptance that what she was desperate to believe might very well not be true at all, and sadness, and affection…

‘There were so many things I should have done. I should have made her come with me, somehow. I should have reassured her there wasn’t a book in the place that wasn’t safe in my head, and if that was the hope she was clinging to,
she was right
! I should have stayed to help her fight. I should have…’

He was trembling.

‘What happened?’ Jay asked gently.

‘Fire.’ He dragged in a big breath and started to talk in a strange, strained voice. ‘These things get out of hand very easily. I suspect no one really
planned
to set the Library alight. An incident not without precedent, of course. Similar things have occurred – the Royal Library at Alexandria, we are told, succumbed to accidental arson…’ His head dropped and he said with great sadness, ‘I panicked, all right? I smelled fire and I’m an animal and I ran.’

Jay nodded. ‘And was there a gap?’

‘What?’

A gap. Between Myth and Fantasy. Like she said.’

‘Yes. Oh yes.’

And that’s how you ended up in Eo’s world.’

Another nod.

‘Well, thank goodness for that!’ Jay exclaimed. ‘Can you imagine us having to handle all this on our own!?’

Hurple snorted, a little raggedly. ‘There’s that, isn’t there?’

Jay suddenly scooped him up and held him in front of her face, the length of him dangling down in surprise.

‘And I think the Librarian was absolutely right to count on you, because you are without doubt the wisest wee weasel that could possibly be. Thank you for telling me.’

And she kissed him on his furry nose and set him down in a heap. And that’s enough moonlight meandering for me,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back and see what Eo and Adom are up to. If they’ve let my beautiful bonfire go out, I’ll throttle them.’

But as she started to stand up, Hurple put a restraining paw on her leg. She looked at him questioningly.

‘Please – if you don’t mind – don’t tell the boys.’

Jay raised an eyebrow.

Hurple gave a half shrug. ‘Pure vanity, I admit. It’s not my finest hour we’ve been talking about and, to be honest, I’d rather it stayed between us two. As long as the lads don’t know the facts, they can make up any number of flattering pasts for me. I’m just low enough to be willing to accept admiration I don’t deserve.’

Jay snorted. ‘You mean you’re just
human
enough!’ Then she leaned down and offered him an arm to climb up. ‘Don’t worry, Professor. They won’t hear it from me.’

But he didn’t move.

‘I said, don’t worry – I won’t tell,’ she repeated, but it was as if he’d forgotten she was still there. Then, suddenly, he gripped her arm with his sharp claws.

‘HEY!’

‘Can’t you hear it?’ he hissed at her. ‘There’s something coming – something
big
…!’

She straightened up, straining her ears. There was nothing
to
hear but the waves, and the wind, and… what was that? Deep, almost deeper than hearing… it was as if she were
feeling
it, coming up from the ground through her feet…

‘Run
!’ screeched Hurple.
‘Run for the trees
!’

She grabbed him tight and ran as the herd had first come stampeding back round the headland towards them. The earth shook and the dull thunder of their pounding feet was punctuated by bellows of panic. They surged past, a great, many-backed monster in the moonlight, until, as suddenly as it had appeared, the herd was gone.

Jay stood in the shelter of the trees for a moment, breathless and stunned.

Then she was running again, frantically, back the way the herd had come, back to where they had left the boys…

It was hard going on the churned-up sand, but every time she fell flat she was up again in an instant, shaking the sand from her face as she ran. Surely they would have had time to… they would have heard it coming… they wouldn’t just
sit
there…

Then, as she cleared an outcropping of rock, she collided with them both, running in the opposite direction in search of Hurple and her.

They grabbed each other’s hands.

‘Are you – ?’

‘Did you – ?’

‘What
happened?!
’ they panted to each other.

‘My fire!’ Jay wailed, looked over their shoulders.

The bonfire had been scattered by hundreds of feet,
bits of it flickering about the beach like the aftermath of an explosion.

They scraped some of it together and huddled round. No one knew what to say. It was Adom who first noticed that Jay was crying. He nudged Eo, and the two exchanged horrified glances.

‘Er…’ said Eo.

Jay scrubbed at her face with her hand. ‘I really liked it here,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘I really did. It was… nice.’

Hurple reached up and licked her cheek comfortingly.

‘I…’ he started to say – when the earth lurched.

They scrambled to their feet, their eyes showing white.

‘Did you
feel
that?!’

‘It’s the whatsits! They’re coming back!’

‘No, it was bigger than that.’

‘BIGGER whatsits!’

With a groan, the ground moved again, making them all stagger.

‘Earthquake,’ whispered Hurple.

For a moment, that was enough strangeness. But then Eo cleared his throat.

‘I don’t want to worry anybody,’ he said, sounding plenty worried himself. ‘But don’t you think the tide’s a bit… wrong? I mean, it’s gone
really
far out now. Would you say that was normal round here?’

‘Could just be very shallow,’ suggested Hurple.

Everyone gazed out over the expanse of wet sand and mud. Outcrops of coral reef and seaweed-draped rock threw strange shadows in the moonlight, and everything glittered weirdly.

They weren’t sure they could see the line of the sea at all.

‘Way
too far out,’ muttered Adom.

And then it began to snow.

It was a grey, acrid-smelling snow, neither wet nor cold. It filled the air, so that there wasn’t so much left to breathe. It made the fire stutter and smoke, blurring the moon. It began to collect on their shoulders and hair.

‘What is it?’ whispered Adom.

Hurple delicately put out his tongue and tasted. Ash,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Volcanic ash. There’s been an eruption. Somewhere. A huge eruption.’

‘Some people say it was a huge eruption that wiped out the dinosaurs.’Jay’s voice sounded strange and far away. ‘So huge it threw ash high into the atmosphere, where the winds took it and carried it right round the world.’ The moon and the stars were only faintly visible now, and the children shuffled closer to each other in the grey fog. ‘Other people say an asteroid hit the earth and did the same thing – heaving tons of dust kilometres into the sky. It lasted for a long time – for years – the sun was blocked out – no light, so nothing could grow – no light – only grey…’ A sob stopped her.

‘Don’t think about it now. Our time’s almost up here, anyway. The Traveller’s coming and then we’ll be gone. Here, take my hand.’ Adom reached out and held her hand with both of his, trying to be a comfort.

‘That’s right,’ said Eo. They could dimly see him settle Hurple round his neck. ‘Hold tight, Professor!’ He took Jay’s other hand.

There was crashing in the forest as more animals were
caught up in the strangeness and the fear. Hurple wished with all his heart he didn’t have to hear those sounds. He was starting to pant and his eyes stung. He let go of Eo with his front paws and rubbed at his face, but that only made the stinging worse. A tiny part of his brain was still able to consider the chemical components of the gases they were now inhaling, and the possible effects these might have on patterns of perception – but no
other
part of his brain was prepared to listen. Hurple’s enormous mental capacity had been overloaded by memory and emotion, in particular that all-consumer, guilt.

He kept picturing all those animals, trapped in terror, about to die…

They have no idea what is happening to them, no idea what to expect. How could they? And yet they could be saved so much suffering if they had someone to tell them what to do. Guide them through the dangers.
Show
them. A leader. I could save them – not all of them, of course not, but
some.
It’s what D. D. Hamilton would have done. D. D. Hamilton. It’s strange how much that bush over there looks like her… just like her. Bless me, it’s
her –