more skewed look at David Merriman, she strode out of the room, kicking a book across the floor as she departed.
Mr Henry sighed with relief. “Thank you,” he whispered, patting Strømberg’s
arm.
“We must go carefully now,” Thorren Strømberg told him. “That encounter will have prickled her spine. I may not always find a winning argument against her.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Exactly what I told her. You must monitor the boy.”
“Do you think he will recover?”
Strømberg considered the question carefully. “I hope so. I think he’s got a lot more to show us.”
“His parents, will they be informed of his condition?”
“The mother may learn through the Aunt, but I’d rather keep it from his father, for now. Telling him gains us nothing. He’s already accepted that the boy is out of bounds while in our care. I don’t want
him losing focus, not with his research at such a critical stage.”
Mr Henry nodded. “What about this?” He held up the dragon book.
“I’ll take that. I need to talk to Rosa. Where will I find her?”
Charles Henry pointed to the nearest window. “Outside, in her favourite place – the fields.”
Rosa was sitting cross-legged amongst thedaisies, with her back to the librarium,hair dancing in the breeze. She did nottake her gaze away from the horizon when
Thorren Strømberg came and crouchedbeside her. Speaking quietly, he said, “I’msorry you had to go through that. Aunt Gwyneth has gone. David is staying in thelibrarium.”
The girl swallowed hard and closed hereyes. When she opened them again, thelashes were wet. She noticed Strømberglooking and said, “I suppose you think I’ma freak, as well, don’t you?”
Strømberg shook his head. “Very few ofmy ideas coincide with Aunt Gwyneth’s.”
Rosa’s face grew dark with loathing. “Ihate that woman – if she is a woman.”
“Oh yes, she’s human,” the counsellor said. “She would have had emotions once, but her fain overpowered them long ago. She’s not all bad, Rosa. She’s in the business of producing perfect offspring for
perfect parents in a perfect world. You’re always going to be an irritation to her kind.”
The girl picked a daisy and twiddled it in her fingers. “Will David be OK?”
How could any world be perfect without him?
“I’m not sure,” Strømberg answered truthfully. “If he stays melancholic, he
will
fade away.” He saw her shoulders drop and he pressed on quickly. “What happened, Rosa – in the room, before you ran? How did you come to have this?”
She looked at the dragon book in his hands. “The red firebird came. It picked it off a shelf and dropped it on David.”
“To hurt him?”
“No.” Lips tight, she shook her head. “It
looked sort of… sorry for what it had
done.”
“So the book was a
gift
?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Strømberg thought about this for a moment. He ran his hand across the tops of the daisies, enjoying the sensation of their petals on his skin. “Where were you going when Aunt Gwyneth found you?”
Rosa sighed and flicked her daisy away. “I thought the book might help David, so… Do you know how to get into the upper floors?”
“No,” he said. “You’ve found the door, haven’t you – to Floor 43?”
Rosa looked away, but immediately confessed. “I was trying to get through it when scary ‘Aunty’ turned up. She said there’d be a key, but I couldn’t find a lock.”
Strømberg stared at the horizon and
smiled. “Nothing is straightforward in the librarium, Rosa. You of all people should know that. Aunt Gwyneth is correct, there will be a key. We just don’t know what it is – or where to find it. Maybe the book is a clue.”
At that moment it started to rain. A
single droplet of water landed with a splat on the picture of the dragon. Rosa clutched at her upper arms and shuddered.
“Come inside,” Strømberg said, cutting short her next intended question. “I must leave here soon and I’ve more to show
you.” He stood up and offered his hand. She looked hesitantly at it and he added, softly, “Some interesting things – in other books you’ve not seen.”
She thought about this for a moment, then gripped his hand and raised herself
up. He set off towards the librarium. He was three or four paces ahead when he realised she wasn’t following. He looked back to see her standing in the rain, her wetted hair clinging to her pretty face. “Rosa? Have you lost something?” Her eyes were busily scanning the ground.
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell him, but the daisy chain bracelet was nowhere to be found. That, in its way, was as crushing as the thought that David might not wake. “Did the fire go inside him?” she whispered. “Did David absorb it through his tears?”
Strømberg glanced at the dragon book again. A raindrop had run beneath the creature’s eye, making it look as if it was crying. “No,” he said. “Aunt Gwyneth would have found it.”
“Then what happened? What was the
flash I saw?”
“I don’t know,” said Strømberg. And he wiped the rain off the cover of the book and walked away without another word.
19
Back in the room where David lay, Mr Henry had already begun the process ofrestoring his spilled books to their properplaces. He was halfway up the once-hidden ladder when Strømberg and Rosacame in.
“Charles, I’d like to show Rosasomething
special
about dragons. Couldyou find me an appropriate text?”
The curator stopped what he was doing. His eyebrows rose to a point well abovethe frame of his spex. At first, Rosathought he was going to refuse. But insteadhe leaned sideways and the ladder slidwith his weight (and his intent). It not onlytravelled three feet horizontally but up two
shelves as well.
Wow
, thought Rosa. Where was
that
when she and David were at their mostindustrious?
Once again Mr Henry pressed a buttonsomewhere and what looked to be an
ordinary shelf of books revolved to display a hidden one. On it was a large old book, held together by some kind of stiff brown binding that Rosa had never come across before. Mr Henry stepped down off the ladder with it. Blowing dust off the cover, he said, “This is the rarest and most valuable book in the building.” He handed it to Strømberg, but his gaze was on Rosa. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Thorren.”
Strømberg said, “Sit down, Rosa.” With a sweep of his hand he imagineered
a table and three upright chairs.
Rosa tutted (even though she was secretly impressed at the speed and power of the blonde man’s fain) and pulled out a chair at the side of the table from where
she could still see David. The boy slept on like a statue, barely breathing.
Strømberg sat down beside her but put the old book aside temporarily. Instead, he opened the glossy one again, back at a picture of a roaring dragon.
“What
are
those horrible things?” Rosa asked.
“Good question,” said Strømberg. “No one really knows.”
“Then why have we got books about them?”
Mr Henry joined them at the table. He took off his spex and polished them on the
corner of his jacket. “Thorren, are you sure it’s right for her to hear this?”
Thorren Strømberg merely said, “Do you know what a ‘myth’ is, Rosa?”
“Sort of,” she replied. She remembered Aunt Gwyneth using the word just before her chilling warning:
You are never to touch this book again
. Part of her was willing to accept the Aunt’s caution. The roughness and terrifying size of the creatures (compared to the mountainous landscape they were pictured in) really did frighten her. But they were strangely compelling, too.
“It’s a word we use to describe a phenomenon that has no foundation or basis in truth, and yet is somehow strong enough to survive in our consciousness.”
“It’s not in mine,” said Rosa, nodding at
the dragon.
“Yes it is,” said Strømberg. “It’s merely been suppressed.”
Mr Henry rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed.
“Charles, bring me something on Zo:ology, would you?”
“No, Thorren. She’s not ready for that.”
“Animals, Charles.”
“Are you insane?” The old man looked up sternly. “She’ll be in the boy’s state before you know it.” He jutted a finger at David.
For a moment, there was stalemate. Rosa, unsure of what to do, remainedquiet. Everything seemed to rest with Mr Henry. Finally, the curator scraped backhis chair and again struck one of thepanels between the shelves. It opened on a
dark, cubicle-shaped cupboard. Inside the cupboard was a small book, hardly any bigger than a man’s hand. Mr Henry brought it over and placed it on the table.
A Comprehensive Field Guide to Small Mammals
.
Strømberg picked it up and flicked through a few pages. They were stiff and difficult to hold in place. He found what he was looking for and showed it to the girl.
“A katt?” she said. “It looks a bit fierce. Why are the letters wrong?”
“It’s a wild cat,” said Strømberg, “and the spelling is correct. Try this.” He flipped to another page. There was an image of the most extraordinary little creature Rosa had ever seen. It had fur
like a katt, but its hairs were just a series
of short grey spikes. Two slightly bulging eyes were positioned on the sides of its mischievous-looking face. It was sitting upright, on the branch of a tree, balanced by a bushy tail that curled right over its back.
“That’s a squirrel,” said Strømberg.
Rosa shook her head, confused.
“One more,” he said, “then this goes away.” And he showed her a picture of something long and sleek on the bank of a river. The book labelled it an ‘otter’.
“Thorren, that’s enough,” Mr Henry said grimly. He took the book out of Strømberg’s hands and dropped it into his pocket.
Strømberg leaned back against his chair and said, “All the creatures in that book existed once, Rosa, including the habitats
you saw them in.”
“They’re beautiful,” she said. “What happened to them?”
“They died out – as our fain evolved.”
“How? Why?”
“That’s a mystery many people have tried to unravel, me included. We have physical evidence, in a place called the Dead Lands, that squirrels, cats, otters and thousands more species like them once roamed Co:pern:ica. But they’re not there now. Interestingly, there is nothing to suggest that dragons were
ever
among us, except for precious books like these. Yet I can tell you, without exception, they are in the auma of every child I have ever counselled. Somehow, even though we’re not aware of it, we collectively believe in dragons and no one, not even an Aunt, can
say why.”
Rosa shuddered and turned up her nose. “Are we all flawed?” she asked.
“Possibly,” Strømberg said. “But I think there’s a much more intriguing answer still waiting to be uncovered. And this building might be at the heart of it.”
Rosa looked at Mr Henry. The old man was holding his breath.
Strømberg pushed the dragon book aside and opened the one from the secret shelf. Rosa cast her gaze across the page. All she could see was a pattern of fading ink marks that made no sense to her. She
placed her hands in her lap and waited. Strømberg turned another page. “We are sitting underneath the largest firebird eyrie on Co:pern:ica, and yet we know nothing about it. Many people – learned people,
like myself and Mr Henry – have attempted to reach the upper floors to study the birds’ habitat, but with little success. Interest in the birds has gradually dwindled. Most Co:pern:icans now accept them as nothing more than a colourful aspect of the Grand Design. But they don’t know about this.” He ran his finger round a corner of the binding. “Do you know who found this book, Rosa?”
She shook her head.
“You did.”
“
Me
? How?”
“It was on your first day,” Mr Henry said. “You were running around like a month old kitt-katt and hit your head on the post at the foot of the stairs.”
“I remember it,” she said. “It’s the only time I’ve done it. Well… ” (She didn’t
mention that day’s encounter with the door to 43). “After that you taught me how to move with the building. So how did… ?” She turned her head and stared at the secret cubicle.
“Yes,” said Mr Henry. “You opened a hidden compartment at the foot of the stairs and in it was… that.”
She looked up at Strømberg.
“We believe this book holds the truth,” he said. “We believe that firebirds and dragons are connected. If we can make sense of that link, we think we will unlock the secrets of Co:pern:ica – possibly the entire universe.”