‘I know. But the thing is, the longer I wait, the harder it’s going to be,’ she said, her eyes flickering off his and back to the door. ‘I need to get it over with. I mean, I can’t just not go to the library. This is where they keep all the knowledge.’
Her weak joke didn’t fool him and he held on tightly to her hand.
‘Well. Just keep breathing, OK?’
Her eyes still focused on the heavy, oak wood of the door, she nodded. She knew perfectly well that it was just an ordinary door with an ordinary room behind it. But it was the room where she’d nearly died.
Watching her expression, Carter reached for the door handle. ‘Ready?’
Her heart thudding in her ears, she nodded.
The door swung open.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, covering her mouth with her hands.
Everything at the front of the once-beautiful room had been destroyed. All that was left of the tall, old librarian’s desk that had stood near the door for decades was a scorched square on the floor. Rows of tall bookcases were gone, too, and a section of the eighteenth-century wood panelling with its elaborate carving had burnt to ash. The acrid stench of smoke hung in the air.
‘It looks bad, I know,’ Carter said, ‘but, trust me, it’s a lot better than it was.’
An unexpected wave of grief washed over Allie. Before the fire, this had been one of her favourite places at Cimmeria. It was always crowded with students sitting in its deep leather chairs, resting their feet on soft Oriental rugs, reading by the light of the green-shaded lamps.
All gone now.
The furniture had been removed and the bare, scorched floor looked old and abandoned.
‘It’s ruined,’ she whispered.
‘I had the same reaction when I first saw it.’ Eloise Derleth’s voice was sympathetic. Her long dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her white T-shirt and jeans were as paint-stained as Carter’s. She even had paint on the frames of her glasses.
‘Hello, Allie,’ she said. ‘Welcome back.’
‘Eloise, I can’t believe it.’ Allie’s voice was thick with emotion as she turned to the young librarian. ‘Your beautiful library!’
Eloise looked around the room, her expression stoic. ‘It isn’t as bad as it looks. In some ways we were quite lucky.’
She walked to where her desk used to be. ‘We lost all the records that were kept here and that’s a tragedy because they dated back a century. But the older records are stored in the attic and they’re safe.’
Gesturing at a burnt area where a row of bookcases had towered to the ceiling, she said, ‘The books here were the newest acquisitions, which meant that they had the least value. The ancient Greek, Latin and other antiquarian books were across the room, and almost all of them survived the fire, although quite a few have water or smoke damage. But we’ve hired one of the best restoration companies in the world and they’re doing all they can to save them. So you see?’ Her smile was tight with grim determination. ‘Things could have been worse.’
All Allie could see was disaster but she wasn’t about to say so. She knew the fire must have broken Eloise’s heart.
She forced a smile.
‘It’s totally fixable. What can I do to help?’
FOUR
‘I can’t quite get to that spot, there.’ Allie pointed to a smoke-stained section of library wall, just out of reach of her scrubbing brush. ‘Even when I stand on my toes.’
Bob Ellison glanced at it over the top of his wire-framed glasses. ‘Just reach up as far as you can. The ladder crews will be in later and they’ll do high walls and ceilings.’
Normally the school’s groundskeeper, Mr Ellison was now overseeing the day-to-day organisation of the repair work. He’d put Allie in among those who were scrubbing the library walls to prepare the room for painting. Wearing bulky, bright yellow rubber gloves that stretched up to her elbows, she dipped a scrubbing brush as big as a brick into a bucket and scrubbed until dirty water ran down the wall on to the dust sheet below.
‘This would be more fun with an iPod,’ she muttered, scrubbing fiercely. Cimmeria allowed no modern technology – no computers, mobile phones or televisions.
‘No it wouldn’t.’
At the sound of the familiar voice, Allie spun around to see a slim girl with short blonde hair smiling at her with uncharacteristic shyness.
‘Nothing could make this fun.’
‘Jo!’ With a splash, Allie dropped the brush into the bucket and ran over to her. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
Caution in her eyes, Jo held her gaze. ‘I wondered if you would be.’
Jo’s breakdown at the end of the summer term had thrown Allie’s already shaky world into turmoil. And it had been Jo’s boyfriend, Gabe, who killed Ruth at the summer ball. Jo had handled it all very badly, covering up for Gabe, even when she knew lives were in danger.
But Allie had been arrested three times herself; she knew all about bad choices. ‘Of course I am.’ Noticing the bucket and brush at Jo’s feet, she quickly changed the subject – now wasn’t the time to delve into all that had happened last term. ‘You’re on bucket brigade, too?’
Jo nodded.
‘You can be my iPod. Mr Ellison.’ Allie turned to the grounds-keeper who was busy with his clipboard. ‘Can Jo work with me?’
‘As long as you do as much working as you do talking.’ The gruffness in his voice was betrayed by the amusement in his eyes and Allie smiled broadly.