Billy: Messenger of Powers (58 page)

Fulgora misread his expression. “Afraid?” she asked. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. Even the greatest warriors fear.”

“I’m not afraid,” Billy said quickly. Too quickly, in fact, for he realized that he
was
afraid. What would Mrs. Russet’s vast room of memories look like? His own had been almost overwhelming. How much worse could hers be, with so many more memories contained in it, and all of it under the hold of the Dread?

“Of course you are afraid,” said Fulgora. Her burning eyes seared into him. “Either that, or a fool. And I think you are not a fool, Billy Jones. Though perhaps a bit impatient and intemperate at times.” This last she said with something that almost approached a smile, which nearly sent Billy into surprised shock.

“My Lady,” said Vester haltingly, his tone low. “Billy is just a boy. And no one who has ever tried to pull someone out of the Dread has ever returned.”

“He’s not much younger than you or me,” replied Fulgora. “Besides, boys have lived and died for causes—and for friends—before. Don’t sell him short because he has fewer years than you.”

She was still looking at Billy, her eyes ablaze. Billy could almost feel her walking through the corridors of his
own
mind, fingering through his experiences, his feelings. He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting off the feeling, then opened them and looked back at her with as much courage as he could muster. “Tell me what to do,” he said.

“Billy,” said Ivy, pleading in her voice.

But before he could say anything else, Fulgora nodded. She touched her cloak of flame, peeling away part of it, the fire pliant and moldable in her hands. In an instant she held her fiery rapier once again. She put two hands on the hilt, and the blade separated into two distinct swords, one in each hand. She touched the sharp tip of one blade to Mrs. Russet’s forehead. The other she brought swiftly up to where its point hung only inches in front of Billy’s eyes.

“Tell you what to do?” she said. Then smiled a tight smile. “No one knows.”

And with that, she jabbed her blade at Billy. Just as he had done when Vester had taken him into his own memories, Billy once more felt the touch of cool flames, and then felt himself explode from the inside out. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, everyone was gone.

He was alone, which he had expected, but the place he found himself was completely
un
expected. “Where am I?” he wondered aloud.

In answer, he heard a high-pitched screaming that echoed around the halls of the vast place he was now in. The noise was terrible, haunting and fearful. Billy thought it sounded a lot like the kind of noise a scary ghost would make if something had scared
it
. He clapped his hands over his ears, wincing, and waited for what seemed like infinity years plus one until the shrieking stopped. Or rather, didn’t stop, but eased off until it was merely an eerie whine in the background, constant and unnerving.

Billy took his hands from his ears, slowly, ready to muffle them again if the sound should return to its previous levels. It didn’t, though, and he was able to look around and try to figure out where he had found himself.

It was a library. That in itself surprised him. This was nothing like the world-sized room full of television-like screens that had housed his own memories. Instead, it was a world-sized book collection. There were books everywhere, housed mostly in shelves so tall they looked like they might topple over at any time, but the books were also on the floors, some desks and tables, any surface that would hold them. The shelves themselves had ladders next to them, ladders that went up and up and up until they disappeared in what looked like a cloudy night sky. And all the way up were books, books, books. The only places where there were no books on the shelves were at the ends of some of them, where low-wattage light bulbs were strung, providing a dim light that cast dark shadows throughout the huge space.

He realized that the books must be what Mrs. Russet’s memories were housed in. It made sense: she was older, she was a history teacher. Exactly the kind of person that would see herself in a book, rather than on an electronic screen.

But where to start? How could he pull her out of the Dread? How could he find her at all in the vastness of her mind?

“Hello?” he said. He was hoping to hear Fulgora’s voice, just as he had heard Vester’s on his previous trip through Memory. But only silence greeted him. “Fulgora?” he shouted. Nothing. This time he was on his own. The thought scared him more than a little, and he truly realized for the first time what a dangerous thing he had volunteered to try.

For lack of anything better to do, and as much to get his mind off the danger he was in as for any other reason, Billy walked over to a nearby book. It was a huge, dusty tome almost the size of Billy himself. It was propped up against one of the shelves, its thick leather color dark and mottled, reminding Billy strangely of the skin of the zombies.

He reached out a hand to pull open the huge cover, but before he could, the book fell over. The sound was huge and echoing in the chilling vastness of the library. And as it fell, that strange banshee scream returned for an instant. Billy jumped in fright at the weird sound. He looked around, and realized that the light bulbs of the library were all flickering, as though their power was being interrupted somehow.

As before, the ghost-wail slowly ebbed and faded, though still echoing at the edges of his hearing. Once more, Billy reached out to the huge book that now lay flat on the ground before him. He touched the cover, and the screaming started again. He tried to ignore it, to just pull open the cover of the book so that he could see inside, but the harder he tried the louder came the screaming. The lights flickered again, and as Billy continued trying to open the great book, they began to spark and then go out, extinguishing one by one.

Soon, the library was in near-darkness. But still Billy pulled at the cover of the great book. It wasn’t just the ghost noises that were making it difficult, either: the book itself seemed to be resisting his pull, growing slippery and slimy as an eel. It also seemed heavier somehow, like it was drawing extra mass from the air around it.

There was a sudden click, and Billy felt something move under his hands. He looked at the book, and saw that a dingy padlock and an equally tarnished looking hasp had sprung into existence on the side of the book. With a snap, the hasp shut of its own accord. The padlock slammed closed with finality, locking the contents of the huge book away from Billy’s eyes.

He let go of the book now. This one was sealed, maybe forever, and couldn’t be opened. As before, once he stopped touching the book, the frightening scream that echoed through Mrs. Russet’s library of memories slowly faded into a whispering cry.

Billy went to another book. This one was smaller, though still not something he would want to lug around in his backpack. He touched it, and immediately the same things happened. The scream returned, the cover grew clammy and heavy and cold, almost writhing under his fingers. Then another lock appeared, another click sounded, another book of memory was closed to him.

This time, however, he was aware that as he pulled on the book there was more going on than before. More light bulbs seemed to be going dark, but not only that, the entire library itself seemed to be changing. Before, it had started out as something that reminded him of a school library: metal shelves and stacks of books on fairly new-looking furniture. But the more books he touched, the more dingy and grotesque the library seemed. Cobwebs sprang into existence between the shelves. The dim light bulbs turned into foul-smelling hurricane lamps that flickered eerily. The shelves themselves grew warped and rusted, and as Billy moved deeper into the library, more and more of them looked like they were made of wood, and very old.

He continued moving, though, occasionally reaching out to touch some book or other, to see what would happen. Each time, the screaming started, the cover would writhe, and the book would end up locked.

Now, the library he was in bore no resemblance to the place Billy had been in only moments before. The hurricane lamps had been replaced by candles that were propped in holders that looked like they had been fashioned from the skeletal remains of small birds and animals. The shelves themselves were a sick-looking yellow, and curved at the edges. With a start and a shudder, he realized that they were made of what looked like huge bones, lashed together with tendons and strung in huge lines that reached to the sky above.

The books themselves were more forbidding as well. They were clearly older, more neglected. Most of them looked like they were falling apart, and many of them were covered in strange symbols that Billy didn’t understand but which nonetheless made him shudder in sudden fear.

But no matter how awful the surroundings, no matter how decrepit the volumes of paper, he couldn’t open a single book. All were sealed away from his eyes, their locks appearing the instant he tried to read any of them.

Billy remembered what Vester had said before he had come here: that Mrs. Russet was stuck inside herself, reliving some memory over and over. Billy had figured that her memories were recorded in these books, but how could he find the right one? And how could he open it to look once he
did
find it?

He looked around. The library was now a completely terrifying place, cold and dank, like something out of a nightmare.

Of course, he thought. This is
her
nightmare. This is what Mrs. Russet’s mind looks like when it’s under the Dread. He shivered, and realized that his hands and feet were getting very cold.

It’s taking me, too, he thought. He hadn’t thought of that. But now he was living in Mrs. Russet’s mind. And so if her mind was being shaped by the Dread, it made sense that he would be infected by that terrible power as well.

“Mrs. Russet!” he shouted, feeling panic start to well up inside him. The candles flickered in the eye sockets of the skulls they sat in, like horrifying jack-o-lanterns in a Halloween gone terribly, terribly wrong. “Mrs. Russet!” he shouted once more. In fact, it was more of a scream this time.

Billy started to run aimlessly, shouting his teacher’s name over and over, feeling his own sense of self and purpose start to recede under the gloomy influence of this terrible place. Soon, he became aware that he was shouting Mrs. Russet’s name repeatedly, but couldn’t remember why he was saying that, or what he was doing here. He felt like he was in the belly of some great dark beast, waiting for his turn to be digested.

“Mrs. Russet!” he screamed again, no longer sure what he was saying, just saying the only words that his growing terror would allow. “Mrs. Russet!”

And suddenly, he heard something. The banshee screaming was following him like a shadow now, cloaking everything he heard in a shroud of fearful sound. But underneath that noise was something else. Something less actively terrorizing, but perhaps even more hopeless.

Billy had forgotten his mission. He had forgotten what he was doing here, or who he was here for. He knew only fear now. But he also knew that this new sound was something different in this nightmare world, and anything different had to be a step up. So he listened as best he could, trying to find the source of the noise.

He turned left down one bone-aisle of books and skeletal light, then right down another. The sound of weeping and woe grew louder. Another left, then straight for a long time. Right. The rows were endless, each darker and drearier than the last, the wind-wail of ghostly howls clinging to him with every step.

Then Billy turned again, and abruptly came face to face with something. Something unexpected in this nightmare place of hidden Memory. Something he could barely even identify in his state of almost mindless panic.

What is that? he thought. What is it? What is it?

Then, after a long while, came an answer: Ah, yes, I know what that is. It’s a woman.

 And so it was. She was young, very young, perhaps twenty years old, maybe less. And she was the source of the endless howling that Billy had followed—and that had haunted him—for what seemed like forever.