Free Underground Rivers by Mike French Page A

things with amused indifference, but suddenly they are alert and interested and an eager hunt starts for the elusive door to the cellar. According to the plans it is in the vicinity of the boiler room, somewhere we rarely go and there it is, behind a pile of old shelving, a door, locked of course.
    Later that night after we have closed the library for the day Kate hovers nervously by the cellar door fiddling with the key we found in the safe.
    â€œHold on a minute girls,” she says. I feel a surge of frustration well up inside me, guessing what her next words will be.
    â€œMaybe this is not such a good idea,” I close my eyes and suppress the urge to scream as she continues in her best library manager’s voice; “we have to think about health and safety. The stairs may be unsafe and heaven only knows what other hazards there will be. If anything were to happen to us I would be in deep shit.”
    With an admirable pretence at patience I calmly take the key from her and talk to her as if she were a small child.
    â€œKate, as much as I respect your position as manager of this library I am not prepared to wade through weeks of red tape just to open a sodding door. I will take full responsibility if anything disastrous happens.” Not giving her a chance to reply I open the door. A waft of dank air rushes past us and an image of Howard Carter slips into my head followed by visions of angry spores and eager bacteria gleefully feeding on our waiting bodies.
    For God’s sake get a grip I tell myself.
    By now all three of us are standing on the top step peering into the darkness.
    â€œNo way am I going down there,” says Fiona.
    â€œMe neither,” says Kate, no longer the confident boss, “you are on your own from here.” Without a thought for health and safety she gives me a gentle shove and I step into the soft light my torch is throwing down the stairs
    At the bottom, I survey the contents of the dark room. No bigger than an average double bedroom it contains only a small table with a pile of old books on it and a metal framed, child sized single bed. The decaying mattress, home now to generations of mice, adorns it like froths of lace; if it wasn’t so awful it would be beautiful.
    What on earth is a bed doing down here?
    The only possible answer takes my breath away. What would it be like to be incarcerated in this windowless cellar? How terrified would a small child be? How it would long to be free, to escape, cry for help. A wave of claustrophobia washes over me and I grab the pile of books and dash up the stairs pushing past Kate and Fiona and out into the calming welcome of the library where I endeavour to slow the erratic beating of my heart. Later as we sit with a comforting cuppa, I tell them what was there, or was not there as the case may be.
    â€œWhat freaked me out was seeing that little bed.” A perfect picture of the cellar and its contents sits smugly behind my eyes and I shake my head trying to dispel the image. I find that I am still clutching the musty smelling books and Fiona takes one from me and flips through it.
    â€œYuck, this stinks,” she says and thrusts it back at me. “Are you going to look at them now?”
    I am suddenly overcome with tiredness after a full day’s work and my loss of control in the cellar, so I ask if I can come in tomorrow when the library is closed and go through them with a clear head.
    Sitting in the comforting warmth of the office the next day it is difficult to imagine the children incarcerated here all those years ago and for a moment I am reluctant to open up the first book. The title page tells me that these books were published in 1850 and look as if they have never been opened. It occurs to me that they may have been down here for all those years, untouched.
    The pages are fragile and faded but the beautiful copperplate handwriting comes alive as I gently turn the pages and enter the past. Intricate