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anything over it. I picked up the candle I had left on our chest when we went to bed, although there was no fire to light it from. I opened the door slowly.
    T HE HALL WAS completely black. Bits of light filtered into the outside rooms from the stars and moon, but in the halls there was no light at all. I felt my way along, the bricks clammy against my hand. I stumbled once or twice, but the way was straight, and I found the staircase. The stone was cold on my bare feet. Stone stairs at least do not creak like wooden ones, so I made no sound. Not until I stumbled and missed the last two steps, landing with a jolt and a pain in my heel. I stifled the curse that came to my lips. Mother was right to complain about the uneven steps.
    When I reached the second floor, there was a dim light, and I saw that someone had left a candle guttering on the mantel. Now I could see my way. There seemed to be nobody about, and I walked as quietly as I could to the fireplace.
    I had noticed before that the rabbit was slightly more polished than the other carvings, as though people had reached out to touch it for many years; I had thought for luck, but perhaps it was something else. I touched the ears and nothing happened. I tried to wiggle them backwards and forwards, in every possible direction, but they did not move. Then I tried pulling them as though I were going to lift the rabbit off the mantel. I felt them move, just a little, and I heard a slight sound to my left. My heart leapt. I could not see anything. The walls of the room, like most of the castle, were covered with tapestries to brighten the walls and make them warmer in winter. Perhaps there was something under the tapestry?
    I was frightened of what I might find, and frightened that somebody might come, but I lit my candle from the one on the mantel, lifted the tapestry on the left, closest to the fireplace, and moved under it.
    It was hard to breathe, under the dusty hanging, as I crept along. And then I found a door. There was a door! Just a shabby little door, and it was ever so slightly ajar, as though a latch had been released when I pulled the rabbit ears. I gave it a little push, and it moved an inch or so, creaking loudly. I took a deep breath and pushed it hard.
    It was a small room with a small window. I could faintly smell the necessary in the corner. I held the candle up and I could see that the walls were covered with faded red hangings, so dilapidated that shreds of them were falling on the floor. There was a bed in the corner, with wool blankets on it, and a stool. Under the window a large oak chest stood, much like the one in our room, but covered with strange carvings. Men and beasts were fighting, and the roots of trees trapped all of them. It was the only place in the room where books could be hidden, yet I felt uncomfortable approaching it.
    I told myself not to be fanciful, put the candle on the floor, and knelt before the chest. The lid was heavy. I struggled, using my weight to push it up. The lid hit the stone wall with a bang, and I saw revealed perhaps twenty books.
    Here was the treasure! I began to pull them out, holding them close to the candle so I could read the titles. The Decameron , The Poems of Sappho , Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , Horace’s Odes , a slim book called Tis Pity She’s a Whore , and a few other thin books that I knew could not be what I wanted.
    There were only a few left, on the bottom. I took the largest, bound in brown leather. The First Folio: Works of Wm Shakespeare, flickered in gold on the front.
    I put the book on the bed and lay next to it, holding the candle in one hand. It was too awkward, so I closed the trunk, placed Shakespeare on it, and put the candle on the trunk as well. By pulling the stool up to the trunk, I could read. I had no thought of bringing the book away. I could barely carry it and there was no place I could hide it.
    There were many plays. I found Romeo and Juliet and discovered the place