The Darkening

Oh God, thought Nicholas. Like a slaughtered lamb, simple as that.

‘Why so hard? Why so hard?’ Quill’s voice was ragged, broken by a tight throat. ‘All these years, and what?’ She was talking to herself as she settled on the ladder behind him.

Nicholas watched ghostly moonlight fall on Owen Liddy. The child’s hair was gathered in an invisible hand, wrenched up, and his throat eased apart like a hidden mouth opening. He jolted a few moments, then sagged low and was gone, leaving two ghost boys. Nicholas’s heart pumped peacefully in his chest, a lie to the horror.

The moon. The moon came out just before she cut their throats.

He rolled his eyes upwards, but could not see the moon. Move! he commanded his head. Back!

‘You brought him and now you take him,’ muttered Quill accusingly. Her voice was wet and bitter. ‘What choice?’

Nicholas saw the hair of one of the boys grow bright. Dylan Thomas’s. His scalp and skin glowed silver as the forgotten light of a ghost moon fell on him. A moment later, his short hair twisted cruelly upward, yanking his head high and his neck straight. Then the skin of his neck slid apart in a neat cut, deep, exposing arteries and tendons.

Only he and Tristram were left.

But now Nicholas knew. She’ll cut my throat when the moon comes out. I have to see the moon! He closed his eyes and strained his head back. Move! His mind became a sharpening funnel. Every ounce of strength, every bit of anger, every breath he wanted to take before he died, was concentrated into a single thought: Move!

His head tilted back a degree.

‘Not fair,’ hissed Quill. She was crying. ‘Not fair.’

Again! Move!

His head tilted back another tiny arc.

Tristram was turning. Someone was behind him. His lips moved, grim. Shaking with fear, but not crying. Not grovelling. Brave. Oh, Tris. .

The ladder creaked behind Nicholas and he heard the tick of the knife touching old bone.

Back! His head tilted another degree. Tristram’s skin grew bright as moonlight touched it. Nicholas could not watch his friend die; he rolled his eyes high to the sky.

The clouds overhead were grey waves, breaking. A glow indicated the moon at the edge of the moving cloud. It would be out in a moment.

His eyes rolled down just as Tristram’s white throat opened. Nicholas’s heart skipped from its metronome beat. You fucking bitch. Tristram stiffened and fell.

‘Nicholas,’ whispered Quill.

Tristram was gone. He was alone.

Moonlight opened from behind the racing cloud, touching the distant trees and turning them silver, sprinting closer, closer, closer.

‘Goodbye, pretty man.’

The moonlight kissed his skin. His heart thudded hard as a storm, the blood building inside him like a swollen dam, ready to burst.

Somewhere in the dark, a curlew sounded like a girl’s scream.

Nicholas felt a gnarled hand grab his hair, and the corner of his eye caught the wink of shining steel. His head jerked up.

BACK! he yelled at every muscle in his body. He let the dam inside him break, and threw himself backwards.

It wasn’t dramatic, just a lurch.

The cage rocked back a fraction. Quill had a poor grip on his wet hair and it slipped through her bony fingers. The knife blade nicked his chin, and he heard a creak behind him as Quill went off balance.

‘Oh,’ she said simply.

He heard her fingers fly through the air, clutching for something to grab. And, suddenly, a thrill rippled through his body, as if a wave of warm water struck him inside. He moved his fingers. She’s distracted, he thought wildly. She’s let me slip. He told his hands to let go — they released their grip on bone and wood.

‘No. .’ hissed Quill. ‘No!’

Back! Nicholas threw himself backwards and this time he slammed against the side of the cage. It rocked violently on its low tower.

Quill scrambled to grab the cage. The knife slipped from her fingers and clattered against wood and bone. The cage teetered. . Quill finally grabbed hold with her free hand, but her extra weight on the side of the sphere was too much. . the cage groaned, the low tower leaned, and the cage began to fall.

‘NO!’ she screamed.

The cage toppled, carrying Nicholas within and Quill beneath it, and hit the ground with a loud and sickly splintering crash.

43

Wind tugged at Hannah’s hair and slapped her face cold.

She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, not knowing if she was heading the right way. . yet strangely certain that she was.

She crawled blindly over roots and under branches, hurting everywhere, guided by sound. Between gusts and the timpani rush of black leaves, she heard snatches of a woman’s voice, a sad and lilting speech to someone or no one, carried away covetously by the fast air. She blundered between the dark trees, arms outstretched, falling and rising, ignoring the nauseating throb in her leg. This was right. This all was meant to be.

She was nearly there, perhaps fifty metres from the cottage. Nicholas was still alive — Hannah felt it in her heart — but things were about to turn.

Just then, the wind grew.

The clouds rolling high above the unhappy trees thinned.

The woman’s voice skipped on the air like a black pebble on silver water.

The moon peeked out of hiding and the trees seemed to spring from darkness.

Hannah stopped.

The ground around her seemed to shimmer. But not just the ground: the trunks of trees, the hanging leaves on hanging vines, the mossed fur of logs, all crept and trembled.

Hannah felt her heart gulp blood. Was it. .?

As the clouds parted further, cold silver dropped down between the leaves, lighting everything in front of her — and her breath caught in her throat.

A million spiders watched her. Small and squat, large and bristled: all took a sly, feline step towards her on their alien, skeletal legs. The moonlight winked off their eight million eyes, an evil forest sprinkled with pernicious diamonds. She felt their stare. She felt their surprise at finding her. She felt the tiny sparks flying through their tiny brains, taking her picture, tasting it, conferring.

It’s her. She watched a hungry shimmer run through them. It’s her.

The edges of her eyes prickled brightly, and her head felt like an emptying balloon. Her body seemed to know that she would be better unconscious for the horrible fate that came next. Her legs started to fold.

NO! she yelled in her head. Don’t faint! She pricked the point of the paring knife into her thigh and brilliant new pain chased away the swoon. What good would one knife do against a sea of needle-sharp fangs?

Hannah felt them watch her, see her, know her. The forest seemed to shift as the carpet of spiders, with its