Abarat: The First Book of Hours

“Yes, I heard that part. I’m Candy Quackenbush.”

“I am extremely pleased to make your acquaintance,” John Mischief said.

He sounded completely sincere in this, and with good reason. To judge by his appearance, things had not gone well for him—or them—of late.

Mischief’s striped blue shirt was full of holes and there were stains on his loosely knotted tie, which were either food or blood; she guessed the latter. Then there was his smell. He was less than sweet, to say the least. His shirt clung to his chest, soaked with pungent sweat.

“Have you been running from this man Shape?” Candy said.

“She’s observant,” John Pluckitt said appreciatively. “I like that. And young, which is good. She can help us, Mischief.”

“Either that or she can get us in even deeper trouble,” said John Serpent.

“We’re as deep as we can get,” John Slop observed. “I say we trust the girl, Mischief. We’ve got absolutely nothing to lose.”

“What are they all talking about?” Candy asked Mischief.

“Besides me.”

“The harbor,” he replied.

“What harbor?” Candy said. “There’s no harbor here. This is Minnesota. We’re hundreds of miles from the ocean. No, thousands.”

“Perhaps we’re thousands of miles from any ocean you are familiar with, lady,” said John Fillet, with a gap-toothed smile. “But there are oceans and oceans. Seas and seas.”

“What on earth is he talking about?” Candy asked Mischief.

John Mischief pointed toward the tower that stood sixty or seventy yards from where they stood.

“That, lady, is a lighthouse,” he said.

“No,” said Candy, with a smile. The idea was preposterous. “Why would anybody—”

“Look at it,” said John Drowze. “It is a lighthouse.”

Candy studied the odd tower again.

Yes, she could see that indeed it could have been designed as a lighthouse. There were the rotted remains of a staircase, spiraling up the middle of it, leading to a room at the top, which might have housed a lamp. But so what?

“Somebody was crazy,” she remarked.

“Why?” said John Slop.

“Oh, come on,” said Candy. “We’ve been through this. We’re in Minnesota. There is no sea in—”

Candy stopped mid-sentence. Mischief had put his hand to his mouth, hushing her.

As he did so all of his brothers looked off in one direction or another. A few were sniffing the air, others tasting it on their lips. Whatever they did and wherever they looked, they all came to the same conclusion, and together they murmured two words.

“Shape’s here,” they said.

6. The Lady Ascends

Mischief instantly grabbed Candy’s arm and pulled her down into the long grass. His eyes were neither wild nor sly now. They were simply afraid. His brothers, meanwhile, were peering over the top of the grass in every direction, and now and then exchanging their own fearful looks. It was most peculiar for Candy to be with one person, and yet be in the company of a small crowd.

“Lady,” Mischief said, very softly, “I wonder if you would dare something for me?”

“Dare?”

“I would quite understand if you preferred not. This isn’t your battle. But perhaps Providence put you here for a reason.”

“Go on,” Candy said.

Given how unhappy and purposeless she’d been feeling in the last few hours (no, not hours: months, even years), she was happy to listen to anybody with a theory about why she was here.

“If I could distract Mendelson Shape’s attention away from you for long enough, maybe you could get to the lighthouse, and climb the stairs? You carry far less weight than I, and the stairs may support you better.”

“What for?”

“What do you mean: what for?”

“Well, once I’ve climbed the stairs—”

“She wants to know what she does next,” John Slop said.

“That’s simple enough, lady,” said John Fillet.

“When you get to the top,” said John Pluckitt, “you must light the light!’

Candy glanced up at the ruined tower: at the spiraling spire of its staircase, and the rotting boards of its upper floor. She couldn’t imagine the place was in working order, not in its present state.

“Doesn’t it need electricity?” she said. “I mean, I can’t even see a lamp.”

“There’s one up there, we swear,” said John Moot. “Please trust us. We may be desperate, but we’re not stupid. We wouldn’t send you on a suicide mission.”

“So how do I make this lamp work?” Candy asked. “Is there an on-off switch?”

“You’ll know how to use it the moment you set eyes on it,” Mischief said. “Light’s the oldest game in the world.”

She looked at them, her gaze going from face to face. They looked so frightened, so exhausted. “Please, lady,” said Mischief. “You’re our only chance now.”

“Just one more question—” Candy said.

“No time,” said Drowze. “I see Shape.”

“Where?” said Fillet, turning to follow his brother’s gaze. He didn’t need any further direction. He simply said. “Oh Lordy Lou, there he is.”

Candy raised her head six inches and looked in the same direction that Fillet and Drowze were looking. The rest of the brothers—Mischief included—followed that stare.

And there, no more than a stone’s throw from the spot where Candy and the brothers were crouched in the grass, was the object of their fear: Mendelson Shape.

The sight of him made Candy shudder. He was twice the height of Mischief, and there was something spiderish about his grotesque anatomy. His almost fleshless limbs were so long, she could readily imagine him walking up a wall. On his back there was a curious arrangement of cruciform rods that almost looked like four swords which had been fused to his bony body. He was naked but for a pair of striped shorts, and he walked with a pronounced limp. But there was nothing frail about him. Despite the lack of muscle, and that limp of his, he looked like a creature born to do harm. His expression was joyless and sour, filled with hatred toward the world.

Having got herself a glimpse of him, Candy ducked down quickly, before Shape’s wrathful gaze came her way.

Curiously, it was only now, seeing this second freakish creature, that she wondered if perhaps she wasn’t having some kind of hallucination. How could such beings be here in the world with her?

The same world as Chickentown, as Miss Schwartz and Deborah Hackbarth?

“Before we go any further,” she said to the brothers, “I need an answer to something.”

“Ask away,” said John Swallow.

“Am I dreaming this?”

By way of reply, all eight brothers shook their heads, their faces for once expressing the same thing. No, this is no dream, those faces said.

Nor, deep in her bones, had she expected the answer to be any different. They were all awake together, she and the brothers, and all in terrible jeopardy.