Abarat: The First Book of Hours

“I’ll teach it to you!” Pux said. “Then you’ll have something to sing as you go around the Yebba Dim Day and people will think, Oh she’s one of us.”

“Is this a very well-known song?”

“Believe it or not,” said John Serpent, his expression one of profound distaste, as usual, “yes.”

“Then I should learn it,” Candy said, secretly glad to be causing the condescending John Serpent a little discomfort. “So,” said Mischief. “From the top. Altogether now.”

Everybody joined in with the song this time (except Serpent and Moot), and Candy quickly picked it up. By the time they came to the fourth rendition, Pux said:

“This time a solo, from Miss Quackenbush.”

“Oh no…”

“Oh yes,” said Deaux-Deaux. “We’ve carried you all this way. The least you can do is sing us a song.”

It was a reasonable request. So Candy sang out her first Abaratian song as the mist ahead began to thin, and they skipped their way into the Straits of Dusk.

“Nice. Very nice,” said Pux when she was done. “Now I’ll teach you another.”

“No, I think one’s enough, for now. Maybe another time.”

“I don’t imagine there will be another time,” said Tropella. “We very rarely come into the shipping routes. It’s not safe. If we go to sleep on the waves, we risk getting mown down by a ferry. That’s why we head back out to the Ring of Darkness. It’s safer there.”

“Don’t be so sure you won’t meet this lady again,” Mischief said to the company. “I believe she’s in your lives forever now. And we’re in hers. There are some people, you know, who are too important to ever be forgotten. I think she’s one of them.”

Candy smiled; it was a sweet speech, even if she didn’t quite believe it.

Nobody seemed to know what to say when Mischief had finished, so there was just a thoughtful silence for a minute or two as the mists ahead of them continued to part.

“Ah…” said John Sallow. “I do believe I see the Yebba Dim Day.”

The last scraps of mist parted now, and their destination came into view. It was not an island in any sense that Candy understood the word. It seemed to be a huge stone-and-metal head, with towers built on top of its cranium, all filled with pinprick windows, from which beams of light emerged to pierce the mist.

“Set your watch to Eight,” Mischief said to Candy.

“I don’t understand,” Candy said. “One minute it looks like it’s dawn, the next it’s night, and now you’re saying set my watch to eight o’clock.”

“That’s because we’re now in the Straits of Dusk,” said John Sallow, as though the matter were simplicity itself. “It’s always Eight in the Evening here.”

Candy looked well and truly confused.

“Don’t worry,” said Deaux-Deaux. “Eventually you’ll get the knack of it. For now just go with the flow. It’s easier that way.”

While Candy set her watch to eight o’clock, the Sea-Skippers brought them around the front of the immense head of the Yebba Dim Day.

A steep staircase ran like a vein up the side of the place, and more light poured from a host of windows and doors. There was a great riotous commotion coming out of the head, the din of voices shouting and singing and crying and laughing, all echoing across the water.

“So, lady,” said Deaux-Deaux, “here we are.”

The Sea-Skippers brought them to a tiny harbor in the nook where the titan’s chest met his arm. There were a number of small red boats in the harbor, many of which were in the process of entering or leaving—and a sizeable crowd on the quayside. The entrance of the four Sea-Skippers—along with their passengers—caused a good deal of confusion and comment.

Very soon people were appearing from inside the Great Head to see what all the brouhaha was about. Among these newcomers were several people in uniforms.

“Police!” said John Sallow sharply.

The word was echoed among his brothers.

“Police?”

“Police!”

“Police!”

Mischief turned to Candy and swiftly caught hold of her arm.

“So quickly—” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go. So quickly.”

“Because of the police?”

“Keep your voice down,” said John Serpent; his usual charmless self.

“Hush!” Mischief said to him. “Don’t you ever talk to my lady that way again!”

“Your lady!” Serpent snorted, as though in these final snatched moments he wanted to express his contempt for Mischief’s respectful handling of Candy. But there was no time. Not for Serpent; nor for Mischief; not even for Candy to say more than a hurried: “Good-bye!”

The police were coming down the dock, parting the crowd as they advanced. Candy doubted that they’d recognized the criminals yet (though Mischief’s antlers made him exceptionally easy to spot); but they were interested in these new arrivals, and Mischief wasn’t going to allow their general curiosity to turn into an arrest scene.

“Do you have a permit for those Sea-Skippers?” one of the policemen hollered.

“This is where we part, lady,” Mischief said. “We’ll meet again, I know we will.”

He took her hand, turned it over, and lightly kissed the palm. Then he jumped into the water.

“Hey, you!” a second policeman yelled, barging through the crowd to make his way to the end of the quayside. “It’s him!” he yelled.

“Oh no,” Candy heard Deaux-Deaux say. “This is a pleasant introduction to the Yebba Dim Day.”

“We should have gone to Speckle Frew,” said Tropella. “It would have been a sight quieter.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” said Pux.

“He’s getting away!” the second policeman was shouting.

“Who?” came the reply from one of his companions.

“Whatshisname! The one who cleared out Malleus Nyce’s house in Tazmagor! Him! Whatshisface!” He was steadily becoming redder and redder as his frustration mounted. “The master criminal!”

At which point about seven people in the crowd said: “John Mischief!” at the same time.

“Yeah! That’s what I said,” the policeman replied lamely. “John Mischief!”

Now all eyes, both those of the crowd and of the officers, were fixed on the patch of turbulent water where John Mischief had last been seen.

One of the policemen, a huge blue-skinned man with a square-cut orange beard, now attempted to commandeer one of the faster-looking boats in the little harbor, apparently intending to give chase in it. But its owner—who was almost as big as the officer, and had the advantage of being six or seven yards away, across a span of grimy dock water—wasn’t playing.

“You! Get that boat over here!” the officer yelled.

The man deliberately neglected to look in the officer’s direction and proceeded to maneuver his vessel out through the knot of boats. Clearly the idea of losing his precious boat to a belligerent officer with more testosterone than sea-sense had made him nervous. The attempted retreat enraged the officer even more.

“Come back!” he yelled. “Your vessel is commandeered!”

“Let it be, Branx!” one of the other officers called. “There are plenty of other boats.”

But Officer Branx wasn’t going to have his authority disregarded. Pulling off his jacket and boots, he