Abarat: The First Book of Hours

silver fish being carried in a fast-flowing river, she saw glimpses of extraordinary things. At first the images moved past her so fast she could make only the most rudimentary sense of them: a white tower, a field of yellow blossom, a chair sitting on the blue roof of a house, and a man in gold sitting upon it. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the way the shoal of pictures were flowing past her, she in her turn became more able to snatch hold of one for a few moments; like a hot coin, caught in the palm of her hand, that she had time to turn over and examine on both sides before the discomfort obliged her to let it go.

And there was an undeniable discomfort in seeing many of these images. They were so powerful, their shapes and their colors so full of strangeness that it hurt her head to catch them and hold them, even for a moment.

It wasn’t just the intensity of each image that ached, it was the fact that there were so many of them. For every coin that she caught and flipped, there were a thousand, no ten thousand, that tumbled by, glittering and unexamined.

What did she see?

A woman walking upside down, fish in the sky above her, birds at her feet.

A man standing in a moonlit wasteland, his head flowering like an oasis of thoughts.

A city of red towers, under a sky filled with falling stars; another city, made in perfect miniature, and raised up on legs, with a blue bird—surely vast, even monstrous, to the city’s inhabitants—wheeling overhead.

A grotesque mask singing as it floated in midair; a creature the size of a lion, with the head of a human being, vast and bearded, sitting on the lip of a volcano. A shore of some tropical island, with a tiny red boat in the bay, and a single star hanging over the horizon.

And so on. And on. And on. The images kept flying.

Sometimes there would be a sound attached to the scene, though it didn’t always seem to fit, as though —just like lightning preceding thunder—the images came more quickly than the sounds, so that they were out of step with one another. Sometimes she glimpsed things that she recognized, albeit briefly. The Yebba Dim Day, rising from the misty waters of the Straits of Dusk. The Gilholly Bridge being crossed by an army of people with bright white fire springing from their heads. Even Ninnyhammer, in the midst of a storm so violent that its young trees were being plucked from the earth and carried away.

 At last—just as the flow of images came close to overwhelming her—the shoal of fish began to thin out, and between the occasional flash of strangeness, the relatively reassuring vision of Diamanda, Joephi and Mespa began to reappear.

Candy was left breathless.

“What…?” she gasped.

“What was all that?” Mespa said.

“Yes.”

It was Diamanda who replied.

“An infinitesimally small piece of a tiny fragment of a virtually invisible fraction of what is here at Odom’s Spire. The past and the present-past and the future-present. They’re all in this place, you see. Every particular of every thing in every moment of forever.”

“And you?”

“The Fantomaya?”

“Yes. What do you do with the images?”

“We study them. We immerse ourselves in them. We protect them.”

“From who?” said Candy.

“From any and all. These are not things a common soul needs to see.”

Candy laughed.

“What’s so funny?” said Joephi.

“Well… aren’t I a common soul?” said Candy.

“Good question” said Diamanda. “The fact is you are many things, my dear. Many, many things. One of them is Candy Quackenbush of the town of Murkitt—”

“You mean Chickentown?”

“Oh. Yes, of course. I mean Chickentown. Back when I was there, it was called after my husband’s grandfather.”

“Wait a moment,” Candy said, a little smile of realization creeping into her face. “I knew I’d heard the name Diamanda before. You’re Diamanda Murkitt. You were married to Henry Murkitt.”

The old woman nodded slowly, staring at Candy with fresh intensity. “I am that woman. Much changed, but in many ways the same.”

“Amazing,” said Candy.

“Is it?” Diamanda said. “I mean, am I? Why?”

“Everything’s coming full circle.”

“Please explain,” said Diamanda.

“Well, my journey began with Henry Murkitt,” Candy said. “You see, I wrote something about him.”

“About Henry?” said Diamanda, speaking her husband’s name with no lack of tenderness. “You wrote about Henry?”

“Just a few pages,” Candy said. “I was in the room where he committed suicide.”.

“Ah,” said Diamanda softly. “So that’s what happened to him.”

Candy nodded. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”

“No, don’t apologize. It’s better I know than not. I knew I’d have to make my peace with the truth sooner or later. I ran out on Henry, you see. He had so few dreams.”

“Yes, I heard,” Candy said. “Not about the dreams, but about you running out on him.”

“He thought I went to Philadelphia, but why would I do a thing like that, when I knew about the Abarat? No… I caught the first ship out of that wretched world…”

“You did the same, yes?” said Joephi.

“Yes. I did the same. I didn’t have a ship to carry me. I came by Sea-Skipper.” Candy smiled at the memory; it seemed so long ago.

“But my, you got here quicker than we expected” said Mespa. “A lot quicker”

“Well sisters,” said Diamanda, unbraiding her hair as she spoke, “it seems we will have to be very careful about laying our plans in future. A new and highly unpredictable element has entered our sphere. And she changes everything. It will be impossible to guess the future with any of the old confidence.” She looked back at Candy. “All we know is that we’ve got our hands full.”

“What’s changed?” said Candy. “Please explain. There’s so much I want to know. I feel as though I