Abarat: The First Book of Hours

Candy took a deep breath and closed her eyes, picturing the glyph rising into the air. Then she spoke the words: “Nio Kethica.”

The response from the glyph was instantaneous. The vehicle’s engine made a strangled choking sound, and for a moment it seemed the craft was going to ascend. It rocked and shuddered, but unfortunately there was no upward movement. Candy looked up. Tempus was getting closer by the moment.

“Nio Kethica!” she said again. “Come on, glyph! Nio Kethica!”

There was more noise from the craft’s engine, but it wasn’t promising.

“It’s a lost cause!” Malingo said, his eyes on the approaching Fugit Brother. “We should get away—”

Before he could finish, Julius Fugit made another lunge from the hole beside the glyph. He failed to catch hold of Candy, but his hands seized the craft. The vehicle started to tip over. Candy let out a yell as she slid from her seat toward Julius’ grinning face.

Malingo caught hold of her arm and pulled her back, scrambling to get them both out of the craft. As he did so, Candy tried one last cry of “Nio Kethica!” in the hope of awakening the glyph’s engine. But it didn’t work.

“Come on!” Malingo yelled, hauling her over the side of the toppling machine. He was just in time. As Candy stumbled backward into Malingo’s arms the glyph fell over, trapping Julius Fugit beneath its weight.

“Help me, brother!” Julius yelled.

Tempus was two or three strides away. “I’m coming for you, brother!” he yelled, and threw himself on the craft, tearing at its decaying structure to reach his sibling.

“Don’t make me wait, Brother Tempus!”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“I’m sure you are, brother. I’m sure you are.”

“We’re in trouble…” Malingo murmured to Candy.

He was right. It would take Tempus only a minute or two to free his brother, then the two of them would come in pursuit of their quarry with fresh zeal. And where were Candy and Malingo to go? The beach offered nothing by way of hiding places, and they couldn’t outrun the Fugit Brothers for very long.

Candy shook her head in desperation.

“It can’t end this way,” she said to herself.

For all the grimness of their prospects, she couldn’t believe it was all going to end here. After the journeys she’d taken, and the visions she’d seen she couldn’t die on a deserted beach at the hands of a couple of crazy brothers. It wasn’t right! She knew in her heart that she had more journeying to do, more visions to see. Wasn’t that why the three women had allowed her that glimpse into the mysteries of her life before she was even born? They were preparing her for something, telling her to be ready to solve some major secrets.

The Fugit Brothers weren’t going to put a stop to all that. She wasn’t going to let them.

“It can’t end here,” she said aloud.

“What can’t?” Malingo replied.

“Our lives. Us.” Malingo looked startled by the fierceness in her voice, and in her eyes. “I won’t let it.”

She’d no sooner spoken than a breath of wind came from off the sea, as though it were somehow answering her heartfelt plea. The gust cooled the sweat on Candy’s face.

Despite everything, she managed a smile.

“We’d better start running,” Malingo said. He pointed back toward the glyph.

The Fugit Brothers were now clear of the glyph’s wreckage and were coming toward Candy and Malingo. Their features were on the move again, their grinning mouths racing around their faces like runners circling a track.

“Our friends appear to have nowhere left to run, Brother Tempus.”

“So it would seem, Brother Julius. So it would seem.”

There was another gust of wind from the sea, and its coolness made Candy unglue her gaze from the approaching assassins and chance a look toward the water. The wind had thinned the colorless mist that hung over the waves. And through it came a patch of bright red.

Red.

“A boat!” Candy yelled.

“What?”

“Look! A boat!”

The mist parted, and a simple little vessel, with a single mast and much mended sail, came into view. It had neither captain nor passengers.

“Ha!” said Malingo. “Will you look at that?”

They raced down to the water and strode into the mild surf. The wind was coming in stronger and still stronger gusts. It filled the patchwork sail until the ropes creaked under the strain.

“Get in!” Candy said to Malingo. “Quickly! In!”

“But the wind’s just blowing the boat back to shore!” Malingo said. “Back to them!”

The Fugit Brothers had followed them down to the water’s edge. They too had read the direction of the wind, and had apparently decided they had no need to get their feet wet. All they had to do was wait. The boat would come to them.

Candy glanced back at them as a large wave came in, wetting her all the way up to her neck. She let out a little yelp of shock, much to the amusement of the brothers.

“Please,” she said to Malingo. “Just get in. Have a little faith.”

“In what?”

“In me.”

Malingo stared at her for a moment, then shrugged and clambered in a rather ungainly fashion into the boat. Candy stole a moment to offer up a little prayer to the women of the Fantomaya. Surely it had been they who’d sent the boat. But what was the use of a boat without the right wind?

“Help me,” she murmured.

And as she spoke the sail of the boat snapped like a flag in the wind, and Candy looked up to see the women—all three of them—standing in the boat. It was a vision intended for her eyes only, it seemed. Neither the Fugit Brothers nor Malingo responded to the sight.

Malingo offered his hand to Candy. She caught hold of it, and he hauled her onboard.

She had no sooner set foot on the timbers of the little boat than Diamanda lifted her hands into the air. They were clenched tight, Candy saw. White-knuckled fists.

“Travel safely,” the old lady said.

Candy nodded. “I will.”

“And don’t breathe a word of any of this,” said Joephi.

“I won’t.”

“What is this I will, I won’t stuff?” Malingo said. “Are you talking to me?”

Luckily Candy didn’t have any need to tell a lie, because at that instant Diamanda unclenched her fists. As she did so the wind abruptly shifted, swinging around so fast that Candy could feel it move over her face: blowing against her left cheek one moment, and two seconds later blowing hard against her right.