Abarat: Absolute Midnight

“He’s not gone far. I think he’s just keeping a respectful distance.”

She looked back over her shoulder, sensing Malingo there rather than seeing him, then quietly telling him:

“She’s not angry. She just wants to know—”

“Yes, I heard,” Malingo said, coming out of the shadows between the trees. “And it all happened pretty much as Jollo said it did. The little kid used a conjuring in Old Abaratian. I could feel the power in the words. And I saw the life, like a stream of light and water, running out of him and into Jollo, who was just lying there, near enough dead. He didn’t say anything to make it happen. It was Covenantis’s doing. The whole thing.”

“Did you try to stop it at least?” Mrs. Munn said.

“Of course. I started yelling at him. But that didn’t work. And he wouldn’t let me get close to him to stop him by separating them. When I tried, some force just threw me back, and I hit the ground. I kept trying but eventually there was no point. Covenantis just withered away. All he said was that he knew you’d understand. His exact words were: ‘Tell Mama: She’ll understand.’”

“Stupid,” Mrs. Munn murmured.

“I did what I could,” Malingo replied.

“Not you, geshrat. My boy. My firstborn.”

“It’s too late to say that now!” Jollo replied. “I mean, look at him! He’s gone forever, Mama, and he’s never coming back.”

Mrs. Munn nodded.

“If he wanted to punish me,” she said, “then he succeeded.”

“Punish you?” Candy said. “Why?”

“Because I was not the loving mother I should have been. Because I loved the darkness in me more than the light.” She approached the tiny body in its shroud of oversized skin, and went down onto her knees beside it. “Forgive me, child,” she said softly. There were tears in her voice.

“I think we should go,” Candy said.

“Yes, I think maybe you should,” Laguna Munn said, not turning to look at Candy or Malingo, just staring down at the dead boy.

“I’m . . . sorry,” Candy said.

“It wasn’t your fault. The error was mine. Be well, Candy Quackenbush. The struggles ahead of you will test you to the limits of your endurance. Beyond them, perhaps. But if you are in need of further healing . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . don’t come here in search of it.” Tears thickened every one of her words. “Jollo,” she said. “Take them down to the harbor and find them a boat.”

“Thank you,” Candy said.

Mrs. Munn did not acknowledge her thanks, or say so much as a single word in reply. She had laid her hands on the body of her dead child, and her tears fell on it.

That was Candy’s last image of the great incantatrix, Laguna Munn: kneeling beside the body of the boy made from all the good in her, with her tears falling and falling.

Once out of his mother’s presence, Jollo became very talkative, keeping up a monologue of chatter about one subject only: himself. Was this a necessary part of evil? Candy wondered as she listened to him: this utter self-absorption, as though nothing else in the world mattered but Jollo and his boredom, Jollo and how he’d suffered during Boa’s attack, Jollo and what he was going to do when he left the rock and went out into the Abarat.

“There’s a time coming, Mama says, when someone with my genius for wicked things will be really useful. I mean, I’m going to be a King, at least. Probably something more than a King. What’s more than a King? Oh, like someone who kills a King. That’s what I’m going to be. Because if you kill something you’re more important than whatever you killed. Mama didn’t tell me that. I just thought it up myself. Because I have these dreams, see, where it’s the future, and everything boring and good is being lined up to be killed. They’ll have their heads chopped off. I might do the chopping, but no, that’d be boring wouldn’t it? I hate being bored. That’s why I’m going to leave very soon. . . .”

And so he went on, an endless speech about Jollo, Jollo and more Jollo. When they eventually emerged from the trees they saw before them a shallow bay with a short, wooden jetty that jutted from the steep beach. Candy and Malingo exchanged looks of relief. They were going to be out of the boy’s company very soon.

Jollo, however, had one subject left to pontificate upon.

“When I leave here,” he told Candy, “I’m going to be taking all of Mama’s magic books with me, because she’s got books that there’s only one of, and I could get thousands of paterzem for a magic book that there was only one of, right? So do you want me to bring them to you first? I know the geshrat’s too stupid to read a big book, but you’re famous aren’t you? Mama told me before you arrived—” They were on the jetty now, the boards creaking beneath them.

“She knew I was coming?” Candy said.

“Excuse me,” Jollo snarled. “I was still talking. How dare you interrupt me? You know what? I’m not going to bring Mama’s books. Not when you’re so rude. I can’t believe that! Ignorant peasant! Don’t try groveling because that won’t get you anywhere. Grovelers are pathetic. Like my brother. He used to grovel when I kicked him really hard. I’m going to miss him. I won’t have anyone to kick. I just had a brilliant idea! I’ll forgive you for being rude, and I’ll bring you the books like I said I would. All you have to do is leave the geshrat here. I won’t hurt him badly. I’ll just do the same stuff I did with my brother. You know, kicking and spitting and stuff. That’s a good deal, right? I mean, when I’m King you’re going to be so glad I forgave you because otherwise your life won’t be worth living.” He grinned. “Like my brother. I got his life because I’d made his so miserable.” The grin broke into squalid laughter. “That’s the stupidest thing anybody ever did, isn’t it? When I’m King I’m going to make him a saint. He’s going to be Saint Covenantis, the Patron Saint of Stupid People! Ha! I love that! He’ll have his own Holy Day. Today, the day he died. Nobody will work. They’ll just say stupid prayers for a stupid saint of stupid people. Wait! What’s your geshrat doing.”

Candy didn’t answer.

“Tell me! Oh. Oh, I get it. You need permission to speak, right? You may now speak. Tell me what your geshrat’s doing.”

“Are your eyes bad?” Candy said.

“No. My eyes are perfect.”

“Then you can see what he’s doing. Standing in the small boat, untying the rope.”

“Well, tell him to get out of the boat. We made a deal, you and me. The geshrat stays and when I’m King —”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Are your ears as bad as your eyes? I said: shut up. You’ll never be King of anything. You’re a nasty maggot-brained little nobody. You think of nothing but yourself, and the only thing you’ll ever be King of is something you’d find on the bottom of your shoe.”

“Enough, Candy . . .” Malingo said quietly. He was reaching out to take hold of Candy’s hand, but she wasn’t quite finished.

“King Turd,” she said. “That is the most you’ll ever be.”

Jollo’s hackles were rising, and he was giving off a vile bitter odor, which she hadn’t smelled earlier, perhaps because she’d been farther away from him. The acrid smell made her eyes water, and it was that fact more than Malingo’s summons that made her give up telling Jollo what she thought of him. She didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of believing he’d reduced her to tears so she turned her back on him and went to catch hold of Malingo.

The smell of Jollo’s rage suddenly became a lot stronger, and she knew without looking back that the little monster was right behind her reaching up to dig his claws into her neck. But that was another satisfaction he wasn’t going to get. She didn’t have time to grab Malingo’s hand. She just leaped off the jetty and into the boat, falling facedown in the stale water that had collected at the bottom. By the time she got up, Malingo had already gotten the oars in the water and was rowing the boat away from the jetty where Jollo B’gog was still standing,