“It’s time we parted, Carrion. If any of my friends see you they’ll assume the worst and you’ll get hurt.”
“Do you really care?”
“I suppose . . . yes. I suppose I must. Seems to me you’ve been hurt enough one way or another.”
“I’ve taken a lot of lives in my time. I don’t suppose that comes as any surprise.”
“Not really.”
“But you still wish me no harm? I find that . . . unusual, to say the least. It’s not as though you’re a sentimental girl.”
“I thought I saw you die once already,” Candy said. “And that was enough. Nobody needs to suffer that twice.”
“One life, one death . . . ?”
“Yes.”
“If only things were that equitable.”
“Well, aren’t they? You live a life, you die. That’s it.”
“No, Candy, that’s not it. We each of us die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame and humiliation. We perish from despair. And of course we die for . . .” He stared at the garbage-strewn ground, the word he wanted to say defying him.
Candy said it for him.
“Love.”
He nodded, still looking at the ground. “Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love.”
“Why can’t you let her go?”
“Because if I did, I’d have no reason to live.”
“Come on,” Candy said with a smile in her voice. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Have you ever loved, then lost your beloved?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Then let us remember to talk again, when things are different.”
Candy heard her name called again.
“Somebody is looking for you?” Carrion said.
“Yes. I have friends here. They’ll come looking for me soon.”
“And—”
“Well . . . they wouldn’t . . .” She struggled for the words. “I haven’t . . . I mean, what we . . .”
“What we?”
“We have a strange . . .”
“Go on. Say whatever it is you were going to say.”
“Friendship. We have a strange friendship.”
“That we do,” he said. “Are you ashamed of it? Of me?”
“No. It’s just . . . when people talk about you—”
“You don’t need to go on. I know my reputation. After all, I earned it.”
“Please,” Candy said. “
“Wait. Before you rush off. You need to know something.”
“Well, be quick.”
“Go back to the Hereafter.
“Why?”
Carrion sighed.
“Why can’t you just take my word this once?”
“I’m me. I ask questions. And try to stop you from getting killed.”
“And now I’m returning the favor.”
“Are you saying that if I stay in the Abarat I’ll be killed?”
“Not just you. Most of the Abarat is about to change forever.”
“How? Why?”
Carrion drew an aching breath and spoke.
“You may as well know, I suppose, if it’ll persuade you to go.” He took another breath, deeper still. Then came the answer to her question. “I’ve reconnected with a few of my spies. I used to pay them to inform on my grandmother. The Old Hag has a few tricks up her sleeve. She’s creating something called a stormwalker.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“No. You shouldn’t. Second, an army of stitchlings has been assembled. Enough to provide ‘a knife for every heart,’ was the phrase my employee used.”
“Lordy Lou,” Candy whispered.
“And—”
“There’s more?”
“Much. Absolute Midnight, Candy. That’s what my grandmother calls it. She plans to block out the light. No moons, no suns, no stars. The sky will be dark over land and sea. And it will be
Candy felt dizzy. This was a lot of information to process in far too short a time.
“She has enough power to blot out the suns?”
“Not personally. She’s unleashed a living darkness. A species called the sacbrood, who’ve been growing in number for years. Now there are millions of them. Enough to cover the heavens from one end of the Abarat to the other.”
“And you were part of this?”
“She raised me to release them. I was to be the one she knew she could trust. After the fire, there was only she and I. Everything I had I owed to her, starting with my life. And she never let me forget it.”
“So the sacbrood cover the skies? There’s no light? No warmth? It’s like the end of the world?”
“That’s right.”
“But they can’t stay up there forever, can they?”
“No. They’ll die off after a time. But it’ll only take a few days of darkness for the real trouble to show itself. There are fiends all across the Hours who have been waiting for this Midnight. Enemies of the light, waiting for a chance to strike down those who loved the sun, moon, and stars. These enemies are monsters of every kind, but they have hatred in common. They’re all outcasts, pariahs; fiends who’ve escaped the gallows or the guillotine, and want revenge. Ghouls, Malefics, Wrathaki, Babelites; fifty kinds of monsters you could maybe name, and three times as many you could not. They’ve been out of sight for so long, living with the dead, or in thunderheads, or in places where the waters of the Izabella are all bruise and blood. So they’ve been hiding. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting until this Midnight, when they will finally get their chance to slaughter everything that smells of happiness.”
“A plot like this can’t have been completely unseen. What about the Council? Or people who see the future?”
“If anyone saw the truth and spoke it, then that was the end of them. My grandmother has never needed the law to get a judgment. She is her own judge, and her seamstresses her executioners. One needle, driven into the eye, or one knife—”
“All right,” Candy said. “I get the idea. I wish I knew you for a liar.”
“But I’m not.”
“No. You’re not. They’re coming out of the west, aren’t they?”
“How did you know?” Carrion said.
“The birds,” Candy replied.
It wasn’t much of an answer, but it seemed to be all that Carrion needed.
“Well, now it’s no longer a secret. There’s no need for anyone to move carefully. So it’ll spread quickly.”
“So what’s to be done? How do we defend ourselves?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There is no defense, Candy. Just go back home while you still can. And be grateful that you’ve got Chickentown to go back to.”
“Back to Chickentown?
