Abarat: Absolute Midnight

“Hopefully dead ahead.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Neither can I. But the fog is thinning, I think.”

“Oh. You’re right! I see it, Malingo.” She laughed. “I feared the worst, but it’s still standing!” Candy called down to Mischief. “I see it! Off the port bow!”

Mischief cut The Piper’s engines, sensing perhaps that everyone aboard needed to have a quiet moment in order to think about what lay ahead. The powerful currents met out of the boundary of the fog and into the murky twilight in which The Great Head stood. Even viewed from behind, The Head was an extraordinary monument, the towers that crowned its cranium so cunningly designed that they seemed to rise naturally out of the structure of the skull.

A bonfire was blazing on the top of the tallest of the towers. It was not a natural fire. The flames were violet and silver and when they rose to sufficient heights they threw off lattices and other geometric forms, then briefly blazed as if being tested against the twilight sky. She watched the flames without even blinking, mesmerized.

“I think it’s sending a message,” Eddie said from the deck. “They look like sentences being written in the air.”

“Really?” said Malingo.

“He might be right,” Candy said, watching the flames closely. “Oh . . . wait. Yes. Look!”

She pointed past The Head. There was a cloud of roiling darkness laid along the horizon; its shadow, erasing all below as it advanced across the moonlit sea. The moon itself, two-thirds full, its face already touched by the seething fingers of darkness. And of course The Great Head, its huge, simple form—at least seen from behind— stoic, immovable. That was both its strength and its weakness, of course. It would not move, it could not move; and when darkness had come and gone, it would still be standing. Apparently it had occupants who lacked Candy’s faith, however. There were maybe forty boats in the vicinity of The Head all in the process of making a departure.

“What are those idiots doing?” Malingo said.

“And where do they think they’re going to go?” Candy replied.

Some of those departing had seen the approaching cloud and the sight of it had obviously made them reconsider their plans. Several boats, many overloaded with passengers, were turning around, or at least attempting to. The consequences were inevitable. Boats rocked and turned over, pitching their living cargo into the water.

There was a lot of panicked shouting and cries for help. There were some voices too, that did not express such terror and confusion. They did not shout, they sang: a great multitude of voices rising together to sing in Old Abaratian. It mattered not at all that Candy couldn’t make any sense of the words. The majestic calm in the tune reassured Candy the way her favorite Christmas carol, “Silent Night,” reassured her. She wondered if they knew the story of love being born in a stable, with shepherds and kings, and a bright star, high above, to mark the place, and for a moment, she wasn’t on a boat drifting on an alien sea as a living darkness eclipsed the moon. For a moment, she was back on Followell Street, on a night long gone, before she’d come to fear the stink of beer on her father’s breath.

“The moon’s almost gone,” Malingo said, monotone.

“You don’t sound very bothered about it,” Candy said.

“Well, what can I do about it? It’s a big cloud, and I’m a geshrat with a fish-gutting knife I got from a stowaway, which I wouldn’t know how to use properly anyway. I should give it back to him.”

“No,” Candy said very firmly. “You hang on to that. You might need it one of these days.”

“One of these days? There aren’t going to be any more days.”

“Oh, there will be,” said John Mischief. He’d climbed up to share the view. “Clouds come. Clouds go. It’s the way clouds are. You can’t rely on them. They’re too . . .”

“Flighty?” John Moot suggested.

“The very word!” Slop said.

“It’s not that simple. This isn’t an ordinary cloud. It can’t be blown apart by a gust of wind. It’s a living thing,” she protested.

“How come you know all these things?”

“Because she’s becoming a shaman,” said John Drowze.

As Candy drew breath to remark that she didn’t much like being talked about as if she wasn’t there, she heard somebody call her name. A woman’s voice. For a moment, she panicked. Boa? No. It couldn’t be. She glanced around, looking for the person who’d spoken. The brothers, meanwhile, continued to discuss Candy’s shamanic potential as though she wasn’t even there, and the tempers on both sides of the argument were becoming ragged.

“If she’s a shaman,” said Slop, “then I’m an only child.”

“He’s right,” said Fillet. “The girl’s half crazy—”

“Only half?” said Sallow.

“You underestimate her,” John Mischief said. “Yes, she’s a little unpredictable, but that’s what we need if the Abarat’s to survive.”

“She knows more than’s good for her—”

“More than she knows she knows—”

Candy? Come here.

Meanwhile, the debate raged on.

“Fillet’s right!”

“She’s a sweet girl—”

“But all that power—”

“She can’t deal with it—”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

Pay no attention to their babble, Candy, the voice said.

You’re not Boa, are you? she asked, knowing she only had to form the thought for it to be heard.

No.

Lordy Lou . . .

Please. We have very little time, Candy. You’re going to have to step away from them for a minute or two.

Step away? Are you kidding? Candy replied. I’m on a boat.

We know, another said. We can see you.

When the second voice spoke, Candy knew who she was talking to. She scanned the water looking for some sign of the women of the Fantomaya.

Leave your chatty friends on the boat. Come and talk to us.

Where are you?

Fourteen paces off the stern. Come to us, Candy. Quickly. Mater Motley’s seamstresses are after us. They’re riding fever wheels, and they’re moving fast.

What’s a fever wheel?

If you see one you’ll know and if you don’t then you’re blessed not to have the sight in your head.

Now that Candy knew where to look, she saw Joephi and Mespa. They appeared to be simply standing on the swell, illuminated by a light in the water that surged and then waned again in rhythm with the waves. Even at this distance Candy could see that the journey had taken a considerable toll on them. Their robes were dirty and tattered, and their faces and arms bloodied.

Come on, Joephi said, beckoning to Candy.

I can’t walk on water.

Yes, you can, Mespa said. Have faith in yourself.

I’m going to sink.

Faith. Hurry!