Abarat: Absolute Midnight

She turned back toward Malingo and the John Brothers.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to them.

Then she climbed down the ladder. Legitimate Eddie was staring up at the bizarre bonfire blazing on top of The Great Head.

“There’s one of them up there,” he said.

“One who?”

“One of the eight. Gan Nug!”

He pointed and Candy looked up at the Head to see that there was indeed a tall creature there, his stylish clothes, high-coiffed hair and reptilian wings garishly lit by the pyre he tended.

“Any idea what he’s doing?” Candy asked him, keeping up the same casual tone as she clambered over the side of the boat.

“Calling something up, I dare say,” Eddie replied. “From the depths.”

“Wait! Wait!” Gazza said. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

She looked up at him. The light from the swaying lanterns made his face seem to shift, the only steady thing his immense gold eyes.

“There’s some friends of mine I need to talk to.”

Gazza looked out across the Izabella.

“Are those women walking on water?”

“Lordy Lou, you ask a lot of questions. Yes.”

“Witches?”

“I suppose so.”

“You’re one as well, are you?”

“Not really. I’m learning, but—”

Are you coming, Joephi said, or are you just going to flirt with the boy?

“They say you’re a boy.”

“The witch women?”

“Yes.”

“If you want to talk to Candy,” he hollered, his voice echoing off The Great Head, “then come to the boat!”

Come, Candy. Or if the boy has your heart, don’t. Just make up your mind.

“I’m coming,” she murmured, and set her foot on the water.

She tested her weight on the frothy water. The news wasn’t good.

My foot’s sinking!

“You’re going to drown!” Gazza yelled. “Get back up here.”

Are you barefoot? Mespa asked.

No, you didn’t say anything about—

Isn’t it obvious? It’s you who’s walking on water, not the shoes.

All right! No shoes.

She headed back to Gazza.

“Hold my hand.”

“Finally, some common sense!” he said.

“Don’t get excited. I’m just taking my shoes off. Keep hold.”

“I’m not letting go.”

“Oy. They bicker like man and wife,” said Eddie.

“All right. I’ve just . . . got to . . . got to get . . .”

The sentence came out in fragments as she struggled to get the shoes off her feet, attempting not to lose them as she did so. She liked the shoes. They were Abaratian: iridescent blue, with little animals performing on them in a shoe sky circus. But it was an awkward maneuver to reach over Gazza’s arm to get her fingers under her shoe to keep from—

Her left shoe slipped off and dropped into the water with a palliative plop. It sank instantly. The other shoe came off more easily, and for a few seconds, the last gleam of the smothered moon caught the animals prancing upon that perfect blue that no sky had ever been. She tossed it on deck.

“There,” she said to Gazza. “I’m ready.”

Then get on with it, Mespa said.

Candy let go of Gazza’s hand and walked back to the ladder, despite his protests. She set a naked foot, the left, down in the water. No, not in the water, on it. The surface wasn’t entirely solid, but certainly enough to support her. She glanced up. Malingo was looking down at her.

“Tell me you’re not going to walk!”

“Well . . . I’m a horrible swimmer,” Candy said, “so . . . yes!”

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Gazza said.

She suddenly felt the water that had supported her foot softening.

Don’t listen to doubt, Candy, Joephi said. All great things come of paradox.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Malingo as she took a breath and drew her gaze away from his disbelieving face.

“I’m not going to drown, Malingo. I’m not!”

“You can still turn back.”

“No. I can’t, Malingo. You know I can’t. I’ve been preparing for this test since I arrived—No—since I was born.”

“Utterly insane. The girl is . . .” Mischief muttered as he and the brothers joined Malingo in watching.

“I heard that,” Candy replied.

Forget them, Mespa said. This is when you prove your right to make history or drown in the water you want to walk on. You can. You are answerable only to your greater self, which in turn answers only to Creation.

She looked down at the foot that was going to take the step. If the Old Woman was to be unseated from the throne of the Midnight Empire then Candy had a part to play in that unseating. That, she understood. And if she was meant to play that part, she had to walk on water, and walk on water she would.

“I . . . am . . .” The water bore her up. “. . . going . . . to . . .” Yes! She could do this. “. . . walk!”

It isn’t a dream. It isn’t real. It’s just your mind and Creation thinking together. Walking together.

You make it sound so simple, Candy said.

It’s easier than drowning! Joephi said.

I’m not going to drown.

Then what?

I’ll walk!

And so she walked. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d expected. Every now and then she felt an eddy move against the sole of her foot, which was a little unsettling, but otherwise it was like walking on sand dunes: the rises gentle, the descents steeper. She kept her eyes on Mespa and Joephi all the way, and very soon she was close enough to see that the women were standing at the center of what appeared to be a vast spiral of fish: fish with luminous anatomies, some blue, some scarlet, some turquoise or gold.

The closer Candy got to Mespa and Joephi, however, the higher and tighter the curves of the spiral became, the smallest of the fishes being those that were describing intricate spirals directly beneath the feet of the women, offering their devotion to the Fantomaya, then descending through the center of the ziggurat toward a light far, far below that pulsed like a vast needlepoint heart.

“So,” Candy said, “what’s the news?”