Abarat: Absolute Midnight

affection,” she went on. “Or as close as I could ever get.”

“Really?” Candy said. Now she was confused. What was the Old Mother admitting to?

“Yes, really,” the Hag replied. She reached down and caught hold of one of the ragged dolls that hung from the front of her dress. “I want his soul here,” she said. “Close to my heart.”

Candy said nothing. The Hag hadn’t finished, she sensed. So she still had something of significance to say. When she finally spoke, it was only to say five words:

“He won’t be alone there.”

That was it, Candy knew. That was the heart of it, in those words somewhere.

He won’t be alone.

The Hag had such a terrible malice in her face. Such a profound perversity. But why?

He won’t be—

Candy looked down at the doll, then back up at the Old Mother again, hoping to study the woman’s face a little while longer. But Mater Motley was already turning away from her so as to focus all her energies upon the broken figure of Zephario.

“Look at you; so old, so broken. I held you once, against my breast.” She began to walk back toward him. “Die now,” she said softly. “Give up your soul to me.”

She very slowly reached up toward him, as though she was capable of pulling his soul out of him. By way of response Zephario let out an anguished sound, something between a howl and a sob, the cry of a man losing his mind.

It was more than Candy could bear. She couldn’t just stand there and let the Hag go on tormenting him. She had to do something. What that something was she had not the remotest notion, but she had will, and she was free to use it. Whatever choices fate put in her head or heart or hands she’d use. Anything to stop the suffering.

She started to move toward the Hag, who was far too busy enjoying the anguish of her own flesh and blood to bother looking back over her shoulder.

“Stop that!” Motley said to her son. “It won’t do any good. I’m your mother, Zephario. I brought you into the world and now I’m going to remove you from it.”

Every despicable word of this quickened Candy’s step. She would do whatever she could to make the Hag regret her cruelty, she swore to herself. But that was more easily said than done, wasn’t it? Fate hadn’t provided her with any means to bring Mater Motley to her knees. She was up against the Empress of the Abarat with bare hands. But if that was how it had to be, that was how it had to be.

Without even thinking about what she was doing, she leaped, the very last traces of the Abarataraba’s magic lending her jump power it would never have had without it.

Without looking, the Hag turned, striking Candy with the back of her hand.

“Creeping up on me, girl?” She struck Candy a second time, and having nothing with which to shield herself from the blows, Candy was knocked to the ground, the breath beaten out of her. “I am so thoroughly sick of you,” she said, kicking Candy with unrestrained venom. “I’m going to kick you until your heart stops beating.”

She proceeded to make good on her promise.

“You.” She kicked.

“Stupid.” And again.

“Little.” And again.

“Nobody.”

“Stop it!” Malingo yelled.

Candy saw him from the corner of her eye, stumbling forward to put himself between Candy and the Hag’s assault. He distracted Mater Motley long enough to give Candy time to draw breath, but his intervention cost him dearly. The Empress cast a glance toward two of the stitchlings nearest to her and snatched the blades they were carrying out of their hands. Candy used the drawn breath to tell him:

“Run! Malingo! RUN!”

But even if he’d been willing to abandon Candy, which he wasn’t, his death sentence had been written. The blades came at him from left and right. Candy heard him cry out, just once, then the blades cut at him with horrible speed, slicing his head from his neck, his hands from his wrists, his arms from his torso—Candy’s horror and fury left her speechless, which was no bad thing. Not a scrap of her energies was wasted on words. All of it went straight from her heart to her hands. She reached up and grabbed hold of Mater Motley’s crowded skirts, hauling her aching body to its feet.

She had killed Malingo.

Her beloved Malingo, who had said he would be with Candy forever, Midnight or no Midnight. But the Hag had taken him from her. Snatched him away with a casual gesture, as though his life was worthless, his love was worthless, as though his body was no more than a slab of meat and she the butcher, casually cutting it up—

As she climbed, Candy found Mater Motley’s gaze, and for just a fraction of a second she saw the Hag recoil, her high regard for her Imperial Self shocked when it met such an intensity of hatred as it found pouring from Candy’s eyes.

It wasn’t enough, of course, to prick the Hag’s vanity.

She had killed Malingo.

No death was too terrible to revenge such a slaughter. Candy wanted to turn the Hag’s bones to blazing wood and her blood to gasoline, to watch the Old Mother consumed by the very element she’d used to kill her own flesh and blood all those years before. But she didn’t have sufficient magic to make such an execution happen. She’d have to do whatever damage she could do with her hands and fingers: gouge out the Old Mother’s vicious eyes and tear her lying tongue out by its rotting roots. She’d start with the eyes—

But the Hag wasn’t in the mood to die today. She reached up and caught hold of Candy’s hand, her grip so tight, and tightening still, that she plainly intended to grind Candy’s finger bones to dust.

With one hand holding Candy firmly, she reached out with the other. Her Imperial dignity was once again intact. And so was the power that accompanied it. She murmured a syllable or two, and one of the wide-bladed knives that had taken Malingo apart came to her outstretched hand. She closed her fingers around the sticky handle.

“I’ve had more than my fill of you, Miss Chickentown.”

So saying, the Empress raised the knife high above her head.

Candy refused to give the old woman the satisfaction of seeing her afraid. Instead she kept climbing, grabbing hold of whatever she could find, whether it was antiquated fabric of the dress or one of the dolls. Her bruises ached and her head throbbed, but not once did she take her eyes off Mater Motley’s turkey-neck throat, even as the knife came whistling down.

Chapter 72

Truth

THE KNIFE DIDN’T REACH her. Eighteen inches from Candy’s skin, it struck something: an object that was completely invisible yet sufficiently solid to shatter the blade as though it had been made of ice.

“Who did this?” Mater Motley demanded. “Who did this?” She glanced down at Candy. “It wasn’t you, so don’t even try to claim it was.” She thrust her hand over Candy’s face and pushed her away. Her presence here, dead or alive, was suddenly of no interest to her. Somebody here had blocked the Imperial will, and she wanted to know who.

She turned her black gaze on those in her immediate vicinity, staring very hard at each dirty, scorched stitchling for a moment to assess their chances of guilt.

“You, was it? No. Too stupid. You? No. Your brains are burning. You perhaps? No, another cretin. Is nobody proud enough to own this act?”

Silence.

“Are you all just mud and cowardice? EVERY? SINGLE? ONE?”