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  “No?”

  “No. You’ve done all the traveling you’re going to do, Candy Quackenbush. The only place you’re going now is a hole in the ground. Believe me, I’m being kind. You wouldn’t want to be here when Midnight comes—”

  “Midnight?”

  “Absolute Midnight. The last great dark, covering the islands from dawn to dusk, and through the Hours of darkness an even deeper darkness. No moon. No stars.” He smiled, and his smile was a death’s smile. “You’re better off in the ground. There’ll be no terrors there. Just worms.”

  Candy tried to put out of her thoughts the horrible images his words laid in her head. If she survived this encounter, she’d want to try and make sense of what he’d said; pass his words onto others; warn them about his plans. So the more she knew about those plans, the better. She just had to find a technique for getting the information out of him.

  “I don’t see how you could ever put the stars out,” she said, feigning a dismissive tone. “That’s just ridiculous.”

  “Not if you have the right allies,” he said. “An innocent like you wouldn’t have heard of the sacbrood, of course—”

  “Sacbrood. No. What are they?”

  “You’ll never know,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, girl. I’m not stupid.” Again, that smile. Horrible beyond words.

  “Oh?” Candy said. “What am I trying to do?”

  “Goad me. So I’ll say, in an unguarded moment, something you can report to your friends. Except . . . who are you going to tell? Nobody. You are alone. Utterly alone.”

  It was strange, but for some reason this idea—that she was alone—suddenly seemed so wrong, so stupid, that all she could do was laugh. Which she did.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m not alone,” she said, not even really understanding what she meant by this, but knowing more certainly than she’d known anything in her life that it was true.

  Her laughter infuriated him. “Shut up,” Carrion said.

  She kept laughing.

  “SHUT UP! HOW DARE YOU LAUGH AT ME?”

  For just a moment his rage seemed to erupt in him, and the creatures around his head spat claws of lightning against the confines of his collar. Their brightness apparently took him by surprise, because he closed his eyes against them.

  She took her chance. Turned from him and ran, the flickering brilliance that spilled from her enemy lighting her way. She slammed the door behind her and turned the key in the lock. Then she plunged into the darkness of the corridor, not caring that she bumped into things as she went.

  There was a lamp burning ahead, beyond the limits of Carrion’s darkening reach. It illuminated a stairwell: a spiraling staircase that either led down into another inky blackness or up toward the roof. Once, at the very beginning of these adventures, she’d climbed a spiral staircase and escaped death. Perhaps it would work a second time. Behind her, Carrion tore at the locked door, and off its hinges it came.

  Candy didn’t look back. She just climbed.

  Chapter 38

  Midnight’s Heart

  SHE TOOK THE STAIRS two, sometimes three at a time until she reached the third floor. Here the flight appeared to stop, though she guessed that the house had five stories at the very least. So where were the stairs that led on and up? The landing she’d come to had a number of paintings hung on the walls, none of them pretty, and three doors. She did her best to ignore the paintings—one of them, depicting a creature eating another creature, that was eating a third, which was eating a fourth, and so on, in a vile series of devourings, was particularly distressing—and went to the doors, opening them one after the other until she found the connecting staircase.

  She glanced back over her shoulder. Carrion was on the landing below, watching her from behind his collar of glass, his eyes turned up in his sockets to watch her, almost as though he were dead. She shuddered, silently swearing that she would die rather than let him lay his clammy hands on her.

  “Just leave me alone!” she yelled down at him, though of course she knew it wouldn’t drive him away.

  Then she turned and continued to climb, her lungs and legs burning. The stairs got narrower as they spiraled upward, and more unstable with every step she took. She was reminded again of the climb that had begun this cycle of adventures: how she’d stumbled up the spiral staircase in the lighthouse, with the putrid Mendelson Shape coming in spider-limbed pursuit of her.

  “Slow your step, child,” Carrion yelled after her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m not afraid of you!” she yelled back.

  “Are you not?” he said. Then again, more slowly and softly: “Are . . . you . . . not?”

  As he spoke, the lights that illuminated the staircase flickered once, and then suddenly went out. For a few heartbeats she was in total darkness, then—and this was in some ways worse than the darkness—shafts of icy light came darting up the stairs from below. She felt their touch, as though Carrion was reaching out through their brightness and caressing her skin. The contact revolted her. She tried to avoid it by pressing herself against the wall while she continued to ascend.

  “I don’t want very much from you,” Carrion said as he came up after her. “I just want to see what your dreams are like. Is that so much to ask? I feel if I knew your dreams then it’d be like having you close by me all the time.”

  “Why would you care?” Candy replied. “You don’t even know who I am.”

  “You’re Candy Quackenbush from Chickentown. But there’s more to you than that. You know there is.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh, come now . . . all the things you’ve done, the trouble you’ve caused, the lives you’ve destroyed—”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t waste your time protesting your innocence,” Carrion said. She glanced back down the stairs and there he was, his face floating in darkness, lit by the sickly glamor of his nightmares. “We both know there’s more to you than meets the eye. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on in your head?”

  “Tell you what,” Candy countered. “Why don’t you stop chasing me first?”

  “Agreed,” Carrion said, much to Candy’s surprise. He stopped on the stairs. “Listen to me,” he went on, his tone calm. “You must have realized by now that you’re not here by accident. For some reason or other, your life is bound up with the destiny of these islands. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand anything about you, except that from the first moment I knew of your existence I also knew that some part of who I am is tied up with some part of who you are. And until I understand why, I cannot let you go.”

  “But if you did solve the mystery, I’d never have to look at you again?”

  “Don’t sound so happy about it,” he said, sounding hurt.

  “Then ask me your questions,” Candy said. “Just don’t come any closer.”

  “Thank you,” Carrion replied, smiling his death’s-head smile. “Well, where shall we begin? What are your first memories? The first sky you remember seeing? The first song you heard?”

  It almost made her laugh, to hear him asking such simple things. Was there any harm in answering them? She could see none. “I remember a very cold wind,” she said. “I think . . . it smelled of the sea. But that’s not really possible,” she added, half to herself. “There’s no sea in Minnesota.”

  “But there is,” Carrion reminded her. “You summoned it just a few weeks ago. Shape told me.”

  “I’d almost forgotten Shape,” Candy said. “What happened to him?”

  “He died,” Carrion remarked casually. “He fell down some stairs, actually. The missing foot, you know, it made him—wait, wait! What am I doing talking about Shape? Ha! You’re a clever one, girl. Go on with your memories. Tell me about your life.”

  “It was boring. At least until I came here.”

  “There must have be
en signs. Clues. Mornings when you woke up thinking: one day I’ll be in a different world.”

  “No.”

  “You’re holding something back from me.”

  “I’m not, really.”

  “Well, this is no good. You said you’d talk.” He raised his hands, showing his palms in a kind of mock surrender. “You know you have nothing to fear from me. Really. I’m sure there are a lot of people who’ve told you terrible things about me. . . .” He let the observation hang, waiting for her to agree or contradict. Candy did neither. “Well, they may be right,” Carrion said finally. “I had no one to show me a better way, a kinder way. To inspire me, if you like. All I had was my grandmother, Mater Motley. Not the kindest of women.”

  “Where is the rest of your family?”

  “Nobody ever told you the story?”

  “About what?”

  “The Carrion Night Mansion?” Candy shook her head. “I had twenty-six brothers and one sister. And we had a huge mansion on Pyon, with a great orchard of smyrion trees on one side of it. My sister, Theridia, was very fond of the fruit. She was forever sneaking out into the orchard and stealing it.”

  “Pyon is a Night island.”

  “So?”

  “There were fruit trees there?”

  “Of course! In the Hereafter it always takes the sun to ripen fruit, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But some of the finest fruit in the Abarat is moon ripened. Smyrion fruit, for instance. Anyway, Theridia ate one fruit too many. The stone in the fruit caught in her throat. She choked on it and died there in the orchard.”

  “Oh, God . . .” Candy breathed.

  “There’s more. Do you want to hear the rest?”

  “Yes . . .” Candy said softly.

  “My father had a terrible temper. We were all deadly afraid of him. He didn’t stop to mourn for my sister. His first thought was to punish the culprit. In this case, a tree. He sent all of us children into the mansion and then he went out with the servants and set fire to the orchard. . . .” Carrion halted, and took a deep breath. The nightmares coiled in the waters of his collar had retreated now, their brightness dimming. “There isn’t much rain on Pyon,” Carrion went on. “At least there wasn’t in those days. I believe Pixler has a weather machine that brings rain to clean Commexo City once every twenty-five hours. But back then it was very dry. Once my father had started the fire, the flames quickly spread from branch to branch, tree to tree. My father, in his fury, didn’t see that the sparks flew up into the air and were carried to the mansion. He had locked the doors, to keep his children from getting too close to the fire. He never imagined that the fire would come to us. The mansion went up in a matter of minutes! Only two of us escaped. Me and my grandmother. I was just a baby. She snatched me out of the cradle and carried me to safety.”

  “But your mother and your siblings?”

  “All dead.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He disappeared after the funerals, and we never saw him again. I suppose he may still be alive somewhere. Who knows?”

  “That’s so sad. . . .”

  “Life goes on. You try to make sense of it, but in the end you think: why bother? There is no sense in it. Life. Death. None of it means anything.” He paused. “And then, out of nowhere, something remarkable happens. You meet somebody who could help you make sense of your sadness, if you could only have that person at your side. . . .” He had dropped his gaze from Candy, but now he looked at her again, and his eyes were full of such feeling it was hard for Candy to meet them. “Maybe, you think, she could help you stop the nightmares. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “It was her, at first. The Princess Boa. She was the first one who I thought might save me. She was so good, you know? So gentle. So full of love.” His voice suddenly transformed. It grew harsh, and his eyes burned with fury. “But she didn’t care about me. All she wanted was her pretty boy Finnegan, her darling with the dreadlocks. I begged her. I said: I need you more than he does. My pain is deeper. And of course when the time comes for changes to be made in these islands—and it will come, very soon now—I would have put her on a throne beside me.

  “But no, no, no. It had to be Finnegan, always Finnegan. I wasn’t handsome enough for her. I wasn’t princely enough for her. I wasn’t heroic enough. Finally she tired of my importuning and cast me aside.” His voice dropped to a gray growl. “I think she probably lived long enough to regret her decision.”

  “She was killed, yes?”

  “Yes. A terrible accident. On her wedding day, of all times. A dragon murdered her!” He drew a deep breath. “So in the end we both lost her. Finnegan and me. And when she was gone, I thought I would never again feel the hope that being with her had brought into my life.” He frowned deeply, as though puzzled by his own words, his own thoughts. “But I was wrong,” he said. “I feel that hope again. Thanks to you.”

  Chapter 39

  Dragon Bones

  THE EGG BENEATH FINNEGAN’S foot was not full of dragon yolk; the infant inside it was fully developed and quite capable of defending himself against his attacker. Sleek as a snake he wove his way up Finnegan’s leg in two or three seconds, and then bit down on his flank. Finnegan let out a yelp of pain and pinched hold of the infant at the base of his skull, wrenching him left and right to unseat his grip.

  While he was doing so, the adult rose up on her massive body, and spoke.

  “You should know better, Hob. We dragons are born with the capacity to kill a man! Bite down, child! Suck out his guts!”

  Nythaganius Pejorius was too interested in her offspring’s labors to take note of what her other assailants were doing. Geneva leveled her sword and ran at the worm as though the blade were a very short lance. It entered Pejorius’ belly, and Geneva thrust it all the way to the hilt. A red fury erupted. The worm thrashed and convulsed and spasmed and shrieked, her violence causing earth to slide down into the hole where Tria had tumbled.

  Seeing Tria’s jeopardy, Mischief went to her aid, throwing himself and his brothers deeper into the hole.

  “Slow down!” John Moot hollered.

  “You’ll get us all killed,” Serpent complained.

  “And watch out for that baby worm!” John Drowze put in.

  The baby was indeed a danger to them, because Finnegan had now succeeded in wrestling his jaws from his flank and had thrown him down among the fragments of the shell. With the taste of human blood in his throat, the infant was now nosing around for fresh meat. He fixed his hungry gaze on Tria, and with the fearless abandon of a newborn thing he flung himself down into the hole beside her.

  “We’ve got to distract him!” John Mischief said.

  “I know!” John Drowze said. “The Pugwit song! All of you! Same order as always! Go!”

  And with that Drowze broke out into a ridiculous song.

  “Zoomit! Zeemit!

  Kila Kala Kuumit!”

  The nonsense words were taken up by John Slop after two lines, but he began at the beginning, while Drowze sang on.

  “Shamshu! Sheshu!

  Shalat Shom!”

  And now John Serpent and John Fillet started to sing, beginning the song afresh, while Drowze continued.

  “Pugwit! Wugwit!

  Wila Wola Wagmit!

  Chumshu! Chashu!

  Cholat Chom!”

  By this time all the brothers were singing this absurd round, and the result was the most wretched cacophony. It did the trick, however. The infant dragon was thoroughly confused by the noise. He forgot Tria, at least for the moment, and watched as the brothers sang their hearts out, making a threatening growl in the back of the throat.

  Unfortunately the sides of the pit were becoming unstable—what with all this singing and dancing, and the earth now began to slide down into the hole.

  “We’re in trouble!” Moot yelled.

  “I know! I know!” John Mischief replie
d.

  “Girl!” John Drowze yelled to Tria. “Hold on!”

  Tria took the brothers’ hand, and with her free hand caught hold of Finnegan. Then they all struggled up the fast-collapsing wall of the hole, with only seconds to spare.

  “You’re wounded,” Geneva said to Finnegan.

  “It’s nothing that will slow me!” he said. “But I’ve dropped my sword. Do you have one?”

  “It’s there,” Geneva said, pointing to the place in Pejorius’ belly where she had been obliged to leave the short blade.

  “I need that—” Finnegan said, stumbling back toward the thrashing worm.

  “Don’t!” Geneva yelled.

  Pejorius realized what Finnegan was up to and curled back her rotted lips, baring her fearful teeth.

  “You ridiculous clown!” she hissed, her rage deepened by the agony Geneva’s blade was causing her. “Come here! I dare you! I’ll swallow you up and keep you alive in my belly for a year or two, dissolving you by degrees. How’s that for a death, Finnegan Hob? You can die in the dark, slowly, slowly, slowly. . . .”

  If Finnegan heard any of this loathsome speech, he made no sign of it. He crossed the churned earth zigzagging and bent double, like a soldier under fire, so as to confound the dragon’s murderous eyes; and so doing he reached Pejorius’ belly and seized hold of the hilt of the sword. He began to pull immediately, but most of the hard work was done by the dragon, who withdrew her body from the skewering blade with a roar louder than any din she had so far made. It disturbed a dunce-headed juffet bird in the red-and-purple thicket, and it rose up complaining: “Juffetjuffetjuffetjuffet—”

  “Did you hear that, Deaux-Deaux?” Captain Malingo said.

  They were standing on a road of yellow-white rock, which snaked off up into the interior of the Nonce.

  “I think it was a juffet bird,” Deaux-Deaux replied.

  “No, just before the bird,” Malingo said. “There was a roar. It came from somewhere along this road, Deaux-Deaux. We should investigate.”