The Plentiful Darkness

by Heather Kassner

  Trick groaned, pulling a fork missing all but one tine out from under him. He rubbed his leg where the end had stabbed him. “Everything’s broken here.” He tossed the fork away. “Even the magic.”

  “Well, the sullen queen is rather moody, and I guess so is her magic,” Devin said, taking the summer-grown, overripe grimace fruit from the pocket of her dress.

  Rooney recalled the passing thought she’d had the night before, one that shuddered through her now. “Moody and undisciplined.” She spoke quickly. “Earlier, she asked us what magic we’d called, and she wanted to know if we were apprenticing.” Rooney looked from Devin’s saucer-wide eyes to Trick’s shadow-masked face. “Is that what she is?”

  Devin dropped the grimace fruit. “The magician’s apprentice!” she exclaimed, and then muffled her mouth with her hands.

  Three pairs of eyes turned toward the throne.

  Sorka scooped a lunar mirror out from the depths of her tipped-over boot (one of her many hidey-holes) and clicked open the silver lid. Most of the moonlight must have been used up by her magical fury the night before, but a dimming light still glowed from within.

  It cast milk-blue shadows across Sorka’s drawn face, reminding Rooney of the moonlight tumbling from the sky the previous night.

  Contrary to the words in the children’s creepy song, moonlight was apparently not gone for good. The magician had ridden it to and from the darkness. And so must they!

  But first they would have to catch it.

  If only they were as sneaky as the Monty. The rat scampered across Rooney’s folded ankles, its nose twitching and sniffing. It snatched up Devin’s fallen grimace fruit and dashed off.

  But she seemed not to care, as a dreamy look crossed her face. “I’d like to be a magician’s apprentice.”

  “I’d rather you were than her. She’s probably practicing her magic on us. She probably already cast a spell on the children, as I still don’t understand why they like her.”

  The Monty didn’t get far before one of the children pounced on it. The ragamuffin boy snickered as he stole the bruised fruit.

  “If I was her, I wouldn’t waste my time on that,” Trick said. “I’d magic myself home.”

  Devin considered. “Perhaps that’s what she was trying last night. And perhaps she is as bad at magic as I am at playing the violin.”

  Laughter burst from Rooney’s throat, and it felt so strange and out of place, but she could not stop. “That poor violin. You tortured it.”

  Devin giggled, but then she grew serious. “I told you, I never wanted it. My parents gave it to me because they thought it was something I should learn. A path for me to follow. And I only hoped to please them. To make them proud.”

  “And you want to be a magician’s apprentice instead?” Trick asked.

  “Why not?” Devin caught the end of her braid and wrapped it around her finger. “One with a lunar mirror of my own.” Devin glanced shyly at Rooney. “That’s why I didn’t tell when I saw you snooping outside my window.”

  “I wasn’t snooping.” Not on purpose anyway, Rooney thought. “I was very unsuccessfully trying to stay dry in the storm.”

  “Never mind that. I only wanted to befriend you. Not get you in trouble.”

  “And now we’re all in trouble.” But in that moment, Rooney felt less despair than she would have otherwise, for beside her sat a girl who might one day (who might already) be a friend.

  Trick curled his fingers, never once looking up from them as he said to Devin, “I’d teach you how to catch moonlight if there was a way to do so from here. In fact, I’d swap with you if I could. Music for the mirror.”

  “You would not,” Rooney said. She squinted at Trick as if some other boy had taken his place. “You’d never give up your mirror.”

  Trick cut his blackberry eyes on Rooney. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

  “I know many things about you! How rotten you are.” She frowned, remembering his eagerness to see Devin return home. “How you always chase me from the best spots to gather moonlight.” She winced, remembering the curl of his hand in her own. “How you always threaten me with your fists—”

  “I wasn’t ever going to slug you.” Trick crossed his arms, dismissive of all she said. “I only wanted to keep my hands out of the way.”

  All those times he shook them and fisted them and raised them. Had he never meant to strike her? “You think you’ll hurt them.”

  “I can’t make music with broken-knuckled fingers, can I?”

  The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Rooney didn’t know what to think. All the things she thought of Trick misaligned with the boy sitting before her.

  “What about you, Rooney?” Trick asked at last. “What do you long for?” With his arms still folded and his brows scrunched up, his scrutiny felt like a test.

  “My mirror.” That wasn’t the whole of it, though. She wanted so much more than that, for her mirror could not hold a conversation or her hand. It could not laugh or argue or cry. It could not listen. But Rooney spoke none of these things aloud.

  To want a thing also meant to fear not having it.

  “My mirror,” she said again, most decidedly, before Trick could reply. They had more important things to discuss than what they wanted. None of it mattered unless they escaped. “If only we knew what Sorka wanted most, we could trade it for the mirrors. Then we’d be able to gather moonlight, enough to carry us all out of the darkness as it did the magician.” Rooney turned to look at Sorka once again.

  The sullen queen now sat on the ground, her back against the onyx throne. The lunar mirror was out of sight. A book rested open on her lap. But she wasn’t reading it. Quite terribly, she was tearing out its pages. One, two, three, she ripped them from the spine and then tossed the book to the side.

  “She never gives back anything she takes. At least not until she’s grown bored with it,” Devin said.

  “Or broken it.” Rooney cringed as Sorka folded one of the torn-out pages and cut into it with scissors. Rooney imagined Sorka smashing their mirrors just as destructively. “We can’t wait any longer.”

  “We’ll have to take them back,” Trick said.

  Rooney swung to face him. “Well, you do know a thing or two about stealing.”

  Trick shot her a crooked smile. “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” Rooney huffed, while Devin started giggling again. It was all Rooney could do to keep a straight face and not join her.

  And she might have. Oh, she might have.

  Except a sudden crack rang out in the darkness, and everyone fell silent at once.

  24

  THIS EVER-DARK NIGHT

  Rooney waited for the sound to come again, but there was only the quiet left in its wake.

  And the air thickening.

  And the ground trembling.

  Rooney, Trick, and Devin jumped to their feet. The Monty scrambled up Rooney’s leg, and the children, who’d been playing moments before, now dashed from the tree line into the clearing. Rooney’s eyes went immediately to the throne, but there was no sign that Sorka had caused the disruption.

  The girl seemed to be in a world of her own. She’d finished cutting shapes into the pages torn from the book and unfolded them one by one, stringing them on thin threads. When she was done, she climbed onto the arm of her onyx throne, pushed up to her tiptoes, and pinned the threads to the drooping tent of darkness. With their sharp, pointed corners, the little papers dangled like overlarge snowflakes.

  Or were they stars? Ones that Sorka hoped to see again too?

  Maybe Sorka’s unhurried manner should have reassured Rooney, but it made her all the more nervous.

  “Is the magician back so soon?” Devin asked warily. “We aren’t ready yet.”

  The air had the same feel as when the magician had come—that heaviness when Rooney breathed in. But the cold wasn’t pressing close. The moonlight wasn’t streaming gently down. “I don’t think so.�
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  “But the darkness has let someone in.” Sorka skipped up behind them, uttering these words in her low, creepy voice.

  Dread gripped Rooney.

  Another child must have been snatched from the streets of Warybone.

  With the Monty in hand, Rooney hurried after Sorka. She’d get some answers from her now. She just had to.

  But a group of children gathered round so that Rooney could not elbow her way close to their sullen queen. They waved moonlit torches. They struck up their fiddles and bows and placed their flutes to their lips. Discordant music streamed forth, and their lilting voices rose into the night, tinged with both excitement and sorrow.

  Come out, my friends

  Come out, my foes

  If you’re here

  No one else knows

  Rooney wanted to cover her ears, but it wouldn’t have helped. The words tumbled through her head anyway.

  Try if you want

  To gather moonlight

  But it’s gone for good

  In this ever-dark night

  “Sorka,” Rooney called, daring to use her name once again. “Please wait.” But this time, Sorka led the line of children toward the woods, singing loudest of them all. A welcoming. A warning.

  It’s death you’ve found

  And we must confess

  There’s no escaping

  The plentiful darkness

  A few of the children circled back, tugging at Rooney’s sleeves, linking elbows with Devin, nudging Trick—urging them to sing along with them. “Come!” they said.

  Rooney squirmed out of their grasp and pulled Devin and Trick away with her. “Now’s our chance.” She glanced at the empty throne, with those paper ornaments suspended above it. “Look for the mirrors. Find the mirrors.”

  She passed the Monty to Devin and took a step toward the woods, where she could see the last of the children slipping between the trees, black silhouettes against the misty blue light.

  “You’re going after them?” Devin clutched the little rat to her chest. “But why?”

  “We need to learn all we can.”

  Though Rooney wanted nothing more than to search for her mirror, she’d have to trust Devin and Trick. For she needed to see if the way into the darkness might also be the way out.

  Rooney raced toward the woods, following the high notes of music and the soft glow of the torches.

  Despite Sorka’s claims that there was no escaping, Rooney would not give up on returning to Warybone with her mirror in hand.

  When she reached the children, she became the very last in their unruly line, but she did not join in on their song and dance. Some poor child was falling, and falling, and falling to the same fate as her own. Her heart felt heavy at the thought.

  As she hurried after the group, the faintest glimmer of stars shone above. They reflected in the river rushing silently by.

  Rooney watched Sorka. The girl marched on and on, her arms flung wide, her ribboned hair flying wild around her shoulders. For all the time she spent alone, sulking on her throne, seeing her so lively, so animated, seemed most strange.

  Sorka never once glanced back as she led the peculiar parade through the woods. Instead, she stared and stared at the crack of sky so far out of reach.

  A body tumbled through the pitch, a straight shot down from above. Rooney could just see the outline of the girl’s belled skirt, her arms flailing helplessly, and her legs kicking at air.

  All the singing stopped abruptly, interrupted by the howling of the girl dropping through the plentiful darkness. She shrieked and shouted, headed right for the points of the trees.

  “Someone has to help her!” Rooney cried, but nothing could be done.

  The girl was falling too fast. The trees were crowded too close together.

  In fact, they drew closer still, tilting toward one another and overlapping their branches in a perfect pattern. Their limbs knit together like dozens of interlocked fingers, angled from the sky all the way to the ground. In this manner, they formed the longest, the steepest, the strangest of slides.

  And just in time.

  The girl plunged through the air, flopping into the cradle of trees. Her howl cut off, the wind knocked from her lungs. She slipped and slid her way down the slide, moving so quickly her face was no more than a blur, her short dark hair whipping around her head.

  Faster and faster, she descended in an almost vertical drop before the slide curved and twisted. She bumped her way along, swooping down, down, down, and spilled onto the ground.

  The mess of her hair tangled across her face, but it was not long enough to cover her scowling mouth and the thin puckered scar at the corner of her lip. Rooney narrowed her eyes at the girl.

  It was none other than Bridget Mullen.

  25

  UNSTABLE MAGIC

  The night crouched closer around Rooney, a smaller space than it had been before. Their surroundings pinched and squeezed, closing in, and the brief show of stars winked out—all the children sealed into the darkness once again. With Bridget.

  How horrible!

  Rooney would have preferred any other face to the one glowering before her, and she pushed her way backward through the children until she stood at the edge of the group, beyond the dim flare of the torches. Beyond Bridget’s roving eye. Rooney was not ready to confront this roughhouse boy just yet. Not in front of everyone.

  From her bent-legged position on the ground, Bridget glared up at the children, who had gathered round and watched her with curiosity. Rubbing a small cut on her cheek, she shot to her feet, wobbling a little as she did so, out of sorts from her long tumble through the air. With a steadying breath, she spun a circle. Her eyes tracked through the darkness, taking in the woods, the children … the quiet.

  Then she broke it quite suddenly, quite thoroughly, shouting, “What in all the wretched world is this witch-darkened place?”

  Sorka stalked forward, the group of children parting to let her through. She gazed down her pointy nose as she said, “Friend or foe?”

  Bridget stamped her foot. She screamed. Answer enough, it seemed to Rooney. Bridget was not going to play along.

  Sorka turned away with a quick flick of her wrist. The trees that had formed the silken slide parted, fanning up and away from one another once again. It was wonderful, Rooney thought, the way they spread apart like the wings of a great black bird. She would have liked to ride them out of the darkness—or have them catapult her out of it.

  One of the branches swatted Bridget from behind as it rose, sending her stumbling forward. And that was even more wonderful—seeing Bridget’s face redden in anger. She screamed again, but that didn’t stop two of the children from coming up to each side of her and linking their arms with her own. She squirmed and wiggled, but they kept hold of her as if she might not be steady enough to walk alone. They skipped forward when Sorka started back through the woods.

  Rooney ducked behind the trees until Bridget had passed, then trailed last in line once again. Bridget shouted and yelled as the children marched her along.

  Rather unexpectedly, Bridget’s fury echoed everything Rooney felt but had pushed deep inside.

  She didn’t want to think about it—that they had anything in common—and slipped out of the disorderly line and into the trees. Devin and Trick might still be picking through Sorka’s things. She needed to drag them away before Sorka caught them at it. Rooney ran.

  But when Rooney burst into the clearing, she immediately realized she hadn’t needed to rush. Bridget’s shouts could be heard even at a distance, booming through the trees and warning Trick and Devin of the group’s impending return. Already, they stood in the shadows away from the throne, hands behind their backs, as if to hide that they’d been snooping only moments before.

  As if to hide what they’d taken back! Hope stretched in Rooney’s chest.

  She dashed to their sides. “Well? Let me see them. Let me have mine.”

  Trick all but ignore
d her, staring at the children spilling into the clearing, mouth agape when he saw Bridget in their midst. A mixture of surprise and gladness. With a frown, Rooney turned toward Devin.

  Devin spread her empty hands in front of her. “We couldn’t find them.”

  Rooney wanted to scream as loudly as Bridget. “Not even one?”

  “She must have the mirrors in her pockets or tucked away in some hidden cubby.” Devin scratched at the gray patch on her neck.

  “Good thing Bridget’s here. She’ll know what to do.” Trick edged closer to the group, and Devin followed.

  With her frown deepening, Rooney tagged after. “We’ve already got a plan.”

  “Not without the mirrors, we don’t,” Trick said.

  Rooney buttoned her lips, though she would have liked to point out that their unsuccessful retrieval was Trick’s fault, not her own.

  “Either way, we need to do something, and quick. The darkness…” Devin shivered. “Its walls are closing in.”

  Rooney recalled the moment Bridget had dropped from the sky—the sensation of the pitch pressing nearer.

  She thought Trick would deny it, just to be contradictory, but he nodded. “Maybe there’s too many of us.”

  As if each new child shrank the space around them and sucked up more of the air. It made Rooney all the more anxious to escape this undisciplined, this unstable, magic.

  And the sullen queen who wielded it.

  Still ahead of the other children, Sorka proceeded directly to the onyx throne and hopped up into it. If Devin and Trick had disturbed any of her possessions, she didn’t seem to notice.

  And still, with all those many trinkets, Sorka always demanded more. She leaned greedily toward the newest arrival, her long hair tumbling over her shoulders, and said, “What have you brought me?”

  With a shove and a kick, Bridget tore loose from the children beside her. They scampered away. “Absolutely nothing!”

  “How rude. How foe-like.” Sorka plucked her crown up from the ground and set it on her head, as if that might make her authority clear.