The Plentiful Darkness

by Heather Kassner

  “I want to help,” Devin said. “I need to—for my parents to be proud that I found my way home. So they will realize I can choose my own path. One that is right for me.”

  Sorka stilled at Devin’s heartfelt words, as though she understood them completely. Without reply, she walked purposely over to a narrow tree, and with her arm swinging low, she slipped her hand into a shadowed hollow all but hidden behind a pile of odds and ends near its base. She scooped something from the depths. When she straightened, she tossed the object to Devin, who gasped as she caught it.

  Devin looked at the mirror in delight, the very thing she’d dreamed of, gifted to her when she needed it most. She glanced shyly at Rooney and Trick. “Will you show me how to use it?”

  “I said I would, didn’t I? Might as well learn from the best.” Trick grinned, and Devin squealed. (A high-pitched sound that resembled the shrieking of her bow against the strings of her violin.)

  Rooney had never seen Devin so happy, so she ignored Trick’s teasing boast. But with the magician’s return approaching, they had no time to spare, not even for a moment as special as this one. “But first, we have to ready the children.”

  With Sorka in the lead, they marched through the woods toward the clearing. She sang (of course she sang) a little tune not quite as creepy as the other. It stirred something in Rooney—in all of them, by the looks of the soft smiles curving their lips.

  A shared glimmer of hope.

  The second time Sorka started the song, Rooney and the others joined in—even Bridget, whose low voice hushed through the woods. They stumbled over the words, which made the singing all the more fun.

  Come out, my devils

  Come out, my dears

  Hear what whispers

  From the gilded mirror

  The magician is coming

  She’ll fall from the sky

  And we must be quiet

  So quiet, and so very sly

  Let’s all play a game

  Of hide-and-sneakiness

  And on pale moonbeams flee

  The plentiful darkness

  The children came running, questions tumbling from their mouths, and Sorka spoke over them, sharing what Rooney had planned for them to do. “At torchset, when you should be shut-eyed and sleeping, we’ll sneak to the woods. Every last one of us.”

  They listened, as if to a story, one they did not trust as true but enjoyed all the same. Rooney thought they would play along, as they always did. They would follow their (un) sullen queen, not because they feared her or were magicked to do so, but because they loved her.

  Rooney looked at all their gray-splotched faces, which would soon have moonlight dancing upon them.

  She could not let them down.

  * * *

  And so, at torchset, the children gathered in the blackened woods with another stern warning that they must remain absolutely quiet and so very still. And they were, lips clamped tight and their feet silent, as always, on the silken ground. They pressed against the trees like another layer of bark, making a wide circle around the space where Sorka had last met the magician.

  Sorka stood there again. Alone and waiting, the ribbons loose in her hair, the locket dangling from her hand.

  The only lights shone so very dim, a sliver of moonglow from the nearly empty lunar mirrors. Clutching them tight, Rooney, Devin, Trick, and Bridget huddled together, skin dappled in shades of blue and gray.

  “Hold your arm steady and true,” Rooney instructed Devin before they all separated, one last piece of advice in case Trick had not said so. “Moonlight falls from so far away and takes a long while to reach us.”

  “I will do my best,” Devin said, voice shaking with excitement or nerves. Maybe both.

  “That is all any of us can do.” Rooney knew Devin might not catch even a smidgen of moonlight. It seemed a simple thing, but it was no easy task capturing those wispy blue beams.

  Devin slipped away, swift through the trees, and Bridget sneaked off in the opposite direction, a curt nod given in parting.

  Rooney hesitated, lingering there beside Trick, the Monty at her heels. She didn’t know what would happen when they returned to Warybone. If they might go their separate ways again, or if she might truly be welcomed by the roughhouse boys. Either way, she thought she ought to say something more to Trick here and now.

  He took one step away from her, and she caught hold of his sleeve. He cast dark eyes over his shoulder.

  Rooney’s heart thumped and thumped. She didn’t know if she was more nervous to face the magician or to speak these next words to Trick. “I’m sorry too,” she whispered.

  “I know,” Trick said, though she hadn’t revealed what she was apologizing for.

  She wondered if she ought to explain more, but he smiled crookedly through the gloom. Maybe that’s all there was to say. Maybe he’d already forgiven her.

  Rooney found herself smiling back. They stood there a moment, those silly expressions on their faces, until her heart settled. And perhaps Trick’s had too.

  It was nice. He was nice.

  “To Warybone,” she said at last.

  “To Warybone,” he repeated, and they ducked into the trees, waiting for the darkness to splinter.

  31

  AN INKLING

  The darkness pulsed by the slightest degree, a weak heartbeat. Shadows shifted. The air heavied in Rooney’s lungs.

  She braced herself against a tree and craned her neck, staring up, up, up at the crackling sky. It split open, a faint glow of light. The moon and pinprick stars spotted the field of pitch. Somewhere nearby, a child gasped and just as quickly smothered it.

  Rooney stared and stared at this tiny pocket of the world above—and the shadowy figure stealing into the darkness on a beam of moonlight.

  The magician!

  She descended like a spider on a thread of silk. And why wouldn’t she? Rooney thought. For the magician had spun this quiet place into being, trapping all the children in her web.

  Cold pressed in. Rooney shivered against the tree trunk, worried her plan might not work—worried the magician would peer down and see her if she made even the smallest movement.

  But Rooney couldn’t stand there doing nothing.

  The Monty tugged at her bootlaces, a reminder to hurry. She opened the silver case and lifted her arm, angling her mirror just so. And she knew Trick and Bridget and Devin were hidden elsewhere in the woods, set on gathering the moonlight.

  Ghostly light spiraled down. The magician dropped lower from the sky, until finally, she set her boots on the ground. Wrapped three times around her wrist, the moonbeam glowed—her magical connection to Warybone.

  “You came,” Sorka said, and even at a distance, Rooney could hear the note of gladness in the words. Perhaps Sorka had feared she might let everyone down too, only it seemed something more than that. Sorka leaned toward the magician; she looked up at her the way Devin had gazed lovingly at the mirror.

  An uneasy knot bunched up in Rooney’s belly.

  “Yes, I came. I cannot fix what’s broken by way of the gray-glass mirrors,” the magician said, looming over Sorka and reaching out one bony hand to catch the falling ice-flowers. Her voice slipped like skates across ice. “Winter is not where I left it.”

  “Some things can’t be fixed.” Sorka clutched her crackled-glass locket. “No matter how strong the magic. No matter how fierce the wish.”

  Rooney tried not to let these words cloud her head. They were meant for the magician, not for her. Rooney would fix things. She tipped the lunar mirror forward more intently, anxious to collect the first drop of moonlight.

  The magician lowered her arm, grazing her fingertips against one of the unruly ribbons in Sorka’s hair. The shiny ends lifted at her touch, looping over and around each other, tying into a too-perfect bow.

  Rooney faltered, nearly dropping her mirror before she steadied herself. The darkness tingled against her cheeks, little snaps of static.

 
Magic brewed in the air.

  “This…” The magician threw out her arms and then drew them in, a strange embrace of the darkness. “This much, I control absolutely.”

  “It’s all make-believe.” Sorka paused, then grasped for the magician’s hand. “Won’t you take me home with you?”

  Sorka likely hoped to draw out the conversation, to give Rooney and the others more time to gather the light, but the question hung there, strange and out of place.

  An itch, an inkling, poked around in Rooney’s head. How closely Sorka and the magician were acquainted. How deeply their bond might run. Master and apprentice—and perhaps something much more.

  “Take you home?” The magician’s face went very white, a stricken frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. “Never.”

  nevernevernever …

  The pronouncement echoed through the darkness.

  The magician scanned the wintry trees, her eyes sweeping right past the spot where Rooney stood. Rooney yanked back her hand, holding the mirror tight—still empty of moonlight. A panicky feeling fluttered in her chest.

  She needed to find a better angle. A true line to the sky. And fast.

  She peeked around the other side of the tree and raised her arm once the magician returned her attention to Sorka. The mirror pulled and pulled at the moon, its surface rippling, but not a trickle of light fell upon the glass.

  Rooney hoped with all her heart that the others were having better luck. For once, she was not thinking of who might best her.

  The magician murmured softly, asking winter to sleep, to stay where she’d first cast it. The darkness pulsed, like a clap of suppressed thunder. The air constricted.

  For a moment, Rooney could not breathe.

  She could not even hold up her arm.

  At her feet, the Monty turned a dizzy circle. Its ears flattened against its skull. In the woods, the trees lurched—Trick and Devin and Bridget, the other children too, shuffling when they should have been still—all of them thinned of air. Rooney slumped against the tree. Her hazy eyes fell on the magician.

  Long strands of hair whipped wildly around the magician’s shoulders. Her cloak flapped silently. She opened her mouth wide, pointed teeth flashing, and let out a long exhale.

  Great coils of black fog writhed up from the magician’s throat. They twisted thick and untamed, forged in the very depths of her dark heart. An outpouring of magic. It swirled through the treetops, shadowing the branches. Blowing back the sharp sprinkling of dark snow.

  But the darkness itself resisted. A broken thing like everything else here.

  The ground beneath Rooney quivered, and the sky above her quaked. Its edges shivered, fog coiling closer instead of expanding the darkness.

  The magician swayed on her feet, clutching at the ribbon of moonlight around her wrist as though it were the only thing keeping her standing. Her mouth clattered shut. Spent of magic, of strength, the magician puffed a last curl of fog out of her nostril. Sorka reached out one helpless hand.

  The darkness closed in, crouching around them.

  Then its very fabric shuddered.

  Rooney toppled to the ground. The pitch pressed around her, a weighted thing. Bending the long spines of the trees. Squeezing the air. Crushing the precious light.

  The moonbeam recoiled, shooting up toward Warybone. Whipping the magician away with it against her will. Her mouth formed a silent scream.

  “No!” Sorka shouted. The locket dropped from her hand.

  A cry tore from Rooney’s throat too. She struggled to her feet. Somewhere, somewhere, Devin shrieked.

  Not even the magician could tame the darkness.

  Desperate, Rooney swept up her arm again, holding her mirror in just the manner she always did. What if the moon never shows its bright face again? What if this is our only chance to gather its light? They could not be left behind.

  She strained and pleaded with the moonlight. Oh, how she tried!

  But the darkness was simply too thick. The distance was simply too great. Warybone may as well have been a million miles away—out of reach.

  The glow from above dimmed as the magician swept higher—as she became no more than a speck in the sky.

  Something churned inside Rooney. Not the moonlit fire that sometimes filled her with hope. No, this swell of emotion fumed foul and stormy.

  If she opened her mouth—if she screamed at the moonlight for abandoning her when she needed it most—she might spew out a mist as black as the magician’s dark fog.

  THE MAGICIAN—A QUIET PLACE

  The magician crashed onto the streets of Warybone. She gasped, limbs trembling as she stood. The moonlight no longer circled her wrist.

  This much, I control absolutely.

  She’d thought it the truth. She’d thought she could calm the darkness (and Sorka’s tender heart). It should have been endless and beautiful, a dark mirror of the world above. A quiet place.

  But she’d somehow polluted the magic—pinching tighter an already too small space.

  The magician lifted her silken scarf, holding it so carefully. Despair lined her face. Her magic, her lovely magic, hadn’t been strong enough.

  And not for the first time.

  Taking slow steps, she retreated to the Tower of Thistle. Its gold-speckled roof shone star-bright.

  She could call down the moon, the stars too. The darkness should have been hers to command.

  More so, to tend.

  Along with all who resided within it.

  32

  GUTS AND GRIT

  The dark fog circled, a vicious, coiling mass.

  Directly beneath its swollen belly, Sorka stood frozen.

  Trick broke away from the warped trees. He called Sorka’s name.

  With the Monty scrambling around her ankles, Rooney staggered toward them, her wary eyes on the tumultuous not-sky. Devin and Bridget too tore out from their hiding places, herding the children away through the creaking trees.

  “Sorka!” Rooney shouted, for all the good it did.

  Sorka watched the strange storm that had cast the magician back to Warybone, transfixed by its swirling. “Oh no.” The words fell broken from her mouth. Rooney could almost see them, formed in the smoky fog. “She’s gone.”

  Gathering closer, the mist scratched through Trick’s hair, a tangible thing, like creeping vines and claws. “And we better get out of here too. Come on.”

  He tugged Sorka’s hand. On shaking legs, she stumbled forward.

  Scooping the Monty into her arms, Rooney reached for the fallen locket, shoving it into her pocket before tucking in at Sorka’s other side. Together, they ran through the thick, strangling air that seemed ready to swallow them.

  And it would, it would. It ate the trees one after the other. A mouth of darkness consuming everything in its path. The trees were pulled up by their silken roots. They tipped and timbered, falling without sound before being sucked into the void.

  Every branch and thread of them gone but for a scattering of tarnished petals.

  Rooney blinked and blinked. It was impossible, and all the same, it was real.

  “Faster!” she exclaimed, pumping her legs more furiously against the chill at her back. The quicksand hand of the fog. “Or it will be our end!”

  “Like spring.” The words gasped from Sorka’s mouth. She tripped over them and her own two feet. “Gone forever.”

  Trick righted her before she could tumble to her knees. He held her steady as they raced on.

  “You have to stop it,” Rooney said, panting and frantic. She dared another look over her shoulder.

  Behind them, the trees thrashed. They unraveled, limb by limb, then vanished.

  “I will only make it worse!” Sorka screeched, and the roiling fog reared at the sound, drawn to her.

  “Calm down,” Rooney cautioned, although it seemed a silly thing to say. Her own heart beat wild and uncontrolled, just as it had when she’d first plunged into the darkness and been caught by the
black vein of the river.

  They neared it now, a glimmering ribbon winding through the trees. If they did not change direction, they would reach its edge and be stuck between the silken bank and the hungry fog.

  Trapped.

  Or maybe saved!

  “To the river!” Rooney shouted, a half-formed idea in her head.

  Trick shot her a sharp, questioning look. One she’d never seen directed at Bridget, who he trusted absolutely. Rooney glanced away only to turn back again.

  “You said … I was one of you.” She had to know if he’d really meant it. Their eyes locked as they ran. “Don’t give up on me now, Trick Aidan.”

  Oh, it was very dark, but Rooney was looking very keenly. Trick’s cheeks reddened as he said, “I’ll give up on you never, Rooney de Barra.”

  And so they ran as they’d never run before, together. Devin’s and Bridget’s swift figures, and the children’s stumbling forms, shot through the trees ahead of them.

  The fog cycloned at their backs, gouging the woods.

  “Devin! Bridget!” One-armed, Rooney gestured frantically. The poor Monty squirmed in her other hand.

  At her urging, they veered for the river of darkness. For its deep waters. Its calm.

  Devin and Bridget reached it first, the children soon after. They stopped dead at its very edge.

  The fog raged overhead, swirling closer and closer.

  “What mad plan have you brewed up like that witch?” Beneath those stick bangs, Bridget’s eyes goggled.

  Rooney barreled forward. Despite the pinch of fear, she did not even slow. “Hold your breath!” she cried, and, gulping in a lungful of air, she collided with Bridget, whose flailing arms snagged on Devin.

  “Ahhh!”

  They tumbled backward into the water that had once almost drowned Rooney. Before her head dipped below the surface, Rooney looked up and up and up at the fog-blurred not-sky. It swarmed black as Trick and Sorka and the children leaped too.

  Their bodies splashed. Their heads went under. They sank and sank in the darkness.