The Plentiful Darkness

by Heather Kassner

  The magician’s words to Sorka fluttered in her head. I cannot bear to think of a world without you in it. Rooney tried to pretend that she didn’t understand. That it couldn’t possibly mean what it seemed.

  She tugged on the starbeam, urging it to carry her higher, away from the magician, away from those words. Above, three pairs of arms stretched down. They looked overlong and distorted, breaking through the seam and straddling two worlds. Trick’s hands found Rooney first, and his fingers closed around her wrist.

  She clung to Sorka, but Sorka loosened her grip.

  “You’re slipping!” Rooney shouted.

  With her other hand, Sorka reached toward the magician. Or rather, Sorka reached for her mother.

  “Cross with me,” Sorka said to Selene.

  “No, no,” wept the magician.

  All the same, daughter and mother clasped hands. Sorka’s fingers sneaked away from Rooney’s tenuous hold.

  “Sorka!” she cried.

  Trick’s voice echoed down, as if coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. “I’ve got you, Rooney.”

  Unware that she came alone, he pulled her up and away from Sorka. There was so much light as Rooney passed through the seam, and the starbeam scattered apart. It sparkled everywhere, pushing back the plentiful darkness as she spilled into the world above.

  She hit the ground hard, landing face-first on the cold cobblestones. Trick was sprawled beside her, their hands still linked. He squeezed her fingers, once, so quickly, then released her.

  Rooney lay there a moment, catching her breath and blinking at the boots of all the children they’d flung from the darkness. All the children they’d protected.

  When Rooney rolled over, Devin and Bridget were staring down at her.

  “Where’s Sorka?” Devin asked, worry lining her brow.

  Rooney and Trick climbed to their feet in the shadow of the Tower of Thistle. On the ground spread a splotch of the deepest darkness, speared by a single moonbeam.

  Rooney didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. “Sorka let go of me.”

  “She’s not coming?” Devin tipped her face over the void and wrung her hands. “But she has to.”

  Bridget cupped her palms around her mouth and shouted down into the pitch, “Come out, my friend! Come out, my foe!”

  All the lines of that creepy song ran through Rooney’s head again, and one in particular rang loudest. “It’s death you’ve found,” she whispered.

  The darkness rippled. It parted. Selene and Sorka Thistle emerged from its depths, crossing together from the plentiful darkness into the starlit night.

  Rooney gasped. Trick, Devin, and Bridget went rigid, perhaps struck with the very same thought as Rooney. That they’d found the truth of Sorka’s secret.

  Death had come to Warybone last year. The feather flu had stolen so many away. The townsfolk needed me too, but you needed me most. The magician had spoken so sorrowfully. Rooney’s heart clenched, wondering if it was really possible that the feather flu had snatched Sorka from the magician too.

  If Sorka, standing so ghostly gray before her, was dead.

  THE MAGICIAN—THE UNQUIET

  The magician clutched Sorka’s hand. It was cold, insubstantial, her skin as pale as moonlight.

  “Is this truly what you want?” the magician asked, disbelieving.

  “Most of all,” Sorka replied. “And for you to keep your heart.”

  “I will keep you in it,” Selene said, for Sorka was her heart.

  “You have room in there for more than me. Let them in.” A breeze blew past; it blew through Sorka. “That tickled,” she whispered in awe.

  Someone inhaled sharply, and Selene drew her eyes from Sorka. A grouping of children stood before them on the cobblestones, the dark-haired girl Sorka had called Rooney among them. They inched closer.

  “Is this goodbye?” Rooney asked, shooting a quick, wary look at the magician before returning her eyes to Sorka.

  “You know?” A small frown slipped across Sorka’s face.

  “We know,” Rooney said.

  Sorka’s willowy form wisped, her fingers light as air in Selene’s hand. And no matter how tightly Selene held on, no matter how she magicked her cloak of quiet closer to her daughter, none of her efforts would keep Sorka here.

  “Yes, then,” Sorka said. “It’s goodbye.”

  A chorus of soft farewells sounded from all the children who loved Sorka, then Rooney spoke again. “I think that when I say your name, you will hear it. Wherever you are.”

  Sorka smiled.

  “Wherever you are,” Selene said, and when Sorka gifted her with a smile too, the magician’s heart broke and healed all at once.

  A shooting star streaked through the night. Sorka tilted her head. Her eyes went wide. Upon seeing the true sky, laughter bubbled up from her throat, obnoxious and loud and wondrous.

  It shook through Selene. She let the sound wrap around her and sink into her bones. She hadn’t heard Sorka laugh in so long. And strangely, it didn’t hurt to hear it. Selene never wanted the laughter to stop, but it weakened, it faded, like a thunderstorm rolling past.

  All the magician had been able to capture in her magical silken world was the glimmer of her daughter’s spirit. And now, that too was slipping away.

  “My dear,” Selene said.

  Sorka sighed, her last breath kissing her mother’s cheek. And then—with a soft sweep of her hair in the wind and a clever curl of her lips—she was gone.

  Selene shut her eyes. She folded her empty hand.

  And she listened.

  Not to the quiet, but to the unquiet—all the sounds throughout Warybone that she’d wanted to smother for so long. The ones that had reminded her too much of Sorka. The ones that had been too happy, too playful, too loud and full of life.

  She breathed in time with the people of Warybone, letting her lungs expand and contract in rhythm with their own. In and in, and out.

  How dare I? she thought, horrified by all she’d done.

  Her eyes flashed open, and she looked at the children she’d wronged so terribly. Selene knew she must make it right—if they would let her.

  37

  A BLACK HEART LINED WITH GOLD

  “Goodbye, Sorka,” Rooney whispered.

  She might have been sad (she was), but less so than she’d expected, because Sorka had done what she wanted. And that was Sorka’s own rule, after all.

  “She’s really gone,” Devin said wistfully.

  “But the magician is not,” Bridget hissed.

  Rooney glanced at Trick, who reflexively tightened his hands into fists. Of course, he wouldn’t swing them, but the magician didn’t know that, and he looked dark-eyed and fierce next to Rooney.

  From the corner of her eye, she also saw the Monty. It poked its whiskers out from the blackberry bushes. Its sharp teeth flashed, as if it were prepared to bite the magician’s ankles should she try anything.

  Selene stood very still and watchful. She appeared no less forbidding in her fitted black suit and cloak, except for her gray, gray eyes, which had gentled as soft as a dove’s downy feathers.

  Rooney didn’t know what to do—to run and run as fast and far as she could, or to face the brokenhearted magician who’d spoken so lovingly to Sorka. With her friends and the rat at her side, Rooney gulped down her fear. She found the simple words she wished someone had once offered to her.

  “I’m sorry.” Before Trick could nudge her elbow, she added, “We’re all sorry about Sorka.”

  When the magician did not utter a threat or call to her magic, Rooney raised her chin. “My parents are gone too, and I miss them very much. I couldn’t protect them either.” The words came swiftly, a desire to ease the sadness around her, all that still clung to her and her friends. All that cradled the magician. “Sometimes when everything goes wrong, one thing can make it a little bit better, though.”

  Rooney bent down, lifting Sorka’s locket from the ground.
With a shaking hand, she held it out to the magician. It was open a crack, shining with stardust, and maybe it echoed with wondrous notes of laughter too.

  Selene accepted the locket without word, and so Rooney stumbled on. “It’s very much like the lunar mirror someone left me when I needed it most.”

  Rooney drew it from her pocket. Moonlight caught the etching of the delicate thorn stem.

  A lovely thistle.

  Rooney looked from the silver case to Selene Thistle, wondering, wondering at the chance of it. But it really wasn’t chance at all. Her lunar mirror, and all the rest of them, must have been designed by someone who understood the night sky and magic.

  “You gave us the mirrors,” Rooney said, catching another glimmer of this unknown side of the magician, whose black heart just might have been lined with gold.

  “I crafted them before Sorka fell ill.” Selene’s voice broke on her daughter’s name, and then she admitted, “Though I called to it, my magic could not help your parents.” Her gaze fell on Rooney, Trick, Bridget, and the other children standing there in the night. “But I thought it might help you in trying times.”

  Rooney ran her finger over the familiar groove in her mirror’s case. So much care had gone into forming it. Rooney tried to align what she knew of the magician’s dark ways with this unbelievable truth—that Selene had done what she could to help the town of Warybone, only to be consumed by grief when her own daughter fell to the same misfortune.

  “I’ve behaved terribly and unforgivably,” Selene said. “And I don’t know the firstly thing about setting it right.”

  Rooney couldn’t speak for the children. She could hardly speak for herself. Tears scratched at the back of her throat—for Sorka, for them all. The magician had done something inexcusable … yet once, she had also done her best to save them. One action did not necessarily balance out the other, but Rooney’s heart felt very full and generous.

  “You can try,” Rooney said. “To set things right, that is.”

  “Yes,” Trick agreed, the most forgiving among them. And if he saw something good inside the magician, then it must be there. “But you’ll have to earn our trust.”

  “You’ll have to make amends too,” Bridget said, a grin hitching her lip and hinting that she had a good number of ideas for how the magician might do so.

  “You’ll have to speak with my parents,” Devin said sternly, but her eyes went to the mirror in Rooney’s hand, as if she wondered what the magician could teach them of magic and moonlight.

  Selene stared at them with wide, startled eyes, a telling look. She must have been certain they would turn her away. “I will do anything.”

  “Then it’s settled.” But Rooney had no idea where to start.

  “Firstly…” Selene hesitated after only one word, perhaps as unsure as Rooney.

  “Firstly, you can witch-magic us a midnight supper,” Bridget said.

  “Anything but grimace fruit,” Trick added, scratching his forehead. The splotch of gray spread on his temple peeled off.

  “Oh!” Rooney’s hand flew to her cheek. She scrubbed her skin, and the gray came away like a spiderweb swept from a corner. It seemed a good sign—that things could be made right.

  “Come,” Selene said softly. “If you want.”

  “We will; we do.” And Rooney took the first step forward.

  All the children with parents ran off into the night, finding their ways home as if they’d only woken from a dream. Devin too, though she left with hugs and promises to see Rooney and the others soon enough, bringing her parents along with her.

  And those children with nowhere to go—like Rooney and Trick and Bridget (and the smudge-nosed Monty too)—they entered the Tower of Thistle alongside the magician, all of them together, finding one another when they needed it most.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, readers, for plunging into the plentiful darkness. Stay as long as you like, for when you’re ready, the stars and moon will show you the way home.

  As for home, this book could not have found a better one than with my editor, Brian Geffen, who finds the pulse of a story and ensures it beats fiercely. No one holds a moonlit candle to your editing magic.

  Last year, I gave my agent, Suzie Townsend, the name Suzie Starlight, which seems especially appropriate for this book too. Thank you for always guiding my way when I’m stumbling around in the dark.

  Everyone at New Leaf and Holt/Macmillan has offered such support, especially Dani Segelbaum, Christian Trimmer, Liz Dresner, Rachel Murray, Allene Cassagnol, Callum Plews, Lelia Mander, Taylor Pitts, Starr Baer, Alexei Esikoff, and Madison Furr. And I am so thankful that Kaja Kajfež (Iz Ptica) beautifully illustrated the cover for another one of my books. I have so much appreciation for you all.

  So many thanks to Karen Strong for reading the synopsis and early chapters of this story and providing such encouragement. To Kara Price and Sara Casiday, my oldest and dearest friends. And to Joan He, Gita Trelease, and Gabrielle K. Byrne—as the moon brightens the night sky, you all brighten my heart.

  Mom, Bill, Pop, and Gram—you gathered the stars for me, and I will forever be trying to catch them for you. Cam, I would chase you into the darkness; I would chase you anywhere. Love you.

  ALSO BY HEATHER KASSNER

  The Bone Garden

  The Forest of Stars

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Heather Kassner loves thunderstorms, hummingbirds, and books. She lives with her husband in Arizona, waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the rain, photographing hummingbirds, and reading and writing strange little stories. She is also the author The Forest of Stars and The Bone Garden. Follow her on Twitter @HeatherKassner.

  Visit her online at heatherkassner.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  The Magician—Quieter by One

  1. The Lunar Mirror

  2. Kindling

  3. The Roughhouse Boys

  4. The Alley of Rats

  5. The Worst of the Worst

  6. Blackthorn

  7. Shrouded in Silence

  8. Ink and Pitch

  9. The Not-Sky

  10. Most Ungood

  11. As Restless as Ghosts

  12. Friend or Foe?

  13. Entrapment

  14. Unraveling

  15. Terribly Lost

  The Magician—A Quiet Name

  16. The Door at the Edge of the Woods

  17. The Most Wicked

  18. A Living Graveyard

  19. The Whispers in the Woods

  20. Quite Lost

  21. The Truth of It

  22. Petal and Thorn

  23. The Sullen Queen

  24. This Ever-Dark Night

  25. Unstable Magic

  26. Side by Side

  27. The Sneakiest

  28. The World Above

  29. At Last, At Last

  The Magician—Oh so Quietly

  30. At Torchset

  31. An Inkling

  The Magician—A Quiet Place

  32. Guts and Grit

  33. One and the Same

  34. An Un-Tending

  The Magician—The Quiet of Night

  35. A Stellar Mirror

  The Magician—Ever so Quiet

  36. To Warybone

  The Magician—The Unquiet

  37. A Black Heart Lined with Gold

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Heather Kassner

  About the Author

&nbs
p; Copyright

  Copyright © 2021 by Heather Kassner

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020919122

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  First hardcover edition 2021

  eBook edition 2021

  eISBN 978-1-250-76401-0