Abarat: Absolute Midnight a-3

by Clive Barker

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yes. I wouldn’t lie to you. You know that.”

  “Of course.”

  “So it’s time your eyes told you the truth, don’t you think?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good,” Bill told him. “Now . . . are you ready?”

  “For what, sir?”

  “To see what the world really looks like, Ricky. Your attention is wandering. You’re not focused. Listen to me. We have a force of evil that will destroy us, right here in our midst.”

  “Do we?”

  “Open your eyes, and see for yourself.”

  Ricky’s eyes flickered open and it was clear from the instant his eyes focused that his father’s tutelage had worked.

  “Candy?” he said. “Where did you come from?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Shut your wicked mouth!” her father said, jabbing the air just a couple of inches away from her face. “Don’t listen to anything she says, boy. I told you they’re full of lies, didn’t I? It comes so easily to them. They open their painted red lips and the lies just start tumbling out! They can’t stop themselves.”

  “What are you talking about, Bill?” Melissa said.

  “You, woman.”

  “Woman?”

  “That is your gender, isn’t it?” Bill replied.

  Candy saw the look of mystification on Melissa’s face. This sounded like her father, only worse.

  “I don’t know what the hell—or who the hell—has got into you, but you are not my husband . . .”

  “What’s happening?” Ricky said, with an edge of panic in his voice.

  Bill pointed at Candy.

  “You’re the reason this town has lost its way. Lost its mind. You brought freaks onto our streets so they can gain a hold on our world.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Candy said. “Whoever is still here was just left behind when the waters receded. I’m sure they all want to go home.”

  “Home? Oh no. These deviants are never leaving this town. Except in coffins.”

  “What?”

  “How much plainer do I need to be? We are fighting a war against these invaders. My foot soldiers are ordinary men and women, who come to worship at my church, and have heard me speak. They’ve seen these freaks with their own eyes. They know they exist. Demons, from the bowels of hell!”

  “No, Dad, they’re just lost people who want to get back home to the Abarat. Let me go back there and talk to the Council. They’ll find some way to peacefully get all the folks who were left behind out of your town without blood being spilled.”

  “Did you hear her, Ricky? Folks, she called these demons. As though they were the most natural things in the world.”

  “Yes, sir. I heard.”

  “What’s to be done, Ricky? She’s your sister. If you tell me to be merciful, I will be. But be very certain. I don’t want to turn my back on her and find she’s using her magic against us. Just look at her. There’s nothing natural about her.”

  “Why are you so interested in magic all of the sudden?” Candy said to her father. “You would’ve said anyone talking about that was crazy.”

  “That was before I found my vest of many colors.” He ran his palm over the garment, and it responded to his touch. A ripple of pleasure ran through it, causing its designs to intensify.

  “Hats!” Candy said, suddenly remembering where she’d seen all the pieces of the patchwork before. “It was five beaten-up hats.”

  Bill’s expression was glacial.

  “Clever,” he said.

  “I knew the person who owned them, Dad. Now he was bad. He murdered the people who owned those hats just so he could have them for himself.”

  “Disgusting. You’re making all this up as you go along. Just like your mother. Lies, lies, and more lies. That’s all you women are capable of.”

  “I swear,” Candy said. “That’s why he’s talking all weird, Mom. He’s got a little bit of Kaspar Wolfswinkel in him, because that was where his power was. In the hats he stole from the dead.”

  “You’re not frightening me, if that’s what you’re trying to do,” Bill said. “Your sorcery won’t work on me. I think we should take her to the church, Ricky.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t need your religion, thank you,” Candy said.

  “You’re not getting any. You see, I’ve been having visions. Imagine that. Your drunken lump of a father, who everyone laughed at behind his back—”

  “I never laughed, Dad. It was sad.”

  “Shut your mouth! I don’t need your pity! I’ve built a machine.” He tapped the middle of his forehead. “It came from a vision. And I couldn’t understand what it was for. But now I know. It all fits.”

  “Bill!” Melissa broke in. “Maybe we should listen to her.”

  “No. A greater voice speaks to me. And I listen to it.” He paused, and for a moment closed his eyes. “Even now, it speaks. It’s telling me what it needs.”

  “Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Candy said.

  Bill’s eyes opened in an instant.

  “You.”

  Part Four

  The Dawning of the Dark

  No need to fear the beast

  That comes alone to your door,

  For loneliness will be its undoing

  Nor need you fear those beasts

  That hunt in packs.

  They will die when divided from their clan.

  Fear only the one

  That does not come at all.

  It is already here, standing in your shoes.

  —The last sermon of Bishop Nautyress

  Chapter 26

  The Church of the Children of Eden

  “CANDY? WE’RE ALMOST THERE.”

  Even though Candy had told Malingo not to wake her, she surely couldn’t have meant him to leave her sleeping once they’d arrived. Still, he’d learned to be delicate when he was rousing her from sleep.

  There was no great urgency. The ferry had only just sailed into Tazmagor Harbor. It would be several minutes before they docked. Even so, there was an unease among the passengers that was nothing to do with their arrival. Their voices were shrill, their laughter forced. Malingo knew why. There was a mysterious sense of foreboding in the air. Something was coming: something that wasn’t welcome. He had no more idea of the approaching something than the passengers who hurried past him. But it wasn’t good. His stomach was tied in knots, and there was an itch behind his eyes that he first remembered feeling the day his father took him to be sold. He did his best to put the itch and the unease out of his mind so as to concentrate on waking Candy. He put his hand on hers, and shook her gently.

  “Come on, Candy. Time to wake up.” There was no response. He shook her again. “Come on,” he said, leaning toward her now. “You’ll have to finish this dream another time. Wake up.”

  “I’m just dreaming this,” Candy reminded her father. “I don’t have to listen to you. I can wake up at any time.”

  “Well you’d better not, because if you do”—he pointed to Melissa—“she is going to be the one who suffers.”

  “Stop it, Bill,” Melissa said.

  “Why? Because you think I don’t mean it? I mean it. Ask your daughter.”

  “There’s stuff in his head right now he can’t control, Mom,” Candy said. “Somebody stronger might have fought against it. Dad just didn’t want to.”

  “You’re going to regret that,” he said.

  “Candy? What’s wrong?” Malingo asked her.

  The expression on Candy’s sleeping face was no longer calm. A frown furrowed her brow, and the corners of her mouth were turned down.

  “You’re starting to scare me,” Malingo said. “Why won’t you wake up? Can you even hear me?”

  Did she nod her head? If she did it, was the tiniest of motions.

  “Oh, Lordy Lou. What is going on? Please wake up.”

  Now it seemed she shook her head, though the motion was as s
ubtle as her nod. So subtle he wasn’t sure she’d moved her head at all.

  “Is it that you don’t want to wake up right now?”

  And again she nodded. Or at least he thought she did.

  “All right . . .” Malingo said, doing his best to sound calm. “If you want to stay asleep, I guess that’s okay. There’s not much I can do about it anyway. You just keep dreaming. I’ll deal with things on this end.”

  There was neither a nod nor a shake by way of response. Her face simply became more intensely troubled.

  It was strange to be walking the streets of Chickentown again, even stranger to be walking them at her father’s side—though of course she was invisible to everyone but him—and to see people’s responses to him and how his reputation had changed in the time she’d been away. A few people were openly afraid of him. They either crossed over the street to avoid him or hurriedly ducked into stores. But others, seeing him coming, made sure to pay him their respects. Some simply nodded or offered a quick “good afternoon.” But not one of them was able to entirely conceal the unease they felt in his presence. A few of them actually called him Reverend, which Candy knew she’d never get used to. Reverend! Her father, the brutal alcoholic who beat his wife and children: Reverend! Her mother had been right: things had certainly changed in Chickentown.

  Once they were off Main Street and there weren’t so many people to see him apparently talking to himself, he said to Candy, “Did you see how much respect I get?”

  “Yes, I saw.”

  “Surprised you, didn’t it? Didn’t it?”

  She wanted to defy him even now. She wanted to tell him that it was all an empty illusion, and she knew it. But then she thought of her mother. The man at her side was capable of doing terrible things, she didn’t doubt it. So she answered him, “Yes. I guess it did surprise me.”

  “But what you don’t understand is that these people are frightened. They can smell the freaks: the things that got washed into the streets and left here. And they’re afraid. What I do is take the fear away.”

  “How?”

  “None of your business. Salvation’s a very private industry. They pay for the privilege, I can tell you that. I don’t take a cent of it. All their contributions go back into the church. And everybody’s glad to give. I’m bringing some comfort and maybe some happiness back into their lives. That’s worth a few dollars of anybody’s money. Here we are. Home sweet home.”

  He was talking about a plain, one-story brick building, now painted a garish green, which Candy must have walked past hundreds of times in her life. It had a big bulletin board on the small lawn at the front which bore a single message:

  THE CHURCH OF THE CHILDREN OF EDEN

  REVEREND WILLIAM QUACKENBUSH

  WELCOMES ALL SINNERS IN NEED OF SALVATION

  The member of The Sloppy’s crew who found Malingo and Candy still aboard fifteen minutes after the ship had docked, was, much to Malingo’s surprise and relief, another geshrat. Talking to one of his own people made the complicated business of explaining their situation a little easier. It became easier still when the ferryman said, “You’re Malingo, right?”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “No. I’ve just heard all the stories. My sister, Yambeeni, follows everything you and the girl do as best she can. There’s a lot of rumors. People invent things about you I’m sure, just so they’ve got something new to talk about.”

  “I didn’t realize anybody cared.”

  “Ha! You’re kidding? You and Candy—is it okay if I call her Candy, or should it be, like, Miss Quackenbush or some-such?”

  “No, I’m sure Candy would be fine.”

  “I’m Gambittmo, by the way. Bithy, Mo, but usually Gambat. Like Gambittmo the geshrat, only shortened. Gambat Yoot.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Gambat.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Could I get your autograph? It’s for my sister? She will flap her fins!”

  Gambat demonstrated what was obviously a family trait by flapping his own orange fins, which were uncommonly large.

  “Your sister would want my autograph?” Malingo said.

  “Are you kidding? Of course. She’s a big fan. I am too, only it’s really the girls who go crazy. She knows all the details. How you saved Miss Quackenbush—sorry I can’t call her Candy, it just doesn’t sound right—from that crazy wizard guy, Wolfswinkel. We went to the house on Ninnyhammer, my sister and me. Saw all the stuff in the story. I mean, you can’t touch anything. It’s all roped off. But there’s the proof. It all happened. Oh, and maybe on the next page just something for me?”

  Malingo accepted the notebook and then the pen, which had a small carved and painted copy of the Commexo Kid’s head on the end of it, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Sorry about the stupid pen. A passenger left it. I hate the Kid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That toothing grin. Like everything’s just dandy.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  “You ever met one of our people with money? Didn’t think so. We don’t have power, or money, or people to lead us. Why do you think we’re all talking about you?”

  Malingo looked up at Gambat, searching his face for a hint of mockery. But he could find none. Candy’s head lolled around as she slept.

  “Is Miss Quackenbush okay? Does she need maybe a doctor?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She’ll be fine. She’s just tired. What do you want me to write?”

  “Oh . . . I don’t know. Anything you like. Her name’s Yambeeni. Y-A-M-B-Two Es-N-I.” While Malingo signed, his new friend chatted on. “Just between us, you two can stay up here for as long as you like. We’re not heading back to Ninnyhammer for five or six hours. We’ve got to clean up the trash the passengers left. Oh, you are the gesher. Look at that! She gets a drawing too?”

  “It’s not much, but—”

  “You drew that so fast! That’s amazing!” There was a pause. Then he said, “What is it?”

  “Just something I see in dreams,” Malingo told him. “It’s a huge baby in a very small boat.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just dream it.”

  “Well, she’s going to flap so hard she’ll fly. Thank you. That is spaf, gesher, totally spaf.” Grinning a grin that was almost as broad as the Kid’s, he studied the autograph and drawing, and went on his way.

  Brief as the exchange had been, it left Malingo with a lot to think about. It was a huge shock to discover that there were members of his beleaguered nation who not only knew of him, but were proud of having him numbered among them. For as long as there’d been books written, the Geshrat nation had been judged to be a lower order of being. They were menials, tradition stated: scrawny, dull-witted creatures without a maker of trinkets, trousers or trouble, in their tribe’s history.

  Was it possible that he, who had come to believe over the years that his father’s lack of grief when he sold him had been perfectly understandable? He was a worthless thing that no one, not even his own father, would be sorry to lose. Perhaps he judged himself too harshly, and too soon.

  Candy groaned in her sleep, shaking Malingo out of his stupor. What was he doing thinking about himself, when Candy was still lost in slumber? For the first time in this journey at Candy’s side he felt the need of some of the others. Two-Toed Tom, Geneva Peachtree or Finnegan Hob. Someone he could talk this problem through with. Anyone but the John Brothers. They just had too many opinions.

  But wishing he had their company wouldn’t make it so. He was on his own, in the silent company of the person who meant more to him than anyone ever had. Suddenly, he was afraid for her.

  Bill told Ricky to stay outside the church and keep watch. He then led Candy inside the church which was as unremarkable on the inside as it had been on the outside. The pews were rows of cheap wooden chairs, the altar a table covered with a plain white cloth. There was no cross.<
br />
  “As you can see,” Bill Quackenbush went on, leading his dreaming daughter down toward the altar, “we don’t go in for anything fancy here. The message is what’s important.”

  “And what is the message, Dad?”

  “Don’t call me that anymore. There’s nothing between us.”

  “Like love, you mean? Because I don’t think you’ve felt that for any of us. Maybe Mom once, before you had us to hit—”

  “Enough,” he said, his voice thick with old rage.

  They were just a few yards from the altar now, and Candy saw six or seven other people in the darkened corner of the church. Her father had seen them too. That, she thought, was why he wanted to end their conversation.

  “I’ve no interest in going over old errors, old sins.”

  “Whose errors, Dad? Whose sins?”

  She went on, pressing her father in the hope of getting him to really show his temper. Maybe some of the members of his congregation would think twice about their smiling Reverend if they saw the real Bill Quackenbush. The one she knew. The one that was vicious and violent.

  Bill stepped in between the folks gathered in the corner, and very quietly said, “You’ve changed. I can feel the stench of your corruption, and it sickens me to my soul. I will do anything in my power to protect the good people who worship here from your perversions and abominations, the filth that you brought from that Other Place—”

  “The Abarat, Dad. You can say it.”

  “I won’t soil my tongue!”

  He wasn’t quiet any longer. His fury echoed off the plain whitewashed walls.

  “Listen to yourself, Dad!” Candy said.

  “Don’t call me—” He stopped himself, as his rant came to meet him from the far wall of the church. He stopped, and once again dropped his voice. “Clever little witch, aren’t you? You still know how to anger me. But I’m not falling for it.” He took a deep breath. “If you defy me one more time I will make your mother suffer. Do you understand me? Look at me, girl, when I’m talking to you. I want you to know who I really am.”

  “The enemy,” Candy said.