Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1)

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  She’s arrived?

  Something registered in Sarah’s mind. Something not right. Angela’s mum walked out into the hall. “Hello, Sarah. Remember me? Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Ice cream?” She seemed nervous.

  “Sarah,” whispered Harry.

  “I know,” Sarah replied. Something is very, very wrong.

  “Come in, come into the living room.”

  “Actually, we have to go.”

  “So soon? You can’t.” Angela was just behind them, blocking the way.

  “Sarah, is that you?” Lorna had appeared on top of the stairs. Her unseeing eyes were looking straight ahead. She was holding on to the banister.

  “Lorna? Yes, it’s me, Sarah Midnight.”

  “Sarah, you need to go … you need to run.”

  “Lorna!” Angela scolded her. “Ignore her. Come and sit down.”

  “Sarah, run! Listen to me, run!”

  “Lorna!” Angela ran up the stairs and pushed her sister away. They disappeared from view. Sarah could hear their urgent voices, whispering.

  “We really need to go now,” intervened Harry, taking Sarah by her arm.

  “I’m so sorry, but you really can’t.” Angela’s mum was nearly pleading.“We were going to lose everything. With my husband gone, and Lorna like this, we needed the money desperately.”

  “She’s here,” they heard Angela saying from upstairs, and caught a glimpse of her on the landing, talking on a mobile phone.

  “Who was that, Angela?” asked Harry calmly.

  “Someone called Katy. They said that sooner or later Sarah would turn up here. All we had to do was get her in the house.” Angela’s eyes were wide. “They paid all our debts … I’m so sorry …”

  “They’re going to kill her! How could you!” shrieked Lorna, appearing behind her.

  “Katy? Katy McHarg?” pressed Harry.

  Sarah swallowed.

  “Yes. Katy McHarg. Of course they’re not going to kill Sarah! They just need to get the stuff back, the stuff her parents stole! And then they’ll let you go,” she added, looking at Sarah pleadingly. She was desperately trying to hold on to the lies she’d been told, but it was beginning to dawn on her that there was more.

  “My parents didn’t steal anything, Angela. Katy lied to you. Lorna is right. They want to kill me.”

  Angela’s mum started shaking her head. “Oh my God, what have we done? It can’t be!”

  “I saw the thing that came with Katy … the way I see things before they happen. That horrible thing, it’s up on the hill! I knew they were lying. I knew they were dangerous, I told you!” Lorna was distraught.

  “I’ve heard enough.” Harry ran to the top of the stairs, and before she could slip away, he touched Angela between her eyes. She fell down the stairs, and lay in a heap at the bottom. Lorna screamed.

  “What have you done to her?” shouted Angela’s mum, crouching beside her daughter.

  “She’s just asleep. And so are you,” he said, running down the stairs and touching the woman between her eyes. Angela and her mum lay one on top of the other on the stone floor.

  “And be thankful I have no time to teach you a lesson,” Harry added, and Sarah shivered. She knew he meant it.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing?” Lorna had come down the stairs, slowly, her eyes wide with fear.

  “It’s OK, Lorna. I sent them to sleep. They’ll wake up in a few hours. Now lock yourself in, do you hear me? Don’t let anyone in. Especially Katy McHarg. We need to go.”

  “It’s on the hill, Sarah, don’t go there!” they heard Lorna shouting as they were running out, her desperate voice trailing away in the distance.

  “Those cows!” whispered Sarah.

  “I knew it was the Valaya!”

  “I had to help Angela.”

  “You have to toughen up, that’s what you need to do. No more stunts like this. No more helping people who come in dreams, do you understand?”

  “Let’s go.” Sarah walked on, her cheeks scarlet. I’d do it again.

  They barely had time to take a step towards the hill before the demon answered Katy’s call. A hand came out of the heather right in front of them, then another one. Then a head.

  Sarah started shaking. She flexed her hands.

  “Harry …”

  “I’m here. I’m here.” Harry’s sgian-dubh was ready.

  I’ll never get used to all this. How did my parents do it for so long? How did they not lose their minds?

  Sarah saw that the demon had no irises; its eyes were completely white. It was blind, like Lorna. The demon lifted itself out, faltering, then it found its balance.

  “Who are you?” asked Sarah.

  “What are you doing?” Harry was shocked. She was talking to that creature!

  The demon was shocked too. It wasn’t expecting to be spoken to.

  “Katy … Soil,” it said with a rasping voice. It can speak! thought Harry. It must be something between a Feral and a Sentient … some sort of missing link.

  “You’re Katy’s demon, and you come from the soil,” repeated Sarah.

  The demon raised his head and sniffed the air. “Yes.”

  “She asked you to kill me.”

  “Bring Midnight.”

  “Not kill?”

  That was too much elaborating for the soil demon. It jumped towards her, and she thought she could easily avoid it, as it was blind, but it predicted her move somehow, and jumped on her. They fell on the heather, and Sarah’s breath was knocked out of her in the fall.

  “Back soil,” the creature rasped. Harry was already on it, the sgian-dubh in his hand, ready to start tracing the runes that would stop the demon in its tracks.

  “Wait! Harry, wait!” Sarah screamed. “Back soil. You need to go back to the soil. You don’t need to do this.” Sarah was trying desperately to avoid killing, this time.

  “Sarah, for God’s sake!” shouted Harry, and the spell he was weaving was broken. The demon froze. For a second.

  And then it was too late. It had its teeth into Sarah, and she wailed in pain. Harry threw himself on the demon, stabbing it time and time again, all over its back. But that didn’t seem to stop it. It freed itself, shaking Harry away.

  Harry fell on his back, and Sarah lay on the ground, holding her mangled arm. The demon had taken a whole chunk off her shoulder, and her jacket was drenched in blood.

  With a huge effort Harry gathered the threads of his concentration, and started tracing his secret symbols again, whispering to himself. The soil demon faltered, but didn’t fall; it charged Sarah again. She whimpered and put up her bloodied hands, feeling them warming up. The demon went to bite her again.

  “No!” she screamed, and grabbed its face. The demon sank its fangs into her hand, but at the contact with Sarah’s hand its skin started weeping. Just one more instant with its mouth against Sarah’s hand, and the demon would turn into water. Sarah tried to stay still, with the creature’s teeth tearing into her flesh … a second more, just a second more … but the pain was more than she could bear. She bit her lip not to cry out, arching her body in agony.

  Harry couldn’t take it any more; he couldn’t stand to see her suffer. He closed his eyes and his movements became sharper, angrier. The soil demon howled and let go of Sarah, who curled herself up, holding her hand and trembling in pain.

  Harry’s sgian-dubh had a life of its own, and his whispers had become words, secret words that Sarah had never heard before. The demon shuddered and a red stain appeared on his chest – a bleeding wound. But it stayed on its feet, and in a monstrous effort, it threw itself on Harry, grabbing him by the shoulders. The sgian-dubh fell on the grass. Harry and the soil demon were locked together, and the demon started sinking into the earth, trying to drag Harry underground.

  But Sarah had got up, and she was upon them. Seeing Harry sinking underground filled her with blind terror. She screamed with all her might. Harry’s legs were now completely out of sigh
t, and he was trying to hold on to the grass. His face was nearly as white as the creature’s. Sarah grabbed the soil demon by its hair. She felt the blackwater invade her, move from her head to her chest and her arms, and down into her hands. The demon’s skin started weeping again.

  The demon howled in pain, and let go of Harry. Summoning all its strength, the demon propelled itself underground, disappearing from view.

  “Harry!” Sarah took him by the arm with her one good hand, desperately pulling him out.

  “It’s gone. The bloody thing has gone!” Harry was panting and covered in mud.

  “It’s somewhere beneath us. It’ll be back …”

  “We need to call it back. We need to destroy it.”

  “But how?”

  At that moment a thud resounded from the farm. The door opened violently, so violently that it was taken from its hinges. It all happened in an instant: the soil demon appeared, framed in the doorstep. It was dragging something behind it – a body. A red-haired girl.

  Angela, still unconscious.

  “No,” whispered Sarah.

  As soon as the demon stood on soil it started sinking into the earth, carrying Angela with it. It had all been so quick, so quiet, that Harry and Sarah couldn’t move, couldn’t scream.

  Angela’s hands lingered on the surface for a few seconds. Sarah shook herself and ran to her, desperately reaching towards Angela’s hands. She managed to hold on to Angela’s fingers for an instant, before they disappeared too. Sarah started digging the ground with her bare hands, sobbing and calling Angela’s name. Harry pulled her back, and held her tight.

  “Sarah. Sarah. Look at me.”

  “Angela! Angela!”

  “Sarah! Listen!” Harry took her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. “It’s coming back. Do you understand? It’s coming back for us. We need to be ready.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Stand up. Come on.”

  They stood up, holding on to each other. Sarah’s wounded shoulder and hand were bleeding profusely. She was shaking in shock and pain.

  “It’s coming. Can you feel it?” whispered Harry. The ground beneath their feet had started to vibrate.

  “Yes. I’m ready.” Sarah raised her hands.

  And then it was on them. The demon’s hands sprouted from the soil, clawing, trying to grab their ankles.

  “Take his hands, I’ll hold you!” Harry wrapped his arms around Sarah’s waist, so that if the demon tried it would have both of them to contend with. Sarah held on to those cold, white fingers. A low growl resounded from under the earth, dimmed by the soil. The demon’s skin started weeping.

  A mop of black hair appeared, and two blind, staring eyes. The demon tried to pull itself out, but Sarah was clutching its hands, hurting it, burning it. Another growl, and Sarah answered with a yell that was rage itself, crouching over the demon’s hands like a lioness devouring her prey. In a few seconds, all that was left of the creature was a patch of black and red grass.

  Sarah didn’t utter a word throughout the journey back. She was still and silent. Harry cleaned her wounds and dressed them. He helped her wash and change, and gave her some sugary tea for the shock. He held her, he spoke to her, he stroked her hair. Nothing. She wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t speak.

  Then, suddenly, she got up from the sofa where Harry had settled her, and walked upstairs to her parents’ room.

  Without warning, without a word, she started wrecking the place with a fury Harry had never seen in anyone but himself. Shadow was looking on, terrified, but too loyal to leave. Harry felt that it would have been wrong, very wrong, to stop her. He stood by, making sure she wouldn’t hurt herself.

  Sarah threw everything on the floor, all the perfume bottles on her mother’s dressing table, all their photographs. She broke everything she could break; she opened the wardrobes and pulled everything out; she took the pictures from the walls and threw them out of the window. She grabbed a chair and threw it against her mother’s mirror, smashing it into a thousand little pieces.

  Next, Sarah ran down into the kitchen. Her dream diary, her book of fear, was still on the table. Black, huge, thick with nightmares.

  I hate it.

  She grabbed it and took it to the living room. She lit the fire, quickly, efficiently, and kneeled in front of the flames. She started ripping the pages of the diary and thrust them into the fire one by one, with Harry looking on, distraught, but still and silent. He could see fresh, red blood seeping from the bandage on Sarah’s hand.

  Soon all that was left of the diary was the leather cover with her name in silver letters. The dream diary her parents had given her, that they used like some sort of sick manual, the recording of four years of terror, was gone.

  Her parents knew they were in danger – they’d always been in danger, but those last few months, especially so. Still, they hadn’t taught her anything that would help her survive. They’d been too busy hunting to tell her what was going on, to prepare her for what was coming. Did they not think that they had to teach her, to show her, to make her strong? Did they not care?

  Burying a magical diary in the garden. Too little, too late. Anne could have given Sarah the only thing she needed instead – her time. They never had any time for her. Except when she’d had a dream, and they needed to know what she’d seen. They never saw her, they never looked. Anne had said that the spells were too dangerous, that she wasn’t ready to learn – and put her in even more danger by not teaching her.

  Sarah sighed, suddenly exhausted. The flames had consumed the diary. All that was left was a mound of ash in the fireplace; the leather cover had become an empty shell.

  She stood up, pale as the moon.

  She was free.

  She grabbed the empty cover, and walked out of the house.

  “Sarah.” Harry followed her. She seemed calm, but he didn’t think it was the time to leave her alone. They walked down the hill to Cross Street and past the railway bridge.

  “Where are we going?” whispered Harry. Sarah didn’t reply, but walked on under the iron arch and into the small park. Suddenly Harry realized what she was going to do. He followed her along the path, onto the grass, and down the slope that led to the river. He watched her throwing the leather cover into the water, with all her strength, so that it wouldn’t get stuck among the reeds. It made an arc across the air, and fell in the river with hardly a splash, hardly a ripple.

  Sarah stood very close to Harry, and took his hand, without looking at him, without speaking. He held her hand tight, and they watched what was left of the diary float away in the dark waters.

  Much later on, Sarah decided that Harry’s chest was the only place to be, and let him hold her through the night, until dawn broke. He lay still, afraid of even breathing, in case it all got too much for him. He followed her profile with his eyes, wishing that eyes could touch – her lovely face, the curve of her breasts, her hips, the gentle landscape of her body. He held her wounded hand against his chest.

  I’m not your cousin. I’m not a Midnight. I’m not one of your cursed family.

  “I’m a man who’s barely older than you. And I’m in love with you,” he whispered when he was sure she was asleep.

  Only Shadow, the keeper of their secrets, heard him.

  Sarah woke up exhausted, but feeling like a weight had been taken off her chest. She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Harry’s shoulder. She was wrapped around him, curled up against him – their limbs entwined as if belonging to one body, her hair all over him like seaweed on a rock.

  She had to get up, she knew that, but one moment, just one more moment against him.

  “Three to go,” she said quietly, quietly in his ear. He woke up with her warm breath on his neck, and trembled, rigid with the effort to lie still and not turn around and hold her in his arms. A few seconds of torture, a few seconds of inhaling her just-awake scent and feeling her soft hair on his arm, and she was gone.

  26

&
nbsp; In My Blood

  If I could turn to fire

  I know what would burn first

  Sarah freed herself from Harry’s arms, gently, believing that he was still asleep, and tiptoed to the window.

  She opened it quietly and let the air in. She stood there, inhaling deeply, her eyes closed. Her chest wasn’t tight any more; she couldn’t feel that terrible weight over her lungs that stopped them from filling with air. She didn’t have to try desperately to breathe, so that she’d end up hyperventilating, her heart racing, sure that this time she’d suffocate.

  She felt awful about having destroyed her parents’ room, and even worse about having burned her dream diary – but now she could finally breathe. The anger that had weighed on her since her parents had died – no, the anger that had weighed on her for years; that burning, bitter, secret anger that she’d felt every single time they’d left her alone – had gone.

  Harry followed her with his gaze as she got up – the grace and beauty of her body like a stab through the heart.

  “Morning,” he whispered.

  Sarah was suddenly aware of how raw, how intimate a moment that was, and crossed her arms. She wanted to get dressed. She wanted him out of her bed. She wasn’t ready.

  “I’ll make you a cup of coffee.” She grabbed her jumper and wrapped it around her.

  “Thank you. How’s your shoulder? And your hand?”

  “Bloody sore.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s how it goes, Harry. I won’t be a minute.” She went for the door, then turned around.“I have something to do this morning.”

  “Please, don’t start cleaning, Sarah. I can’t stand to see you like that.”

  “No, I won’t. I mean, I’m going to have to clean up the mess in my parents’ room, sooner or later. But it’s not what I need to do now.”

  “I’ll sort your parents’ room for you.”

  Sarah thought about it for a minute.

  “Thank you.”

  Sarah made some coffee, went down to the basement, and closed the door behind her. She stood in front of her mothers’ things and surveyed them, a determined expression on her face. She was going to study Anne’s diary, and work out for herself everything her mother hadn’t told her, or written down.