Guilt. Yes, that’s what it was.
Nicholas’s eyes were asking her to forgive him.
For what? He saved my life!
Sarah woke up. For a few seconds she waited for Sean to come in and ask her if she was all right. He’d sit on her bed and take her hand, leading her out of sleep and into reality. Out of fear, into a world she could control.
She forgot the vision; she forgot the swirling quartz and the circle of grey stones. She thought of Sean’s hands holding hers, and burst into desolate tears.
48
Leaves
The world without you
The endless regret
The choice
“Harry … has gone to London for a few days. For work. To tie up loose ends or something. I don’t know for sure.” Sarah felt a bitter taste in her mouth. “No, there’s no need, he’ll be back soon … Thank you. Yes, I’ll come up for dinner. See you tomorrow, then.” She put the phone down.
I haven’t lost it. I can still lie through my teeth, like I’ve always done. Not that she enjoyed it – actually, she hated it. To tell Juliet that Harry was in London had been a walk in the park, compared to the stories she’d had to invent to justify her chaotic, strange life.
“Don’t lie about anything, ever, except for one thing: if it’s to defend our secret. In that case, lie to your family, lie to your friends, lie to anyone who’ll listen, and be convincing.” That was what her father had said to her when she was five, and she had never forgotten it. She had never betrayed him, even when she would have wanted so desperately to reveal the truth, to lighten her burden a bit.
She had never allowed herself to do that.
She felt a wave of misery wash over her, and swept the immaculate coffee table with her hand, brushing away invisible particles of dust. Her eyes fell on the framed photograph of her parents’ wedding. Anne was wearing a long white dress, and she had a bunch of heather in her hands, tied with a purple ribbon. She’d picked the heather herself, up on the moors, the day before the wedding. She’d said her bouquet smelled of Scotland.
You were so beautiful, Mum.
Sarah steeled herself. She had to keep Harry’s disappearance hidden, at all costs, whatever it took. She couldn’t leave the Midnight home. It would be like losing her parents all over again.
A week had gone by since the night Cathy had been killed, and with her, the Valaya. A week since she had lost Harry … Sean. Or whatever his name was. She missed him with an intensity that was almost physical, and it frightened her. She hated him for having killed her cousin, for having stolen his life – and still his absence was like a hole in her heart. The rip had been so sudden that she couldn’t make sense of it; she thought he’d come into the room any minute, that he’d phone her any minute.
Why can I not stop thinking about him, why can I not tear him out of my head?
She had dreamt of Harry nearly every night. And they hadn’t been visions, just dreams. Like normal people have. She had dreamt of a party in the Midnight house, on a warm summer night. The garden was dotted with paper lanterns, and there was a long table, full of lovely food and decorated with dozens of candles. Her parents were there, smiling, happy, and all their friends and family, the McKettricks, Bryony, Alice, Jack … And Leigh. They were laughing, eating, dancing. For once, their home was open to the world, not closed, hidden, isolated. Harry was standing beside her. He had turned around, suddenly, and kissed her bare shoulder. She’d laughed, surprised.
It had been a wonderful dream, so wonderful that when she’d woken up and she’d realized it wasn’t true, she had felt breathless with grief.
Her parents were dead, Harry wasn’t Harry after all, and Nicholas had disappeared. Again.
She sat at her window, contemplating the white light of the moon. She had wrapped herself in her woollen cardigan, and Shadow was asleep on her lap. She was holding the photo album with the silver cover, the one Aunt Juliet had given her. There were no photos in it, just dried leaves, some red, some brown, some yellow, carefully arranged, one in each transparent pocket.
I really am alone.
The garden was wrapped in shadows. She could barely make out his shape, as he came out of the trees and made his way among the bushes. But even before she could see him clearly against the white gravel of the path, she knew who it was that had come to see her.
Sarah ran down the stairs and opened the door with her heart in her throat.
“Nicholas!”
“Sarah. God, I missed you. I’m sorry it took so long. I had so much to sort out. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Come in,” she whispered, not trusting herself to say any more.
There was a man leaning against Sarah’s oak trees, invisible, still as the trees themselves. His hand was curled around a little red pouch he wore around his neck.
The man saw Nicholas walking up the path, and Sarah opening the door. He saw the black-haired boy walk in, into Sarah’s home, into her heart, and then the door closed. To the hidden man, it felt as if the door had closed on all that he’d ever loved and wanted.
49
Masters of the Sea
Hair is seaweed
Skin is scales
Eyes are sea-shells
Breath the waves
Lips of coral
Heart the tide
Grand Isle, Louisiana
Mike opened his eyes in the grey light of daybreak. The first thing he saw was a white face, with red-rimmed eyes and blue lips, leaning over him. It was the face of a drowned man. His pale hands had him by the shoulders, shaking him.
“Jesus!” Mike jumped up, putting his hands out to keep the creature away from him. “You’re dead. You’re dead! Stay away!”
With shaking hands he tried to reach for the gun he always kept in his belt.
“For God’s sake, Mike! Put that away!”
“Stay away from me.”
“It’s me. Niall. It’s me!”
“You are dead!”
“Do I look dead to you?”
White-bluish skin, blue lips, blue nails. “Yes, actually! Look at your hands! And your face!”
“Oh, yes. It won’t last. I’ll be back to normal in a few hours. Mike?”
But Mike couldn’t hear him, as he had passed out on the sand, unconscious, with his face in a tangled mass of seaweed.
Niall could smell the alcohol fumes coming out of his friend’s body. He was coming to, blinking and rubbing his face. In spite of the fear and danger, Niall was finding the whole situation quite amusing.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Mike as he saw him.
“You said that before.”
“You’re dead!”
“You said that too. No, I’m not dead. Well, I was. But I came back.”
“How … how …?”
“Remember when you asked me what my power was? And I said the singing? I have another one. All Flynns do. We can’t be killed by water.”
“So you’re alive?”
“As alive as you are.”
“You’re alive!” Mike threw his arms around Niall’s neck, and immediately retreated. “Yes, well. I was worried.” They both looked at the sand for a while.
“Have this.” Mike took the hipflask out of his pocket.
“Oh yes. I need it.” Niall took a greedy gulp.
“How was it?”
“The Bourbon? Oh, the best. You can’t beat it. Except for Irish whiskey, of course, but you can’t have everything.” Mike noticed that Niall’s voice sounded a bit gurgly, as if he still had water in his lungs.
“How did it feel to drown? To die?”
“Rotten. Still, it was my first time. My grandfather did it nine times, apparently.”
They sat in silence for a while, looking at dawn breaking over the sea, while Niall was gathering his strength and warming up.
“So what now?” Niall untangled some seaweed from his hair.
“We need to get to Sean.”
“They’ll see us. They�
�ll find us.”
“They think we’re dead.”
“They’ll soon realize we’re not.”
“We’ll be in Scotland by then. Come on.”
“To the airport?”
“To the port. I know someone who can get us into a freighter.”
“Cool! A few weeks at sea!” Niall’s face lit up.
“I could think of a few other words, to be honest.”
“Ah, it’ll be grand.” He smiled, emptying his pockets of clams and barnacles that had gathered in them.
On their way to New Orleans, Mike dropped the letter for Sean in a mailbox. In case they didn’t make it.
50
In Glass and Water
I’ll never forget
The black-haired girl and her peaceful eyes
Too soon for her to go
Castelmonte
Elodie
I couldn’t bear the wait any more. I was nearly relieved when they turned up at our door, all designer suits and sunglasses. The Turin Valaya had found us.
I let them in. I invited them to sit at my table.
Marina and Aiko had gone to a fiera, a fair, in a nearby village; Leandro was fishing. I was alone, thankfully. Better me than them. They had something left to live for.
Maybe this would be the time when I saw Harry again …
I shook myself. I couldn’t let myself think like that. I had to fight. For Aiko, for the heirs.
“Where is the Ayanami heir?” they asked me in heavily-accented French.
“I don’t know.”
They laughed. Two men, both young, both handsome in that Italian, arrogant way. As if they owned the world.
“You’re beautiful,” said one of them. “That puts me in a good mood.”
“Yes. Like we could take our time to get the truth out of you.”
He put something on the table. It was a little vial. No mess then, no demons, no blood. A drop of that down our throats and we’d be the walking dead, like my husband had been for days, weeks even. All they had to do was convince us that dying would be better than living, and if I thought of what I’d heard the Valaya did to their victims, I had no doubt we would agree with them very, very quickly.
Still, I felt nothing. I wasn’t afraid. I was getting ready.
Because seeing the future is not my only power; there’s something else that we Brun carry in our blood. Something a lot more dangerous – something that, unlike the visions, had come back to me. I knew because I’d been checking. I’d tried it out on little animals, squirrels, birds, whatever I could get my hands on. Cruel, but necessary.
It had returned.
I brushed my hair away from my face. I could see the two men watching in appreciation. I was wearing a pair of jeans that clung to my body, and a strappy top. I thanked my lucky stars for having chosen that attire.
“I’m sure we can find an agreement,” I said, getting up slowly, seductively, and walking over to where they sat.
The first man had jet-black hair and a million-dollar smile. He was looking at me like you’d look at something to devour. I put my hand on his shoulder and sat on his lap, my face close to his. I brushed his cheeks with my hands.
“You can have them. Just let me go.”
“You’re one of the heirs, Elodie. We can’t let you go,” said the other man, with shining eyes.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” I whispered.
“I’ll tell you what the deal is. You give them to us, and we take what we want anyway,” said the man I was sitting on, with an ugly, angry voice, pawing at my waist, at my breasts.
“I see I have no choice,” I purred in his ear.
“Exactly. You have no choice.”
“No. I don’t think you understand.” I took his face in my hands again, and pulled it to mine. My lips met his lips, and he kissed me greedily for a few seconds, fumbling under my top.
Until he started gasping.
How ironic that my husband had to die of poison, that they wanted to kill me with poison, when I’m poisonous myself. The man gasped for breath as I set him free, falling on the floor, his mouth open like a fish out of water, desperately trying to inhale. His skin was turning white, a bluish-white like you would see on someone who’d drowned.
All I needed now was a split second, an instant where the other man would be too surprised, too shocked to move. And I nearly had it. But not quite. His gun was out already, and he was ready to shoot me. It would be nearly at point-blank range, straight into my stomach. I imagined myself on the ground, covered in blood, like the swan. The prophecy was about to come true.
But right at that moment the door opened, and an abyss of despair opened with it: Aiko and Marina were framed in the door, still smiling, not having registered what was happening inside.
The man turned around and fired. There were screams, and bodies falling. All I knew was that I had to put my lips on his, and I did.
The two men from the Valaya were lying on the floor, asphyxiated.
And so was Marina, holding her heart. Aiko was crying, her little hands covered in blood, tears running down her cheeks.
There was nothing I could do. By the time I’d kneeled beside her, she was already dead. It was her, Marina, the dead swan lying in a pool blood – not me. If that had been a sign of what was meant to happen to me one day, the chain of events that was going to lead to that must have shifted somehow, an imperceptible change that led to an entirely different outcome.
Or maybe that was just an accident. My prediction would still come true. The time would come for me to be the bloodied swan.
“We all have to choose a side,” Leandro had said. Nobody is safe, nobody can hide. I left Aiko with him, in a tiny wooden hut in a secluded valley. That would work until winter closed in. Two months, and then the snowfalls and the cold would make the hut uninhabitable. Two months, and they would have to find another way.
But I knew that I couldn’t be there any more. I had to follow the trail Harry had left, and destroy the Enemy.
But I couldn’t do it on my own. And there was only one person I could trust with my life.
Sean Hannay.
51
Soul
Forgive me
Sean
Thoughts of her torture me every moment. I miss every second of every day. I can’t lose her, I just can’t.
She’s not safe. That Nicholas Donal makes my skin crawl. I trust him as much as I’d trust those bloodthirsty ravens of his. I would ask Mike and Niall if they know anything about the Donal family, but I haven’t heard from them in a while now. No signal. Their phone is down, they’re impossible to contact. I fear the worst, that they’ve been found and killed – by the Surari by the Sabha, take your pick.
Nicholas has revealed to Sarah the existence of the other Secret Families, the existence of the Sabha. He has put her in the greatest danger. Does he not know that the Sabha have been infiltrated? Does he not know that we can’t trust anyone? Or is he one of them?
I should have told Sarah everything. I made the same mistake as her parents – I kept her in the dark, thinking the time would come to tell her.
I watch her night and day. I look at her sitting at the window, brushing her hair. Oh, I remember the smell of her hair! I watch her going to school, and coming home. I’m so close to her at times that I could touch her – and she has no idea I’m there.
Tonight, I saw Nicholas walking up the path. I saw her face when she opened the door, her joy at seeing him. It was like being set on fire.
I have to find a way to get back into her life.
And I can only think of one way: telling her the truth.
Epilogue
I was beyond
I am Persephone
Elodie
I wasn’t surprised when the vision formed in the aeroplane window. When I left Castelmonte I felt something in me unknotting, unfolding, flowing again – as if my power was a river, and a boulder had been blocking its flow. The rage over Mari
na’s death, the sense of liberation that filled me when I got out of hiding and joined the battle again, had pulverized the boulder and left dust in its place.
I saw Sean, and a black-haired girl I recognized as Sarah Midnight. I saw her on her knees; someone was standing over her. I saw her soul leaving her, a little white light floating above her head in a crazy rhythm, upset and lost and confused, unsure of where to go. Sarah fell on the ground as her soul left her, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. The vision dissolved, and the reflection of my pale, haunted face replaced it.
My heart started racing, and bitter tears filled my eyes. My visions always come true. Everything I see in glass or water comes true.
And I’ve seen the death of Sarah Midnight.
Copyright
First published 2012
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL
www.blackandwhitepublishing.com
This electronic edition published in 2012
ISBN: 978 1 84502 433 8 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 84502 434 5 in Mobipocket format
ISBN: 978 1 84502 370 6 in paperback format
Copyright © Daniela Sacerdoti 2012
The right of Daniela Sacerdoti to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Ltd, Suffolk
Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) Page 30
