The Book of Storms

by Ruth Hatfield

  At first he couldn’t see anything in the blackness, but as his eyes adjusted he made out a small bench and a tiny shelf. On the shelf was a single hardback book.

  “Anyone in there?” Tom stuck his head inside. In the few seconds it took for his eyes to widen and start picking up the thin light, Danny had taken a step toward the shelf and was reaching out for the book.

  “What’s that?” asked Tom.

  Danny stopped his hand. He didn’t want to share the Book of Storms with Tom. Tom would laugh at it, tell him it was just a silly old book, and then he’d make Danny go home. But what choice did he have?

  “No parents here,” said Tom, as if he’d known there wouldn’t be. “No parents, just a book. Is this some kind of treasure hunt? Is that what you’ve dragged me all the way out here for?”

  The book wasn’t big. No gold lettering, no leather binding. Just a flat black shape in the darkness, full of some kind of promise.

  Tom tried to reach over his shoulder and take the book, but Danny grabbed it first. As soon as his hand closed around it, he knew he was right to keep his cousin away.

  For it didn’t feel like a book. The cover had the dry, papery texture of snakeskin, but it yielded slightly to the touch, as though still wrapped around a snake. Not quite firm, not quite dead. The secret that lay inside this book was breathing.

  Danny clutched it to his chest so that Tom wouldn’t get it. It was like holding a coiled python. Every nerve in his stomach knotted itself into a tiny ball.

  “Let’s have a look,” said Tom. His voice was harsh in the darkness.

  “No,” said Danny. “You mustn’t touch it. It’d … it’d hurt you.”

  He knew it could kill Tom. Or bind him to something far beyond understanding. But explaining either of those things was too complicated, and Tom wouldn’t believe him anyway.

  He pushed past Tom and took the book outside into the bright air. The golden light made him blink for a few moments; he held the book more tightly to his chest, afraid, for the most fleeting of seconds, of himself and this strange new power.

  Then he took a few steps away from the ponies, sat down against a tree, and rested the book on his knees.

  Tom came out of the bird blind. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Don’t try to take it,” said Danny. “Just don’t. You don’t believe me, but it’s Sammael’s book.”

  “But your folks aren’t here. Did you know they wouldn’t be?”

  Danny nodded. “I was looking for this.”

  “That book?”

  “The Book of Storms.” Abel Korsakof’s voice hissed out from Danny’s throat and stained the dusty air. He’d given up his soul for this small, dark book. What, inside it, could be worth giving up an entire soul for?

  “Can I look?” asked Tom. “If I don’t touch it?”

  Danny didn’t know. But there must be so many things that you just happened to see in your life. If you didn’t try to take them, could they really hurt you?

  He shrugged. Maybe at least it might mean that Tom believed him a bit more.

  Tom came to sit beside him, and Danny put his fingers once again on the snakeskin cover, then opened the book.

  The Book Of Storms

  By Danny O’Neill

  Danny stared. The print was old and uneven, and he’d never written a book in his life. He’d certainly never written this book.

  On the title page was an engraving of a low range of hills under a stormy black sky. Through the clouds a single bolt of lightning had been thrown; it forked toward the ground.

  As Danny looked at the picture, he saw in his mind’s eye exactly what that fork of lightning had struck. The hills were those that rose up behind his own town. His house lay just below the hill with the smooth, egg-shaped top, and the fork of lightning was the very same one that had struck the old sycamore tree in his garden. Which was, of course, impossible—this book was much older than that.

  He turned the page. There wasn’t a list of contents—the book launched straight in at the first page.

  The house is falling in.

  He read this and stopped his eyes. His heart began to quicken. Was this the proof that everything he’d been telling Tom was true?

  “Look!” he said, putting his finger by the words. “It’s the storm! It’s the storm they went away in, just like I told you!”

  Something crackled on his fingertip.

  “What are you on about?” said Tom. “It’s in some foreign language, isn’t it? All jumbled up—looks a bit like Polish. What’s the point of staring at it? You won’t understand a word it says.”

  The Book of Storms, thought Danny. Written by … himself? Was this a book that only he could read?

  Danny took his finger from the page as it grew uncomfortably warm, and read on.

  The house is falling and Danny is falling, knees and elbows crumpling onto the floor, and an earsplitting crash is tearing through the air—that’s surely the roof, breaking in two, about to come pelting down on top of him.

  He knew this bit. And it was all there: the meeting with Abel Korsakof, Aunt Kathleen’s axe, the big black dogs, the frenzied dash into the woods. He skimmed the book, faster and faster, galloping toward the river, pulling himself out, finding the worm, finding Tom, watching Mitz creep away behind his back, finding the bird blind.… He tried to skip forward a few more pages, but he couldn’t understand the words until he’d gone back to throw his eyes over the previous ones.

  “What are you on about?” said Tom. “It’s in some foreign language, isn’t it? All jumbled up—looks a bit like Polish. What’s the point of staring at it? You won’t understand a word it says.”

  The Book of Storms, thought Danny. Written by … himself? Was this a book that only he could read?

  Danny took his finger from the page as it grew uncomfortably warm, and read on.

  The page ended. So that was the whole story: Sammael had done something to a couple of people he’d called “idiots,” who had lived in the same house as Danny. He’d shown them “a little bit of what they were up against.” And what, exactly, that must have been, Danny didn’t want to imagine. Tell me how to get them back, he urged the book. Please tell me.

  He turned over the page, holding his breath. A cloud puffed up, covering his face in freezing mist and making his eyes sting. Tom didn’t seem to notice it at all.

  As the cloud cleared, he read,

  Don’t start asking questions. The Book of Storms exists to give answers to those who are prepared to pay for them. If you will not make your own bargain and pay, you must take what it chooses to give.

  This book was made from the first taro ever left by a storm: the first bolt of lightning that ever fell onto the steaming earth was captured in a single crumb of bark, from which the cover of this book was hammered out by Sammael, the Master of the Air.

  The process of leaving taros was devised by this first-ever storm, in order that after every storm, a token would be left on the earth, inside of which would remain the song used by storms as a gathering call. This, it was hoped, would prove a safeguard against any force or creature who managed to devise a method of supressing storms as they manifested themselves. Storms well know how devastating and unnecessary they are perceived to be, and they are aware of the measures they must take to protect themselves and their futures. Indeed, one might think of the taro as an imperishable seed from which a particular flower might always grow again, even should all the currently flowering examples be put to the sword and the bonfire.

  So whoever finds the taro, if he or she can unlock its song and hear its voice, can call up a storm. The taro binds itself to its finder and imbues that finder with the forces unique to storms. No storm can kill the finder, nor take from him or her that taro, which must, according to the laws of Nature, belong entirely to the finder, for the duration of his or her life.

  He was—what was the word?—imbued with the forces of storms? They were inside him, forever? For his entire life?
/>
  Danny saw his own hands steadily holding the book. He saw his legs dressed in the black school trousers, and his feet inside their leather shoes. Were those hands, those legs, those feet—were they wrapped around storms? It was impossible. But it was written in the book, wasn’t it? He, Danny O’Neill, was a storm.

  An angry, raging, violent storm. Inside him, until he died …

  But beware! To contain something does not give a creature the means by which to control it. No earthly creature can control a storm. A storm will do what it likes, once gathered.

  He had learned the song from the worm. So he could call up a storm, and it couldn’t kill him, but he couldn’t do anything with it. And he had no idea how to call up the particular one that his parents had gone after, anyway.

  Have more faith, wrote the book. There are always paths to travel. And it’s certainly true that bravery can be its own reward. There is a creature to whom the secrets of storms are partly known—the farthest-traveling bird of all, which spends its days and nights flying and sleeping on the high currents of the air: the swallow. A swallow will know where the weather has gone. A swallow will know what remains of it.

  The page stretched away, blank. Danny tried to turn more pages, but his fingers kept slipping before he could separate them.

  Ask a swallow. It was a sort of clue, he supposed. But not much of one.

  “All that,” said Tom, “for a book written in Polish.”

  Danny closed the Book of Storms and tried to think. It must have said very different things to Abel Korsakof, all about types of storms and how they gathered up, and how they worked. It must have said just enough to make him feel like he had something to work on, or that he was learning things that nobody had ever known before. There must have been something in there that had convinced him he’d gotten a good deal in return for his soul. But had he known that the book would change for Danny?

  Probably not. And if Abel had known the stuff about taros and swallows, the old man could just have told him, instead of making him come all this way.

  But perhaps he’d thought there was something special about the Book of Storms itself. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for Danny to take it with him. Better than leaving it to grow mold in that damp old bird blind, anyway. At least, having read the whole story, he knew now that Aunt Kathleen had only been following a dream and wasn’t really intent on killing him. And he knew what had happened to Mitz. The faint worry that had been nagging away since her disappearance began to drain out of his chest, leaving a tiny nut of needling betrayal in its place. Mitz had simply stopped trusting him. He’d saved her from the rabbit hole, and she’d turned against him and left.

  I didn’t do enough, he thought bitterly. I failed her. I couldn’t even look after a cat.

  This small truth provoked a surge of darkness inside him that spread through his blood like tar. It was Sammael’s fault, all this. Sammael had to be found and defeated, and crushed into a dust so fine, it would make the sand grains of life look like boulders.

  Danny put the book in his bag. “I know what happened to my parents,” he said to Tom. “Sammael made the storm take them, just because he was angry that they were trying to find out about storms. He didn’t want to kill them, just to show them that humans shouldn’t think they can control storms, because he thinks that only he should be able to do that. And I think I know how to get them back.”

  “What?” Tom got to his feet. He had to lean against the tree trunk; he didn’t seem able to put much weight on his right leg.

  “Yeah,” said Danny. “That’s it—we’ll call up a storm and see what happens.”

  He hadn’t meant to say it. But now, as it was said, his schoolbag felt warm. The Book of Storms was glowing with heat.

  “Where d’you reckon we’ll find some swallows round here?” he asked Tom.

  Tom looked at him for a long time. He seemed to be weighing up a great number of things in his head. Eventually he said, “Danny, we need to go home. I told Mum I’d get you back before supper, she’s already raging like a mad elephant and banging on about calling the police, and I’ve got an exam on Friday and you’ve missed school, and anyway, you look really tired. Don’t you want to go home and get something to eat? And some sleep?”

  He didn’t mention that he was starting to feel rushes of hot pain every time anything brushed against the wound on his thigh, or that his temples were squeezing tightly into his exhausted brain. But his patience was wearing out.

  Danny shook his head. “You go,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Because he would be fine now. The Book of Storms was more than a book: it was his book, like the stick had become his. It would protect him.

  Tom took a deep breath. “For God’s sake, Danny!” he said. “I can’t just leave you! You’re eleven! And you’re a wet-behind-the-ears idiot townie—you know jack-all about finding your way around. I can’t leave you, and I’ve had enough of running around chasing after stupid fairy stories. It’s a load of rubbish! Don’t you get it?”

  Danny couldn’t look at him anymore. Tom was the one who didn’t get it. Tom wouldn’t get it until it was too late. All Danny wanted was for Tom to see for just one second that he wasn’t making any of this up, but Tom was far too practical.

  “I won’t go home. Not now. I’ve nearly got them—I’m nearly there. I know what to do, and I’ll do it on my own if I have to. I don’t need you anymore.” He got to his feet, swung the schoolbag onto his back, and picked up Shimny’s reins, then looked at her back. It was as high as his head and he didn’t have a saddle anymore. He’d find a tree stump to get on from.

  * * *

  Tom watched his cousin lead the pony away. His leg was hot and sticky; a dark, wet patch still glistened over the dried stains on his torn jeans. His ribs ached, and the skin on his cheek was tight where a huge paw had reached up to rake its claws through his flesh.

  His eyes followed Danny’s slight body, still dressed in navy school sweater and black trousers, as it walked past a crooked hazel tree, the spindly branches hooking toward him. Danny stumbled over a loose clump of grass and put his hand out, grabbing at a plant to stop himself falling. It was a stinging nettle. He winced but didn’t stop to search for dock leaves, like Tom would have done.

  What had Danny seen in that book? Spooky old thing. Written in a foreign language, so who knew what it might say? Of course Danny had pored over it for ages, probably thinking that if he read enough of the words he’d find some that were a bit like English and be able to understand what the book was about. But Tom knew that Danny didn’t speak Polish, not a single word.

  Crazy cousin. Maybe he’d had some kind of accident, hit his head and lost his mind. Maybe something terrible had happened to his parents and he’d been involved. Whatever it was, it would become clear in time, no doubt. But meanwhile, it was probably best to look after Danny rather than lock him in his room and have him beating at the door trying to get out. Tom understood the need to roam free when things were wrong.

  If Tom didn’t go with him, Danny would be all alone. He’d trudge through the shadows, trailing the piebald pony behind him until she, too, refused to move her ancient bones one more step, and then he’d go on by himself. Danny didn’t know anything about the world, or how to survive outside at night with only the rustling trees and the bats for company. He’d end up eating deadly nightshade and sitting on giant hogweed, which would turn his skin into a sheet of itchy red blisters. He was a town boy, an indoors boy, and he was totally clueless about nature.

  Tom narrowed his eyes against the harsh late-afternoon sun.

  “One more hour,” he called. “You’ve got one more hour of this, and that’s all. There’re always swallows and swifts in old farm buildings. I know an old barn just outside this village. It’s the other way. And after that, we’re going home, whatever happens. That’s it. Okay?” He unlooped Apple’s reins, pulling her reluctantly round to face the opposite direction.

  Silently, Danny t
urned and followed him.

  CHAPTER 14

  INTO THE WOODS

  Nearly there, said Sammael to himself. Nearly ready.

  He hadn’t collected as many taros as he’d wanted to, but soon he’d know exactly how much power he could command with the number he had. The boy must surely be dead by now—the dogs would have torn him apart. And soon the rest of those dull-witted, ungrateful humans would follow him, down into their fiery graves.

  Sammael had told Kalia to go off hunting. Then he found his way to a mountainous desert, a place as far from watchful eyes as the earth could provide.

  He would allow himself six taros. Back in the room, he’d stored hundreds, but using six would give him a good idea of how huge a storm he could call up and command when he used all he had.

  It was time to practice.

  * * *

  The knot of ash wood hit the stony ground and rolled until it found a little hollow, where it came to rest. Up in the sky, the clouds hunched and began to crawl toward each other. One of them belched loudly, and a swift breath of wind swept down to the mountains below.

  It caught Sammael’s hair. Having hair that blew in the wind was one of the best things about having taken on a human shape. It made him feel surrounded by energy.

  For a second Sammael missed Kalia—he liked the way the wind gnawed at her curly gray coat. But she’d be too much in danger with what he was about to do. She was best back in England, racing through the fields flushing out rabbits, not dodging the wind around these bleak rocks.

  Sammael pulled another twisted lump of wood from his pocket. Most of the taros were pieces of wood; even storms, it seemed, had particular places where they preferred to store their messages. Which proved that even storms were creatures of habit.

  Habit. What a pathetic thing. Habit was just an excuse for not having any imagination. But they’d regret having made their taros so easy to find, when they saw how he could control them. And maybe once the humans saw his power, they’d start thinking twice about who was behind everything, pulling the strings.