“Are you there?” he asked, keeping the voice in his head very small, just to make doubly and triply sure that there was no chance whatsoever of the sea hearing him.
“Yes,” came the reply in the dog’s warm voice.
Danny relaxed once he’d heard it. “You saved my life.”
“Yes, of course I did. I saw that you were drowning. I swam out to you, so that I could guide you back to shore.”
A huge lump rose in Danny’s throat, trying to force tears from his eyes. He managed to swallow before it overwhelmed him.
“Thanks,” he said. It seemed a very small thing to say.
“Don’t mention it,” said the dog. “I was looking for something to do, anyway. But how is it that you can talk so clearly to me? It is as though you have learned the language of dogs.”
She had a voice that shone with sunlight. It made her sound as though she were always smiling.
Danny peered at her. A huge, curly-coated golden dog with a pleased face and deep eyes, she was sprawled on the floor, her chin on her paws. Her coat was matted with salt. Perhaps she was some kind of search-and-rescue dog.
He hesitated. Could he trust her with the truth?
“I’ll tell you,” said Danny. “But tell me first—who are you? I mean, who owns you?”
“Tsk, tsk,” said the dog. “You humans! I am Ori, and I own myself.”
“You’re a stray?”
The dog tilted her head. “Call it that if you like. I had an owner once, but life moves on.”
Ori seemed so casual. Cold, almost. But if she hadn’t helped him, he wouldn’t be lying in this little room with the smell of frying dancing up from the kitchen below. He’d be dead.
With a touch of shame at having doubted her, Danny told Ori about the taro.
“I found it under a tree,” he said. “A sycamore tree. When I hold it, I can talk to anything.”
He didn’t mention all the other stuff that had happened. Judging from Paul’s reaction, that wasn’t a good way to make friends.
“But if you can talk to everything,” Ori said, “then why didn’t you ask the sea itself to help you?”
“I did,” said Danny. “The sea wasn’t keen.”
The second he let himself think about the sea, it all came back to him.
The body under the waves.
So familiar.
Those bubbles—he saw them now, floating toward him through the dark gray sea, pouring into his mouth. Ori might have pulled him back to shore, but the body had saved his life before that, by breathing oxygen into him.
It was impossible.
Perhaps he’d imagined it. Yes, that had to be right. It was impossible, and he’d imagined it.
Danny stared down the side of the blue-sheeted bed toward Ori on the varnished floorboards and knew he hadn’t imagined it. Plenty of things were impossible. Until they happened.
“Did you see anyone else in the sea?” he asked the dog.
She stared at him. “There was someone with you? But I saw only you, in the boat. I saw you jump in when the other boys chased you. You were alone, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Danny tried nodding, but it made his head swim. “Yeah, there was only me. But I saw—”
He pulled himself up short. The strange stuff again. Would Ori react just like Paul, and laugh at him?
But as he looked at her warm eyes and soft face, he knew he could trust her.
“I saw a body,” he said. He didn’t add the part about it breathing. It sounded too silly.
“A dead body?”
“Well … yeah. I suppose so.”
“How sad. Probably a drowned sailor. He’ll be washed ashore at the next high tide, somewhere along the coast.”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “Not a sailor. I knew him.”
“You knew him?” Ori spoke sharply, scrambling to her feet. “Then you weren’t alone? I must go back and swim out again. Perhaps it’s not too late.”
“It is too late,” said Danny, and an overwhelming pain rose up in his chest, squeezing hard at his lungs. “I told you, he’s dead.”
Ori came forward so that her head was within his reach, and for a long moment, he clutched at the fur behind her ears, digging his hands into it for comfort.
A cloud of pictures came back to him. Last summer. Isbjin al-Orr, the stag. A girl called Cath Carrera and a hare called Barshin. Riding into the sea, into Chromos, into a wild, wild adventure trying to save someone—to save someone’s life.…
The memories coursed through his blood, as sharp as hot spice, and his skin tingled.
He clutched at the dog’s fur in a spasm that sent his fingernails digging so deeply into his palms that one drew a tiny speck of blood, and as he unbent his fingers and saw the red spot on the dog’s golden coat, he saw what had been missing from his memory.
Red and gold.
Flames.
There had been a fire, and someone had died. No, not just someone. He knew now. The person who had died had been his cousin Tom.
And the fire had been started by—
Sammael.
Sammael, who belonged to the darkness. He hated Danny, and he had killed Tom to hurt him.
Now Tom was dead, and Danny—
Danny closed his eyes. Why hadn’t his parents talked to him about Tom? They had kept a horrible conspiracy of silence and let him forget. He shouldn’t have been allowed to forget, not ever.
“I know who it was,” he said at last to Ori. “And it’s much too late.”
He told her all about the journey in the summer, and Tom’s death, and Sammael.
“But Sammael’s still around somewhere,” he said. “I just took his boots off him so he couldn’t go into Chromos. He used to take dead people’s souls through Chromos so they picked up the colors, then he’d put the souls into living people’s heads, so they did awful things. I stopped him from doing that, but he’s still alive somewhere. Probably making new boots. And Tom—”
“Is dead,” said Ori gently, and Danny realized he’d said it about fifty times as he’d explained. And no matter how many times he said it, he couldn’t budge the awful solidness of its truth.
“Knock, knock,” said a voice, and the door opened. Danny’s mum came in with a tray.
Danny stared at her as she smiled and put the tray on the bedside table. It had something that smelled warm and milky on it, but he didn’t bother to look at what.
“How are you feeling, love?” She put her hand on his forehead for a moment, then brushed it back through his hair. “You gave us all such a fright.”
He couldn’t find breath enough to speak; a flood of fear and relief and anger swept over him as violently as the raging sea, and he took a deep gulp of air, fighting off tears.
His mum gave him a kiss and looked at the golden dog.
“Where did you come from, eh?” she asked in a voice that was full of wonder.
“Do you know?” Danny croaked. “Does she belong to someone?”
His mum shook her head. “She escaped from the rescue center in town. They found her a couple of days ago, wandering along the main road. That’s all they know about her. We’ll take her back tomorrow.”
“No,” said Danny. He looked at Ori, waiting patiently with her salt-crusted fur, her friendly face. “She saved my life. I want to keep her.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said his mum. She picked up the bowl of food, about to offer it to Danny, but his arm jerked wildly toward it, pushing it away.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Tom?” he burst out, struggling to sit up in the narrow bed.
His mum frowned. “Sorry?”
“You didn’t tell me that Tom died! Why didn’t you tell me? You let me forget!”
“Tom? Who’s Tom?”
He couldn’t believe it. Was she still trying to pretend?
“Tom!” Danny tried to keep his cool. “I’ve remembered about him. But none of you told me. You knew he was dead, and you’ve let me go on all this tim
e thinking that he didn’t even exist. Not even thinking! Just not knowing! It’s horrible! Weren’t you even sad? Isn’t Aunt Kathleen even sad?”
His mum put her hand on his forehead, and he knew from the coolness of it that he was burning hot.
“Danny, love, you’re not making sense. There’s no one called Tom here.”
“No, I know! Not here! At the farm!”
“No one at the farm, either. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Tom! My cousin!”
His mum shook her head. “You don’t have a cousin called Tom. Only one called Sophie. But you nearly drowned, love. Everything’s mixed up in your head. Why don’t you eat and then sleep till morning, and it’ll all be clearer then. Tom’s probably one of your friends. You just need some sleep.”
Danny opened his mouth to protest, and a jet of salt spurted from his stomach into his mouth. It splashed out onto the pale-blue sheet, and he stared at it for a moment, astonished at how swiftly it had appeared, and then it was followed by a cascade of water flowing from his mouth as smoothly as a spring from the spout of a gargoyle.
“Oh, love,” said his mum. “Let’s get you some dry sheets.”
He stood shivering while she changed them, the floorboards cold under his feet.
“Back into bed with you,” she said.
He fell back onto the soft pillows and down into a deep sleep.
They denied Tom again in the morning. No matter how much Danny insisted, neither his mum nor his dad would admit that Tom had ever existed. When he said he was going to call Aunt Kathleen, they took the phone away and told him not to be silly.
They wanted to talk about Paul. Not to the extent of doing anything about him, of course. They wanted to help Danny “deal with things.” By himself.
You’re finding growing up very hard, they said. We know you are. You and Paul used to be such good friends. But you don’t have any friends now, do you? You only want to spend time on your own. It’s not normal. You have to join in, talk to people. You’re at a difficult age. A confusing age. Everything changes. But you can’t just give up.
He stared at them. How was it that a year ago they’d all known each other so well? He and his parents had liked each other, been happy together. And now they didn’t seem to know who he was at all. And he couldn’t imagine what was going on in their heads for them to say such stupid things.
He didn’t bother to repeat how Paul was making his life hell, and the only reason for it was that Paul was a nasty kid who enjoyed picking on others. He didn’t even bother to protest when they suggested he join the Saturday soccer club at school, so that he could do “something fun” with the other kids. They had obviously entirely forgotten how much he’d always hated PE.
He gave up trying to make sense of it all as they packed up at the end of the holiday and went home. But he clung to one thing, and he wasn’t letting it go.
Ori was coming with him.
CHAPTER 3
HOLES
Danny kicked his boots through the scurf of yellow leaves as he trudged toward school. Monday morning. Back for the half term until Christmas. Back for weeks and weeks of sitting in classrooms staring out of the window at the gray sky and trying not to react to the pellets of paper flung at the back of his head. He supposed he should fight. If he let Paul beat him up, perhaps that would end it. Perhaps he’d be left alone.
But it would hurt, a lot.
“You look miserable,” said Ori, trotting freely through the leaves, her golden coat pale under the brilliant blue sky. “In fact, scratch that. You are miserable. Is it really just this boy Paul? I could come into school with you, you know. I could bite him for you. I’m not a naturally aggressive dog. He’d never see me coming.”
“Thanks,” said Danny. “But it’d cause all sorts of trouble. And you’d get taken away and probably put down, or something. It’s all just impossible.”
He stopped by the first plane tree of the line that led down to the school gates and leaned against it, tucking himself in to avoid the stream of other school-bound children.
“Not impossible,” said Ori gently. “I’ll be here when you finish school. I’ll wait for you. We can go somewhere fun.”
“It’s not just Paul.” Danny shook his head to free himself from the knowledge of what waited inside the school gates. “It’s all that other stuff too.”
“Tom?”
“Yes! Of course Tom! I mean—”
He turned and ground his fist angrily into the rough bark of the tree. “I mean, how can everyone—everything—just be going on, all normally? Tom’s vanished, and everybody’s pretending he never even existed! I can’t—”
He broke off, because he’d been about to say “I can’t bear it,” and it seemed like an artificial thing to claim—he could bear it, of course; the knowledge was sitting on his shoulders as though an elephant had draped itself around his neck. If he just moved his feet, he would carry the elephant into school, all through the day, and out of the other side into the evening. He would go through the motions of life, and he would bear it.
But the knowledge of Tom made him want to throw back his head and howl. His ears buzzed. Every step he took closer to school, the feeling grew stronger and stronger, and he knew that if he did sit all day in his classrooms, being good and trying to listen, all he would hear would be the buzzing, and he would have the desperate urge to howl. At some point he might actually start howling. And Paul would never let him live that down.
“What are you going to do?” asked Ori.
Danny shrugged.
“Well, are you going to school, or not?”
Danny shook his head. Her question freed him, somehow. He wasn’t going to school. “I’ve got to ask her.”
“Who?”
“My aunt Kathleen. Tom’s mum. She must remember him. At least if I hear someone else talking about him, I’ll know I’m not going mad.”
“You’re not going mad,” said Ori. “It sounded very clear to me.”
“Someone’s mad here, for sure,” said Danny. “And I’m not going to find out anything by sitting in school.”
“Of course not,” agreed Ori. “It looks like a bleak place. Although with an interesting scent.”
“Yeah. The smell of boredom and stupidity,” said Danny, kicking at the leaves again. Not caring at all if anyone saw him, he began to walk in the opposite direction, against the tide of navy sweaters and black trousers.
“Come on,” he called to Ori inside his head. “I’m going to the farm. Right now.”
And he hardly saw the faces of the others who were walking toward school as they turned to look at him, wondering why on earth he was going the wrong way.
He used his lunch money to pay for the bus, which dropped him down in the nearest village. The road up to Sopper’s Edge was narrow and rough, and the wind always seemed to pick up halfway along it, so that by the time Danny reached the driveway to the farm, his face was chafed and blue, and his hands a blotchy red.
He jogged up the drive to try to get warm again, and every step brought upon him a more and more curious feeling—that this was a place he knew better than any except his own home—he even remembered the exact configuration of potholes, and the slalom a car had to swerve through to avoid them. He knew the names of all the fields along the drive, and the places where the cocksfoot and Yorkshire mist grew tall in the spring. But it was Tom who had given him all this knowledge, and Tom had disappeared. There was a hole in Danny’s memory as wide as the farm itself.
Aunt Kathleen was dragging a wooden hurdle across the yard, her grimy overalls smeared with bright green lichen. She stopped when she saw Danny, then heaved the hurdle onto her shoulder, flung it onto a pile of broken junk, and dusted off her hands.
“Danny! What are you doing here? Is it half term already?”
Danny swallowed. “No. Last week.”
“You haven’t skipped school again, have you?”
She finished brushi
ng the lichen from her hands and took a swipe at her overalls. Danny watched the cloud of green dust. His aunt watched him.
Maybe she would mention Tom herself, if he waited long enough.
“Danny, are you okay?” Aunt Kathleen’s toffee-colored hair escaped from its ragged bun and flew across her face in the cold wind, whipping at her cheek.
“C-can I come in?” Danny’s teeth chattered, chopping his words into fragments.
“Go in, of course—you know you don’t have to ask. That’s a nice dog. Where’s she from?”
Danny escaped into the farmhouse, Ori at his heels. Stepping through the door, a thousand vanished Toms wailed at him: Tom’s coat, gone from the hook; Tom’s cap, gone from the chair in the hall; Tom’s strewn litter of magazines and sweaters, gone from every other chair in the house.
Aunt Kathleen put the kettle on and plonked food down in front of Danny. Chocolate biscuits. Fruitcake. A lump of meat pie.
Grabbing the knife, he hacked off a chunk of pie and crammed it into his mouth, bringing back a sense of déjà vu so strong that his head spun.
In the summer, he’d been here with Cath Carrera. Then it had been Cath Carrera, not him, cramming food into her mouth, and the three of them—Danny, Cath, and Tom—had been in the kitchen, arguing about Tom’s sand. Tom’s sand—Tom’s soul—that he’d given away to Sammael.
“It’s a shame, it really is,” Aunt Kathleen was saying as she made the tea. “And I’m worried they’ll come up to Hangman’s Wood. I’m making pit traps out of those old chicken coops. Give them a few broken legs if they do come.”
“What?” Danny cut another piece of the meat pie and shoved it into his mouth.
“The baiters. Badger baiters. I was saying, they’ve been seen over in Oak Stoveley. Do put that old coat on, Danny; looking at you is making me feel cold. You’re blue. Danny? Are you okay?”
Danny’s hand had stopped just inside his mouth. He couldn’t chew the pie anymore. It was choking him. He began to gag.
Aunt Kathleen dropped the pot of tea, swept behind him, and thumped him smartly between the shoulder blades. The pie came flying out of his mouth onto the table.
The Book of Shadows Page 2
