Tom was the same as he’d been before the fire—
This time, he knew what the lurching was. It was the earth and the air desperately trying to obey him, to conjure up his wish. They strained together to make something that neither of them contained. And they came up with—
Something that looked a little more like Tom. More hair. The hint of gentle blue eyes, sunken deeply into a still-haunted face.
Danny risked a small glance and let it stay on Tom for a few moments. Not so bad. Maybe it was just a matter of building Tom again, bit by bit.
He opened his mouth to tell this to Cath, and couldn’t see her.
Or Barshin. Or Ori. Or Shimny.
They had all gone.
An order of things had been reversed, or reset, to a time or situation before he’d met any of the others.
Without hesitating, Danny scribbled out the last sentences he’d written, and he kept scribbling until not a letter of them could be seen on the page. When he looked up, Tom was gone and the others were back.
“Where did you go?” he asked.
Cath shook her head. “Nowhere,” she said. “We’re right here.”
“You did go. I wrote Tom back, just like he used to be, and you all disappeared.”
They stared at him.
He shrugged, helplessly. “I don’t think I can bring him back,” he said. “Maybe Sammael has too much of him. Maybe it’s … I don’t know. I can feel the things—the earth and the air—trying to rearrange things … but they can’t. I don’t know why. I don’t know what to write, so I can get to him, or stop all this.”
“Okay,” said Cath. “Write down that you know what to write, then.”
It was so simple. He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.
Of course she was right. Had Cath ever made a stupid suggestion?
He wrote, Danny knew what to do to stop the shadows.
Thoughts of Tom vanished from his head. For a second, he waited. Nothing was going to happen. The wind was picking up, but the hillside would stay exactly the same.
And then his head lifted and turned.
A long way off, the creature was racing low over a field, covering the ground with incredible speed. He knew that nobody but himself had seen it—it was so small that unless you knew exactly where it was, you couldn’t possibly spot that it was there.
He followed its progress across the fields and tarmac roads, under the hedges, over the narrow streams.
It ran like quicksilver.
An animal. A normal, earthly animal, with greater speed than a cheetah. Or an express train. Or, Danny guessed, a jumbo jet.
It hared across the flat bottom of the valley, and his heart quickened.
It was coming toward them.
Did it know about him?
His stomach curled in fear. Only an animal—a tiny animal—but with what powers it alone knew.
He glanced across at the others. Grayish Cath, grayish Barshin. He wished he had written them happy and healthy again. It should have been the first thing he did, instead of conjuring up that stupid bluebird. But all that would have to wait now.
The animal was bringing a shadow.
Curled up, held in its mouth … Danny saw the black patch, clamped between the tiny fangs of—of all things—
A stoat.
CHAPTER 16
THE STOAT
Danny stood paralyzed for another second, and then tried to begin writing. His hand shook so badly that he could barely hold it to the page.
Danny knew the stoat’s name—the one with the shadow in its mouth, he wrote.
Iaco. The stoat was called Iaco.
Iaco dropped the shadow.
The stoat opened its tiny jaws and dropped the patch of shadow with an anguished shriek. As soon as the patch hit the ground, it unfurled. Clouds bunched and bucked in the sky, and a shadow fell over the scant sunlight.
Iaco—
Did what?
And then the stoat was in front of them, racing across their vision, and just as Danny was about to write another word, it kicked around and leapt in the air, dodging back on itself. A flash of white underbelly caught his eye, and he stared at it, held fascinated by how fast the animal ran.
The stoat leapt, kinked, flashed up the white of its belly again. Four pairs of eyes held fast to it. It raced, left to right, right to left, left to right, in an unceasing whirlwind.
Right to left.
Left to right.
The white flash.
The brown back.
The white flash.
Danny’s hand grew limp on the pencil.
White flash.
Brown back.
White.
Brown.
White.
Brown—
Cath jolted him sharply, and for a second his eyes flicked away as he tried to keep his balance. They went first to the green grass, then the gray sky. The shadows were racing up the hillside behind Iaco, racing up toward them all, about to swallow them all, except that flash of white and brown.…
Danny grabbed the pencil and wrote firmly, Iaco stopped. Iaco’s shadows stopped.
The stoat hit an invisible wall in midair, then fell to the ground. The cloud ceased, midswoop, and the line of shadow came to an abrupt halt, meters away.
It took Danny a second to remember how to breathe again. He stood and looked at the tiny stoat as it lay on the ground, panting heavily. Its sleek body was dark brown, its neat bib a sparkling white.
Its eyes gleamed with hatred.
He couldn’t believe it. The shadows had come from Tom—he’d been so sure of it. He’d journeyed and journeyed to find Tom, and suddenly, in a matter of minutes, the shadows had gone from being Tom’s fault—Danny’s fault—to this.
A tiny brown stoat.
How on earth had he gotten it so wrong?
“Who are you?” was all that Danny could think to ask.
The stoat didn’t seem to be able to run away, but righted itself and crouched on the thin grass, staring up at him madly. “I was Iaco.”
“You were? Who are you now?”
“Nobody!” shrieked the stoat, lunging forward to show off its bared teeth.
Danny shrank back, but held the book and pencil ready. “Why did you bring the shadows over? I thought they were from a tormented soul—”
The stoat glared up at him. “And so they were. Do you not think a stoat can feel torment?”
“You’re the tormented soul?”
The stoat swallowed, and fixed its hard black eyes on his. “I had a family once,” it said. “All killed by men with dogs. All of them. Not in the honorable way that stoats kill, swiftly and for food. Just men and dogs, far greater in size than us, killing for the sake of hanging a few little bodies on fences and watching them rot in the sun.”
Bile rose in Danny’s throat. “But that’s horrible,” he said. “That’s really sick.”
“That’s humans!” spat the stoat. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do it yourself. You are human. Humans are cruel. So I decided to kill as many humans as I could. Not in the swift, merciful way that we stoats believe in, but in a slow, lingering, hopeless way. I did well. Very well.”
“But you can’t have managed all that on your own. You must have been helped by somebody. Was it—?”
“Somebody helped me!” The little stoat curled up its paw and waved it, cackling hysterically. “Oh yes, of course! I could never have enough fury to destroy the world on my own. I was sent by Sammael, of course! An avenging angel! Of course!”
“Sammael! I knew it.” Heat surged in Danny’s cheeks.
The stoat stopped waving its paw and glared at him. “Did you miss the sarcasm? I did it myself, you blockhead. My fury is my own. For sure, I got the shadow from Sammael, back when he had some power. I had only to bite a piece off—each time I laid it down, the bitten piece grew into a new patch. A marvelous creation! But then Sammael’s power shriveled and died, while mine grew like the blossom in s
pringtime. What a pity it had to end. No matter—I’ve spread my fury far and wide!”
Danny’s rage ran hot through his blood, pushing into his skin and up to the surface. His whole body tingled. He ignored the stoat’s words as the name of Sammael pounded through his head like the bouncing boulders of a rockfall. “I knew it was Sammael! He’s at the bottom of everything evil. I knew it!”
“Ha!” screamed Iaco. “He told me about you—you are stupider than he said! We all have powers from Sammael. I spread shadows. Your horse and your friend follow his footsteps in Chromos. Your hare talks to humans. You—”
“I’ve got nothing from Sammael,” said Danny.
“Except your dog.”
Danny opened his mouth to deny it and couldn’t speak.
We all have powers from Sammael.
Ori had appeared out of nowhere, unasked for, and saved his life. He had accepted her willingly, and he hadn’t questioned her loyalty.
Tom had done the same when Sammael had offered him all the knowledge he wanted. He’d taken hold of the gift with two keen hands, and he hadn’t looked at what lay behind it. And now Tom was dead and never coming back.
Was Ori, too, an arrow from Sammael’s bow?
Ori crept forward, closer to the stoat. Her lips were drawn back, her fluffy hackles risen. Her thick body crouched, ready to pounce.
The stoat turned its head and gave a peal of chattering laughter. “You may kill me, dog. But you will only do it because I have chosen to die!”
Ori trembled, eyes narrowing, and growled low in the throat.
“Come on!” taunted the stoat. “Come on! You’ve got me now! I’ve told him about you! Finish me off!”
“Wait!” said Danny. “Ori, get back!”
The stoat sneered and turned its back on Ori. “Come and get me, dog!” it said. “Come on! Get your revenge!”
“It’s evil,” said Ori. “That animal is evil. Don’t listen to it.”
“I will,” said Danny. “I want to hear what it’s got to say.”
Could Ori understand what the stoat was saying?
Danny’s mind seized up. It couldn’t be true. Ori, his companion. His friend. His savior from out of the deep, deep blue.
Ori pounced.
Iaco the stoat was dead in a quick snap of jaws and shaking of head, the smooth brown back broken in two.
Ori threw the stoat’s little body in the air and snapped at it as it came down. It fell on the ground and lay there, and the world was quiet.
“Ori…” was all Danny could say. He buzzed with a strange fury. How dare this stoat be dead? How dare it lie there, so sleek and brown, and not be able to tell him more, to gloat more, to look back at the land it had turned gray? How dare it be so small?
Ori stood defiantly.
She looked like the same dog. She was the same dog, of course.
He loved her.
But he hated Sammael.
“You were sent by Sammael,” said Danny, bleakly. “Don’t deny it.”
“He did send me,” said Ori. “He sent me to help you to be brave.”
Danny shook his head. “Sammael doesn’t want me to be brave,” he said. “He wants me to be dead. What did he tell you to do?”
“Just that,” insisted Ori. “To give you strength and courage.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Danny, turning from her. “You’re a liar.” He’d never understood how Cath had forgiven Barshin for lying to her, and he didn’t understand it now.
Cath coughed behind them, and Danny turned. She was grayer than ever. The shadows were too close. He had to lift them.
“What happened?” Cath asked.
“It was the stoat. It got a patch of shadow from Sammael and used it to call up the clouds. Look, there’s one it dropped.” He pointed over to the place, a short distance away, where the black patch lay under the clouds, holding them huddling over the earth.
Cath glanced at the shadow, then at the little bundle of fur on the ground.
“That thing? It don’t look like much.”
Iaco’s body was smaller than Barshin. Smaller than Cath’s shoe, even. She could have crushed the stoat with a single stamping foot.
“Sammael doesn’t look like much,” said Danny. “None of the things he comes up with do.”
Cath touched the toe of her shoe to the stoat’s nose, then to the tip of its tail.
“So it wasn’t nothing to do with Tom at all?”
Danny nodded. “It was a soul in torment, but not Tom.”
Holding the pencil point to the page, he pulled some words out of his still-churning brain.
After Iaco was dead, all the small patches of shadow that the stoat had spread around the country disappeared.
The shadow patch began to fade.
“So what’s Ori done?” Cath’s question was sharp, and Danny’s neck stung at the sound of the dog’s name.
“Ori’s from Sammael too,” he said. The words were flat and hard and heavy.
Cath shrugged. “He’s not all bad, then, is he?”
Danny exploded. “Of course he is!” he spat. “They’re all evil! Sammael! Iaco! Barshin! Ori! They’ve all betrayed us!”
Cath reached to touch the tips of Barshin’s ears. “But they’ve helped us too,” she said, quietly. “You’d never have seen Chromos without Barshin. You’d never have escaped the shadows without Ori. You’d never have done anything at all without Sammael—you’d still be at home, sitting inside and asking Mummy and Daddy for permission to scratch your bum. Sammael made you get up and fight. What would you be if you didn’t have nothing to fight?”
“I’d be safe,” said Danny. “I’d be happy.”
“You’d be bored,” said Cath.
“So what?” He was sick of her taking Sammael’s side. Trying to make him agree that danger and chaos were better than safety. “I’m going to find Sammael and kill him. Are you coming?”
Cath stared at him. Barshin stared too, through narrower eyes.
“What about them shadows?” said Cath. “Aren’t you going to write them lifting?”
“They’re going,” said Danny. “I’ve made all the shadow patches disappear. When they’ve gone, the clouds will lift and scatter, and then the sun will break through.”
“Yeah, the sun will come,” said Cath. “But things didn’t go gray from there being no sun, did they?”
“Yes they did,” said Danny.
“Idiot! The shadows blocked out Chromos—don’t you get it? Only Chromos can make the colors come back. Sammael puts Chromos on Earth. Without him, everything will stay gray.”
“No it won’t!” yelled Danny, his blood running hot with outrage. “We don’t need Sammael! If we need any more of Chromos on earth, I’ll bring it here! I’ve got the Book of Shadows!”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Cath rubbed her tired face. “Sammael isn’t trying to hurt everyone! He just does things, and that changes the world, all the time. Yeah, when you’re happy, something comes along to make you sad. But it works the other way too. And Sammael does both.”
Danny couldn’t answer her. She’d got it wrong. So wrong. The only thing he could do was to kill Sammael, and then Cath would see. Why had he always thought that she was wise? She didn’t know anything at all.
He turned away, turned his whole back on her, and looked down at the little book in his hand. For a moment, it seemed like a symbol of everything that had gone wrong in his life. The page in front of him was always blank, and it was always he who had to hold the pencil and work out what to write on it.
But I’m forgetting, he told himself, that I can build a whole new world with this book. Maybe I can’t bring the past back, but I can write the future however I want it to be. I can make a boat to sail the high seas, and every time the waves get rough, I can write them calm again.
And it struck him that Cath knew that too and was probably jealous. Who wouldn’t be jealous of him?
Well, let her be, he thought. I offe
red her a part in it, and she went crazy. I’ll go and do the rest myself.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m off. Come on, Shimny.”
The ghost horse threw up her head and backed away from him.
“Don’t be silly,” said Danny. “It’s just me.”
The mare kept her head high and looked down at him along her nostrils, rolling her eye until it showed half white. “I will not go into the Book of Shadows,” she said.
For a moment, Danny was tempted just to write his demands in the book. They’d all have to obey him. He opened it, pencil poised, and looked down at the page.
What was the point of wasting paper on stupid girls and hysterical horses? They could get lost. He had an enemy to fight.
“Fine,” he said to Shimny. “You’re all welcome to each other. Bunch of losers.”
He watched the scorn on Cath’s face. She thought he was just weak. He’d show her.
“I don’t want anything to do with any of you,” he said. “I’m going to kill Sammael and make the world safe again.”
“The world ain’t ever been safe,” said Cath.
“Well, then I’ll make a new world!” shouted Danny. “My own world! A much better one than this! And none of you will be in it!”
He turned away and stamped off along the hillside, so that he could quickly put distance between himself and them all before he was tempted to write something nasty happening to them in the Book of Shadows.
Behind him, Cath and Barshin looked at Ori. Ori, head down, nosed once at the little body of Iaco the stoat and trotted off after her master.
“What are we going to do?” asked Barshin, as Cath stared after Ori.
Cath, about to shrug, stopped herself. “How is it he don’t see that some things you’re scared of are bad and some are good?” she said, more to herself than Barshin. “Ain’t he happy about the things he’s already done?”
“He’s grieving for Tom,” said Barshin. “Grief brings with it a whole army of pain, in all sorts of different liveries. Even if he could ever see how Sammael’s changed him for the better, he wouldn’t be able to right now.”
“But he’s gone off to kill Sammael, not to get Tom back.”
The Book of Shadows Page 12
