Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows

by A. J. Hartley

  “Back off!” he shouted. “Let it be. Can’t you feel it? It’s not going to hurt him.”

  And now Darwen could feel it too, something that came off the snake like warmth. But the snake itself seemed to shrivel slightly, and its skin was dulling like autumn leaves withering.

  “It’s giving some of its own life to save him,” said Rich. “Out of gratitude.”

  Darwen wanted to ask how that was possible and how Rich could possibly have known as much, but he sensed his friend was right. He could feel it, waves of soothing energy like light or music. Darwen felt a glow of pleasure, the kind of feeling he got from shooting a soccer ball into the top right corner of the net, from his first trip to Silbrica, or from his friends returning from the tower alive and well and Greyling defeated.

  And then Chip was stirring, waking, and—finally—shrieking in panic at being locked tight in the embrace of a massive snake. For its part, the great serpent released him, shot a look at Rich and Darwen and Alex, so that they felt the word: Balance.

  It glowed in their minds, and they knew that not all the healing energy had come from the snake. It had drawn on their thoughts too. Balance: a life restored for the one the snake had taken from Greyling, and a gift to them for all they had risked. The immense creature hesitated just long enough for them to feel Rich’s final thought—Grateful—then That Which Eats dove straight into the ground, its long, scarlet body sliding into the earth like some kind of train, and was gone.

  Chip’s parents clutched him to their breasts, sobbing with relief, and Darwen caught the boy’s eye over his mother’s shoulder. He looked shocked and uncertain, but Darwen held his gaze for a moment, then gave him a nod of acknowledgment. They had all done their part.

  The sense that something impossibly strange had happened spread through the other parents like panic, pushing them back into themselves. They snatched out cell phones but found that nothing electrical was working. They ran for their cars and called for police and paramedics.

  Darwen, meanwhile, just watched from a quiet corner, lost in his own thoughts.

  Eventually it was Eileen who led Aunt Honoria to him. Darwen considered his former babysitter, but there was no trace of the Fixer about her now, and he felt as sure as he could be that that part of her identity had died when they smashed the transmitter in the gas mask.

  Both women looked unsteady on their feet and far from clear on what had happened, but when his aunt saw Darwen, something about her changed. Her eyes met his and there was a new clarity in her face. She rushed to him and snatched him into her embrace, where he stayed, sobbing, finally giving in to his exhaustion.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Darwen whispered. “Me too.”

  Darwen glanced back to where Chip stood with his parents. They were clinging to him as if letting go might mean somehow losing him again forever. For Darwen it was like seeing a boy he had never known. He had not liked Chip Whittley. For almost as long as Darwen had known him, the boy had been a bully—mean-spirited, smug, and casually cruel. None of those things had gone from Darwen’s mind, but in what he must have thought were his final moments, Chip had made a choice that redeemed everything else he had ever done and more.

  Darwen wondered if he would have done the same.

  Later, when the police had arrived and the school grounds were once more lit by the strobing blue lights of their cars, as the parents and teachers were shepherded away to waiting EMTs with blankets, Darwen sat on the grass with his back to the wall, Rich on one side, Alex on the other.

  “Any sign of Weazen?” asked Alex.

  Darwen shook his head. He had lost sight of the little creature long before the machine had exploded. Alex stared at the ground.

  “They don’t remember,” said Rich. “Our families, I mean. And the teachers. They know something happened, but the conversion process took them out of themselves. They have no idea what took place after they put the helmets on and are pretty fuzzy about how they came to do that in the first place.”

  “The kids remember,” said Alex. “They weren’t affected in the same way. Most of them, anyway. No one will believe them, of course, ’cause they’re just kids, but they will remember. If the school stays open, next year is going to be pretty interesting.”

  “What are the cops saying?” Rich asked.

  “An explosion.” Alex shrugged. “The new broadcast system overloaded or something. No one seems very sure.”

  “I can’t believe we got out of this alive,” Rich mused. “Can’t believe we saved them.”

  “Oh, I’m not surprised at all.”

  It was Mr. Peregrine. He was hobbling toward them across the quadrangle, smiling wearily.

  Darwen got up, and when the old man reached them and offered his hand, he shook it.

  “Well done,” said Mr. Peregrine. “A terrible business handled far better than could have been reasonably expected.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without Chip,” said Darwen, still amazed by the truth of the thing.

  “Perhaps not,” said Mr. Peregrine. “And when I become the teacher you said I was, I’ll manage to find a lesson in that. But tonight is a time for celebration.”

  “Not for me,” said Darwen.

  The others looked at him, hesitant and unsure.

  “My gift is burning out,” said Darwen. “I can feel it. Soon I won’t be a mirroculist anymore. It’s on you two,” he added, with a glance at Rich and Alex.

  “Let us not be too hasty on that score,” said Mr. Peregrine.

  “What do you mean?” asked Darwen.

  “Did you see what Greyling’s machines did?” asked Mr. Peregrine. “All that hatred and selfishness and cruelty pumped directly into people’s brains?”

  “It turned them into scrobblers,” said Alex.

  “Well, it started to,” said Mr. Peregrine. “But not evenly. Some embraced the transformation, while others resisted it. Some—your aunt for one—were able to shut down the change by sheer effort of will. Your friend Barry Fails, who is your age, became a scrobbler. Chip Whittley did not.”

  “Usually isn’t our friend,” said Alex.

  “Mr. Stuggs became a scrobbler immediately,” Mr. Peregrine continued.

  “No surprise there,” Rich muttered.

  “He was . . . susceptible,” said Mr. Peregrine carefully.

  “You can say that again,” Alex agreed.

  “But Miss Harvey did not,” Mr. Peregrine concluded, smiling.

  “So?” said Darwen, who didn’t see what any of this had to do with his gift.

  “So,” Rich inserted, “the success or failure of the process wasn’t about the age of the people targeted.”

  Mr. Peregrine beamed at him. “Precisely so, Mr. Haggerty,” he said. “Despite what the storybooks tell us, not all children are sweet, giving, and imaginative, while some adults have those qualities in spades. Assessing people’s character is a tricky matter, and it is not reducible to figuring out how old they are.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Darwen. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “I think the old assumptions about the mirroculist losing his or her gift as they cross over into adulthood are, to put it simply, wrong,” said Mr. Peregrine. “I think it depends on the individual and what they plan to do with the gift they have been given.”

  Darwen just looked at him.

  “There is much that I do not understand about your particular talent, Darwen, but I think you will bear it for a while longer yet. You have already achieved things no mirroculist has been able to do before.”

  “Opening portals that aren’t on the grid, you mean?” said Rich.

  “And being able to sense where they are?” added Alex.

  “Both of those things, yes,” said Mr. Peregrine. “But your greatest achievement is o
ne I think you have not yet recognized.”

  “Yeah?” said Darwen. “What’s that?”

  “Your ability to share,” said Mr. Peregrine, smiling kindly.

  “Share?” Darwen repeated. “Share what?”

  “Many things, I suspect,” said Mr. Peregrine, “But in this case, I mean your gift.”

  He paused as Darwen gaped at him, clueless, and the old man nodded first at Alex, then at Rich.

  “Wait,” said Alex. “You mean, we’re not really mirroculists?”

  “In the strictest sense,” said Mr. Peregrine, “no. You have the ability to open portals to Silbrica because Darwen has given it to you. He has done what no mirroculist I know of has done before. He has divided his talent between his friends, a process that, though I do not understand how, has somehow intensified his ability. A remarkable thing, generosity of spirit. Never underestimate it.”

  “Huh,” said Rich, to Darwen. “Thanks, man.”

  Darwen didn’t know what to say.

  “Yeah,” said Alex, rather less enthusiastically. “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Darwen, shrugging apologetically, not sure whether he should be proud or embarrassed.

  “Nah,” said Alex, cheering up. “It’s all good. ’Course, I’d rather be a mirroculist on my own talent and in my own right, as it were, but still . . . this works.”

  She shrugged and beamed, already past it.

  “My point,” said Mr. Peregrine, “is that you have already broken many of the old assumptions about mirroculists, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t break this last about how children must grow out of their gift. Tonight, I think, suggests the opposite. Children can be spiteful and selfish, while adults are capable of all the best qualities their children possess. They just have to remember how to use them. I don’t know why this surprises me. Many of the most interesting grown-ups I know are still about twelve years old in their hearts. I am confident, Darwen, that you can retain whatever is necessary to hold onto your gift well into adulthood.” Mr. Peregrine paused and eyed Darwen carefully. “What? Is this not good news?”

  But Darwen couldn’t speak; he just nodded emphatically and looked down so that they could not see his shining eyes.

  “Hey, Octavius.”

  It was Eileen. She looked young and dazed and a little embarrassed. “Good to have you back with us,” she said.

  “The pleasure, believe me,” said Mr. Peregrine, “is all mine.”

  “Darwen,” said Eileen, “your aunt is waiting for you in the parking lot.”

  Darwen nodded thoughtfully. “One more minute,” he said. “I just need to . . . I don’t know, let it all sink in.”

  Eileen bobbed her head in agreement.

  “Listen,” said Rich, looking very sheepish and as pink as Darwen had ever seen him, “I’m sorry about hitting you. Kind of had to be done, but still . . . sorry.”

  “Hitting me?” said Eileen.

  “You don’t remember?” asked Alex. “He popped you with a chair but good. It was like the WWF, man. POW!”

  “Okay, Alex,” said Rich.

  “You hit me with a chair?” said Eileen, one hand straying to the back of her head. The question wasn’t outraged so much as baffled, as if she was straining to recall something just beyond her reach.

  “You don’t remember,” said Rich. “Any of it? You don’t remember what you were doing? What you did before . . . ?”

  “It’s okay,” Darwen inserted. “It was an accident—right, Rich?”

  Rich gave him a look, saw the determination in his eyes, then shrugged. “That’s right,” he said. “Just an accident.”

  “That’s okay then,” said Eileen, massaging her scalp and smiling. “I’d hate to think I had made a fool of myself and couldn’t remember what I did.”

  Darwen held his smile as long as he could, then looked away, blinking back tears. It wasn’t her fault. Telling her what she had done as the Fixer, particularly to his parents, would only devastate her. That wasn’t fair. Her body but not her mind was guilty. She had been under the control of first the Guardians, then Greyling, but that control had been broken, and with it that part of her past had died. Darwen would not resurrect it.

  On the other side of the square, chair-strewn lawn, something small and dark stirred, shaking off a pile of rubble and sitting up, its eyes bright.

  “Weazen!” Alex exclaimed, running over and snatching the creature up. “I didn’t think you’d made it!”

  “Took a bit of a tumble,” muttered the Peace Hunter. “And got more than a little singed by . . . hey! Watch it! Stop! Put me down!”

  But Alex was dancing around the quadrangle, Weazen held tightly against her chest, kissing his scorched and matted fur, till even Darwen found himself grinning. As she cavorted around, he gave Mr. Peregrine a sidelong glance. The old man was beaming too.

  Darwen returned his gaze to Alex, who was still dancing with a struggling Weazen, and he began to laugh outright.

  “Check it out!” shouted Alex, in between croons and kisses. “This right here? This could have been our bit in the talent show.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Endings

  The semester concluded without another class meeting. The school was closed pending “structural remodeling” and various investigations over exactly what had happened the night of the end-of-term gala. For a few evenings, the story made local headlines, but as the true nature of events failed to emerge, the TV reporters seemed to lose interest. Every time it came on, however, Darwen would find himself watching his aunt’s face, trying to see what she remembered. She still worked long hours, but she had taken to turning her phone and laptop off while they sat together for meals, and when the news items about Hillside started, she would become strangely still and focused. The pattern was always the same. She looked confused, like she was straining to recall something important from long ago, and then she would offer to make him a sandwich, or bring him a Coke, and would wind up sitting silently next to him on the couch with her arm around him. Her embrace was always a little too tight for comfort, a little desperate, and she avoided his eyes, but Darwen was glad of it.

  Mr. Peregrine was somehow a teacher again, or so he said. Principal Thompson had been placed on administrative leave indefinitely, whatever that meant, and the new principal was Mr. Sumners, the math teacher. He had reinstated Mr. Peregrine without ever trying to get a solid explanation for why he had been absent so long. It seemed that with all the negative publicity the school was getting, he could not afford to turn any teacher away who wished to stay on. He never knew that Mr. Peregrine—the real Mr. Peregrine rather than the Jenkins creature that had worn the Mr. Peregrine flesh suit—had never actually taught a class at Hillside.

  Two nights after the abortive gala, Darwen, Rich, and Alex went through the oven door to the Great Apparatus and up to the council chamber, where they found Lightborne, Jorge, and the others seated as if they had been expected.

  “Mr. Arkwright,” said Lightborne, rising. “I believe we owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “You do,” said Darwen, with such simple certainty that he felt them suddenly tense. “And I will tell you how you are going to repay me.”

  Lightborne’s benevolent smile flickered. “You have our undivided attention,” he said.

  “Good,” said Darwen quietly. “You have shown yourselves unwise. You have been deficient in your governing of Silbrica. Worse, you have made alliances with the enemies of Silbrica to preserve your own power and have resorted to treachery and murder. . . .” His voice faltered. Everyone in the room looked at him. “Murder,” he repeated, “including that of my parents, to give yourselves tools against those who might oppose you.”

  “Darwen, there are things you do not understand,” said Lightborne. “I see how our methods must seem extreme to you—”
r />   “Seem?” Darwen interrupted. For a moment he thought he would rage at them, scream and point, accuse and bellow till his lungs bled, but those, he suddenly felt, were the actions of a desperate and powerless child, which he was not. He smiled thoughtfully. “You may explain your actions any way you like, but it will not excuse them. I am suspending the council immediately. You are all fired.”

  “On what authority?” gasped Lightborne, genuinely surprised now.

  “That of the mirroculists,” said Darwen, “and their allies, who, as you know, will come if we call them.”

  That silenced them.

  “The boy has a point!” called a voice from the stone seats lining the chamber. It was Weazen. He was eating pizza again, his muzzle shiny with oil. Beside him, as if suspended in the air, was a tiny but constant green light. Moth was with him.

  Darwen smiled and felt his conviction grow.

  “If you think you are worthy to join the new body that will replace you,” he added, “you may apply to Mr. Octavius Peregrine, the dellfey called Moth, Weazen—the Peace Hunter—and Ms. Blodwyn Evans, who, you will be pleased to know, is fully recovered and back to her old self. They will be in charge of the process. Consider carefully how much of your past you want exposed before applying.”

  Lightborne looked thunderstruck, but he also knew when he was beaten. He shrugged off his formal robes and let them lie where they fell, then he walked away, up the long stairs and out of the chamber. The others followed suit.

  Jorge went last, and he did so after first smiling at them and nodding. “This,” he said, “is good. Silbrica is a wondrous place, Darwen Arkwright. Pay attentions to its health.”

  When they had all gone and Darwen, Rich, and Alex were alone in the great chamber, Alex approached the shimmering energy dome. “So you’ve gotten rid of the old guard,” she said. “Who will take over? Silbrica requires a group who will be bound together mentally to oversee the good of the world. Where are you gonna find people who will get it right?”

  “The Guardians aren’t from here, remember?” said Darwen. “They ruled over the place, but it wasn’t really theirs. It’s not surprising that Greyling was once one of them.”