Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) (38 page)

I’m in love with you.

“You’re all I have,” he whispered in her neck. Their mantra, their secret code. The only
I love you
they were allowed to say.

He disentangled himself from her arms, took her by the shoulders, and pushed her down on the sofa – and stopped for an instant, horrified at what he was doing. She looked at him with wide eyes, surprised. But there was something else in her eyes, something that made him tremble. It was a yes. He took her face in his hands and kissed her slowly and deeply, while she wrapped her arms around him again and held him close, every drop of blood in her veins turning to honey.

My first kiss
, she managed to think.
So this is what it feels like, this is what everybody talks about …

Harry was afraid of his own desire, and tried to hold back. She was so small and vulnerable in his arms – he wanted to protect her, he’d never hurt her. And then the tenderness went, and was replaced by hunger, a hunger so deep it went beyond his will.
Just a little more, just a little more – I’ll stop in a minute, before it’s too late – I promise I’ll stop
… She made a sound like a little animal, and held him tighter, harder. He knew then that he had to stop.
Not like this, not while you don’t know who I am
.

He pulled his lips and his body away from hers, holding her softly again, like he used to.

Sarah sensed his change, and she was crushed, but she let him hold her in his arms, because to move away would have been like a little death. She felt liquid, shapeless; she needed him to stop her from dissolving into nothing. Harry felt her consternation, and took her face in his hands again. She looked bereft.

“Soon, when all this is over,” he promised.

If he leaves me, I’ll die
, Sarah thought, and immediately pushed the thought away, as if it’d been a comet across the sky, beautiful and shining, but a sorrowful omen for everyone to see.

Time to build, time to destroy

Not for you to keep

I’ve been watching you for a long time, following you as you grew. I was there when you came out of the hospital in your mother’s arms. I looked into your pram as you were sleeping in the garden. How easy it would have been to suffocate you, then.

I watched you from the window, playing on the rug and toddling around. I used to sit in front of your school, and wait for you to come out, in your little pinafore and your red coat. How easy it would have been to snatch you, and take you away forever.

I was there the first time you played, at the Concert for Schools, sitting where I couldn’t be seen. It all made me sick. To see the daughter I was supposed to have, the life that should have been mine. Still, I couldn’t stay away.

It didn’t even occur to me, to have a life of my own. What life could be, without James, without his children? Without children at all?

I came so close to killing you, many, many times. Especially since Nocturne arrived. We watched you on the roundabout, in your little coat and your favourite shiny shoes, your hair blowing in the wind. How I hate your hair, your mother’s hair! We watched you from the bushes along the river, silent and still.

You saw us, but I don’t think it registered. I don’t think you realized you were staring death in the face. You were only seven.

I nearly told Nocturne to go and wring your neck.

I nearly told him to bring you to me, so we could be mother and daughter. I could bring you up. But I knew it was impossible. You have
her
hair, an endless reminder that you’re not mine. How could you be my daughter, when you have Anne’s blood in your veins?

We waited, Nocturne and I, for the right time to destroy your parents. We’re waiting for the right time to destroy you.

The last time I see your black hair down your back, it will have turned red.

My darling, darling Sarah.

I wish the world could change for us

They were in the living room, waiting. Sarah kept pacing up and down, straightening things as she went, sweeping away particles of dust, wiping invisible stains. She cooked lunch, something or other made with filo pastry, which they barely noticed, and barely nibbled at. They knew that they should have forced themselves to eat, but they just couldn’t. They drank coffee, to keep them going. Cathy’s words lingered between them:
I enjoy seeing you frightened out of your mind
. She was certainly succeeding in doing that.

Time went on, hour after hour, trickling like the rain on the windows. The house was shrouded in perfect silence. Night fell, and it wasn’t much darker than the day had been. The rain was less intense, but there was still a drizzle that kept falling, falling.

“I wonder what Cathy’s demon looks like?” Sarah was sorting her CDs into alphabetical order.

Harry didn’t reply. He had a gun in his belt. He was ready to use it. He was ready to silence Cathy.

“Sarah, you need to sleep. They’re trying to wear us out.”

“So do you.”

“I never sleep anyway. You go first. Come on.”

Harry sat in Sarah’s armchair, and Sarah lay in her bed, fully dressed. She tossed and turned for a long while, but finally fell asleep.

And she dreamt.

She was at the play park, on the roundabout. She could see her own legs, her own arms – but they were a little girl’s legs and arms. She was wearing the red coat she had when she was seven, and her black patent ballerinas.

I’m a child again.

She kept going round and round. It was the middle of the day, but the light was muted and the sky clouded over. There was nobody around. Like so often in her dreams, she felt like she was the only human being left in the world.

As she turned, she caught a glimpse of something strange. Something was looking at her. Someone. It looked like a man, but he was very, very tall, and completely black. His eyes were shining red among the bushes, at the edge of the play park. He had huge arms that went down to his knees.

Sarah’s little heart started beating in double time. She tried to stop and jump down, but the roundabout was going too fast. It went round once more, and she saw it again.

And again.

And no more. It was gone.

The roundabout stopped, and Sarah jumped off, terrified. She looked around. She turned and turned, the grey sky turning with her, until she saw it once more.

He was right in front of her, lifting her up by the shoulders, to his face.

She screamed, and woke up in her room.

“Harry, the play park!” she gasped.

“What?”

“He’s at the play park. I saw it. That’s what she meant, when she said I knew where it was going to be.” She jumped down from her bed. “Let’s go.”

They ran all the way, in the dark. Sarah wanted finally to end it, so badly. She wanted to be free, or she wanted to die. She couldn’t live that besieged life any more.

She looked at her watch. One o’clock in the morning. The silence was uninterrupted, the darkness broken only by the streetlights and the neon signs of the takeaways on the other side of the river.

She stood beside the roundabout, and waited, Harry circling her slowly, the
sgian-dubh
in his hand, the gun in his belt.

And they came.

“Hi, Sarah. How are you, my dear?” Cathy strode up to them, smiling her showbiz smile, as if they were just meeting for a coffee. She sat on the roundabout and patted the place beside her. “Come and sit, let’s have a chat,” she said cosily. Sarah felt sick.“I can only stay a wee while. Then I’ll leave you to Nocturne.”

Harry gasped, and looked around frantically. He knew who Nocturne was. All Gamekeepers knew.

“Before you both die, there’s something I need to tell you, Sarah. This man here –” Cathy pointed at Harry, as if she was telling some hilarious little story – “is not who he says he is.”

Harry growled, and launched himself at her. Cathy fell, banging her head on the metal bar. She kneeled on the tarmac, holding her head.

“Harry!” whispered Sarah.

Something had come out of the darkness, something with red eyes and gleaming teeth. Something that had been watching them, hidden. Nocturne, the creature of Sarah’s dream.

And then it clicked in Sarah’s mind.
It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory
.

She’d seen him at the same play park, many years before. Anne had gone to buy bread across the bridge, and she’d asked Sarah to wait for her. She’d sat on the roundabout, and she’d seen … him. In the bushes.

Had it been an omen of what was to come, ten years later? Is that how I’ll meet my death?

Nocturne ran towards them and helped Cathy up, surprisingly gently.

“Sarah, don’t listen to her.” Harry’s face was very white in the orange light of the streetlamps.

“This man is not your cousin,” she hissed. “His name is Sean Hannay. He’s been lying to you all this time.”

“Don’t listen to her …”

“He killed your cousin to take his place. He wanted to be a Midnight; there was nothing he wanted more. And he killed for it.”

“What?” Sarah felt her head spinning. She looked into Harry’s face.

Harry rearranged his features as quickly as he could, into a look of defiance.

“She’s crazy! Don’t listen to her!”

But it was too late. She’d seen it. She’d seen the truth in his eyes, just for a split second. She knew.

“Harry …”

“Sarah …” He felt the world crumble around him. Everything fell, and he stood in a desert of rubble and dust and nothing. Hope, love, pride – it was all gone, like sand between his fingers. He could not hold on. He could not stop it from happening.

“The dream I had last night – that’s what it meant?” whispered Sarah.

She felt her heart breaking. It was so real a feeling that she brought a hand to her chest.
There it goes, it’s breaking
. Fluttering like a dying butterfly.

“I didn’t kill Harry. I would never harm him. Let me explain …”

“You lied to me. You lied all along.”

A wave of rage overwhelmed her, drowning her. Like when she had destroyed her parents’ room and burnt her dream diary. She was so angry that she was anger itself, an empty shell but for that all-consuming rage. She walked towards Harry, under Cathy’s smiling gaze, and she lifted her hands. She felt her power flooding them, burning them …

Harry didn’t move, didn’t argue, didn’t defend himself. He closed his eyes, and decided to let it happen.

But there was no blackwater. Instead Sarah went white, and stood frozen, looking at her shaking hands. They weren’t burning any more; suddenly they were icy cold. Empty. Her power was gone.

The blackwater was gone.

The look of horror and despair on her face was such that it shook even Cathy, for a moment. Just for a moment.

There’s nothing left. My power is gone. The blackwater is not mine any more.

She looked up at Nocturne. She knew he was going to do what he hadn’t done all those years before, when she was a little girl.

Has he been waiting all along? Is this how I’m supposed to go?

She looked him straight in the eye. Nocturne tipped his head to one side.

Harry roared and put himself between Sarah and the demon, but Nocturne slapped him across the face, so hard that he fell unconscious on the tarmac. Sarah lowered her head and waited for the blow, waited for her neck to be broken.

“Leave her.” A deep male voice.

She knew that voice.

She looked up. Leaf had materialized beside her.

“Who are you?” asked Cathy.

“I’m fire.”

He crouched down, and touched a blade of grass with his index finger. The grass was soaking from the rain, and still it lit up. Tiny flames turned into towering ones, enveloping the trees all around.

I was right, he is fire
, Harry managed to think confusedly. After the blow to his head he was between reality and a dream. He knew it somehow. He’d seen it in Leaf ‘s eyes, when he’d saved Sarah from the mist.

Nocturne didn’t let the fire distract him. He took two huge strides towards Sarah, and lifted her up by the shoulders, just like in her dream. Sarah thought her bones were going to break.

“No …”

Sarah looked down at Leaf, and their eyes met. Cathy saw the expression on Sarah’s face, and her eyes narrowed.

There’s something between them.

“Get him!” Cathy shook Nocturne’s arm, pointing at Leaf. “Never mind her! Get him!” She had found a novel way to torture Sarah, to inflict pain on her.

Nocturne obeyed and threw Sarah away. Literally. She landed on the cold, hard asphalt, and felt something crack. She lay there, bent in two, looking at the flames growing and growing around her.