The Color of Darkness (13 page)

The yellow flowers. The thorns. If her fingers were thorns, poking out into Dad's face …

Dad lifted her up against the wall. And then there was a knocking sound and he dropped her, stomping out of the room. For a second she lay frozen on the carpet.

In the hallway someone opened the front door and someone else spoke. A boy's voice, light and nervous.

Danny O'Neill? But he couldn't be here. He didn't know where she lived.

The door slammed shut. Cath's chest felt heavy. What else had she expected? Danny O'Neill, rescuing her?

Dad stomped off to the kitchen. Cath heard the mumbling of his voice but not the words. Maybe if he kept on talking for long enough, she could get out of the apartment.

She inched toward the door. The dogs began to bark from the kitchen and rushed out into the hallway. Cath froze. But it wasn't her they were heading for. They threw themselves against the front door, frantically slapping their great paws against the plastic.

“I told you, she don't live 'ere!” bellowed Dad, stomping through again. Cath tried to whip her head out of the way, but she wasn't quick enough. Dad gave an outraged yell and thundered toward her, fist raised.

A rattling sound came from the door. Dad stopped, turning his head.

The door was hissing like a basket of angry snakes. Behind the noise of the dogs' barks and scrabbles, the whole thing had begun to shake.

Cath thought she heard a squeak, but maybe it was just another dog claw. No—there was another squeak, and another.

A small black patch appeared at the bottom of the door, and a rat leapt through, hurling itself into the air above the dogs' heads. As they threw up their jaws to snap at it, another rat ran in, and another, and another. The black patch grew and grew, and the whole bottom half of the door turned into a writhing sea of brown and black rats pouring into the apartment. They engulfed the dogs, the piles of junk, and the entire hallway in a dark, shimmering flood.

“Cath!” Danny yelled into the apartment. “Cath! It's me! Come on!”

Cath ran out, grabbing at a coat from the hook by the doorway.

“Oh no you don't!” yelled Dad, straining to reach out and get hold of her.

“Get the man!” shouted Danny to the rats.

The rats swarmed in a bunch up Dad's body and raced along his flailing arms. One perched on his head, two more hung on to the tops of his ears. One ran daringly down the bridge of his nose and leapt off. Soon they were all following, running along Dad's nose and dive-bombing into the swarm of rats below.

“Bye!” shouted Cath. She was already laughing as she shoved past Dad, dodged the howling dogs, yanked open what was left of the door, and threw herself out. Her feet, as precise as a pianist's fingers, pounded down the stairs with such joy that Danny, scrambling and sliding, couldn't keep up with her at all.

She burst into the open air and slowed for a second or two so that Danny could catch up.

“How did you find me?” she yelled, dancing backward.

“Asked … at … school.” Danny panted, his thin legs flapping over the concrete.

Cath grinned at him. Wobbly legs and all, he'd found her, and he'd gotten her free.

“Rats!” she said, her eyes shining. “Ha-ha! Them dogs covered in rats.
Dad
covered in rats! Ha-ha-ha!”

And she was sprinting off again, her coat swinging against her legs. She dodged along the side of the playground and hurdled over the bicycle barriers at the entrance to the footpath.

“Wait!” Danny shouted. Cath swung back to see that he was having trouble running. His legs were swinging as if he'd drunk too much.

Behind them, the apartment building doors swung open and Dad roared out, shaking rats off his arms. The rats flew through the air, squealing with joy, and ran straight back at his trouser legs. He had to slow down to shake them off, but he wasn't stopping.

Cath swore. “Barshin!” she yelled.

And there he was, loping out from underneath a fence. He came a little slowly, but his eyes were chips of steel.

“Barshin! We need Zadoc!” Cath shouted.

The hare stopped at her feet. “Zadoc's coming,” he said. “But we won't all get on, you know. He can't carry two humans.”

“He'll take us,” said Cath. “We're not heavy.”

“It isn't the weight of your bodies,” said the hare. “It's the weight of your minds.”

And the air was dissolving around them, the world bending away. Zadoc's hooves appeared, then his legs, and the tired old carpet of his hide.

Danny O'Neill stared in horror.

“Get him up there!” hissed Barshin. “He's the one your father will catch first. I'll come back for you.”

“No way,” said Cath.

“You can run. Hide where you did before. No man would harm his own daughter,” said Barshin.

Wanna bet? thought Cath. But she grabbed Danny, shaking him roughly out of his stare.

“Climb up!” She held out her hands, clasped together for Danny to step up on.

“It's made of dust…,” Danny mumbled, still half-frozen.

“Nah, it's just Zadoc. He'll get us away.”

“Where?”

“To Chromos, of course!”

And Dad was roaring closer, Irish dancing with the rats in his trousers. He'd be there in moments.

Danny closed his eyes and reached out.

A jet of pale light shot up his arm, as bright as a firework. Wisps of smoke leapt from Zadoc's hide toward him, flaring into flames. Danny tried to reach out again, but instead leapt back and screamed, throwing up his arms to protect himself, and Zadoc reared up on protesting legs.

“No!” Danny gasped. “No! Go away!”

“Get on!” urged Cath, and Danny screamed again, fighting off something invisible to her eyes, something huge and leaping, that was going for his stomach, his legs, his face—

“No!” he yelled. “No, Kalia, no!”

“Don't be daft, it's only Chromos!” Cath pushed forward, scrambling up along the horse's leg and onto his dusty back. Barshin took an almighty leap, bounced off Zadoc's knee, and threw himself up in front of her. Cath held out a hand to Danny. “Come on, quick!”

But Danny's hands were up in front of his face, protecting his eyes, and then he lashed out at her, knocking her away. Did he think she was attacking him?

“Time to go!” boomed Zadoc, his legs beginning to disappear.

“Danny!” Cath tried one last time. “Come on, just get on!”

Danny pushed out with his hands again, waving them wildly at the empty air.

“Kalia!” he gasped. “The dog—”

He took a shaking step backward, then another, and then turned on his heel and ran.

Cath set her jaw and clutched Barshin to her chest. Fine, she said silently. I'll go on my own, then. Coward. You don't know what you're missing.

The world pitched into darkness, and they leapt into Chromos.

 

CHAPTER 13

A WARNING

At first Zadoc galloped wildly, careering in a zigzag through alleyways and narrow streets, hurdling fences and gates and traffic barriers. Then the strange colors of the town grew dingy and dark, and the horse's pounding hooves began to slow until he was moving hesitantly, stumbling a little. Cath looked down at his feet. A pale mist rose from the earth, growing thick so quickly that within seconds she could no longer see where he was treading.

Before she could look forward again, a hand smacked the horse's shoulder, nearly hitting Cath.

She yanked her knee away. That hand …

“Cath!”

And that voice …

“Catherine!”

She didn't dare turn her head. Her arm clenched Barshin's squirming body, and her heels drove themselves into the horse's flanks.

“Go!” she yelled, sure that the horse would gather up his legs and spring forward, shake off the hand, and gallop away from the voice that was calling her name.

But the horse slowed abruptly, threatening to stop.

“Go!” she shouted again. “Just go!”

“What is it?” Barshin squeaked, trying to struggle out of her arms.

“It's him!” Cath almost choked on the word. And still the horse didn't move. The harder she kicked, the more his body turned solid against her.

“Who?” gasped Barshin.

The hand reached toward Cath's knee. In a second he'd be touching her. In two seconds, he'd have her leg between those fat-tentacle fingers.

“Dad!”

The word hurt her throat. She tried to say it again.

“It's D—”

“He's not here!” squealed Barshin. “He can't be here! You're imagining him!”

The hand stopped just short and trembled.

Was she? Was that even possible? No—it was Dad's hand, rough and strong. It was definitely his.

The hand moved another fraction.

“No!” shrieked Barshin.

And the fingers were around her left leg, clinging as tightly as cornrows of hair on to a scalp. Cath tried one last time to pull herself away, but it seemed as though the horse was almost helping Dad—his shoulder dropped, he leaned sideways, and Cath slid down his ribs. Her right heel came up to the horse's knobbly spine and slipped over the top of his back so that both her legs were dangling on the same side. And Dad grabbed them both.

She tried to see what she was sliding into, whether it was hard ground, or mud, or water. But there was nothing down there except darkness, a thousand colors blending into a starless night.

Dad's hands tugged at her. She tried to wriggle away, and he pulled her toward him, off the horse's back, away from Barshin. Barshin—she couldn't let go of him—he was her friend, her protector …

Her guts exploded with a burst of slime that spattered wide across Zadoc's flank. Looking down, expecting a ragged hole in her belly, she saw a shadow climbing up the front of her sweater, hot as lava. It was burning her away, eating into her skin, and she saw suddenly and certainly that she was dissolving into the darkness. Dad had got her, and she was disappearing.

She had always wondered if he might actually kill her one day, and now he had.

Pain tore at her shoulder and she flew upward, as smoothly as water. Her butt hit something, and her hands came to rest on a wiry scalp. The horse's mane, right in front of her.

The horse had picked her up in his teeth and thrown her up onto his back again.

He had saved her life.

The world stopped. Cath didn't dare breathe. And then a furry body crawled into her arms and pushed itself against her chest, tiny heart fluttering as fast as the running paws of a mouse.

She opened her eyes.

“Close them!” said Barshin. “Close them now and listen to me.”

Cath wanted to look around, to see how near the hands were. If only the horse would move on again.

“No!” said Barshin. “Keep your eyes closed. Listen! I told you not to get off Zadoc!”

“I didn't get off,” said Cath. “The hands pulled me off.”

“They aren't here,” insisted Barshin. “No one else is here, only you and me and Zadoc. Every other creature you see is in your head.”

“He pulled me. I felt his hands.”

“No,” said Barshin. “If you couldn't survive on the ground in here, how do you think anyone else could? You pushed yourself off. I saw it. I tell you, nothing can survive here.”

“Then why did you let me come, if it's so bad?” said Cath.

“You needed to get away,” said Barshin. “And you saw before—it isn't bad. It's just Chromos.”

“All I saw this time was hands.” Cath shuddered. “Horrible hands.”

“That's because when we came before, you were hopeful,” said Barshin. “You were scared, but you thought deep down that you
could
get away. This time, you let yourself fear that you couldn't. And of all the things in your mind, the things you're scared of are the most vivid, so they come to you first in here.”

“I didn't look for anything,” said Cath. “It just came.”

“But you can stop that.” Barshin squirmed upward, so his face was pressing against her cheek. “Always think forward. Don't look back for safety, just think of what you want! I told you before—just put your dreams in your mind's eye and that's what Chromos will always be for you.”

“Dreams?” Cath felt something sting at her heart and it fizzed inside her chest. “That's easy. I want to go to my house, between the sea and the mountains.”

“Then open your eyes,” said Barshin. “But be careful.”

Cath opened them, and Zadoc began to run.

*   *   *

The great plain of Chromos passed by in a blur of emerald green; Zadoc didn't stop to let Cath gaze around at the world that sprung out from inside her. He headed fast in one single direction, but Cath didn't worry: it all made sense to her. He was taking her to her house again.

She tried to see where the sun was, so that she would at least know the vague direction to take once she was back on earth. Lemon yellow, it hung in the sky up to her left, staying constant beside her. Good: she could set out from the Sawtry and keep the sun in the same place, and then she'd get there eventually.