The Color of Darkness (20 page)

“Quick!” Cath said. “Get on Zadoc! He's gotta go—”

Danny took one pace forward and then gasped. It was the sound of water rattling around a plughole, the swell of waves against a fierce sea. When he opened his mouth, Cath half expected to see a great river pouring out, flooding the earth at their feet. Instead, a mist of dragon's breath hissed from his lungs and he opened his eyes again, and Cath realized that Zadoc had gone.

“Get him back!” she said to Barshin. “We was nearly there. He's getting it!”

But Barshin looked at Danny, and Danny shook his head.

“I couldn't talk to her,” he said. “It didn't work.”

“What d'you mean? You wasn't screaming. You wasn't scared.”

“No. I pushed her back, but I couldn't get past. She was standing her ground, just like me. Stalemate.”

“Well, how'd you push her back? Do it more. Stronger.”

Danny shrugged. “I don't know. Every time I thought words at her, with the stick, I just saw…”

He trailed off, and Cath grabbed a tree branch so that she could fix her hands around something that wasn't his scrawny little neck.

“Saw
what
?”

“I saw the sea,” Danny said, tasting the words carefully. “I saw this beach, and the sea, and a line of footprints going into the sea. No, not footprints—”

Cath's heart froze and then seemed to coat itself with something hard, something that shone—

“Hoofprints?” she asked.

Danny looked at her and nodded. His hair stuck out from his head, like the feathers of a windblown bird. “Did you see it too?”

Cath shrugged. “I dreamed it. Last night.”

Danny shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself, holding tightly to his sweater. “It was Sammael, then. He's brought sand here. It's in both of us. He must know what we're trying to do … it's no use against him. He can read minds.”

“No, he can't!” Barshin took a couple of lopes toward them. “You can hear me now, can't you, Danny? Sammael can't read your minds. And he doesn't plant every dream you have in there either. He puts in the grains of sand to begin with, but it's your mind that grows them into ideas. It's like planting a seed—if you plant a seed in the ground, the flower that grows is always the same kind of flower, for sure. But the way it grows is different, depending on if it has good soil, or strong sunlight, or too much rain. The same is true of Sammael's sand.
You
shape the ideas that come from his sand. And this time, both your ideas are the same shape. You both
know
what you need to do. You
know
where you need to go. You need to look down inside yourselves and read your own knowledge.”

Danny looked down at his sweater. Cath looked at hers. Neither spoke for a long time, and the nearby birds began to chatter again, gossiping sharply about the unwelcome intruders in their quiet morning woods.

“Is there—”

“The water—”

Cath broke off as soon as she heard Danny speak. If he was finally getting to the point, she didn't want to hold him up.

He was still staring down at his belly. His dark blue sweater was covered in bits of twig and leaf, which he picked at slowly.

“I think…,” he said, “I think it's the sea. That's what we both saw. I nearly died, once. And when I came back, I thought I was swimming up through this water, a really long way. And I felt I could breathe in there. I was strong. I wasn't afraid of anything. I knew I was coming back to life, and that whatever happened, I'd face it, I'd fight it … and I did. I think if I went into the water again, I might feel like that again. I might not think about being afraid.”

Because I am afraid
. The admission hung between them, unspoken, and Cath understood that, although Danny had admitted to being a coward before, he was finally saying that his fears ruled him, and he couldn't overcome them by himself. She wondered how on earth it was possible to be like that. And when he looked up at her, he was shaking his head.

“It's normal,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “That's what Sammael was telling you, wasn't it? We're all like this, us humans. It's only you who's different.”

Cath stared at him, and bit back the “Idiot!” that was on her lips. It didn't matter. What mattered was to find some water. If he thought that drowning himself was going to make him feel brave, then good luck to him.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's find some water, then. Best make it deep.”

“It's crazy,” said Danny. “But this is all crazy. Insane.”

“Sometimes—” said Barshin.

“None of that wise-hare stuff!” snapped Danny, turning on him. “I'm not as stupid as you all seem to think, you know.”

And, giving Cath a crooked half-smile that suggested he was in no way certain of whether what he was doing was right or not, he walked off toward the middle of the forest to fetch the deer.

 

CHAPTER 19

TO THE SEA

The following night, they slept in a copse of trees. The night after that, they crept behind a deserted house and curled themselves up behind some bales of straw, which at least were warm. By the fourth day, they'd grown so used to being filthy and hungry that they couldn't think of doing anything else apart from scurrying from place to place, keeping their heads down, and spending long minutes crouched behind hedges and walls and fallen trees, waiting for people to disappear from the way ahead. Cath stole food—she was light and small and ran faster than the shop alarms.

Every night Cath dreamed about the sea. And every night they had to make sure they found a place to sleep that wasn't close to people because Danny would have nightmares and Cath would wake up to hear him screaming. But once he'd woken, he'd find something to laugh about, and then everything was okay for a while.

On the evening of the fourth day, Cath came back from a food raid with a newspaper. She handed it to Danny. He read the headline: “‘Fears Grow for Missing Children'? That's it, then. They'll be out looking for us. Everyone will. We'll never get to the sea. Maybe I should just call my parents—they'll be worried.”

“Don't be daft,” said Cath. “'Course we'll get there. We're miles away from home now. No one'll look here.”

“Yeah, they will. It says the search has gone nationwide. Your dad's even made a TV appeal.”

Cath's heart seized up. She clenched her fist so hard that the corner of her chocolate bar dug painfully into the corner of her hand.

“Yeah,” she snarled. “He likes talking. Everyone always believes him.”

“But he's horrible.” Danny turned his wide-eyed face on her. “What he did to you at the farm—that was horrible. People must know he's like that.”

Cath stared at him. But, really, why should Danny have any idea about it? He was another kind of person.

She shook her head and kept her mouth shut.

Danny persisted. “Why don't you tell them? Or go to the police, or Social Services, or something?”

Cath unclenched her fist from around the chocolate bar and tore open the wrapper to get the last bit. It was starting to melt.

“Because I'm not a stupid little coward who gets everyone else to do everything for me,” she said, and she put the chocolate in her mouth. Then she got up and started walking again, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“It isn't cowardly to ask for help!” shouted Danny after her, scrambling to his feet. “It's what
normal
people do!”

But Cath kept on walking and didn't turn around.

*   *   *

Isbjin al-Orr, who had taken to roaming ahead on his own and reporting back as to the lay of the land, came trotting over the crest of a hill toward them through the fading dusk. Danny's hand shot to the stick in his pocket and Teilin scooted backward a few feet as though she'd been deafened.

Danny and Isbjin al-Orr stood in silent conference for a few moments, and then Danny turned to Cath. His face was wide with a rare smile, his teeth white against the growing darkness.

“He says it's close! Only one or two miles. Let's go!”

Cath thought, How didn't we notice before? There was a sharpness in the air that, now that she knew what it was, tasted like salt.

Her heart began to race. Down there on the beach, was she going to find her house? No, of course not. There weren't any mountains here. The whole point of her house was that no one could get to it. There wasn't room for Danny O'Neill. But still—she'd see the sea and be a little closer somehow.

*   *   *

And Cath couldn't believe the sea. Whatever she'd expected, it had been nothing like this—nothing so strong and dark and vast. She'd never dreamed of the angry wrench of the waves, or the roaring growl of the endless swell, or the way the silver moonlight would dance in a ceaseless frenzy as it shimmered over the water. She'd never dreamed it would look like the edge of the world, and that she'd know for certain as she stood before the sweeping tide that this was entirely real, entirely beyond her imagining.

It was like staring Dad in the face. It was like seeing him appear in the doorway, taking his belt off. It was like seeing him walk toward her, his fist raised, and his eyes full of hate. The sea was too big and too fierce, and she wanted to hide away from it.

“You okay?” asked Danny.

“Yeah, 'course.” She scowled.

“Okay, we're here. What do we do?”

What did they do? She hadn't thought for a moment that she'd be so scared. She hadn't thought that she wouldn't want to go in. She swallowed. Sometimes it wasn't enough just to do things no one else would do, she told herself. Sometimes you had to do things you didn't want to do, either.

Who had told her that? For a second she had a vision of someone with long black hair, like her own, someone who smelled of warmth. But it was gone before she could reach out to it.

She controlled her voice. “We go in and then Barshin calls Zadoc.”

“What, now?”

They both looked at the blackening waves. Drifting behind a thin cloud, the moon softened and began to stroke the water with a paler, steely light. Of course it was now.

“Yeah.”

“Okay then. Let's go.”

Suddenly, she wasn't sure that she could. Those waves were so dark—and it was Danny who knew what the dog looked like. He was the one who should go into Chromos and find it.

“I dunno,” she said, holding her arms tightly to her chest. “I dunno if I should.”

Danny laughed. “Neither do I,” he said. “I mean, it's a massively stupid idea, isn't it?”

Cath glared at him. He stopped laughing.

“You still scared?” Her voice came out in a thin whisper.

Danny shrugged. “I guess so. I … don't really know. You?”

Cath shook her head. “'Course not,” she said, lifting her chin high. “S'only the sea, ain't it?”

Danny looked at her. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, and then he stared back toward the sea. The moonlight had stolen all color from his face: his cheeks were snow white.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Let's do it. Come on.”

He held out a hand to her. How could she say no? The sea was boiling, as black as tar. A streak of moonlight broke through the waves, as vivid as the stripe on a badger's head.

Palms thick with clammy sweat, she looked down at her feet. And then there was Barshin, his thin face steady.

“It'll be fine,” the hare said. “We'll all go in together, and then I'll call Zadoc. I really don't think he'll be able to carry both of you. But if he can't, Cath can swim back to shore once we've gone to Chromos. We won't go far out. She'll be fine to get back on her own.”

Cath looked out at the sea. She couldn't even swim very well. She'd only had a few lessons at school.

Isbjin al-Orr stepped along the shingle beside her. He had his head up, his antlers cast back, and he was sniffing the air. He turned to look at her.

What was he trying to say? He must know that she couldn't understand.

“What's he saying?” she asked Danny.

Danny shrugged. “Nothing. But he'll help us.”

And then she understood. He was offering to take them in. Isbjin al-Orr wasn't brave. He was without fear. And he knew it.

She closed her eyes and breathed in once, then opened them. “Give me a leg up,” she said to Danny.

Danny held his cupped hands out, and she stepped into them and sat on the stag's back. His antlers were soft in the sharp air.

She put down her hand for Barshin, who came to sit in front of her, and then again for Danny, who jumped up behind her. And Isbjin al-Orr began to run toward the sea.

*   *   *

The stag's hooves hit the water and threw up a cloud of spray. In a second Cath's clothes were soaked and her hair was streaked over her cheeks, sticking to her skin. The water was quickly up to the height of Isbjin al-Orr's chest, and then too deep for him to run through, and he began to swim, striking out at the sea with smooth fury.