40
Comet
Is it written, is it chance?
The way we move and the way we go
The way it will all end
Something is not right. Everything is not right.
All Niall’s radars were roused in alarm, but he couldn’t figure out where the threat was coming from, he couldn’t figure out who was with them and who was against. He was just relieved that Winter hadn’t been in his dream, that she wasn’t among those killed. It didn’t mean she’d come to no harm at all, but he clung to the little hope he had that she’d survive.
He’d heard Elodie gasp in the gloom, and somehow he knew, as surely as he knew his own name, that she’d had a vision. As they were making their way slowly downstairs for a drink, he caught her elbow and gently made her stop.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“What?” Immediately she looked away, defensive.
“What did you see?”
“In my dream? We all had the same dream. You know what I saw.”
“No.” Niall shook his head. “Afterwards. In Sean’s room. You saw something there, I’m sure of it. And you were horrified. I saw the look on your face. What did you see?”
Elodie pleaded with him. “Don’t make me tell you, Niall. Please.”
“I need to know.”
“I …” She turned away.
Niall grabbed Elodie’s wrist, a gesture so weird for him, so out of character, that Elodie was alarmed. “I need to know,” he told her in a measured staccato.
Elodie took a deep breath. “I saw one of us …”
Niall’s eyes narrowed. “One of us?”
“It’s difficult to explain. One of us …wasn’t there. There were five of us in that room. And then suddenly, there were four.”
“Which one of us?” asked Niall calmly.
“I don’t know.”
“If it was me you can tell me, Elodie. I’m not afraid.”
Elodie looked him straight in the eyes. “Believe me. I don’t know! The vision only lasted a second. I didn’t see who it was. I swear to you. Now let’s go downstairs.”
Niall studied her face. She was telling the truth. He eased his grasp on her wrist, and Elodie continued down the stairs, flushed with anger.
Which one of us?
41
The Last Letter
Your voice across the years
Told me why they said
You never smiled
Sarah waited until she heard Sean’s rapid footsteps on the stairs. Then she crept along the hall and let herself into Nicholas’s room. He was fast asleep, immobile, his breathing heavy and regular. Strange, she thought. How can he sleep when the whole house is awake?
A tapping at the window made her jump. Through the glass she saw a beak tapping, and a confusion of wings and black, shiny bodies – the ravens, crowding Nicholas’s windowsill. The sight of them pressing and pushing against the glass as if they wanted to come in made her shiver.
She tiptoed back to her room. There she was alone once more in a daze of sleeplessness, still reeling from the horror of the dream, but also from Sean’s words.
If these are the last days of my life, who do I want to spend them with?
She took a moment to steady herself. Her entire body and soul screamed for her to be back in Sean’s embrace.
She lit the fire – the room was so cold that she could see her breath coming out in little white clouds – and opened the box she’d stored the letters in. All that was left, as far as she could see, was one last letter in the same creamy paper as the others, and a few loose pages torn from notebooks, lists and receipts and various bits of paperwork. One last letter left to read, and the dreams had started again. She felt the chill breeze from the storm to come, and she was suddenly sure that her time to leave Islay would be soon.
One last letter.
She wrapped herself in her duvet and started reading.
Midnight Hall, Islay
November 1987
Dear Amelia,
I have to tell someone. It all weighs in my heart so. I need to take it out before it rips me inside. I just don’t know how it happened. It feels as if someone else had planned it, and I carried it out. But it was me who planned it, though I struggle to believe it. I always believed that we are all here for a reason – us Secrets, I mean. If we don’t fulfil our purpose, what’s the point of our existence? I never thought I, out of all of us, could give birth to a useless heir, someone who doesn’t rise to her mission. Someone like my sister could have given birth to a failure, but not me. Not me.
The letter continued along the same lines. Sarah frowned. The tone was all wrong. Was this Morag? So emotional. Out of control, even. But yes, the handwriting was the same. Sarah’s eyes travelled to the bottom of the page to check the signature, but there was none. The letter finished abruptly in the middle of a sentence:
I know it’s all over now, and it’s for the best, but
That was it. No more. Sarah checked the box again. No more creamy paper, no more letters. Just a bunch of crinkled scraps remained.
She tidied the letters away, and sat looking at the flames, losing herself in the dancing shapes. She ended up falling asleep in the armchair in front of the fire as a grey winter dawn broke over the sea.
No dreams came to haunt her sleep, but when she woke up and went to the bathroom, she saw that her hair was dotted with tiny braids again, made by fingers so light that she hadn’t felt a thing.
Where’s the rest of the letter, Mairead? Sarah asked her reflection, stroking the braids softly, as if it had been Mairead’s hair she was caressing.
Winter was brushing her hair in front of the open window, unaffected by the cold wind, when she saw Sarah running up the hill towards her.
“Winter!” Sarah called when she saw the silver-haired girl.
“Sarah!” she waved, and ran to greet her.
By the time Winter appeared at the top of the stairs Sarah was standing on the doorstep, panting after the run, her cheeks very pink, her hair blowing dark and silky behind her. The door of the cottage was wide open, and the wind was blowing in – the whole house was freezing, and it smelled of the sea. Winter didn’t much care for the difference between “outside” and “inside”.
“Winter. There’s a page missing from this letter. Look.” She showed her the final page she’d read.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes. I kept it from you.”
Sarah was astonished, and angry at how easily Winter admitted that.
“Why?”
Winter said nothing. She was less sure of herself now, looking for the right words, but in vain. How could she explain?
I just don’t want her to know, Winter thought. I don’t want her to suffer. Can I tell her? Can I tell her that I don’t want her to suffer? Would she understand?
“Come outside. I feel stifled in the house, I need to feel the wind,” she said.
Sarah rolled her eyes. Fine, feel the wind. As long as you give me an explanation.
They stood just outside the house, facing the grassy patch that sloped towards the sea, turning into sand mid-way down the hill. Neither of them spoke. There was a fine drizzle falling from the wintry sky, blown around by the wind. The ocean was foaming with menace, and a herd of clouds was galloping in from the west. Soon, very soon, the drizzle would turn into a downpour, and the rough sea would turn into a stormy one.
“Look at the sky, Winter,” said Sarah impatiently. “It’s going to pour in a minute.” The clouds were taking on a sinister look. “Tell me about the letter. Where is it?”
“Yes. This is all so complicated.”
Sarah was ready to scream with the combination of frustration and cold. “What’s complicated? Do you have it or not? The missing letter?” Her hair was blowing over her face. She swept it away and tried in vain to stop it from getting tangled.
Winter studied Sarah’s face. Sarah Midnight was all she imagined her to be, and more. The power in her heart and soul is so strong that I feel it vibrating under my skin every time she’s around. She’s very much like her grandmother, Morag – only Sarah is kind. I can see it in her eyes.
“I have it,” Winter admitted finally. “I just don’t want you to read it.”
Sarah frowned, but tried to remain calm. “It’s not up to you. It belongs to my grandmother. It’s mine. I have all the right to read it.”
“You have the right to read it, yes. It’s just that …”
Sarah scrutinized Winter’s face. “I can tell you this, Winter. I’m fed up with people hiding things from me because they want to protect me, OK? My parents did it, Sean did it, and look where it took me! Up until a few months ago I didn’t even know how to use my own powers, and it almost killed me. Enough secrets. I don’t need protecting. I want that letter, Winter. Now.”
“Sarah.”
“Have you destroyed it?” Sarah demanded, anger flashing in her eyes.
“I wanted to, but I knew it wasn’t my place to do that. I just couldn’t destroy that memory. It wasn’t up to me.”
“No, it’s not up to you.” A roar of thunder rattled through the skies. Winter could see Sarah’s lips moving, but the final part of her sentence was carried away by the noise. The waves were getting bigger, and a thin, jagged string of lightning cut through the sky in the west. The light turned suddenly livid, eerie.
As she looked into Sarah’s face, Winter saw her, Morag Midnight, playing in her features like blood memories do.
“Sarah,” she blurted out. “There’s more to your family than you imagine. The Midnights wanted me dead. And they nearly succeeded.”
“What? Why?” Sarah cried out, then her features rearranged themselves into suspicion. “I can only think of one reason they would want you dead. You are—” Instinctively she flexed her hands and her Midnight eyes began to shimmer.
For a second, Winter was afraid. “A demon? No. I told you the truth. I’m half human, half Elemental.”
“Then why—”
“Your grandmother didn’t really approve of mixing species, so to speak.” Winter shuddered, remembering the catalogue of ghastly words Morag had used for her mother – whore, among many others. And for her: half-breed, bastard child. Monster.
“I still don’t understand.” Sarah flung out her arms in frustration. “Explain, please!”
“Your family … they never cared much for Elementals. Mainly because they can’t be controlled easily. The Midnights could never control them, anyway. And they certainly didn’t approve of new breeds. That was considered totally unacceptable. Secret people marrying Lays was bad enough, but a human and an Elemental having a child with potentially unknown powers? Surely you were aware of this?”
“I told you, my parents hid things from me. I didn’t even know there were other Secret heirs in the world. I thought it was just us.”
Winter had to assume that James and Anne Midnight had their reasons for keeping their daughter in the dark as they’d done, but to leave Sarah ignorant was to leave her unarmed. “You see, Secret men can marry Lay women and the powers are passed on, but not the other way round. The children of Secret women and Lay men won’t inherit any Secret power, no Blackwater, in your case.”
Sarah shrugged. “My parents never told me. I suppose if they had, they would have had to explain that there were other Secret Families, and from there …”
“I think they would have had to tell you sooner or later, because I can’t imagine James letting you marry a Lay.”
“I can’t imagine my dad letting me marry anyone he didn’t choose for me,” said Sarah quietly, a chill running down her spine as she realized what that implied about her father.
“Yes, your father could be quite … controlling. He did, after all, try to kill me.”
Sarah stared at Winter. Winter read the horror in her eyes, and a sense of compassion invaded her. Sarah really didn’t know her father. At all.
“I don’t understand.” Sarah’s voice became small. “So they disapproved of what your mother did, and of you.” She gave a little laugh. “Fair enough, I suppose. As far as I know my grandmother disapproved of the whole world, really. But trying to kill you …”
“As I said, Sarah, you really don’t know much about them.”
“Then you need to tell me. I want to know.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Winter, taking Sarah’s hands in hers. “I wish I didn’t have to be the one. Listen. Whatever happens, I want you to remember one thing, Sarah. You’re not like them. Do you hear me? I can see it in your eyes. I saw it all along, since the first time I met you. You’re not like your parents.”
Sarah felt sick. “What did they do to you, Winter?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter what they did or didn’t do to me. Not now. I’ll give you the last letter. Then you’ll know what happened to Mairead.”
As she watched Sarah’s baffled expression she suddenly recalled a quote from the Bible, one that her mother had been very fond of: The truth will set you free.
Would the truth set Sarah free, or would it destroy her?
I have to have faith in the last of the Midnights, I have to believe that Sarah will survive, and that she’ll be different, thought Winter.
“Winter!” called Sarah suddenly, bringing her back to the present.
Something in her voice made Winter’s heart jump. Sarah’s face was turned skyward, and when Winter followed her gaze she saw something moving amongst the livid clouds. Something black, skeletal, gliding slowly towards them.
“It’s the demon-bird,” whispered Sarah, flexing her hands.
Winter breathed in sharply. She’d seen demons before, but she’d never been attacked by one. “What shall we do?”
“You go inside. I’ll see to it.”
“I’m not leaving you on your own, Sarah!”
“Don’t be stupid! You weren’t made for this. Apparently I was.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Go inside! I can’t have your death on my conscience.”
“Sarah!”
Sarah had no choice. She turned her gaze on Winter’s and the silver-haired girl whimpered in pain. “If you don’t go inside right now, I’ll keep going. If you think that’s painful, I can do worse.”
Winter had no choice but to obey. She ran inside and upstairs, watching from the window of her bedroom as the horrific bird swooped slowly towards Sarah. The storm had made its way round the bay and was moving back towards them, the swollen clouds had opened up, and a shower of rain, tossed around by the wind, began falling on the beach.
“Come on, come on,” Sarah murmured to herself, her hands scalding already. “Come on!” Sarah shouted again over the sound of the storm, wiping her face with her hands. The rain didn’t seem to affect the flight of the creature at all, but the wind was buffeting it, making it glide from left to right, forcing it to turn into itself with a flap of its leathery wings as it made its slow progress towards Sarah.
She was breathing heavily, ready for the fight, furious and frightened and ready to kill. “Come and get me!” she taunted the demon once more.
A blade of lightning cut the sky, illuminating the creature for a moment. Sarah could make out the beaked head, the enormous black wings, and the emaciated shape of its body, tiny in comparison to the wings. And the claws, silhouetted against the leather of the demons’ wings – long and sharp enough to eviscerate a human being.
Mum, Dad, protect me, thought Sarah as a bout of fear swept through her. The demon-bird was circling now, closer and closer – soon it would land.
“Sarah!” A voice came from above her. It was Winter calling from the window, but whatever she was saying was drowned by a new clap of thunder, and by the time the noise was over, the creature had landed. It was standing a hundred yards away on its own two feet despite the wind, its wings folded and resting at its sides.
And it started striding towards her.
Sarah was ready, hands raised, eyes flashing. The Midnight gaze hadn’t worked on the demon-bird the night it had attacked her, and it wasn’t working now. Unperturbed, the Surari walked on, nearer and nearer. Sarah’s chest tightened once she could see its face, the almond eyes, dark as coal, the black mane falling over its shoulder, and the long, bony beak.
Suddenly the demon-bird took flight, rising with its wings outstretched, readying itself to pounce on Sarah from above. Sarah raised her hands, her eyes wide with terror and flashing green. In a single bound the creature landed on her and threw her to the ground, its beak inches from her face.
Sarah’s eyes were deadly green, but the creature was still unaffected. Furious, Sarah grabbed its wings with her burning hands, but again, the demon didn’t flinch.
Her heart missed a beat.
Is the Blackwater not working either?
She fumbled, trying to take hold of the demon’s flesh. Its almond eyes were fixed on hers, its beak poised to strike. Finally, Sarah managed to grab its shoulders, and the demon froze just as its beak readied to pierce Sarah’s face. It groaned, a muffled sound that to Sarah’s ears sounded too human for comfort. But she would show no mercy. She tightened her grip on the demon-bird and watched it squirm while the Blackwater dissolved its skin.
“Sarah!”
Sean?
Sarah’s concentration wavered for a split second, and the demon took its chance, slashing at her with its claws, wounding her bare throat. She screamed in pain and fury. She knew exactly what it was aiming at – her jugular. In a haze of pain, Sarah grabbed at its shoulders again, digging her fingers into its flesh. When she dared to turn her head slightly towards Sean’s voice, there he was, tracing the runes with his sgian-dubh, slashing the air.
The demon-bird began thrashing, pummelled by Sean’s runes. With enormous effort it freed itself from Sarah’s grip and leapt up, staggering between Sarah and Sean, watching them with eyes full of pain.
Pain. Sadness. What is this demon about? How can a demon look … sorrowful?
Sarah shook herself. She saw Niall, Elodie and Mike rushing up the slope towards Sean, Niall already humming his song. Frantic now, the demon swept around to face them all, then turned back to Sarah. It was her blood that was on its claws.
Then, as if a brake had been put on the world, they heard the creature say, loud and clear, “Sarah Midnight.” Everybody froze.
Sarah’s heart stopped for a second. Stars danced before her eyes as she clutched her bleeding skin. Strange. She felt no pain. She looked at her friends, but they stood stunned in the rain. Niall’s song was rising higher and higher, and a subtle pain was beginning to make its way into their ears, but the Surari seemed unaffected, just like he’d been by Sarah’s gaze.
“What are you? What do you want from me?” demanded Sarah, trying to disguise the panic she was feeling.
“You’re talking to demons. Again!” yelled Sean, punctuating each word with a hit of his blade. The Surari brought a clawed hand to its chest, mirroring Sarah’s gesture, and it came away bloodied, its blood mixed with Sarah’s. With one last look, the creature spread its wings and lifted itself without effort, despite the blood pouring from its chest.
Sarah growled in anger as she watched it fly upwards. “Running away again? Scared to face us, you coward?”
The demon rose up to the height of Winter’s window, and they watched in horror as the Surari and Winter, frozen in fear, looked at each other.
“Winter!” Niall called frantically.
But the demon wasn’t interested in attacking her, and instead continued its ascent, gliding on the wind. It rose towards the clouds and disappeared into the stormy sky.
Sean wrapped his arm around Sarah’s waist. “Are you OK?”
Sarah nodded. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just fine.” And then she fell unconscious into Sean’s arms.
42
Wounds of the Body
Wounds of the soul
The ones you don’t see
Will never heal
“It was worse than we thought.” A voice, coming from afar.
And another voice. “Pretty deep wound. Shit, it nearly got her.”
Sarah opened her eyes and blinked repeatedly, letting the world fall into focus. Her throat was dry, and her entire body ached.
“You’re awake.” The first voice again.
Sarah turned towards the sound. It was Elodie. Yes, Elodie. Sitting on her bed, holding her hand.
“What happened?” her voice came out weak and croaky. Her lips were parched.
“That bird thing hurt you. Quite badly. You lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry, Sarah, you’ll be fine soon,” Elodie said gently, stroking her face. Sarah closed her eyes, relishing in that unexpected tenderness. Gradually, memories began to answer some of the questions hurtling round her head.
“The demon-bird. Did we kill it?”
Elodie shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
Sarah winced.
“Don’t think of that now. We’ll find it, I promise you,” Elodie reassured her.
“Sarah!” It was Nicholas, barging into the room.
“Where were you?” said Elodie, getting up to make room for him on the edge of Sarah’s bed. Nicholas ignored her.
“Sarah, what did they do to you?” he murmured.
“Really, I’m OK. Please stop fussing,” she repeated with as much irritation as she could muster. She felt so weak. “Help me sit up.”
It took a while, and it hurt, but once Nicholas had propped her up with all the pillows he could find, Sarah could see, out of the corner of her eye, that there was someone else sitting in the armchair beside the fireplace. Once her eyes had become accustomed to the light she saw that it was Sean, mute and pale, watching her.
“I’m fine,” she called to him, anticipating the question.
He nodded, still silent.
Sarah could sense his fear. An invisible hand squeezed her heart. “Really, Sean. I am,” she said, softer this time.
Sean rose slowly and walked towards the bed. Nicholas, his head bowed, didn’t move an inch. Sarah stretched out her hand to Sean, and when he took it, she drew him closer. Nicholas was forced to step aside as Sean sank onto the bed.
He looked ghastly. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“No way. Not for a stupid bird, anyway.” She laughed briefly, her breath catching at the pain in her side.
Sean smiled wanly.
“How did you know what was happening? Was it Winter who called you? Some sort of sea call or something? A power she didn’t tell us about?”
Sean smiled, more broadly this time. “Sort of,” he said. “It was a mobile phone. She called me.”
Sarah laughed weakly despite herself.
“Winter asked me to give you this,” Sean added, handing her a rolled up piece of paper he was holding. “She said that you had been looking for it.”
It was the missing letter. Sarah clutched it as a thought darted through her mind: Where had Nicholas been when she’d needed him?