The Plentiful Darkness

by Heather Kassner

  But they won’t have it for long, she promised herself.

  In the streets beneath Thistle Hill, the townsfolk bustled about. “Keep close,” she warned the Monty, eyes scanning the shopfronts and alleys for any sign of the boys.

  Usually she did all she could to avoid them. It was a strange thing, to be searching them out instead.

  Halfway down the next block, she froze all at once. A low-pitched laugh that could only belong to Bridget Mullen carried on the air.

  Rooney ducked to the side, pressing close to the cold bricks of the hat shop’s wall. She looked down the street, and there at the corner stood Bridget, Trick, Sim, and Colin. They each held a small loaf of soda bread. It steamed, still warm from the oven. A growl rolled through Rooney’s stomach, never mind that it was full of blackberries.

  In the shadow of the awning, she inched closer. Oh, she wanted to march right up to them, but she had to be sneakier about it than that. She was outnumbered, outfisted … but she would not be outsmarted.

  She stared at the boys and the roundness of their cheeks as they chewed the bread, wishing it was just as easy to see the lump of her mirror in one of their pockets. Trick might still have it, or he might have handed it off to Bridget.

  All day she followed them, and though weary of spying, Rooney allowed herself to creep closer still. The Monty hurried to catch up and slipped too near the heel of her boot. Rooney stumbled, her feet smacking loudly against the cobblestones. The Monty squealed and dashed off.

  Ahead, Trick went still. Then, whip-fast, he turned toward Rooney.

  She leaped into the nearest doorway and huddled in the narrow entry. Surely he couldn’t see her here.

  But his eyes probed the shadows. They latched onto Rooney.

  He came no closer, only slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out two mirrors. One after the other, he tossed them into the air. Rooney felt sick at the thought of him dropping her mirror, of the glass shattering. Nothing would be worse. He juggled sloppily, trying to tempt her from her hiding spot, before tucking them back into the folds of his coat once again.

  Rooney’s fingers dug into the door frame. She glared daggers at Trick.

  Bridget tugged Trick’s sleeve, and when he turned back to his friends, they continued down the street, laughing beneath the rising moon.

  Rooney stepped out of the doorway. A cool breeze wailed past, fluttering a single sheet of paper stuck up on the storefront window.

  Her eyes caught on the weatherworn page. She leaned closer, flattening it against the glass so she could see the whole of it.

  A familiar face stared back, sketched in charcoal with a careful hand. Soft eyes, round cheeks, one long dark braid. The girl from the cottage window. The girl with the violin.

  Beneath the portrait, written with a shaky hand, was a plea for the return of the very dear, the deeply loved, Devin Hayes.

  For a moment, Rooney forgot about her mirror. This poor girl, who she’d seen only one evening past, had gone missing, snatched away by the thing in the streets even worse than the roughhouse boys.

  A chill swept through Rooney. Not as sharp and cold as the one she’d felt outside the girl’s house, but one that tickled her bones all the same.

  Rooney glanced away from the paper, turning back in the direction the roughhouse boys had gone. Already, they’d slipped out of sight. She took a step forward, toward Thistle Hill.

  But she hesitated. The lampposts flickered with moonlight, and darkness settled more heavily as evening fell.

  She did not like the idea of being alone in the streets at night (without even the Monty beside her for company), for if she too was taken, no one would tack up a poster begging for her return—no one at all would know she was gone.

  6

  BLACKTHORN

  Later that night, steeling herself against her worries, Rooney hid in the bushes at the base of Thistle Hill. Now was not the time to feel sorry for herself. She refused to let the darkness (and whatever existed within the darkness) scare her, and so she waited for the roughhouse boys.

  On a clear night like this one, moonlight would practically fall into the lunar mirrors. She didn’t know what was taking the roughhouse boys so long. She’d have finished already, she was sure of it, and despite her otherwise grim mood, she warmed with pride at her moonlight-catching abilities.

  Those boys didn’t know what they were missing when they’d turned her away from joining them.

  “I didn’t want to be one of them anyway,” Rooney whispered to the Monty, who had curled up beside her among the roots and mulch.

  The rat twitched its nose. It mustn’t have believed her.

  “I didn’t; I don’t.” Rooney stretched out her legs and poked at one of the unpatched holes in her stockings. “Have you already forgotten how horrible they are?”

  The Monty climbed to its feet and scampered across her knees. It peered out at the winding road ahead.

  Rooney quieted.

  She listened.

  Oh yes, she usually heard them before she saw them, and right then, the roughhouse boys were fast approaching, as if the soles of their boots were made of bricks instead of leather.

  Rooney scrambled to her feet, crouching low, and peeked out through the branches.

  “I’ll take Nightshade,” Bridget said, referring to the wealthy seaside avenue at the edge of Warybone where she was sure to earn the greatest sum of moonstones. “You two head to Cold Spine.” Colin and Sim stopped messing around long enough to acknowledge their assignment—a lane at the edge of town where no one with any sense would go alone, for even the roughhouse boys might get roughed up there.

  Rooney found herself leaning ever so slowly forward, brushing against the prickly bushes, as she waited to hear where Bridget would send Trick. She needed to catch him alone.

  “Blackthorn,” Trick said before Bridget could direct him, naming Rooney’s favorite street with the lovely line of rowan trees along the boulevard.

  Of course he’d choose that place, first stealing her mirror and now trying to claim her territory. She almost leaped out at him right then, but she forced herself still and silent.

  All the boys went their separate ways, none the wiser that Trick was about to gain a shadow.

  With the Monty beside her and a smile spread across her dirt-smudged face, Rooney slunk along, keeping to the darkest patches of the night. At the corner, when Trick went straight, Rooney turned right, cutting through the little park that would take her to Blackthorn even faster. The night he’d stolen her mirror, he’d gone ahead, arriving at the alleyway before her. Well, she could do the same, planting herself right in Trick’s path.

  Oh, he’d hate that she’d turned his trick against him.

  When she reached Blackthorn, all was quiet. Rooney and the Monty stalked forward, toward the widest rowan along the boulevard, and tucked into the shadows behind it.

  And then they waited.

  Not once did Rooney peek around the thick trunk of the tree. Not once did she look down the street for Trick. She didn’t have to. Soon enough, she heard him. His boots smacking on the cobblestones, his fists rapping against each door as he offered up the moonlight to potential buyers.

  Closer and closer he came.

  Louder and louder he pounded … as did Rooney’s heart.

  When at last Trick strode into view, the sweep of his long, dark hair hung in his eyes so Rooney couldn’t tell where he gazed. She pressed against the bark of the rowan. She held her breath. One more house, then he’d be past her, and she could pounce.

  No one came to the door when he knocked (neither the first nor the second or third times), and Rooney smiled smugly as he stepped back from the stoop.

  At the same time, she darted forward. Her hand stretched out. Her fingertips brushed the collar of his coat.

  He twisted away, casting a sharp look over his shoulder. Then he grinned, a devilish curl of his lips.

  Rooney lunged for him.

  Although she was
lighter on her feet, Trick was faster. He dodged away, laughing.

  “It isn’t a game,” she huffed, charging for him again. “Give me back my mirror!”

  “It is a game.” Still, he remained out of her reach.

  “I’ll best you yet, Trick Aidan.”

  “You can try, Rooney de Barra!” he cried, and then darted down the street.

  She bolted after him, legs pumping fast, arms held tight to her sides. The Monty scurried along beside her. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth.

  Trick veered away from the dark heart of Warybone, leading her back toward the roughhouse boys. Leading her back toward Thistle Hill.

  Didn’t matter where he went, she’d follow. Even there, where the cold, cold patch of air had touched her, where poor Devin Hayes had gone missing.

  Somewhere along the way, Rooney had lost the Monty too. It might have run ahead or fallen behind—she didn’t know, and she couldn’t stop to look for it. Trick was so close now, she could hear the ragged exhalations of his breath. Almost, she could feel the vibrations of his boots clomping over the cobblestones.

  Ahead, the air grew dense and hazy, and through it, the Tower of Thistle split the sky. Caught in its cold shadow, Rooney stumbled. Never did she stop, but in that stutter of her steps, Trick gained his lead. It spurred him even faster.

  He looked back one last time, that wicked grin cracking his face, and yelled, “Give up now!”

  “I’ll give up never!” she shouted back.

  But he turned abruptly into an alleyway, and Rooney lost sight and sound of him.

  7

  SHROUDED IN SILENCE

  The emptiness of the night surrounded Rooney, all at once absent of Trick. The cold had come, and the thinnest fog too. It rolled out of the alleyway, much too creepy for her liking.

  She crept forward. Bravely forward.

  Trick probably crouched in the shadows, waiting to jump out at her.

  Rooney rounded the corner and faced the darkened alleyway, feet planted firmly, hands on her hips. “Trick Aidan,” she called, but the fog seemed to eat the sound of her words.

  Trick made no reply. He made no move to scare her.

  Impossibly, he wasn’t there at all.

  But she’d seen him turn this way. He had to be here. She ran forward, all the way to the alley’s abrupt dead end, and struck the brick wall with her fist. She looked up and down and all around. There was no place he might have hidden. She saw no crack or crevice, no window or doorway through which he might have passed. She saw no way he might have scaled the walls, no sewer he might have wormed his way into.

  The bone-deep chill pressed closer, same as the one she felt when she’d run from Devin Hayes’s house. Rooney did not like its icy touch.

  Even less did she like the splotch of darkness spilled on the cobblestones before her. Like a spreading pool of blood.

  She circled it carefully. She drew in a breath.

  The silky-smooth surface rippled.

  A hand shot up from the pitch. Fingers clawed at the air, curled and reaching, but when they grasped nothing but air, they disappeared once again.

  Heart pounding, Rooney jumped back. Trick. It had to be Trick. Something in the night had stolen him away, had sucked him into this dark, glossy substance on the stones.

  She might be next!

  Behind her, a whisper cracked the quiet. “Hush.”

  Rooney spun around. At first, she saw nothing, only the street beyond the alleyway. But when she squinted and focused on the shadows, she realized she was not alone.

  There, beside the grime-gray wall, a figure stood swathed in a hooded cloak of fog.

  Rooney pressed a hand to her lips, holding in a startled scream.

  Slowly, slowly, the figure’s hood fell back, revealing a woman with hair as dark and wild as a sky full of ravens. It whorled around her shoulders. A shiny black ribbon encircled her throat, and Rooney’s fingers slipped from her mouth to her neck, tugging at her coat collar, the top button of which suddenly felt much too tight.

  Moonlight struck the woman’s pale skin. Long scars fell down both cheeks, like lines of rain cutting across glass.

  The magician from the Tower of Thistle.

  No one had seen her the whole of the year. Rooney had thought the tower abandoned, it had stood so dark and quiet. But the magician must have been there all this time.

  Rooney was too frightened to speak as the magician came closer.

  “Have you lost your way in the darkness?” The magician cracked a sharp smile. “Have you lost your friend to the darkness?”

  Though Trick was no friend of Rooney’s, she needed to know what had become of him—he still had her mirror. “What have you done?” she said, unable to spark her voice with the fire that stirred in her belly.

  “I’ve quieted him.” The magician touched a fingertip to her temple, as if her head ached. “I’ve shrouded him in silence and gifted him to the darkness.” She gestured to the black stain on the ground.

  Rooney’s eyes swung downward, and before she could stop herself, she thought once more of blood. Of the magician clipping Trick’s tongue from his mouth. Of Trick being well and truly silenced.

  But no, no. It couldn’t be that. The splotch of darkness had corners. It had depth. Like a pocket of night torn free from the sky. Trick’s hand had pushed up through the strange darkness.

  And Rooney hadn’t taken hold of it. One more thing she could not protect.

  Rooney hopped out of the way, the moonlit fire inside her burning brighter. “Keep him quiet if you want to”—Rooney did not much care for the sound of Trick’s voice either—“but bring him back from wherever you’ve sent him.”

  The magician twitched, a contortion of the strange scars on her face.

  “I mean it.” Rooney found her voice. She raised it loud and clear. “Magic him back!”

  The magician’s long hair twisted in the wind. “Quiet,” she hissed, low in her throat, the ribbon choking each word. “The darkness awaits you.”

  Rooney backed away slowly, deeper into the dead-ended alley. Her heel dipped into the pitch, sank into it, felt the tug and pull of it. As if she trembled at the edge of a cliff, and below her swirled the void.

  What’s down there?

  She wheeled away, skirting around the darkness as the magician stalked closer. Rooney bent her arms. She readied her elbows, which were the sharpest points on her body. If she got in one good swing, with only a few steps she could be free of the alleyway and flee the magician and her dark magic.

  But if she ran, she might never see her lunar mirror again. She might never catch another beam of moonlight or the dust from a falling star. (She might never see Trick again either, and though she tried to push the thought away, it left a sick feeling in her belly to abandon him.)

  “Magic him back!” Rooney shouted again, her voice wavering in fright.

  With one pale hand, the magician reached out, as if she meant to smother Rooney. “I should have silenced you firstly.” The magician pulled up her hood. She all but disappeared in the cloak of quiet.

  Rooney tensed. She squinted. She tried to keep the magician, who was surely coming closer and closer, in sight.

  But though she couldn’t see her, Rooney could feel her. The cold drifted nearer.

  She glanced down at the void in the cobblestones, which looked as much like a silken scarf as it did a vast hollow. She kicked a pebble with her boot. It clicked and clacked over the stones, and bounced right into the center of the darkness, where it was immediately swallowed.

  And silenced.

  The cold touched Rooney. The magician’s breath upon her neck, her icy hand at Rooney’s cheek.

  Coming to shroud Rooney in silence.

  Rooney dodged away. She prepared to run.

  But she could not shake loose her thoughts of Trick—that he’d think her a coward. That running would prove how unworthy she was of being a roughhouse boy. If she wanted something, she had to be brave and go
after it.

  Wrapped in fog, the magician swept closer.

  Rooney might not have had any magic of her own, but she knew it was real and true. Her mirror was made of it, and she would be brave. She would not let it go—the only thing that mattered to her.

  She closed her eyes. She wished, wished, wished upon the stars somewhere above her for a safe landing, to find her mirror.

  To show Trick he was wrong about her.

  Then, with a determined leap, she plunged into the darkness.

  8

  INK AND PITCH

  Rooney fell and fell and fell, like she was tumbling down an endless well. She feared she’d never reach the bottom. At the same time, she dreaded the prospect of what might await her below. Such as a grave of bones from all the children captured and tossed into the void before her.

  She dared one eye open, then the other, but she could see nothing in the gloom. Not her hands, grasping at air. Not her hair, whipping fast at her face. It clung to her—a veil of darkness—as if she were not made of skin and bones but rather of ink and pitch.

  A scream crawled up her throat, and she released it. Loud and shrill and lovely, it cracked the night. She hoped it reached all the way to Warybone far above, all the way to the magician’s sensitive ears. Rooney yelled until her throat was raw.

  Until, at last, she landed.

  Her body made a great splash as she sank beneath cold, cold water. Silky and dark and wrong feeling, it rushed over her head. Her boots and coat dragged her deeper. She kicked with heavy legs, reaching and pushing and trying to remember which way was up, which down.

  After all that screaming, she had no breath left within her. But she swept her arms through the water, at last breaking the surface.

  She blinked and spat out water. The blackness surrounded her, so deep and oily she could barely see through it. Half-drowned, she spun in a circle, but she could not orient herself. All she could do was tread water, frozen with the thought that if she swam in any one direction, it would be the wrong direction and she would never reach shore. If, in this strange place, there was even a shore at all.