The Plentiful Darkness

by Heather Kassner

  Someone had offered her the magical lunar mirror when she needed it most, and now these children were in need. Rooney could not go without them—not when she knew that black hole spun so dangerously close to them.

  She lifted her head. “What about the others? Would you just leave them here to wither and rot in the darkness? Would you throw them to the black hole?” And the Monty too (the Monty especially). After all it had done to help her, she could not forget its kindness.

  Devin paused with her hand still raised. On Trick’s leg, she wobbled and then stumbled to the ground.

  “I can’t catch it.” Forlornly, Devin watched the dwindling moonlight. “But even if I could…” She sighed. “It isn’t right to leave anyone behind.”

  Trick climbed to his feet, looking sharply at Rooney. He reached for the moonbeam, so delicate now, almost gone. “We’re not wasting this opportunity.”

  Dismay flooded through Rooney. Just as she’d thought, he didn’t care. If he could, he’d return to Warybone without thought or mind of what became of them.

  21

  THE TRUTH OF IT

  Rooney scrunched up her face, twisting her features into the most disapproving, disappointed arrangement she could muster.

  All for waste, as Trick wasn’t even looking at her. Whereas Devin’s hand had passed right through it, his fingers tangled in the moonlight the way weavers crafted it into impermanent string and bows.

  A soft melody filtered through the woods. But it was not made by the children with their off-key instruments and high-pitched voices.

  Rooney’s mouth dropped open.

  Somehow, Trick’s fingertips strummed the fading light, the notes plinking like rain on a rooftop. Rooney didn’t know if the music was magic, exactly, but it sounded like it could be, beautiful and hollow and echoing through the trees. She stared at him in surprise—that his hands, fisted and angry more often than not, could touch the moonlight so gently.

  “It’s not strong enough to carry us all. I just thought…” He glanced at Devin, who looked both fragile and fierce as she tried not to cry. “I just thought it might be strong enough to carry one of us. And Devin, your parents are waiting for you.”

  Rooney chewed on her lip, hoping to keep her words inside until she could sort her tumbling thoughts, but they burst out all at once in a terrible jumble. “I thought you’d abandon us the first moment you could. It’s just the type of thing you would do! So why are you being so nice?”

  As soon as this last question slipped out, she clamped shut her mouth. It was a ridiculous accusation. To yell at someone for being kind.

  “I’m always nice.” Trick grinned, the corner of his lip curling impishly.

  Rooney rolled her eyes. Even if she’d been wrong about him this time, she’d never apologize to Trick. It didn’t change who he was deep down. Rotten at his core.

  “It’s decided, then.” Devin came between them, smoothing things over. “We all stay, until we all can go.”

  “The magician may never return,” Trick warned. But when Devin did not object or change her mind, he dropped his hand.

  The wisp of moonlight spiraled away, and shadows swarmed as the seam above closed. Sealing them in.

  Although it had been her idea to stay in the first place, folded up in the darkness, Rooney wondered if she had cursed them to remain here forever.

  Only, forever might not be very long at all. She brushed her fingertips against the spot of gray on her cheekbone. Death lingered all around them.

  The hairs along her arms stood on end. From nowhere came a sudden cold. The air snapped with distant crackles of blue light.

  “What’s that?” Devin squeaked.

  The flickering came from the direction where Sorka had run off. “More trouble, no doubt,” Rooney said, squinting.

  “Well.” Trick’s black eyes reflected the strange splinters of light. “I would rather creep up on trouble than have it creep up on me.”

  Rooney quite agreed, and the three of them slunk forward.

  The blue shimmer led the way through the woods. It zagged like lightning, so quiet without a trailing clap of thunder.

  Around them, the woods shifted; the woods changed.

  The tarnished-silver flowers bloomed before her eyes, the tips of the petals blackening before falling from the trees. As they landed upon her cheeks, they chilled her skin.

  “Snow,” Devin gasped.

  But as the flakes fell thicker, they stung—more ice than snow. Each of the six points stabbed like needles.

  Rooney, Trick, and Devin threw their hoods over their heads, shivering beneath the icefall. It piled in drifts around them, crystals of silver and black glinting against the pitch, and above, icicles hung long and dark from the branches. A frosted-over pond curved as round as the moon between the black trees, much like the one in Warybone.

  Trick brought his hand to his temple. He swallowed hard. A frosty breath plumed from his mouth as he said, “Why couldn’t we have found a warm spring meadow instead?”

  Though he might have been joking, Rooney suddenly wondered the same thing, and as Devin nodded, she whispered, “Maybe it’s out there.”

  If the season in Sorka’s clearing hinted at autumn with all the leafless trees, here they’d walked into a brittle-black winter.

  And they’d walked right into Sorka. She stood with her back to them, black hair gusting, arms raised high.

  Blue sparks crackled from her hands (no, from the lunar mirrors in her hands), shooting up toward the not-sky, as if she meant to slice it open. But the seam remained unbroken.

  A screech of frustration rose from her throat, crashing into the night.

  The darkness echoed her cry. The not-sky wrinkled, it lowered, coming straight toward them. The tops of the trees bowed and cracked, spilling more of the flowers-that-were-ice all around them.

  Rooney, Trick, and Devin mashed together behind a thick trunk, shuddering as the trees too squeezed tighter, the very ground beneath them eroding.

  Sorka cast the unruly blue light out again. It shot through the air, wild spears of moonlight that the darkness deflected.

  Mist whispered through the trees. A wind swept through too, blowing ice in their faces.

  Or was it the black hole awakening?

  Devin’s hand lashed out, snatching hold of Trick. She struggled to speak, but her windpipe must have frozen up the same as Rooney’s, for not a word escaped from between her blue-tinged lips.

  Rooney leaned toward Devin, who blinked and blinked.

  Frost glassed over Devin’s eyes.

  The edges of Rooney’s vision hazed, ice crackling in their corners. But she caught sight of what had captured Devin’s attention. The Monty, who’d run off into the woods when she’d woken, must have followed them here. It lay on the icy ground in their shadows, limbs stiff and still, eyes white with frost, whiskers like icicles.

  Rooney scooped the little creature into her arms. She couldn’t tell if it breathed.

  A teardrop sprang from Rooney’s eye. It froze before it could slip all the way down her cheek.

  It hurt to move, but they had to!

  On legs aching with cold, they fled Sorka’s undisciplined magic, the treacherous winter, the coming darkness.

  Though they could barely see the way, they raced for the clearing, following the sad little whimpers of the children murmuring in unsound sleep. But suddenly Devin tugged them toward an unfamiliar part of the forest.

  With great effort to push the words past the ice lining her throat, she rasped, “Summer.” A shiver coursed through her. “That’s where I first fell into the darkness.”

  They ran faster—hopeful its promise of warmth would thaw the Monty and melt the chill in their bones.

  Degree by degree, the air softened, the trees thinned, and at the very edge of summer, Rooney collapsed. She held the Monty against her chest. Devin and Trick tumbled down beside her on the stretch of black sand, their bodies quaking from cold.

 
Waves crashed in the darkness. Or maybe that was only Rooney crashing toward sleep.

  Her eyes closed. Someone found her hand and clasped it tight. She knew those hard knuckles, but she didn’t let go.

  The truth of it was, Trick had offered his hand just when she needed it most.

  22

  PETAL AND THORN

  Rooney’s eyes opened to darkness. She touched her cheek, unsure if she, Trick, and Devin had been frostbitten or blinded, or lost their voices for good.

  Sitting up, she took a deep breath. No, obviously she could see well enough—there were Devin and Trick already awake beside her. She wiggled her fingers before her and her toes in her boots, all of which bent without pain. “Monty,” she whispered, and her voice sounded as it should.

  The rat lay in her lap. Its chest rose and fell. Its smudgy nose twitched.

  Warm and alive. Thanks to Devin.

  “What is this place?” Rooney ran her fingers through the sand.

  “I don’t really know,” Devin admitted. “The children found me so quickly, I saw nothing more than the sand and the sea.”

  Setting the Monty aside, Rooney scrambled to her feet, turning. The sea spread out before her, black water, rolling waves, silver foam breaking on the shore. Another piece of Warybone mirrored in this world, just as Trick had thought.

  “I don’t know why they wouldn’t stay here where it’s warm.” He stood, brushing sand from the creases of his coat.

  “The sullen queen probably couldn’t bear to be away from her throne,” Rooney said.

  Devin tilted her face up to them. “Let’s explore.”

  And so they set off at a run.

  “Watch out for sand traps!” Rooney cried, thinking they were just the sort of thing to lurk here, but even her own warning didn’t slow her.

  They tore down the black beach, running into the surf, then back out, their boots instantly as dry as bones. In the warmth, in the quiet, it felt like the safest place they had been since arriving. Best of all, it was free of Sorka and her erratic magic.

  Trick flicked a look over his shoulder. “Race you!”

  He took off without waiting to see if they would follow. Because of course they would. Rooney and Devin chased him up a small dune, the Monty trailing behind, and at the top they all stood panting.

  And staring.

  Another tower—no, a lighthouse—stood in the distance, tall and narrow and only a little crooked. It haunted the sea, lightless and dark. Waves rushed up to the great black rock it sat upon. Silver sprayed the air.

  If they stood at the very top of the lighthouse, who knew how far into the darkness they might see? All its secret corners would be exposed, and in one, they might find a doorway.

  Without a word, they took off down the hill, sprinting across the sand. When they reached the edge of the rock, they stopped to catch their breath. Rooney’s legs burned from all the stretching. Sweat dripped down her back.

  “I think I’m melting,” Devin said. Loose wisps of hair curled around her face.

  “Me too,” Trick said, shrugging out of his coat.

  They dropped their jackets to the ground, then crossed to the door of the lighthouse. Devin raised her hand. She knocked three times on the wood.

  “It’s abandoned. I think you can just go in,” Rooney teased.

  They all looked up at the lighthouse.

  It leaned—only slightly, not terribly—toward the sea. The dark stones making up its curved walls mostly aligned. Black vines, blooming with tarnished-silver flowers, crawled over the stones, and though the thorns looked rather menacing, they’d only cut skin if you touched them, of course.

  Which they did when Devin ripped a rather spongy grimace fruit from its stem. A drop of blood beaded on her fingertip.

  “You can go in,” Devin said, sucking on the tiny injury.

  And so Rooney did, the Monty on her shoulder.

  The door creaked open. A few inches of water rippled over the sunken floor, and Rooney splashed through it toward a spiraling staircase. The steps rose into darkness.

  Rooney placed her hand on the railing and climbed.

  “If you stumble, I’ll catch you,” Trick said, clunking up the stairs behind her.

  And perhaps Devin realized she’d rather brave the dark lighthouse than stand at its base alone, for she came last in line. “And if you stumble, I’ll catch you.”

  Rooney grinned.

  Up and up the stairs they went, until they reached the top of the lighthouse. A window circled the whole of the room, although most of the glass was missing or cracked. Those trailing vines stabbed through the gaps, and the tarnished-silver flowers glinted, all petal and thorn.

  Rooney ran forward. Trick and Devin did the same, each of them looking out in a different direction.

  Below them, the darkness spread.

  And it was all Rooney could see.

  She spun around, fanning her flushed face with her hand. “Anything?”

  “Nothing,” Trick said.

  The Monty leaped from Rooney’s shoulder to the lantern in the room’s center. It clicked its claws against metal and glass.

  Rooney crossed to its side. “How do we light this thing?”

  “With moonlight, I’m sure.” Trick rattled all the different parts of the device. “If we had any.”

  “I might have just a pinch left.” Devin pulled a bottle from the pocket of her skirt and shook it.

  Trick beamed. With a push of his finger and a pop, a little door swung open on the lantern.

  Devin tipped the bottle, and moonlight spilled into the contraption. It spread across the lens, and suddenly the darkness in the tower shattered with blue light.

  Rooney, Devin, and Trick jumped back, watching the light strobe in a circle. It swung round and round, dim but glittery.

  “To the windows!” Rooney cried, and they flew back to their places.

  The light stretched horizontal through the darkness, poking at all those corners Rooney had hoped to see. There, the sea. There, the river. There, the clearing, the tower, the coldest winter.

  And everywhere around them, the edges of the darkness loomed.

  Walls rose up in all directions. Boxing them in. Closing them off from escape.

  The sea did not go on and on. It flowed out from a wall of darkness. The woods did not extend indefinitely but cut off abruptly in a sheen of black. A doorway did not sit in the folds waiting for them to open it.

  “No,” Rooney whispered.

  “No!” Devin echoed, but in a much shriller tone.

  Rooney whipped her head to the side as vines lengthened into the room. They moved slowly, harmlessly, but on their stems, the many petals of the many silver flowers began to twitch.

  And, breaking from the vines, the flowers took flight.

  They swarmed toward the light like six-winged moths thick with thorns-that-would-be-claws. And when Devin screamed, they converged on her, funneling straight for her mouth. She only shrieked louder.

  “The light,” Rooney cried, snatching up the Monty. “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

  Those flowers-like-moths flocked toward Rooney. She swatted her hands through the air, but there were too many of them to stop. They set straggly-stemmed feet on her face, on her lips. They crawled through the crack of her mouth.

  She spat and spat.

  Trick pried at the lantern’s little door. But the moonlight had trickled to the bottom of the well, and there was no retrieving it. “Let’s go!”

  And of course, no sooner had he spoken than the flowers-like-moths struck their thorn-and-petal wings against the air, arrowing straight for him.

  He thundered down the stairs with Rooney and Devin, and they burst out into the night. Even more of those creatures filled the air, spiraling through the light as they spun round and round, angling for open mouths.

  Rooney, Trick, and Devin threw their coats over their shoulders, their hoods on their heads, and they ran.

  23

 
; THE SULLEN QUEEN

  Rooney pressed her lips together. She would not say another word. She’d never open her mouth again!

  Not with these moths wanting to burrow their way down her throat. The moonlit lantern might have woken them, but it seemed they wanted only to find the darkest place they could—the pit of her belly.

  She streaked over the black sand. Petaled wings scraped her hair, her eyelashes. They stuck most horribly to her cheeks.

  Ahead, the woods appeared. Dark, dark, dark, then a pulse of blue light illuminated them, as the lighthouse lantern swung round and shone in their direction.

  Her boots traveled from sand to silk as she, Trick, and Devin bore through the trees. The crisp air washed over them, and when it did, the moths swerved strangely in their flight.

  They flittered and fluttered. They fell.

  The chill was too much for them.

  Rooney and Devin stopped, sucking air into their tired lungs. Trick coughed and spat out little moth bodies. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  At their feet, silver petals lay scattered.

  “No wonder they avoid this place,” Trick said. “The sullen queen’s magic has contaminated summer.”

  A lone flower-moth flopped near Rooney’s toes, inching closer. “What if it spreads?”

  * * *

  Thoughtful and anxious, they returned to the clearing, where the moonlit torches flamed blue, and the children played a game of tag. They squealed, chasing one another in and out of the trees. As if they could outrun the darkness before it kissed another gray spot on their skin.

  But there was no outrunning something that held you by the tail, just as they all were, pinched within the walls of darkness.

  On the throne, Sorka slouched and gloomed. Her crown lay by her bare feet, the black ribbon in her hair the only adornment.

  She tilted her chin. “Tasty, aren’t they? Maybe one of these days you’ll listen to me.”

  “Not today.” And with that, Rooney tugged Devin and Trick away. They dropped to the ground, spent from their ill-fated exploration.