She took a deep, free breath, and sat at the table, the diary in front of her. She started going through all the spells Anne had written, one by one, locating the right equipment for each one, learning invocations, rehearsing them. After the strange results they’d had with the sapphire’s song, she knew that those spells would work in weird, unexpected ways. Some were very scary, they even needed human blood to work – and they made her think of what her ancestors might have done, in ancient times. Or not so ancient, she thought with a shiver. The formidable Midnight women. She wished she’d known more about them. She wished she’d had time to get to know her grandmother better. Morag had died when Sarah was just seven; drowned after stumbling into the sea on a misty night, at their house on Islay. Her things were still there.
I need to go to Islay. When all this is finished, that’s where I’ll go.
They used to go to Islay as often as they could, to the stately home that had belonged to the Midnights for countless generations. Sarah loved going there; she loved the smell of the sea and the salty wind in her hair. When she was a child she used to dream of living on Islay, to be able to sit on the beach and listen to the sea every day, for hours. They hadn’t gone there for over two years. Her parents had said that it was because the house was in need of repairs, but now she suspected it was because of the Valaya being after them.
Sarah thought of her grandparents’ enormous library, shelf after shelf of books, floor to ceiling. Maybe she’d find some help there. Maybe she could find the magical knowledge she needed, learn more about the demon world – learn more about Mairead, the aunt she didn’t know she’d had.
Sarah worked intensely for hours. After a while, Harry put his head round the door.
“I need to go out for a bit, but I can’t leave you here alone, just in case. Can you come with me? We won’t be long, and then you can go back to your spells.”
“Sure.” She really didn’t want to stop, but she knew that it must be something important, or he wouldn’t have asked.
“Sorry, it’s just that I have this craving for Indian food. I must have a lamb biryani right now; we’ll only be a minute.”
“What? You interrupt my work because you want a lamb biryani?”
“Just winding you up.”
“I hope so,” she growled.’
“It’s a Starbucks I need.”
“Harry, I’m warning you …”
“OK, OK sorry. We’re going to British Home Stores, I’ll tell you later what it’s for. We might go to Starbucks anyway, you know? For a hazelnut latte?”
“How do you know … Oh, no point in asking.”
Harry smiled, one of his dimply smiles.
They got into the car. “Can’t wait to have my driving licence.”
“You can take your mum and dad’s Land Rover; it’s a brilliant car, very powerful.”
Sarah frowned. “No, I hate it,” she said passionately. Harry didn’t ask for details. He sensed that she must have some bad memories tied to that car, and didn’t want to upset her.
“You can use this one, if you want.”
“Thanks. By the way, Siobhan wanted driving lessons.”
Harry laughed. “I’m not surprised! I saw the way she was looking at me. That girl is priceless …”
“A lot of guys would pay to be in your shoes, you know. She’s very popular.”
“No wonder, she’s very pretty,” Harry conceded.
Sarah felt cold. “Do you think so?” She was resolutely looking out of the window.
“No,” he laughed. “I mean yes, but she’s too … pink and shiny for me. And blond.”
“Right. And … what was Mary Anne like?”
“She was cool.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, she was tough. A good laugh. I cared for her, we were good friends. Anyway, tell Siobhan that my driving lessons are just for you,” he added with a wink, changing the subject.
“I’ll be eighteen. You won’t need to live with me any more.”
Harry’s smile vanished. Sarah realized what she’d just said.
“Of course,” said Harry, trying to sound flippant.
Stay, she would have liked to say. But why would he have wanted to?
She looked at Harry from under her lashes. His expression was unreadable, his clear eyes fixed on the road.
They were quiet for the rest of the journey.
“Can you wait for me outside?” Harry asked as they were about to go into the shop.
“Sure.” Sarah strolled up and down, window shopping, and after twenty minutes Harry came out, holding a British Home Stores bag that clanked as he walked.
“What is that?”
“Never you mind. So do you want that latte?”
“OK then.” She knew she had to get back to her work, but she loved the idea of sitting with Harry in peace, for a while.
They sat on the brown sofas. Harry closed his eyes.
“God, I haven’t slept a wink. In case you freaked out again.” I couldn’t relax, lying beside you – I didn’t trust myself.
“Sorry.”
“That’s OK. It was horrible.” He touched her injured shoulder softly.
“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve been really hurt. My mum and dad didn’t get hurt often, but when they did they had a job of hiding it. My dad told me that our grandfather had both his legs broken, once.”
“Yes, I’d heard that,” he lied.
“It was a shock. When it bit me.”
“I noticed.”
Sarah half-smiled. Incredible, that he could make jokes about something that hurt her so deeply, and still make her smile.
“At least I’m still alive,” she said, shivering at the thought of what had happened to Angela.
Harry guessed her thoughts.“She was on their side,” he said coolly. Sarah expected him to be like that.
“She was deceived.”
“They won’t mess with you again, that’s for sure. Shall we go?”
Sarah looked at him and his cold eyes, wondering how someone could be so dangerous, and so kind, all at the same time.
“Come and see …”
Sarah walked into her parents’ room. The clothes had been picked up, the million pieces from the broken mirror had been hoovered up, and the whole place had been restored to order. Sarah’s eyes fell on the dressing table. The photograph display was back in its place. Harry had replaced all the broken frames.
That’s what he’d gone to British Home Stores for.
She looked at the photographs, one by one. Anne and James on their wedding day; a little Sarah on the beach; Morag and Hamish Midnight standing gravely in front of their Islay mansion, and another one of Sarah with her cello, after the concert for schools in the Queen’s Hall.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and she couldn’t say any more.
This is the time. This is the time I kiss her.
I can’t.
She slipped her hand in his, and no more words were needed.
Harry was in his room, standing in front of the open window. The night was dark and quiet, a restful place to be. He was readying himself to keep a promise.
He raised his hand, and made a quick gesture with his fingers.
Somewhere, Sheila Douglas fell asleep. She happened to be on her way home from the clinic.
Unbeknown to Harry, that was the merciful way – because the fire had already started burning in her head.
27
The White Swan
You taught me the meaning of sacrifice
Bitter consolation
For the loss of you
Castelmonte
Elodie
I have to remind myself every day why I’m doing this, why I accepted to be sent here. Why, the day I saw a vision of Castelmonte’s red roofs and white-topped mountains appear in my bathroom mirror, as Harry was trying to convince me we’d meet again soon, I went away without protesting.
I know that Harry is dead. He was dead alr
eady when I left, still walking and speaking and still breathing, but he was dead.
I must protect Aiko. Other heirs might be sent here as well, and they’ll need my help too. But to be holed up here, away from the battle, waiting for them to come for us … it’s like slow torture; it’s like being tied down to a chair while everyone around you is fighting and dying, while you’re somehow, miraculously, saved.
Harry died, and I was saved.
I wish it had been the other way round.
Castelmonte is beautiful in the autumn light, the sun still shining even if summer is long gone. People live slowly here, alternating between their homes, the little grocery shop, the bar where men go to play cards and drink red wine, and their orchards and vineyards. It’s an idyllic life that Harry would have loved.
We used to talk about settling down, having children. One day. I look at the olive-skinned boys and girls running in the village square, and I imagine a little blond boy with the Midnight eyes, running around with them.
But that will never happen, because Harry will not come back.
Widows should be old, shouldn’t they? They should be old ladies dressed in cardigans and tweed skirts, getting together for tea and biscuits. They should have knitting bags and reading glasses.
And look at me. The mirror in my room – the attic room with the window that frames a snapshot of the Alps – shows a young girl in jeans, a camisole and trainers, long blond hair around a tired face, and eyes full of sorrow. I might feel like a widow, but I don’t look like one.
That’s because I shouldn’t be; it’s all been a mistake, a terrible mistake. A trick of fate.
Marina Frison is my age, and she’s about to get married. That’s the way it should be. She has a kind smile and an infectious laugh, and the sunny demeanour of someone who never suffered greatly. She’ll make a great wife, and a great mother. Marina’s company fills my days. Her chat and laughter make everything look a little less dark, a little less hopeless. Aiko adores her, and I adore them both.
Aiko is small for her age. She’s three, but you might think she’s barely two – tiny, with a silky black bob and almond eyes, and chubby little hands. She’s too young to fully realize what happened, that her whole family has been exterminated and that she’ll never see her parents again. Still, there’s something solemn about her, something wise, even. Something deep and knowing in her eyes, a memory of sadness, of loss.
Marina and Aiko have created a bond so loving, so intense that it is heartbreaking to witness, surrounded by all this death and danger. Aiko thinks of the Frisons as her family, and she and Marina behave as a mother and daughter. I watch them cuddling on the rocking chair, and I feel afraid, so afraid for them.
Marina looks at me anxiously, as if seeing the sorrow in my eyes pains her greatly. One day, it just came out. I told her that my husband is dead, that the love of my life is dead. That I can never love again.
“You don’t know that,” she said in her Italian sing-song accent, cradling Aiko on her lap. “Only the sky knows that,” she added, paraphrasing an expression they have in these mountains, one that I’ve often heard: Our lives are in the hands of the heavens.
The next day, Marina brought home a pomegranate from the market. She cut it in two, and spooned out some juicy blood-red seeds.
“Have this. They’re good for you.” She handed me the spoon, and I tasted the fragrant, slightly sour taste of the pomegranate.
“And now …” She looked at me with knowing eyes, and gathered the remains of the pomegranate. She threw them into the wood stove and shut the steel door. I had no idea what she was doing.
After a couple of minutes, she opened the little door and poked in it with the fire tongs. She grasped something with the tongs, and carefully took it out. It was the pomegranate, perfect, intact, as if it had never been in the fire.
“You’ll love again,” she said, and put her olive-skinned, strong hand on mine.
I don’t believe her, of course. But it felt good to hear words of hope, as if my life weren’t over, as if there were still a future for me.
28
Shadows
The Earth turns
Stars are born
And a million hearts are broken
Walking up the stairs to John Burton’s flat in Craigmillar on a cold autumn afternoon, you could have easily forgotten how beautiful Edinburgh is.
There was nothing beautiful about that rundown tower block and its dark, dirty stairs. From the window of each flight of stairs Sarah could see scores of grey buildings just like that one, with patches of sparse grass between each other. She wondered what kind of life she would have lived, had she been born there. Still better than the curse of the dreams, that’s for sure – but such a tough existence.
She thought of her lovely sandstone house, and the oak trees of her garden. Life could be so unfair, and destiny such a lottery of fortune. She looked around at the walls full of angry graffiti, and longed to be home. Had she grown up in that estate she would have had an entirely different kind of demon to worry about.
Harry and Sarah climbed up three floors – Sarah was panting by the end of it, Harry had ran all the way and wasn’t even out of breath – and knocked on a faded, scratched blue door. The steel number had been ripped off, and only a pale silhouette of it remained, a greyish little number nine.
A tired-looking woman opened the door. She had striking brown eyes, and a worn-out face. She looked older than her years, deep lines etched on her forehead and around her mouth.
“My name is Harry Midnight. I’m looking for John Burton.”
“He’s not here.”The woman sounded like she smoked a few packets a day.
“We can wait.”
“He won’t be back. He moved.”
Harry knew she was lying. Mike had checked the CCTV cameras dotted around the place. John was there earlier that morning. Right at that moment they heard the entrance door slam. They looked down the three flights of stairs. A man was coming up.
“Laura?” he had caught a glimpse of her standing in the dirty landing.
“John, go! They’re here!” shouted the woman.
The man froze, and started running down the stairs again. Harry threw himself down after him, leaving Sarah standing in the landing beside the white-faced woman.
“We have nothing, OK? We can’t pay!” the woman shouted at Sarah, her face contorted with distress.
“We’re not … we don’t want any money,” Sarah said quickly. She felt desperately sorry for her, but she had no time to explain. She ran after Harry, down the three flights of stairs. As she got out of the building, she immediately saw John lying on the ground, with Harry sitting on his chest. A rivulet of blood was running out of John’s nose. Sarah felt sick.
“Where is it? Where the hell is your demon?”
“I’ve worked on this for years. You won’t talk me out of it.”
Sarah noticed how thin he was, how sallow his skin looked in the light of day.
“Oh, I’m not going to talk, John. I’m going to move on to something else in a minute.”
“Harry! Someone will call the police! Look around you!” Sarah gestured at the hundreds of windows in the high towers around them, looking down like hollow eyes. Harry grabbed John by the chest, grudgingly, and lifted him up.
“You don’t understand. I needed a way out of this rut.”
“Right. You’ve been learning black magic and evoking demons as a way out of here. Very sensible,” Harry spat.
“I had no choice.”
“No choice but to become part of the Valaya? Are you crazy?” Harry exclaimed. And then he stopped, abruptly.
He’d noticed his bloodshot eyes, his restless hands, the skin stretched on his cheekbones. The bruises on his arms, the face strangely elongated.
Heroin had shaped his face, and claimed John for her own.
That’s what he’s trying to pay for. Something as deadly as the Surari, but that takes a lot longer to kill you.
Sarah looked at John’s troubled eyes. She could see it too, how he had chosen a slow, painful death for himself – and a life not worth living. But there is a way out, for him. Unlike me, he has a choice.
“I’m sorry,” she said, unexpectedly. “You don’t have to live like this.” Sarah put a hand on his arm. Harry had to stop himself from seizing her arm and dragging her away from John. He hated her touching that pathetic, broken man. He thought that John didn’t deserve her sympathy. He thought he’d brought all that on himself. He could not imagine how skilled, how sharp the people who had preyed on John were, who gave him the curse – they’d bite you once, turn you into one of them, and you were lost. Harry couldn’t know how easy, how quick it had been for John to fall into the abyss – and how painful it had been trying to climb out, over and over again, and never succeeding. One day he was a young man with a job and a girlfriend – the next day he was one of the walking dead. He had managed to keep his job and his flat by turning his addiction into a routine – by conquering the pain he was in, constantly. But not for much longer. Heroin was taking over. He’d thought that Catherine Hollow had offered him salvation – he hadn’t realized it meant becoming a murderer. And wrong choice after wrong choice, he realized he had sold his soul.
John Burton wasn’t like the rest of the Valaya. Not in his heart.
He looked Sarah in the eye, for the first time. For a second he looked like a little boy. “It’s too late. I can’t control the demon. I can’t call it back.”
Sarah nodded slowly, her hope of not having to face another fight shattered.
“I’m sorry,” it was his turn to say.
“If I survive I’ll look for you, I promise. I’ll help you,” she whispered.
John shook his head. “You won’t survive.” Despair took him, and left nothing of him. He knew his soul was lost.
Sarah and Harry walked towards the car in silence. His demons would claim him soon enough.
“Poor man. And his girlfriend too.”
Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) Page 21