Abel Korsakof fixed his eye on Danny. The manic stare crept back. “What does Sammael want from you?” he asked suddenly.
“I keep telling you, I don’t know,” said Danny. “Who is he, anyway?”
Korsakof ignored the question. “You must have found something recently. He said it was a thing that had to be done.”
Danny realized that by “a thing” he meant Danny’s own murder. How had he escaped it? How had he ended up being the one with the knife in his shaking hand, still living and breathing? He ought to be dead, if someone else wanted to kill him. He’d never been strong enough to win a fight before.
Korsakof surely wouldn’t try again. It took the old man so long to move after that fall that Danny would be out the door and back in Hopfield by the time he’d even gotten to his feet for another crack. Unless he was only pretending to be frail. Some of those swipes with the knife had seemed pretty swift and powerful.
But Korsakof was the only person Danny knew who might be able to help. So he pushed the creeping fear aside and said, “I did find something strange this morning. I don’t know what it is.”
He pulled the stick from his pocket with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife. He didn’t want to let the knife go, not quite yet.
The stick seemed more ordinary every time he looked at it.
“What is that?” asked Abel Korsakof.
“I don’t really know,” said Danny. “Well, it’s a bit of stick, I guess. I picked it up from a tree that got struck by lightning, but it isn’t burnt.”
He hesitated, remembering again the words of the sycamore tree. Be careful. But you couldn’t be so careful, or you never found out the things you didn’t know.
“Why do you think it is strange?” asked Korsakof, although he could tell it was strange just by looking at it. From where he stood, small white flames seemed to be lapping at the edges of the stick, like cats’ tongues at a bowl of milk.
“It makes me hear stuff.”
“Hear what?”
“Like … everything. The tree. And plants. And that cat.” He pointed at Mitz, who was sitting smugly on a bookshelf, and got ready to be told he was crazy.
Korsakof’s fingers twitched.
“Is that all?” he asked. “Just hearing things?”
Danny frowned. Abel Korsakof was an adult. Adults were normally sensible. Even Danny, although he wasn’t exactly an adult, had thought he was past the age of being able to believe that trees could talk, before he’d actually heard it for himself. But Abel Korsakof hadn’t heard it, and he didn’t seem in the least bit surprised or skeptical.
“Yeah … I can talk to them, too,” he mumbled, a bit annoyed that the old man wasn’t more impressed.
“And that is it? You can hold conversations with other creatures, using this stick?”
“Not just creatures,” said Danny. “I told you, plants and things. They can all talk.” He had a feeling that Abel Korsakof wasn’t going to even raise an eyebrow at this, and he was right. The old man just stared at the stick. His eyes weren’t quite still.
“Can you talk to … to storms?” he asked finally.
Danny felt his feet clench, as though they were trying to grip the ground and keep him upright.
“I don’t know,” he said. Could he?
“But you found this after a storm? From lightning? It is … a thunderbolt?”
“No, don’t be stupid,” said Danny. “I mean, yes, I found it, but it’s just a bit of tree.”
“It is something … it is something … not of this world. Not of our world. Something of his world, perhaps. From a storm … A piece of storm … that is what he wants.” His pupils had gone large, as if he’d been hypnotized. “That is what Sammael wants you dead for. But why should it matter to him…?”
“This? He can have it! It isn’t any use to me—once I’ve got the Book of Storms, I’ll find my parents and go home. I mean, this is kind of cool, but I don’t need it. If I give it to you, maybe you could give it to him and he’ll leave me alone. Here, take it!”
Danny thrust the stick forward to Abel Korsakof. The old man flinched away.
“No!” he cried, flinging up his arms to shield his face.
“It isn’t anything bad. It’s just a stick,” said Danny. “Just give it to him and tell him I’m going to find my parents and I won’t get in his way.” He tried to push the stick forward again, but Abel Korsakof’s face had gone whiter than his beard in terror. His lips were moving as though he was calling on someone for help.
Danny stopped waving the stick around. “You won’t help me, then?” he asked, rubbing his nose. He only remembered that he was holding a knife when the blade grazed his cheek. Perhaps if he threatened the old man again, he might get him to say where the Book of Storms was hidden. But Abel Korsakof seemed more afraid of the stick, and how could you threaten somebody with that?
The heat left his legs and he was trembling again. Whatever I am, I’m no hero, he thought. This should be happening to someone like Paul. He’d just charge through it, like he does when you’re standing in his way in soccer, and be out the other side in seconds. I’ve no idea what to do.
Abel Korsakof said, very slowly, “I think I am understanding something. I think there may be only one way out for us, Danny. Even that will not be easy.”
Us? He was going to help, then. Danny sank back against a bookcase, needing to prop himself up. Relief made all his tight muscles start to breathe again, and that only made him aware of how exhausted they were.
“What?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and putting the stick back in his pocket. Life seemed safer without it now.
“Is it really true that you do not know anything about Sammael?” asked Korsakof. “Tell me truly, now. Something will happen in a few minutes, and you will not like to know you have lied to me then.”
His face had taken on color again, but it was a quiet shade of gray-green, and his piercing eyes seemed to have darkened.
“It’s true,” said Danny. “I’ve heard his name, but I don’t know anything else about him. And I don’t care, as long as I get my parents back.”
“So you are not trying to destroy him?”
“No,” said Danny, finding that his fingers wanted to cross behind his back.
“Because you must understand that I made a bargain with Sammael,” said Korsakof. “He always keeps his word, and so I must keep mine. I can no more help you harm him than I can help him harm you anymore. And faced with the choice, it seems as though I must take a third way out.”
Danny didn’t understand what the old man was on about. He’d gone back to not making sense again. But he was forever old, and there was probably a huge load of stuff in his head that he just wasn’t bothering to explain.
“I cannot kill you”—the fifty years of life, the apprentice that he could teach about storms, the thousands of days of study, vanished from Abel Korsakof’s grasp—“and you are in possession of something far more powerful than you know. When Sammael told me about it, I thought you had stolen it. But I see now that you have not, you just came on it by chance, so it belongs rightly to you. And I have lived for ninety years on this earth, but today I have learned something entirely new. It seems that, perhaps, just one single person might be able to find the secrets to Sammael’s power, to threaten that power, simply by talking to other creatures.…”
He was rambling now. Danny didn’t follow half of what he said.
“The book is his,” went on Korsakof, beginning to mutter rapidly. “I could never keep it by my side for long—it burned corners out of my soul. But I think that with that stick—perhaps—with that stick, you may have some sort of protection, or perhaps you will be able to read every word from the very beginning.… Oh, it is such a sadness.… Had I been the one to find that stick, what could have been.… But the world never fulfills our desires, my boy. It only burns them to ashes before our eyes, at the very moments they seem finally within our reach.…” He pulled himself up short
and swallowed. “There is nothing more I can do now, except help you find your parents. Perhaps they will continue my work, with your help. The Book is in my blind in Butford woods. I will draw you a map.”
Grabbing a scrap of paper from the shelf next to him, he scribbled a few lines on it and thrust it at Danny. It was totally incomprehensible.
“Find the Book,” he said, “and stay out of Sammael’s way, if you can. The stick! The stick belongs to you—you will never let it go, not now … but while you have it, he will always be after you.… If you want to find your parents, you must go quietly, stay low. Leave as little trail as you can. Only speak when you must. Be wary of the plants, the grasses, the trees, and the wind. Be wary of the rain, the birds, the dogs, and the earth. The world is watching you, Danny—the world is always watching. If you want to escape Sammael, do not let it see who you are!” He finished, his finger pointing toward Danny’s heart. His blue eyes had turned a dark shade of purple, and a thin trickle of blood dribbled from his nose.
Danny watched it trail down his lips. His spine tingled. Korsakof must be mad. That must be it. Yes, he must be. How could anyone be wary of the earth?
He wanted to close his eyes and push it all away. If he could open them again and be in his living room, watching Abel Korsakof on television ranting at some other skinny boy, someone with quiet courage who would nod and bravely bear his fate, instead of someone whose guts were trying to churn butter and whose heart felt very small and weak like a baby bird, then maybe he’d think about the mystery a bit and enjoy the story. But he was here and this was him. And soon he’d have to step outside the walls of this shed and set off again to find the Book of Storms.
It was impossible. He could never make that journey. He just wasn’t brave enough.
“Now give me the stick,” said Abel Korsakof, in a voice that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard.
“What?” Hadn’t he just said nobody could take it from Danny?
“The stick.” Abel Korsakof held out his hand, calm and steady.
“But you just said no one could touch it, apart from me.…”
“Give it to me. You will get it back, but I must have a look at it first.”
“No,” said Danny, his heart beginning to quicken. The old man was trying to play a trick on him. He’d been lulling Danny into a false sense of security with all this ranting and rambling, and now he was trying to do something sneaky.
“Trust me,” said Abel Korsakof. Which of course meant that you shouldn’t.
Danny gripped the bookshelf behind him. He’d have lots of time to react if Abel Korsakof started doing anything, given how long he’d taken to get up the last time.
But it was the final effort of the old man’s life, and he found the last pieces of his strength for it. More than ninety years of laboring and scrambling up hillsides and flinging himself sideways to dodge falling trees brought him to Danny’s side in an instant, one skeletal hand snapping tight around the boy’s wrist, the other around his neck.
Danny struggled for breath, trying to stab forward with the knife, but Abel Korsakof’s wiry old muscles held their own for a few vital seconds, forcing Danny’s wrist back so that he had to drop the knife or let his arm be broken.
He dropped the knife. Korsakof let go of his arm but kept hold of his throat. The grip of the bony fingers froze into stone around Danny’s neck.
“Remember, Danny,” the old man said, his face so close that his beard tickled Danny’s nose, “not everything that hurts you is an enemy. And not everything that helps you is a friend.”
Danny stared at him. Did he mean himself? Which was Abel Korsakof, friend or foe?
“Now give me the stick,” said Korsakof.
Danny pulled it from his pocket. Abel Korsakof released his neck, took a step backwards, and put out his hand.
As soon as his fingers curled around the stick, his body stiffened. For a second Danny thought he was covered in hair—white, fluffy hair wriggling and rippling as it pushed against his skin. But it wasn’t hair, it was the same white flame that the old man had seen around the stick, and it was eating him alive. In another moment it brightened into yellow, then orange, then red, and for the briefest of seconds it burned midnight black, then Abel Korsakof flung his arms out and fell onto the spread mess of his life’s work. The stick dropped from his hand. Korsakof’s legs sprawled over the storm map; he took a last rattling breath and was still.
Blood dribbled from between his blue lips, and the skin of his arms and face took on a mottled crimson color. But in the V of his shirt neck, his chest faded to pale yellow. And as his heart gave its final, faint lurch, his eyes returned to a gentle cornflower blue.
* * *
Danny closed his own eyes and covered them with his hands, wanting to shut out the picture. If he couldn’t see that slumped body, those streaks of blood, that blotchy skin, maybe it would all go away. Or maybe those flames would come back and eat up the entire corpse, not just whatever it was that they’d already fed on.
The scream waited for a couple of stunned seconds and then burst from his lungs. He screamed in an awful, endless roar that sent the cat flying out of the shed in anguish. If he stopped, the flames might leap out of the stick again and run over the floor toward him, but surely nothing could touch him while he was yelling so loudly. He screamed until his eyes were bleeding with tears and his face was stinging with the pain of his stretched cheek muscles, and even then he couldn’t make himself stop.
What ended it was a touch on his wrists, trying to pry his hands away from his face. He tried to twist away, but he was held fast, and then arms were around him, hugging him close, pulling his face into a soft, warm shoulder.
For a second he thought it was his mum. But the smell was wrong, the body too solid and fat. His mum was bony, with tighter-hugging arms.
It was Mrs. Korsakof. When at last Danny stopped screaming and began to breathe again, she stroked his back a couple of times and let him go.
“What happened?” she asked. But Danny couldn’t speak.
Mrs. Korsakof bent over her husband’s body and knelt by his side. She didn’t seem to notice the stick. It lay just beside the hand that had grabbed it from Danny.
Danny didn’t want to touch it. He wanted somebody to come and take him away. Where was Mitz? Danny looked around for her. Brave, fearless Mitz—she’d probably gone after another weasel in the hedge. But without picking up the stick, he couldn’t talk to her.
A crumpled piece of paper had wedged itself between his fingers—Abel Korsakof’s illegible map. Great Butford. He had no idea where that even was, just that it had been drawn by the shaky old hand that had deliberately set fire to itself in front of him.
He shivered until his knees knocked against each other. And he knew that it was all impossible.
* * *
Mrs. Korsakof took Danny back to the house, grasping his arm tightly. She told him to sit down and breathe deeply, until he could speak and tell her who he was and where he belonged. Her low-beamed kitchen smelled of bread and sweet cakes, and her hands trembled as she clutched the telephone and called for an ambulance.
She made Danny a cup of hot chocolate by melting a couple of squares of real chocolate into a saucepan of milk, and she put a plateful of lemon cake in front of him. It was coated in syrup that had crystallized into a sugary crust, but Danny couldn’t eat it.
He held tight to the straps of his schoolbag. Mitz did not return. He wanted to go outside and call for her, to have her running over the lawn toward him, pushing her soft head into his palm. But he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“The ambulance won’t be long now, dear. And the police. Are you sure you can’t tell me your parents’ names?”
Mrs. Korsakof made herself a cup of tea and tried to raise it to her lips. Her hands were shaking so much that she spilled it all down her blouse.
“Oh dear!” she said, dabbing at herself with a dish towel. “Oh dear!”
For a m
oment her hands slumped to her sides, and she seemed to be about to do what Danny had done—bury her face and scream. But instead she took a deep breath.
“I must go and be with him,” she said, more to herself than to Danny, and then she went out of the room.
He stared at the table for one more second. She had called the police. There would be questions, and he would have to answer them, and he would have to tell the police officers that, yes, his parents sometimes went away at night and, yes, he was eleven, but it wasn’t as simple as it seemed because they hadn’t meant to stay away, he was sure they hadn’t, because now he knew about Sammael and the storms and he was pretty sure that something had been done to them that no policeman on earth could unravel. And the police wouldn’t believe a word of it. They would try to be nice and put him in some home somewhere with “responsible” people who weren’t his parents and who never would be.
Then he pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t want questions, or people trying to be nice. None of that would make anything better. He wanted to crawl away into the night and find a hole somewhere, and wait for things to put themselves right again. And outside, there was Mitz, his friend. She wouldn’t ask stupid questions. She would curl up beside him and keep on breathing.
The shadows were drawing long as he slipped from the house and made his way back toward the hedge, calling softly to the cat and peering for her shape in the fading light.
* * *
But Mitz had vanished. She wasn’t waiting out in the lane, and although Danny stood for five minutes, calling her as loudly as he dared, she didn’t come to him. There was nothing to do but stumble back to the railway station and get on a train to somewhere—anywhere—that he knew.
The Book of Storms Page 7