The Color of Darkness

by Ruth Hatfield

  “No I didn’t,” said Cath. “He just figured out his way was through the sea, that’s all.”

  “Oh, don’t be naive,” snapped Sammael. “Of course he didn’t figure it out. I sent you those dreams, both of you. He only got to Chromos through the sea because he believed he could. Without you beside him giving him confidence, he’d have stayed being the same sniveling little ninny he’s been all his life and he wouldn’t have got there through any route. Anyone can get to Chromos! But they have to want to, and they have to be brave enough.”

  Cath looked at Danny. He kicked the sand defiantly but didn’t meet her eye.

  Barshin carried on apologetically. “So, you see, it would have worked. But you did something more than we planned—you gave him true courage, the kind that only flashes into the heart on those rare occasions when it casts off all doubt and feels invincible. He wanted to go into the sea, even though he knew he should be scared. And I didn’t get the chance to warn Sammael that you’d fallen into the ether by mistake and found out about the boots. Neither of us ever thought Danny would last two seconds if he got into the ether.”

  “But Sammael was trying to pull Chromos onto the whole earth, wasn’t he? Why didn’t he just wait till then to get Danny? Danny would have gone mad along with everybody else, wouldn’t he?”

  Barshin looked at Sammael. Sammael tilted his head.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Revenge. Even the best of us lose our heads over it sometimes. Why didn’t I lump Danny in with all the rest? Because I hate him more than all the rest. He is an unimaginative, stodgy, stiff-necked coward. Even when he tries to be brave, he’s still as curled up and scared inside as a fledgling bird. He deserves to be eaten up slowly by his fears, bite by bite, and I wanted to see him suffer.”

  Cath’s fingers tightened as though she were still holding on to the chariot, trying not to fall. She was silent for a long moment, and then she said, abruptly, to Barshin, “So you used me, then? You’re just like Sammael. You’re the same kind of thing.”

  Barshin gazed up at her, his black eyes still. “I am not like him at all,” he said. “I liked and respected you from the start. I tried not to involve you too deeply—I tried to keep you out of Danny’s attempts to get to Chromos by telling you that you wouldn’t fit on Zadoc’s back if he was there. But you were determined to come.”

  “So there wasn’t ever a problem with the number of people on Zadoc’s back. It was only that stupid book that slowed him down,” Cath said, although she knew that Barshin wouldn’t deny it. He was just telling her another way in which he’d lied.

  “Indeed.” Barshin nodded. “The whole world would fit onto Zadoc’s back, if only they wanted to. But I had business to do. And doing that business does not make me the same as Sammael. Not in any way. I am a real, earthly creature who made a bargain with him. That is what I am.”

  “What kind of bargain?”

  But Barshin flicked his ears and tilted his head. “That is the deepest secret of my heart,” he said. “The knowledge of it belongs to me and to nobody else. And if I tell you, it will seem as if I’m trying to excuse myself. And I am not.”

  “You evil little scumbag!” Danny kicked at Barshin, sending him skittering back onto the sand. “Without you we’d have had more time! Tom wouldn’t have died!”

  “Forget it,” said Sammael. “You’ll forget it soon enough anyway.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Danny, and tears began to drip down his cheeks. “I’ll never forget him, never.”

  “Yes, you will,” said Sammael. “He’s mine, remember? All his memories are mine. Didn’t you learn that last time? I can take them away or leave them here. What do you think’s best?”

  Danny gaped up at Sammael. “What do you mean? Take them? Take what?”

  “All the memories of Tom belong to me,” repeated Sammael. “I can take them out of the earth so no one will remember that he was ever here. His mother will think she only has a daughter. You’ll never know you had more than one cousin. Look on the bright side: no one will grieve or be sad that he’s gone. And no one will blame you for coming back without him. Because they’re going to blame you, you know that.”

  Danny did know. He was terribly afraid of it. Tom gone—that was a hole torn in his stomach, and each time he had to tell someone else, it was going to be like tearing another hole, and another, until there was nothing left of his stomach but holes. Nothing good would ever be held in there again, only a constant stream of lumpy sadness.

  He swallowed and looked at the ground, and Sammael spoke again.

  “Go on then, I’ll give you the choice. What do you want? I think I know the answer to this one.”

  Danny wrestled with himself. But already he could feel the vision of bright Tom growing duller and darker in his mind. Already he was thinking, Whatever Tom did, it wasn’t my fault, was it? It wouldn’t be fair for me to be blamed for things he chose to do. He chose to sell his sand. I even tried to help him, but he still chose to go with Sammael …

  “No,” he said. “You can’t take him. It’s not right.”

  Sammael grinned, catching the last rays of the dying sun in the whites of his eyes and teeth.

  “I thought your voice would say that,” he said quietly. “But it’s betrayed by your face, I’m afraid. I know what your cowardly heart really wants. Well, off you go. Don’t look back, mind you. Your friend’s told you that enough times, hasn’t she? If only there were more people like her.”

  And you? What will you do? Danny wanted to ask, but he didn’t dare. There was a closeness about the way the shadows were drawing around Sammael’s face, and a silence in the air that could only have been the quiet at the beginning of a long wait.

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” said Sammael. “How can I? I’m stuck on earth. You’ve burned my boots, and Zadoc has all but vanished. I don’t think he’ll be leaping to answer my call anytime soon.”

  “Good,” said Danny. “You can’t go back to Chromos then. We’re all safe.”

  “Safe?” said Sammael, raising a thin eyebrow. “Do you really think you’re safe? You’ve got a world without anymore Chromos now. You took away the darkness because you were afraid of it. You never had the courage to try and see what it really was. But there are some things a lot more dangerous than darkness in your earthly world. And those, my friend, are the shadows. What color are they? You’ll find out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a meeting arranged with a stoat. I don’t think she’ll take it kindly if I’m late.”

  He gave an elegant bow, turned on his heel, and walked off down the sand.

  * * *

  Danny watched him go. Why did he feel like a great weight had launched itself off his shoulders? Had he been scared of that tall, thin man disappearing into the distance? Of course he hadn’t. That couldn’t have been the terrible Sammael. It must just have been a stranger passing by, looking for his lost dog.

  Anyway, it was getting dark. He ought to be going home. His parents would be frantic by now—he’d been away for days.

  He turned to Cath.

  “We should go,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”

  She shook her head. “I’m stopping here,” she said.

  “But you’ve got to come back! They’re looking for us.”

  “So? I ain’t going back to my dad. No one’s gonna tell on me, unless you do. No one’s gonna find me here.”

  He looked around at the bare beach, the low dunes, and the little cottage with the wild mountains beyond.

  “Where are you going to live then?”

  Cath shrugged. “Here.”

  She held out a hand to Barshin, beckoning him to follow her.

  “You can’t take him!” said Danny. “He’s a traitor.”

  But quite why this was, he wasn’t sure. It was just a feeling he had, that the hare wasn’t to be trusted.

  “He ain’t bad,” said Cath. “He ain’t good. But he ain’t bad. And maybe he needs a home too. Call Zadoc for Danny,
Barshin. Let him get out of here.”

  “I’ll try,” said Barshin. “I don’t know if there’s enough of him left. Falling through two of those holes should have killed him completely.”

  He let out the growling shriek, and the air trembled, but with barely the strength of a summer breeze. The shape that shook itself out of the air was a ghost horse, as translucent as a sheet of glass. The only substance to it came from a shimmer around its outline that echoed the dry beach sand with a hint of sea-moistened darkness, and the thousand colors of Chromos in its eye.

  “Be quick,” was all Barshin said.

  Cath shrugged. “So long, Danny. You did what you wanted, I reckon. I’d say see you, but I don’t reckon I will. I’m not ever going back, at least not to where you belong.”

  “You can’t—” Danny tried, but she gave a small shake of her head and turned toward the path between the dunes. He watched her walk away from him and could think of no more words to call her back.

  And then the sky stirred and he knew Zadoc was going. He felt a strong surge of hope that in a few seconds he’d be flying, soaring up into the wings of his own mind, galloping over the boundless world with freedom at his heels. He’d go anywhere he liked—anywhere he wanted—and nothing was ever going to hold him still again.

  He scrambled up onto Zadoc’s back, felt the invisible mane and smooth coat under his hands, and clapped his heels to Zadoc’s fading sides.

  “Go on!” he shouted to the snorting, dying horse. “Go on! Fly!”

  And Zadoc leapt up into the green-blue of the sparkling plain, and it was wild, and empty, and wider than the entire universe.

  CHAPTER 30

  FORGETTING

  They didn’t fuss too much. They were just glad to have him home. His mum made dinner, and even though it was half past ten by the time it was ready, they sat down to eat around the kitchen table, all together.

  “We’ll go to Aunt Kathleen’s next week,” said his dad. “It’s time we all had a vacation together. I know Sophie’ll be back from university soon. You two still get on fine, don’t you? She’ll be so glad you’re safe and sound again.”

  Danny nodded happily. Even though she was seven years older than him, he’d always gotten on well with Sophie. They were both only children, and only cousins too. It would be great to go on vacation at the farm again—Sophie was the closest Danny had ever gotten to a sibling of his own, and he was the little brother she’d never had.

  He picked up the fork and began to eat. Maybe Sophie would take him horse riding. She was always patient with him, even though he’d been really nervous at first. She was much nicer than Cath had ever been on that crazy journey they’d had escaping from her dad.

  It was going to be a good summer. Everything was fine again.

  * * *

  The night settled around the window frames and the kitchen lights were bright, and Danny ate until he felt so sleepy that he almost fell face-first onto his plate.

  “Get to bed,” said his mum. “We’ll sort everything out tomorrow.”

  As Danny climbed the stairs to bed, the summer stretched out before him, endless and sunny. He was going to sleep. And for the first time in months, he wasn’t going to dream. Not about Cath or Zadoc or deer or hares or the rolling sea or the silver moon. And certainly not about Sammael.

  He belonged to himself. And the world was his.

  * * *

  Outside in the darkness, the moon slid from behind a cloud and the air began softly to shiver.

  About the Author

  Ruth Hatfield is a sometime archaeologist, sometime technician who lives in Cambridge, England. When she’s not writing or digging or making circuit boards, she spends her time belting around on a bike and roaming the countryside on her cantankerous horse. This is the follow-up to her debut novel, The Book of Storms.

  ruthhatfield.jimdo.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1 Tom

  2 Dad

  3 The Hare

  4 Chromos

  5 Sand

  6 Nature at Your Fingertips

  7 Danny O’Neill

  8 The Message

  9 The Farm

  10 The Stag

  11 Iaco

  12 Escape

  13 A Warning

  14 Isbjin al-Orr

  15 Phaeton

  16 Down to Earth

  17 Hiding

  18 Nightmares

  19 To the Sea

  20 Revenge

  21 Beyond the Sea

  22 The Ether

  23 Talismans

  24 By the Lake

  25 Death

  26 The Fire

  27 The Great Plain

  28 A Mistake

  29 The Beach

  30 Forgetting

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2015 by Ruth Hatfield

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 Greg Call

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

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  All rights reserved.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Hatfield, Ruth, author.

  The color of darkness / Ruth Hatfield. — First American edition.

  pages cm. — (The Book of storms trilogy)

  Summary: “Danny thinks he’s left magic and mystery behind, but Sammael, a creature of terrible imagination, refuses to let him go. A strange new girl, Cath, enters Danny’s world, bringing with her a message: Danny’s cousin Tom has sold his soul to Sammael. It’s up to Danny and Cath to find Tom and stop Sammael, who seeks to destroy humankind once and for all”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-62779-001-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-62779-002-4 (e-book)

  [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Soul—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Human-animal communication—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.1.H38Co 2016 [Fic]—dc23 2015018270

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  eISBN 9781627790024

  Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Hot Key Books.

  First American hardcover edition 2016

  eBook edition June 2016