by Walsh, Sara
“We’re trying to track down Pete, Mia,” said the sheriff. “Just hang tight.”
Oh, I was hanging tight.
Night had long since fallen outside and an image of the room with its nondescript paintings, soft lamps, and overstuffed armchairs was reflected in the wide window. Two worlds. One solid and real, one existing in some kind of dreamy haze.
“Try not to worry,” the sheriff added. “As soon as we catch the kidnapper, we’ll find out where he’s holding Jay. We’ll get Jay back.”
I didn’t reply. There was no need. I’d spun my lies. All I had to do was wait.
And then the wait ended. The door opened and another cop entered. Sheriff Burkett sprang to his feet.
“News?” he asked.
The cop perched on the seat beside me, his look despondent. “We found it burned,” he said. “The barn’s gone. I’m sorry. The kidnapper got away.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to smile. Sol. It had to have been him. He’d burned the barn to cover our tracks. Our story was safe.
“Mia, is there anything else you can tell us?” the cop asked. “Anything you might have forgotten?”
It went like this: I’d been searching the Ridge for Jay on Friday night when I’d been grabbed and hurled into the trunk of a car by a man I couldn’t see in the darkness. He’d taken me to a barn in the middle of nowhere, where I’d found the six kidnapped boys. Jay had not been among them.
The man had left us tied up in the barn, returning with food and water two or three times over the next two days. On the final day—today—I’d managed to break free of my bonds and get myself and the boys to safety. It was a simple story. A stupid story. And it was working.
“There’s nothing else,” I said. “How are the boys?”
“They’re with the doctors,” the cop replied. “Their parents have all arrived. I don’t need to tell you that you’re a hero in their eyes, Mia. In all of our eyes.”
I glanced at Sheriff Burkett who was nodding in prideful agreement. If only they knew the truth.
Struck with guilt, I stared into my lap. “What happens now?”
“We comb the barn for evidence,” replied the cop. “We keep looking for the kidnapper. We keep looking for your brother.”
With the Solenetta safely stuffed in my pocket, I pictured Jay as I’d last seen him at the Nonsky Fault. Where was he now? A world away from the lie that would forever be a part of my life. I couldn’t wait to get home and use the parler stone, to tell him of the trouble he’d caused—he’d love it. The cops would search; they’d never find him. And then one day they’d give up the hunt and this would all be forgotten. For them. Never for me.
I looked to Sheriff Burkett. “When can I go home?” I asked.
“Not until Pete gets here. He has some explaining to do, Mia. I want to know why he didn’t report you missing.”
“You know Pete,” I said, rushing to Pete’s defense. The last thing we needed was Child Protective Services breathing down our necks. “He’s always in and out of the house. We barely see each other some days. He might not have even noticed I was gone.” I wasn’t convinced my explanation was helping Pete’s cause. “Honestly, he would have called you if he’d known I was missing.”
“Perhaps,” said the sheriff skeptically, then changed the subject, “You’re sure you won’t see a doctor?”
“I’m sure.”
Four hours passed. Five hours.
Come on, Pete.
Sheriff Burkett’s phone rang and he left the room to answer it. It was the first time I’d been alone. Restless, but so tired I could sleep for a week, I wandered to the window and looked out over the parking lot. A large pack of reporters were gathered by the hospital’s brightly lit entrance. How the hell was I going to avoid them in the coming days?
The door to the room opened, and I turned. Sheriff Burkett entered with simmering anger in his eyes, his face red. He looked disgustedly away from the man who followed him into the room, a man with unwashed brown hair, a three-day beard, and sparkling blue eyes. Balian eyes.
Pete’s gaze locked with mine.
I’d done it. I’d made it. I was home.
* * *
We didn’t speak until we entered the kitchen at home and the door was safely locked behind us.
“All this time,” I said to him as we sat at the table. “You never spoke a word.”
It was the same old kitchen, the same old Pete. Only not anymore. There was energy in his eyes, a visible lifting of the weight of the secret he’d carried for so many years.
“It hasn’t been easy,” he said. “But it was necessary.”
He took from his pocket the parler stone—an exact replica of Bromasta’s.
“I spoke to your father. He and Jay are safe. They should reach Solander’s encampment early tomorrow morning.”
“Vermillion and Delane?”
“They’re with them.”
I was glad, though a touch worried about Vermillion being unsupervised around Jay’s hair.
“And us?” I asked. “What happens now?”
“I teach you,” said Pete. “You listen. You learn.”
Pete had emptied his pocket, so I emptied mine. I placed the Solenetta on the table.
“Hide it,” said Pete, barely giving it a glance. “Don’t tell anyone where—not even me.”
“I’ll bury it so deep it’ll never be found,” I said.
“And when the cops question you again, stick to your story. Don’t veer, no matter what the boys say. You offer one face to the world—a sister hoping for her brother to be found.”
I hesitated, not used to seeing Pete so in control. “You know everything that happened,” I said. “Don’t you?”
“From the moment the first boy disappeared,” Pete replied.
He was different. I could see it in his every movement. It was clear on his face. He’d known about Sol, about Gus, about countless Brakaland exiles here in Crownsville. He was part of a bigger world, one I’d never noticed though it was all around me. But now I knew. There would be no more secrets between us.
“Can you do it, Mia?” he asked. “Can you live a lie?”
I was about to reply when lights shone from the driveway and a car pulled up outside the house. Wondering who it could be since it was the middle of the night, and hoping to hell it wasn’t the press or the police, I darted to the window, Pete a step ahead. But it wasn’t reporters. It wasn’t even the cops.
I tore out of the kitchen and onto the porch. Willie was dashing toward the house, her eyes wide, her face pale in the moonlight. “Mia, I don’t believe it!” she gasped. “I just spoke to Dad. I knew something was wrong when you didn’t return my texts. I just thought you were freaking about Jay.”
A second later we were collapsed on the porch step, wrapped in each other’s arms. I knew right then that everything would be okay. I’d knuckle in, play my part. I didn’t have to lie—not to the people I cared about most, not to Willie, not really. Because that was the thing with me and Willie: Sometimes there was just no need for words.
* * *
I found him on the Ridge the next day, back in jeans and a T-shirt. It was the Sol I knew from before madness had entered my life.
“I went to Crowley’s house,” I said.
“I’ve not long been back.”
Sitting beside him on the grass, I looked out over an invisible world. “I feel like I should wave to Rip. Let him know we made it.”
“He will have heard,” said Sol. “It’ll be the talk of Bordertown.”
The plains stretched before us, empty and endless, Onaly and the Sleeper Hill Giant the only sights.
“I still can’t believe you burned down the barn. It’s all over the news.”
“It was falling down anyway,” said Sol. He grinned.
But other loose ends remained. I’d spent most of the morning with Willie. She’d warned me that her dad wanted to talk to me and that the cops were already in town.
“And the Solenetta?” asked Sol.
“Top secret location. Pete made me hide it.”
“That’s good.”
“And if they come back for it?”
The golden flecks in Sol’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight. “We’ll be ready.”
He drew me into a kiss that chased any thoughts of danger from my mind. I savored every sensation—the touch of his fingers as they grazed my cheek, his hand on my neck beneath my hair. Why care about tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, when I had Sol now?
Our kiss ended and we lay on the grass and watched the clouds gather in thick clusters. They drifted to the east and I couldn’t help but wonder if those same clouds had passed over Orion or over my father’s house in the valley. Did it matter which world those clouds belonged to? Or had Sol been right when he’d said that all worlds were connected?
You see, no matter how quickly life changes, some things always stay the same. Take the lights, for instance.
There have been strange lights in Crownsville for as long as I’ve lived here. Lights on the Ridge; lights on the river; lights that seep from the ground and then float to the sky in clouds of colored mist.
There have always been strange lights in Crownsville.
Now I know why.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Nathaniel Jacks, my amazing agent, who always said “when” not “if”, and who helped me turn something raw into something real. Huge thanks to you, Nat, and to everyone at Inkwell.
To the entire Simon Pulse team for making me feel so welcome and for all your hard work on this book. Immense gratitude to Angela Goddard for designing the most amazing cover. Wow. Special thanks go to the gorgeous Anica Rissi for taking a chance on this story, and Annette Pollert, my wonderful editor, who is just so awesome she blows me away. Annette, I’m so lucky to work with you. Thanks for loving Mia and Sol as much as I do.
I offer a bootay shake to everyone in Purgatory, and raise a spezna to the Next Circle of Hell. You guys are the real deal.
Huge hugs to Cueball and JoJo for madness, mayhem, and days at the Branch. I’m throwing an outdoor disco on your behalf. You know the moves.
To the formidable Walsh clan: Sunny, Susan, Doug, Bridget, Maggie, Emma, Mark, Paige, Mac, Lily, Donovan, Charlie, Matt, and Cherie. Home doesn’t feel so far away when I have family like you.
To all my family across the Pond—especially Mandy, Fintan, David, and Tanya. Mandy, thanks for reading over all these years and for never suggesting that I was crazy to keep going. To David and Tanya, who were there on the road trip that started this story no one could ask for a better brother and sister-in-law. And to Mum and Dad, who never doubted I could do this. I hope you’re watching from somewhere up there.
Finally, to Mike for reading this story and then telling me that it was the one. Like Willie, I believe in fated love. This one’s for you. Always.
SARA WALSH is British, but happily lives in Annapolis, Maryland. She graduated college with a degree in psychology, but decided that telling stories was much more fun. The Dark Light was inspired by a local news event about a boy who mysteriously reappeared after having been missing for a decade.
Visit her online at sarawalshbooks.com.
Jacket designed by Angela Goddard
Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Gianluca Fontana/
Stock4B
Tattoo art by Mark Heggie
Author photo courtesy of Tamela Kemp of Baltimore, Maryland
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition August 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Sara Walsh
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Designed by Mike Rosamilia
The text of this book was set in Berling LT Std.
Walsh, Sara.
The dark light / Sara Walsh. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When seventeen-year-old Mia’s ten-year-old brother becomes
the latest child to disappear, she discovers that her town of Crownsville,
Nebraska, adjoins another world, and with help from new friend Sol, she tries
to rescue him from the Suzerain, who is trying to destroy her world.
ISBN 978-1-4424-3455-4
1. Missing children—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction.
4. Identity—Fiction. 5. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W168933Dar 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011041701
ISBN 978-1-4424-3459-2 (eBook)