Danny gasped in a lungful of air. Badgers! Watching the badgers in the woods, Tom at his side, marching him cheerfully through the darkness, saying, “They’re great, really they are! Totally worth getting out of bed for, I promise! You just have to see them—”
There were so many things Danny would never have seen if it hadn’t been for Tom.
Ori looked up at him. Aunt Kathleen poured some tea and put it in front of him.
“Sip,” she said. “Carefully.”
Danny sipped. He fed the spat-out meat pie to Ori, who ate it with dribbling enthusiasm. He looked around the farmhouse kitchen and saw, again, everything that was missing: the photos on the pin board, the model tractors, the poster of cow breeds by the cooker. This was the same room he’d known all his life. But every trace of Tom had vanished.
He put the tea down. “Why didn’t you tell me about Tom?” he asked.
Aunt Kathleen frowned. “Who?”
“My cousin Tom. Your son.”
Aunt Kathleen shook her head gently.
Outrage surged, filling Danny’s mouth with the taste of blood. He looked down at Ori, who was gazing at him with her soft, deep brown eyes.
“Danny, Tom’s dead,” said Aunt Kathleen.
“I know,” said Danny. “But none of you told me! Why did you let me forget?”
Aunt Kathleen frowned and sat down. “There wasn’t anything to forget,” she said. “You never knew him. I had a son called Tom, but he died when he was just a tiny baby. It was a long time ago, before you were born. Has someone been telling you about him?”
“No, he was alive! He was alive.… He was here last year. He went away this summer, when he was mending fences around Hangman’s Wood.… He went away because he’d found out how to talk to birds, and animals.…”
“Danny! What are you talking about? We had a son called Tom, yes, but he died nearly eighteen years ago. It was two years before your sister died. He was born very ill, and he never came home to live here at all.”
“He did!” Danny ground his knuckles into the table. “He lived for years and years and years, and we did loads of stuff together—he taught me everything I know about the farm, everything about going off and doing stuff on your own. It was Tom—I know it was.…”
He trailed off as Sammael’s words finally came back into his memory.
All the memories of Tom belong to me. 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.
And that was what he’d done. Somehow, Sammael had taken every clue to Tom’s existence away. He had even carefully plastered over the cracks with false memories, like the one Aunt Kathleen was relating at this very moment.
It was clever.
It was awful.
Aunt Kathleen cut a slice of fruitcake and thought. “You’ve always been an imaginative boy, Danny…,” she said slowly.
“No I haven’t,” said Danny.
“And I understand that some very unsettling things have happened to you in the past year or so. You’ve probably felt very alone at times.”
Danny reached for Ori’s golden fur and clenched his hand around a fistful, being careful not to tug at the roots. He needed to hold on to something.
“What about the horses? Are they here? What about Apple?”
Surely the animals couldn’t be as blind and dumb as the humans? Surely Tom’s horse would have to remember the boy who had owned her?
Aunt Kathleen shook her head. “The only horse we have is Sophie’s old piebald pony, you know that. You always said we should name her, but we never did. She’s too old to need a name now.”
But the piebald did have a name. She’d told it to Danny.
She was Shimny. She’d been at the farm for Tom’s whole life, and he’d learned to ride on her. Danny had learned to ride on her, in a sort of way. Shimny was ancient and wise, and there was no way she’d have let Sammael mess around with her mind.
“I want to see her,” Danny said, getting to his feet.
Aunt Kathleen rose too. “Fine,” she said. She wasn’t the type to get hysterical or start demanding that Danny talk sense. “I’m going to ring your mum on the way and get her to pick you up. You need to let us help you, Danny. You know we want to help.”
Ori bounded ahead as they went up the muddy track toward the high fields. The sky was pale and soft, and the clouds were drifting by.
“I’m glad your parents got you a dog,” said Aunt Kathleen. “I’ve always told them that a boy needs a companion. They seemed to think that you wouldn’t want to go out and walk the dog enough, but you’re an outdoor sort of boy, aren’t you?”
Danny didn’t answer. It hurt too much—Tom had been the outdoorsy one. Aunt Kathleen was putting the things that had been her own son into the shape of her nephew. It was all a lie.
The sounds of the farm were all where they should be, around him. Sheep in the far fields, cows in the near ones. Birds in the trees, traffic on the road, wind in the hedge twigs. Yes. All present and correct. Except Tom’s voice: that belonged beside them.
Shimny was grazing in the topmost paddock. Her winter coat was thick and matted with mud, and her back was as dipped as a crescent moon. Quite how old she was, Danny had never dared ask.
“Here.” Aunt Kathleen handed him an apple. “Bite pieces out of it for her. She can’t manage a whole one these days.”
Danny approached the pony, one hand on the stick in his pocket.
“Hello,” he said.
The pony raised a black and white head to stare at him, long and hard.
“I wondered when you’d be back,” she said. “What do you want me for now? You must know I’m too old to run.”
“I don’t need you to run—it’s okay. I just want to know what you remember about Tom.”
The old horse didn’t react to the name. There was no twitch, no sudden start of recognition. “Tom who?”
“Tom,” tried Danny again. “My cousin. He used to ride you, remember? And then I did, and we went on that long ride and got chased by dogs.…”
“I recall that long ride perfectly, thank you,” said Shimny. “You got chased by dogs. I had the misfortune to be carrying you on my back at the time.”
“Yes, yes!” said Danny, a spark of excitement picking at him. “And Tom was with us, remember? On Apple? And you said she was silly, and she was, dancing around at everything. Don’t you remember?”
The old horse lipped gently at his pockets in search of more treats and, finding none, gazed at him.
“We were alone on that ride. You and I. Of course I remember. You could speak to me. It wasn’t a thing I’d ever thought would happen between a boy and a horse. But you spoke to me, and I took care of you and brought you safely home.”
“Don’t you…?”
But Danny stopped himself. What was the use? Sammael had clearly gotten to Shimny, too. Danny could quiz and quiz her all day, and he wouldn’t be able to jog her memory. There were no memories of Tom left to jog.
Somehow, the sea had given Tom back to Danny. But only to Danny.
He raised his eyes to the hilltop and saw Tom, alive again, striding down the field to greet them. It was a vision so strong, so impossible to deny, that he turned to Aunt Kathleen and Shimny, his mouth open, about to point out the figure, to challenge them to name it.
But Aunt Kathleen was giving the old horse a pat, and their heads were bent together. And Danny knew that if he told them to look up the hillside, neither would know exactly where they were supposed to look.
His mum came up the track toward them, her brown hair neatly tied back, her thin face a tidier echo of Aunt Kathleen’s wide, bony one. She was sighing.
“Danny, you can’t,” she said. “You have to go to school. I know it’s hard, but you have to go.”
“She’s lying too!” shouted Danny, because the wind was there to take his noise away, and he wanted to blast all their eardrums off. “You’re lying! She’s
lying! I know Tom was here—we did so much stuff. Why can’t you just admit it—” And he broke off, because he knew he wasn’t making sense. They weren’t lying. They really didn’t remember Tom. Nobody remembered Tom. Sammael had taken all the memories of Tom away from the world, and only Danny remembered him now.
It was a kind of torture.
He’s trying to make me go mad, thought Danny. He can’t kill me, so he’s trying to make me go mad.
But I won’t go mad. I’ll think of some way to make them all remember. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it, and then I’ll have won.
“Danny,” his mum was saying, “I’ll take you back to school. Let’s go and have a chat with one of your teachers. I’m sure we can sort this out.”
And although at any other time he would have died at the thought of his mum going with him to talk to the teachers about his problems, he found he didn’t really care now. He let himself walk beside her, down the track and into the car, with Ori jumping into the backseat behind him, and he didn’t protest at all.
He was thinking.
How could he do it? How could he persuade them that a person had once existed when there were no photographs or belongings to prove he had? And when they wouldn’t take Danny’s word for it, because they thought he was inventing stuff to get out of school?
He would have to be very clever.
Even cleverer than the creature who had done this.
“You need to fit in,” said his mum with a sympathetic smile.
No, I don’t, thought Danny. I need to get out of here. I need to find Sammael again, and this time I need to kill him.
CHAPTER 4
THE SHADOWS
It has begun.
The creature uncurls the thin black patch and lays it gently down on the grass.
A soft autumn sun breaks through the clouds, peering down with a lemon-colored ray of sunshine onto the wide field. Nothing unusual there: a few sheep nibbling at the coarse grass, snug against the November air in their thick fleeces. A few houses dotted around, some cars on the road. Not much wildlife, most of it hiding out of the cold, damp day.
Except—what’s that? That creature, far down in that field, standing next to—
The sun’s ray gives a brief prod at the black patch and recoils as swiftly as a snail’s horn.
The clouds snap shut.
A low rumbling gathers, and the sky begins to shudder, straining to free itself from a strange hold. But all its normal lightness has gone: it freezes and shakes, seized with fear.
And then the white drains from the clouds, and they turn gray.
They bunch together, closer and closer, until all the clouds in the surrounding sky are huddled in one tight clump, and although far in the distance the sun still shines, the field and the sheep and the houses are entirely covered by shadow.
Green turns gray.
Blue turns gray.
Brown turns gray.
The sheep stop eating and hang their heads, blades of half-chewed grass dropping from between their slack lips. People in the houses put down their cups of tea and stare down at their chests, their hearts turned to stone. The leafless skeletons of the trees fade to a dull, powdery gray.
The only creature still moving in the landscape is the creature that has laid down the black patch. It takes a single, crazed look around the lifeless land and cackles to itself, twitching its legs in a shudder of delight.
“So easy! So easy! Just like that, and it’s all gone.…”
The creature lifts the black patch tentatively, a little afraid that dislodging the patch might dislodge its hold on the shadows, but although the clouds shake, nothing moves, apart from the patch itself.
As if tasting a fine biscuit, the creature raises the patch to its lips and bites off a chunk, then spits it onto the ground.
The patch is laid down again, and the clouds once more become heavy and still.
The bitten-off mouthful of black begins to grow. It stretches and reaches out, losing the marks of the teeth that have severed it, and re-forms into another wide, thin patch, almost exactly the same size and shape as the original one.
So it is true. Shadows beget shadows. Bite a piece off, and it will turn into a copy of its original self.
This shadow is infinite, and in time it will suck the color from the whole world.
The creature rolls it up and, holding tightly to the great prize, runs swiftly in the direction of the sunlight.
At last.
At last.
It has begun.
CHAPTER 5
GRAY
“Watch out!”
“Ooof!”
Danny’s head spun as the ball slammed against his cheek, sending muddy grass flying into his eye and spit spinning out of his mouth. It smarted, as if a cold, wet fist had swung at his face.
He’d grown used to not reacting. His face stung as he stood still and put fingers up to his cheek to check that the wetness wasn’t colored by blood.
“Danny!” The soccer coach came jogging up. “For God’s sake, watch the game! Are you on this field? Are you even on this planet?”
Danny shrugged.
“Let’s have a look.” The coach yanked Danny’s hand away and had a quick look, jabbing his thumb into the bruise. “No harm done. Go and stand out for a minute. No, make that ten minutes. Your side won’t miss you.”
Danny freed his head from the coach’s grip and wandered over to the side of the field, as far away from the school as possible. Stupid soccer practice. What a waste of a Saturday morning.
“Looking a bit wet, Danny! Been in the sea again, have you?”
It was Paul, so stunningly brainless that he couldn’t even think up good insults. Danny didn’t bother to look over. Instead, he turned away from the game, glad to be rid of it. The last brown leaves still clung to the twigs of the hedge, shining in the weak sunlight. Grass, beetles, and mud lay before him: they were better than soccer any day.
He was watching an ant trying to grapple with a piece of leaf when he heard the sound.
His ears went cold.
Everybody else on the playing field was watching Paul, who had the ball on the right wing and was racing toward the goal farthest from Danny. Nobody was looking at the school buildings beyond, or the sky.
Nobody saw how the sky was shivering.
Nobody saw the distant clouds running toward them, casting the edge of their shadow first over the school buildings, and then over the corner of the playing field.
Nobody except Danny.
He watched, frozen for a few moments, as the sunlight was extinguished. As the light went, so did the color.
The red faded from the bricks of the school buildings. The small patches of grass between the paths lost their shine, and the green dissolved into the air. Even the concrete paths darkened and dulled.
Everything went gray.
This is it, Danny thought. This is Sammael. He’s found out that I’ve been using the stick to talk to Ori. This is his final revenge.
As the cloud shadow crawled over the soccer field, Paul slowed his run and came to a stop, letting the muddy gray ball dribble off over the back line. He stood facing the goalkeeper. They stared at each other.
Danny’s sneakers seemed as heavy as stone. He pulled at his feet, sure that they wouldn’t move, but they lifted easily, light and bouncing, and before he could think, he was running away from the rumbling shadow as fast as his legs would take him.
If only he had a bike—or a horse—but there was a gap in the hedge at the back of the field, not far from where he’d been standing, and he kinked through it, out onto the footpath, taking a second glance back over his shoulder.
The cloud came to a grinding halt just before the hedge.
He ran a couple more paces away, just to check. The shadow didn’t move. He, Danny O’Neill, was standing in the winter sunlight, and only a hundred meters away his teammates were hanging their heads or sinking to their knees on the soccer field, wander
ing aimlessly in a sea of gray paths and gray grass at the back of a gray school building.
What on earth had just happened?
Danny took another step backward. Faint birdsong twittered in the air behind him, still lit by weak sunshine, but no sounds floated up from the school. The whole playing field was gray and numb.
Things moved. But their color had died. The white of the sky, the reds and blues of the soccer uniforms, the greens and browns Danny had been staring at in the long grass—dozens and dozens of them—had vanished in an instant and turned to gray.
He took a step forward, and then forced himself to turn away. His skin tingled, telling him to turn back, to look closer. You’ll never know what something is until you get close up and look at it, the tingling said. Didn’t you learn that from last time?
But another tingling came, right between his shoulder blades, and it said another, simpler thing.
Danger. This is Sammael. Run.
Ori. He had to get Ori, before the shadows reached his house. And his parents, too—he had to get them all to safety.
Danny ran.
He ran toward the center of town, trying to keep his tired legs from slowing, but as he rounded the corner of the street that led to the market square, he saw that he wasn’t running fast enough.
The market square was already gray.
Crashed cars and buses lay about the streets, their engines quiet. Rubble piled up where they had crashed into buildings. The brightly colored awnings of the market stalls had faded into gray and sagged on their broken props above gray tables bearing gray cabbages, gray sausages, and gray bread. Gray pigeons wandered aimlessly about, their sharp eyes clouded over with mist.
Here too? How many shadows were there? What if Danny’s home was already gone? It would surely have been the first place Sammael would have attacked.
Of course it would.
Danny’s shoulders sank. Everything was lost already. He might as well walk into the market square and take his place with the morose pigeons, or copy the woman at the cheese stall and fall face-first into a plate of Brie.
He was almost stepping forward to join the grayness when a sound from behind him made him turn. It took him a moment to identify it, because it was so out of place here, in the middle of town, on a concrete pavement. But when he looked down, black eyes bulged up at him.
The Book of Shadows Page 3