The Book of Shadows

by Ruth Hatfield

  “Jealous Xur decided to destroy Mab’s world. He couldn’t obliterate it completely—she was as powerful a creature as he—so he vowed to parcel it up and bury it, as a squirrel does with a nut in autumn. He sent Mab off on a fool’s errand to collect the night, then took the four basic elements of his own world—earth, air, fire, and water—and wrapped them around Mab’s world. Clenching the wrapped bundle between his paws—or hooves—he squashed it into a tiny ball, turned it inside out, wrapped it again, and, when it was smaller than a pinhead, tucked it carefully away in a shadow, and it was gone.

  “And when she returned, try as she might, Mab could not find it again. Too brokenhearted to build another new world, Mab slunk away into the misplaced night and lives there to this day. Her world is lost. We must all live in the world of Xur, where some things are possible and some are not, until the end of days.

  “But Mab’s world still exists, tucked away in that shadow. One day, so the legend foretells, the stories of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—will be collected together and written down in a book. The Book of Shadows will be its name, and if it is taken back to the place where Xur hid Mab’s world, Mab’s world will spring out of the shadow and unfurl from its wrappings. And the owner of the book will have such power as the world has never known—the power to transcend the possible, to reach into the impossible and paint its bright colors over the drab world of Xur. They will have the power to write the world anew, according to Mab’s intention and their own desires. And Xur’s world will be forever changed.”

  Danny looked out to the sea. The waves were swelling up, green-gray in the fading afternoon light. No ships on the horizon, no land or islands, only the endless cold shimmer of the sea, and the freewheeling birds.

  Anything possible. Anything. To be able to do it, just like that—fix the world.

  The shadows would go.

  Sammael would die.

  Shimny would find peace.

  Cath would be free to live however she wanted.

  Danny’s parents would be happy and hopeful.

  Paul would move to another school.

  Aunt Kathleen would remember Tom.

  Danny would live at home with Ori until he grew up.

  And one morning, Isbjin al-Orr the stag would come stepping into the garden, leaving clipped prints in the morning dew, and wait, head high, nostrils touching at the wind, for Danny to see him.

  Danny would go downstairs, open the back door, step out into the quiet early morning, and feel the ice of the ground as he padded across it in bare feet. The soles of his feet would sting.

  He would go up to the stag and put his hand on Isbjin al-Orr’s neck and feel the warmth under the wiry old coat.

  The stag would dip his head.

  Danny would get on his back.

  Together, they would take off.

  Into the fields.

  Into the hills.

  Into the wild, wild sea.

  Danny’s heart was seized by the memory of feeling strong and powerful and unafraid. He had been somebody else then, another person inside his own body. Perhaps he had been the stag for a few long seconds, without fear of anything. Perhaps he had been neither human nor animal, but a third creature, immortal.

  He shrank from the thought. The only creature he knew who was not recognizably of the earth was Sammael, and Danny had no desire to be like him.

  But he wouldn’t be like Sammael, no matter how much power he had.

  He would be good.

  “I can make the book,” Danny said to Barshin. “I can talk to everything. I’ll get the stories of the four elements and make the book, and put everything back to how it should be.”

  Barshin looked at him steadily. There was a yellow light in the hare’s eyes, a touch of mad intensity that Danny hadn’t seen before.

  “You trust me, then?” Barshin said. “I have only to offer you power, and you trust me?”

  “I’ll find out soon enough if you’re lying,” said Danny.

  “And what if you make the Book of Shadows and Sammael gets hold of it? What if I’ve got you to make it just for him?”

  “If I make it,” said Danny, “the first thing I’ll do is kill Sammael. Before anything else.”

  “Before rescuing Tom?”

  Danny scrambled to his feet. “No! Yes! Before rescuing Tom. Or maybe I’ll rescue Tom first and stop the shadows … but once Sammael’s gone, I’ll put the whole world to rights. I’ll make it so that no one ever has to be afraid again. I’ll make everything open—and clear.”

  “Sounds daft to me,” said Cath.

  Danny knew it wasn’t daft—the more you discovered about the world, the more you came to understand how much of it was hidden, unwilling to explain itself. But sometimes—just sometimes—a crack appeared through the darkness, and some light shone through.

  Ori came waddling to his side, plumy tale blowing in the sharpening wind.

  “You’re feeling happier,” she said, pushing her jowls against his leg.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “There’s a plan. I just need to make a book.…”

  Danny found his hand, unbidden, curling itself around Ori’s soft ear. It felt as delicate as a dried leaf. He resisted the urge to draw her closely to him and bury his face in her fur.

  “Earth, air, fire, and water,” he muttered. “Well, that’s easy. I talked to water before. I listened to air. I even touched fire, though I didn’t hear it speak. I’ll just ask them, one by one, and then I’ll have everything I need.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE ELEMENTS

  Danny tried the air first. He put his face up to the breeze and drew in a lungful. Cold, wet, and sharp, it brought salt and sand and the clear call of the gulls down into his chest.

  “Air?” he asked, but no answer came.

  He pushed his thoughts up to the whole wide sky above the beach, above the sea. All of it—that vast space, bigger than everything else in the world put together.

  “Air?” he tried. “Air, can I ask you about the Book of Shadows?”

  The air was silent. He listened hard to the things inside it, the gulls and sand flies and leaping crickets, and each had its voice. But the air told him nothing.

  “What you up to?” asked Cath. Her voice was flat and tired, and when Danny glanced at her, she looked gray again. Not as bad as before, but definitely tinged around the edges.

  “I’m trying to talk to the air,” he said. He didn’t need to explain anything more to Cath—he’d told her about the stick long ago.

  “Oh,” she said. She looked up at the sky and shuddered, and Danny saw that her hands were trembling.

  “They won’t get you again,” he said. He thought he should have added something like I won’t let them, I’ll take care of you—but it seemed wrong, with Cath.

  “They’ve already got me,” Cath said, shaking her head.

  “No, I got you out. You’re not under them anymore. You’re free now. Human again.”

  But she tightened her mouth, and her fists, and when she turned her eyes on him, the old fire in them was choked with smoke.

  “They’re in me,” she said. “Right inside. You still won’t ever believe what’s actually there if you don’t like it. That’s your problem. Why don’t you try listening for once? Maybe that’ll help you understand how to talk to things.”

  For a second, he was tempted to argue back. But she was trying to help him, he supposed. In a sort of way.

  He listened, even harder, to the whine of the wind and the shiver of the sea foam. There was something in the wind, for sure—a low, muttered chant, rising and falling and lifting at times to wail, a warped echo of the skylarks that haunted the fields of Tom’s farm.

  Danny pulled the sound toward him, curling the fingers of his mind tightly around the wind’s song.

  “Whenever the moon and stars are set,

  Whenever the wind is high,

  All night long in the dark and wet,

  A man goes
galloping—

  “Trotting … scuttling … Oh, blow!” said the wind. “A man goes issuing … No, that’s not it—damn me, why did I turn the pages of that book? And then she shut it! Damn girl … A man goes echoing … Teetering … What does he do?”

  “Riding?” suggested Danny. It was a poem he knew.

  The wind swooped, plucked at his hair, whistled under Ori’s tail, and gave poor Shimny a gust up her belly that sent her into an even more miserable hunch.

  “Riding!” it said, gleefully. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Danny. “My dad used to read that to me when I was little. It’s called ‘Windy Nights.’ It’s about a highwayman.”

  “Ooooh! I don’t suppose you know the rest of it, do you? I was playing with the girl’s hair as she was reading the book and flicking the pages, and she got so irritated that she closed the book and went into her house before I’d finished reading the poem. Do you know how it ends?”

  “Yeah,” said Danny. “It goes,

  Late in the night when the fires are out,

  Why does he gallop and gallop about?

  Whenever the trees are crying aloud,

  And ships are tossed at sea,

  By, on the highway, low and loud,

  By at the gallop goes he.

  By at the gallop he goes, and then

  By he comes back at the gallop again.”

  He was very surprised that he’d remembered it; the poem brought back a strong glimpse, suddenly, of how he’d once been a small boy tucked up in bed, with his dad’s low voice chanting in the light of the bedside lamp. Sometimes, after Dad had turned the light off and left the bedroom, Danny had listened to the wind outside the walls and imagined highwaymen outside on the dark roads, dodging the cars and trucks, looking for the ghosts of old coaches to rob.

  The world of Mab, he thought. I knew it existed then.

  And he was suddenly conscious of what a terrible betrayal he had committed in forgetting it, even for an instant.

  A figure came into his mind—a tall, thin figure in a dark coat, hair curling around his bony skull, high boots up to his knees. Sammael.

  If Danny had never met Sammael, he would still be back in his own house, all his childish imaginings forgotten. Sammael had brought him back to the world of Mab.

  No, said Danny to himself, and pushed the vision away.

  The wind was well pleased. It took the poem and swooped around the group on the beach, chanting and yelling out the words with great glee. Danny listened to it bellowing and singing, unable to stop himself smiling at the thought of highwaymen dodging around milk vans and cement lorries, leaping up and down curbstones, pulling their horses to a halt at red traffic lights.

  “Hey!” he called to the wind. “Hey, I need a story from the air. Can you help me?”

  “Ooooh, no,” said the wind, rattling his ears and pushing icy fingers down his neck. “I’m not the air. I’m the wind! Oooh, you’ve excited me so much, I’m going to go and whip the sea into a frenzy. We’ll see what she thinks about highwaymen!”

  “Wait!” said Danny. “How can I talk to the air?”

  “You can’t!” shrieked the wind. “No one can! Hee hee!”

  Danny’s heart dropped again, his hope forgotten. The wind was almost gone from him—he heard its voice louden, then fade, and the sea picked up angrily, harassed by the hectic gusts.

  Ori said quietly, “Don’t despair. If it wasn’t the answer you needed, let’s keep asking.”

  Danny stared out to sea for a second, watching the bristling path of the wind across the wave tops, then shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s worth another go, I guess. Let’s find some earth.”

  Together with Ori, he set off back along the path that led toward the little house and garden. He tried not to look at the house, but the rising wind forced his chin up as if showing it to him. Look what you’ve done, said the small voice of hate in his head.

  I’m putting it right, he said to the voice. I’m doing everything I can.

  Not enough, said the voice. You never do enough.

  Danny pushed it away and stared hard at the ground.

  In the end, he had to go all the way back to the little fenced garden before he found real soil. Kneeling, he pushed his fingers down into it, feeling the cold creep up his skin. Ori sat close to his side, watching him squash the damp earth.

  Danny put his clean hand into the pocket of his trousers and took hold of the stick.

  “Earth?” he said. “Earth, can you hear me?”

  The earth was silent. This was ridiculous. He knew the earth could speak, because he’d heard it before, when he’d fed it to a worm. The worms ate earth and sang songs of the life that the grains of earth had been. Only really, he thought now, that was the worms singing, not actually the earth.

  This earth wasn’t going to speak to him, even if it could.

  “Don’t despair,” said Ori. She pushed her wet nose against the muddy skin on the back of his hand. It was slimier than the mud, but he felt less alone at once.

  He made his way back to Cath, Barshin, and Shimny on the beach. “It’s no good,” he said. “I don’t think I can speak to the elements. Or they won’t speak to me, I don’t know which. I’ve tried air and earth—I guess fire might be worth a try.…”

  “Nah,” said Cath. “If two of them won’t, then maybe Barshin’s story’s just a bit wrong.”

  Danny raised his eyebrows. “I thought Barshin was always right?”

  Cath grinned. “Barshin is. But all them stories—they ain’t all exact, are they? Anyway, I told you Ida was always on about witchy stuff, didn’t I? She used to ramble on about the Book of Shadows. She was always saying that shadows were where things hid.”

  “What sort of things?” Danny leaned forward.

  Cath shrugged. “Stupid stuff.”

  “About shadows? What was it? Try and remember! Anything!”

  Cath shook her head. “I didn’t buy it. She thought you could trap shadows. There’s a box on the windowsill in the kitchen she used to keep for putting ’em in. Honestly, it’s rubbish. You can’t put shadows in a box.”

  Danny rolled his eyes. “Where’s the kitchen?” he said.

  “Around the back.”

  Around the back of the house.

  Under the shadows.

  CHAPTER 12

  FOUR FRIENDS

  Danny made his way slowly down the path with Ori at his side, and stopped by the gate. He looked around him. The last rays of the sun had long since been blotted out by storm clouds. It was about to start raining; he could feel the wet edge to the air, and the bunching clouds above were dark and cold.

  Nothing inside him wanted to go back into the house.

  Perhaps he could go around to the back and reach in through a window? He’d still be under the shadows, but not the double shadow of a cloud and a roof. And he’d have the small, temporary talismans—stick and colors.

  “Wait here,” he said to Ori. “I’ll run around the back and see if I can break the window and grab the box.”

  “Your heart,” said Ori. “I fear for your heart. Don’t do it.”

  “I’ve got to, haven’t I?” said Danny. “I’ll be fine.”

  He pulled the stick from his pocket and looked at the house. No point in thinking further. He held the stick out, letting its warmth sweep up his arm, and ran forward.

  To the house. Down the dark passage at the side, flanked by low bushes and trees. Around the back. The stretching garden, the vegetable plots, the stony paths.

  The stony paths.

  He caught a whiff of her before he saw her—a strong, sweet smell of rotten fruit and flies and old, rancid milk, concentrated in the still air. The smell dragged a wave of nausea into his stomach, wrapping it tightly into a knot.

  The old woman. Ida. Lying on the ground, curled and white.

  This was what the shadows brought. This.

  Danny forced himself to pick up a ston
e, smashed a small window next to the back door, and reached inside, feeling about on the windowsill. His fingers closed around something—rectangular, smooth sides, some kind of raised design on the top. The box. It had to be.

  The coldness was creeping into his heart. No—the smell was creeping there, up from his stomach, invading his lungs and his blood. It was the smell of the end of the world.

  Danny grabbed the box and pushed himself away from the window frame. His hand stung as he touched it—the world was as cold as ice. He couldn’t run—his feet were stuck in the mud. No—he looked down—there was no mud. His feet were standing on a path. He just couldn’t lift them up and move them.

  He clenched his fingers around the stick. He was going to be sick. But the smell would cling to his stomach and all the rest of his organs, and it would pull them out as he vomited onto the path. He would throw up his liver and his lungs and his kidneys and all his miles and miles of intestines, and they would sink into the ground just like his feet, and he would never get out of here.

  But then there wasn’t any point in going back out of the shadow anyway. The whole quest was fruitless, and not even the stick was good enough now. He might as well stay where he was. Or better still, step farther into the shadows …

  From the front of the house, Ori barked.

  The sound echoed around the air, bounced into Danny’s heart, and knocked the smell into pieces for an instant, like a well-thrown ball against a cricket stump.

  Danny ripped his feet from the ground and ran.

  He burst back into the unshadowed world and flung himself down onto the tufted grass, panting.

  The sky was losing the last of its light; he could only make out shapes on the beach, hunkering down against the rising storm. The wind yanked at his hair, his clothes, Ori’s fur—but his dog stood over him, coat flattened and dancing at the tips, and she was warm and alive, and so was he.

  Never again, he vowed. That was the last time. Whatever else I have to do, I can’t go back into the shadows. Not ever.

  “You’re okay now,” said Ori. “You’ve done it.”

  Danny struggled up onto one elbow and looked at the box in his hand. It was a small wooden casket with a pattern of twisted vines made from dull gray metal creeping over the lid. Not particularly beautiful. Danny had seen plenty of similar ones on knickknack tables at yard sales.