The Gathering

by Isobelle Carmody

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ Nissa said flatly.

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know what it means.’

  ‘It was him saying I called to him that really scared me …’

  ‘I don’t think you called him. I think Cheshunt did.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To have exactly the effect it did. To scare you. Maybe worse.’

  Abruptly Nissa stiffened and held her finger to her lips.

  ‘What is it?’ I whispered. I looked around suddenly conscious of how dark and shadowy the park was. You couldn’t even see the toilet or swings and the trees seemed too close and thick. I remembered the eyes that had flared yellow at me and stood up, my heart pounding.

  Nissa must have felt the same because she stood too and said I might as well come to the library with her. We didn’t speak again until the park was behind us, then she asked if I had remembered my symbol. I pulled down the neck of my jumper and showed her how I had knotted it onto a thong of leather around my neck. ‘I keep it under my clothes so no one can see it.’

  ‘I don’t think it would matter,’ Nissa said pensively, hoisting her backpack higher. She shook her head impatiently at my offer to carry it. ‘The sword fell out of my bag at lunchtime right in the middle of the yard. I had a story ready in case something like that happened but no one mentioned it. Their eyes just seemed to slide off it. I bet it’s the same with Indian’s bowl and that torch of Danny’s. We’re the only ones that can see them.’

  We got to the library and up into the attic without mishap. Nissa made us a milo while we waited for the others and I found myself telling her about the death of the caretaker, and Zeb’s admission of guilt in spite of his innocence. Before I could stop myself, I was also telling her about the dreams.

  She just listened. When I stopped, she looked at me sideways, her face serious and calm. ‘It’s this school, isn’t it, Nat? That’s what you’re saying? That unnatural things happen here?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Of course! The earth that sorrows. It has to be right here. I’ve been racking my brain but it must be here.’

  I thought of the caretaker dying and the dancemaster and I thought she was right. ‘This is the core of the evil. This is what has to be healed!’

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said, the triumph in her eyes fading. ‘You told me there was a red moon in that garden you dreamed about?’

  I nodded.

  Her face looked very pale in the lantern light. ‘I’ve seen a moon like that here. Some nights I look out of the window and it’s red like that. Blood red.’

  I opened my mouth to tell her the red moon had been a feature of my nightmares long before we had come to Cheshunt, but the others had started to arrive and she went to let them in.

  Seth arrived last and was out of breath but sober, to my secret relief. No one mentioned what had happened at the beach.

  As soon as we were all together, Nissa told the rest of them about my dreams. ‘We think they are meant to show us the sorrowing earth is here,’ she said. ‘Do the rest of you have any better suggestions?’

  Indian shook his head. ‘Makes sense. Everything bad revolves around the school, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Then I say let’s do the healing tonight,’ Nissa said.

  But Danny disagreed. He wanted to talk about how we were going to fight Mr Karle.

  ‘The healing comes first,’ Nissa said.

  ‘I know that, but Lallie told you he would try and stop us forging the Chain that would bind the dark. I think we need to figure out what she meant by that before we do any healing. And in case he attacks as soon we start the healing we have to be prepared.’

  ‘Maybe the healing is what gives the symbols power as weapons,’ Indian ventured. ‘The only way we can test it is by trying it.’

  Outside the night was still and chilly, and clouds blotted out the stars and veiled the moon, but we agreed it was safer to do the healing on a dark night when we were less likely to be seen. I thought of The Tod and wished he was there too. After all, he had answered the call just as we had. If the truth be known, he had brought me there.

  I hung the circle outside my jumper and the others held their symbols, then we stood self-consciously in a ring.

  ‘What do we do first?’ I whispered.

  Danny giggled and Nissa gave him a sharp look, opening her mouth to tell him off. Then she frowned and closed it without saying anything and I guessed she was remembering what Lallie had said about laughter being a weapon against the dark.

  ‘It’s cold,’ Seth said.

  ‘All right,’ Nissa announced. ‘Now let’s just think how it went before we start.’

  ‘I have to burn the earth,’ Danny said.

  ‘Earth doesn’t burn,’ Indian objected.

  ‘It must mean to light a fire,’ Seth offered.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Nissa snapped. ‘On a night like this the flames would be visible for kilometres. How are we going to explain to the fire department that we’re just healing the earth? They’ll think we’re trying to burn the damn school down.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just symbolic,’ Indian said. ‘The torch for fire.’

  ‘We’ll try it both ways,’ she decided. ‘First without fire and then if that doesn’t work, we’ll do it the other way.’

  ‘How will we know?’ Seth asked.

  We all looked at him.

  ‘How are we going to know if it’s worked?’

  ‘There’ll be a sign,’ Danny told him with such certainty I hadn’t the heart to voice my doubts. Besides, maybe it was time I stopped being like Hamlet and started doing instead of always thinking.

  ‘We’ll just try and see how it goes,’ Nissa said, looking around worriedly. ‘But let’s not forget where we are. Stay alert in case the police come.’

  ‘Or worse,’ Danny echoed. ‘In case he comes.’

  23

  Nissa lifted the rusty sword high, then looked around. ‘What should I say?’

  ‘Something about healing,’ Indian said.

  She shook her head. ‘You’re the one doing the healing. I’m making a wound so the poisons get out.’

  ‘Say that then.’

  Nissa took a deep breath. ‘I, the bearer of the sword of strength, smite this earth …’

  ‘Sorrowing earth,’ Danny prompted.

  Nissa gave him an angry look. ‘Don’t interrupt!’

  ‘Start again.’

  ‘I, the bearer of… this sword, smite the sorrowing earth to… to let out the darkness,’ she finished with a flourish, then she let the sword fall and slice into the frozen ground opening a trench. Immediately it began to weep with muddy water.

  ‘It looks like a wound,’ Seth murmured.

  ‘Shh!’ Nissa said sternly. ‘Now it’s Danny’s turn.’

  He held up the torch. ‘I, the torchbearer, smite this sorrowing earth,’ he intoned solemnly. Then he touched the edge of the torch to the gash in the ground.

  Indian knelt and scrabbled a bit of the muddy dirt into the stone bowl. ‘Ugh. It stinks.’

  ‘Concentrate,’ Nissa said.

  ‘Say something,’ Danny urged.

  ‘Uh. I the bowl bearer… No, I who bear the bowl do… do take this sorrowing – no – this healed earth to the sacred place and… and it will be healed.’

  ‘You said it was healed already.’

  Indian scowled at Danny. ‘All right, Mr Know-it-all. I take this sorrowing earth to… to the sacred attic to be healed.’

  Back in the roof Indian sat the bowl on the packing case.

  ‘What now?’ Seth asked timidly.

  ‘Nat’s turn,’ Nissa elected. ‘Remember? The last to come will forge at last.’

  I swallowed, because I had forgotten that. ‘I guess we should stand around the bowl like Lallie had us do, and hold hands.’

  ‘What about the other things?’ Danny broke in. ‘We should put them in too.’

  This done, we held hands again and I racked my brains to remembe
r what Lallie had said. ‘We, the five who brought the symbols that are the Chain do… bring this bowl of sorrowing earth to… to be healed.’ One phrase seemed to echo suddenly in my thoughts.

  ‘May the Chain prevail long!’

  Nothing happened.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ Danny said in a disgusted voice.

  ‘How do you know it didn’t?’

  He pointed at the things on the packing-case table. ‘They didn’t change.’

  ‘We don’t know that they will,’ Nissa said, but she sounded disappointed too. ‘Maybe it was too close to the library?’

  We went through the whole ritual, this time right down near the canteen.

  When nothing happened again, Indian suggested we may not be meant to take the dirt back to the attic. ‘Maybe we’re meant to do the whole healing on the spot then take the dirt to the attic.’

  We tried that.

  Nothing happened again, except that it got colder. We went back to the attic and had a hot drink to warm up, trying to figure out what we were doing wrong. Seth had started sneezing and I felt as if my bones were icicles.

  ‘Maybe it is meant to be the oval,’ Nissa said pensively.

  ‘Maybe it’s not the school at all. It could be anywhere in Cheshunt.’

  ‘Maybe we’re just not saying the right words.’

  ‘It could be the wrong time,’ Seth suggested.

  Nissa gave him a weary look. ‘We just have to keep trying, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because Seth isn’t doing anything!’ I said.

  ‘Yeah! That must be it. Now what did she say about him?’ Danny said, grimacing with the effort to remember. ‘Something about seeing things right?’

  ‘No, throwing off the shadows of other men’s visions. Was that it?’ Indian suggested.

  ‘Not that part,’ Nissa said. ‘I know! Lallie said he has to see the sorrowing earth.’

  We all looked at Seth.

  ‘I don’t understand. You already know where it is. What am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to do.’

  Danny shoved him in the arm. ‘Maybe it’s not the right spot.’

  ‘Maybe he’s meant to look through the telescope?’ Indian said.

  That sounded right so we all trooped outside and waited with baited breath while Seth looked through the telescope at the ground.

  ‘It’s too dark to see anything,’ he said.

  We tried another couple of spots, and even crept out on the oval to try it there. It didn’t work and we dared not use real fire until we were certain it was the right place. Danny was convinced this was the missing ingredient.

  ‘We’ll have to risk fire if that’s what we’re supposed to do,’ he insisted. But none of us had matches and it was getting late.

  It was creepy too, even with all of us together, every second we were on the oval was dangerous. Being out in the open and vulnerable reminded us of the danger, and suddenly trying to figure out Lallie’s clues was no longer a game, but deadly serious.

  Freezing and exhausted, we decided to call it a night and go home. Before we parted, Nissa told us she would talk to Lallie at school the next day to see if she could be more specific about how the healing was supposed to be done, and exactly where.

  We agreed to meet again on Wednesday night in the attic and left five minutes apart. I went last because I lived nearest.

  ‘See you then,’ Nissa said. ‘And thanks for before.’

  She ran lightly across the oval towards the school and I wondered why she hadn’t told the others about the man. Maybe she was embarrassed. I watched until she reached the light and disappeared round the edge of a portable, then turned and jogged home.

  When I reached the park street, I looked over automatically, thinking of sitting on the bench with my arm around Nissa. A feeling of pure terror shot through me at the sight of a multitude of gleaming yellow eyes watching me from the shadowy wilderness of the park.

  Feral dogs. They started to growl.

  I bolted.

  I pounded along the path and heard them coming after me, the great thuds of their paws on the footpath, the rasping of their breathing.

  I tore around the corner into my street, knowing I had no hope of making it to my house. I turned to face them, pulling the circle out from under my jumper and thrusting it at them, hoping it would do something.

  The darkness was like a mist, and I could see nothing more than their eyes and the ivory gleam of sharp teeth. Somehow that made them more terrible than if they had been completely visible. They slowed fractionally when I swung to face them, then began to slink forward again.

  The circle slid out of my fingers, but my legs wouldn’t move. I felt dazed with fear.

  ‘Begone!’ cried a voice behind me.

  The dogs snarled and stopped, startled.

  It was Lallie and she held The Tod in her arms. Horrified, I watched her bend down and set him free. I tried to grab hold of him as he bolted past me, barking wildly, but Lallie stopped me.

  Incredibly, the dogs in their dark fume backed away. Perhaps they wondered what he was. The moment they gave way, he charged again and they turned and fled.

  Then they were gone.

  ‘Jesus, Lallie,’ I gasped and scooped The Tod up. He licked my face and blinked at me proudly. ‘Jesus,’ I said again, hugging him. Loving him. ‘What if they hadn’t run!’

  ‘They smelled your fear. That’s why they came after you. He was not afraid,’ she said, patting and nuzzling him and laughing softly. Her breathing was heavy and laboured.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  She did not answer, but followed when I walked the few houses back to mine. I sat on the fence because my legs were like jelly. For a second there I had been sure The Tod was going to be killed.

  ‘How did you get here?’ I asked, suddenly struck by her timely appearance. ‘And how did you get The Tod?’

  ‘The beasts were hungry,’ Lallie said, gasping a little. Her eyes seemed unfocused and her lips faintly blue.

  Alarmed, I asked again if she was all right.

  She appeared not to hear my question. ‘They come to feed because they know the darkness gathers. If you fail there will be fear and blood, and they are hungry.’ Her breath wheezed in and out.

  ‘Did… did the Kraken send them?’

  A ghost of a smile crossed her features. ‘He has no power to Call. His power is an illusion and fear. Don’t you understand? He was Called, just as the dogs were.’ The smile faded. ‘But they were attracted by your fear. The darkness is very strong now. They might have killed you. The healing must be done soon, or it will be too late.’

  That reminded me of the abortive events of the night. ‘Lallie, where are we supposed to do this healing? Tonight we tried and …’

  ‘Where the earth is saturated with fear and death. The signs of it are all around you,’ Lallie murmured. Her eyes drifted.

  ‘Can’t you just tell us! If there’s so little time …’

  Her face was a pale blur in the darkness as she turned to face me. ‘There is no time.’

  ‘But how are we supposed to fight him!’ I burst out. ‘Are the symbols weapons?’

  She blinked as if I’d startled her back from wherever her mind was wandering. ‘You are the symbols. The symbols are you. The circle is the symbol which links the Chain to bind the dark. It has great power, for it will accept no obstacle to the linking.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying it’s not a weapon? That there won’t be a fight?’ A cowardly little bit of me hoped she would agree.

  But instead she sighed. ‘If the Chain breaks, the dark will win. See the true battle, Nathanial.’

  ‘True battle? I don’t understand. Can’t you explain properly?’

  She shook her head. ‘I am not to interfere. There will be payment even for this night.’ She knelt down, took The Tod’s muzzle in her hand and looked into his eyes.

  He was very still for a minute. Then he whined as if he was in pain and
shrank away from her.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she whispered. He wagged his tail but his ears were down.

  Then she turned and began to walk away down the street. Her breathing sounded as if her lungs were filled with water, and I remembered what Nissa had said about her being poisoned by Cheshunt.

  ‘Lallie! I’d better come with you.’

  But she was gone.

  24

  I got into bed a bare hour before my mother came off night duty. I lay awake listening to her come in, shower and go to bed. I felt exhausted, but I was too unsettled to sleep. Even after she was quiet, I lay listening to the creaks and groans of the timber house settling, my mind running over and over everything that had happened in the long night; getting the news of Anna’s death, trying to do the healing at the school, the feral dogs chasing me, and Lallie’s miraculous appearance.

  But in the end, it was Nissa I thought about. I had actually had my arms around her. My wrist seemed to tingle where her bare neck had brushed against it, as if her skin had printed itself on me like the Phantom’s good ring. For keeps. I thought of the way her breasts had showed through the T-shirt at the beach. I dozed, feeling restless and feverish. The bed sheets kept tangling around my feet or sliding off one side.

  I tossed and turned, finally, into a dream.

  I was walking along the footpath. I didn’t recognise the street. It looked blurred as if I were seeing it through rain, but I thought it was somewhere in Cheshunt.

  I felt bone-achingly tired and disorientated. Weak. I barely had the strength to move my feet.

  I walked to the edge of the kerb to cross the street and at the same time, I heard a car engine.

  I looked up and the car was coming straight at me, its headlights shining yellow like some great animal. The death smell filled the air.