Absolute Midnight

One of Candy’s accusers, a woman called Nyritta Maku, who came from Huffaker, was the first to present her opinion, and she did so without any sweetening.

“It’s very clear that for reasons known only to yourself,” she said, her blue-skinned skull bound so as to form a series of soft-boned sub-skulls of diminishing size that hung like a tail, “you came to the Abarat without invitation from anyone in this Chamber, intending to cause trouble. You quickly did so. You liberated a geshrat from the employ of an imprisoned wizard without any permission to do so. You roused the fury of Mater Motley. That in itself would be reason for a stiff sentence. But there’s worse. We have already heard testimony that you have the arrogance to believe you have some significant part to play in the future of our islands.”

“I didn’t come here deliberately if that’s what you’re saying.”

“Have you made any such claims?”

“This is an accident. Me being here.”

“Answer the question.”

“If I was to take a wild guess I’d say she’s trying to do that, Nyritta,” said the representative from the Nonce. It was a spiral of warm dappled light, in the midst of which flakes of poppy and white gold floated. “Just give her a chance to find the words.”

“Oh, you really like the lost ones, don’t you, Keemi.”

“I’m not lost,” Candy said. “I know my way around pretty well.”

“And why is that?” said a third Council member, her face an eight-eyed, four-petaled flower with a bright-throated mouth at its center. “Not only do you know your way around the islands, you also know a lot about the Abarataraba.”

“I’ve just heard stories here and there.”

“Stories!” said Yobias Thim, who had a row of candles around the brim of his hat. “You don’t learn to wield Feits and Wantons by hearing stories. I think what happened with Motley and Carrion and your knowledge of the Abarataraba are all part of the same suspicious business.”

“Let it be,” said Keemi. “We didn’t summon her here to Okizor to interrogate her about how she knows the Abarataraba.”

She glanced around at the Councilors, no two of whose physiognomies were alike. The representative from Orlando’s Cap had a brilliant coxcomb of scarlet and turquoise feathers, which were standing proud in his agitated state; while the face of Soma Plume’s representative, Helio Fatha, wavered as though he was gazing through a cloud of heat, and the dawning face of the Councilor from six a.m. was streaked with the promise of another day.

“Look, it’s true. I do know . . . things,” Candy admitted. “It started at the lighthouse, with me knowing how to summon the Izabella. I’m not saying I couldn’t do it, I could. I just don’t know how I did. Does it matter?”

“If this Council thinks it matters,” growled the stone visage from Efreet, “then it matters. And everything else should be of little consequence to you until the question has been satisfactorily answered.”

Candy nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do my best. But it’s complicated.”

So saying, she began to tell them as best she could the parts that she did know, starting with the event from which everything else sprang: her birth, and the fact that just an hour or so before her mother got to the hospital on an empty, rain-lashed highway in the middle of nowhere, three women of the Fantomaya—Diamanda, Joephi and Mespa—had crossed the forbidden divide between the Abarat and the Hereafter looking for a hiding place for the soul of Princess Boa, whose murdered remains lay in the Nonce.

“They found my mother,” Candy said, “sitting, waiting for my dad to come back with gas for the truck . . .”

She paused, because there was a humming sound in her head, which was getting louder. It sounded as though her skull was filled with hundreds of agitated bees. She couldn’t think straight.

“They found my mother . . .” she said again, aware that her voice was slurring.

“Forget your mother for a moment,” said the representative from Ninnyhammer, a bipedal tarrie-cat called Jimothi Tarrie, who Candy had met before. “What do you know about the murder of Princess Boa?”

“Boa.”

“Yes.”

Huh. Boa.

“Quite . . . quite a lot,” Candy replied.

What she’d thought to be the voices of bees, was forming into syllables, the syllables into words, the words becoming sentences. There was somebody speaking in her head.

Don’t tell them anything, the voice said. They’re bureaucrats, all of them.

She knew the voice. She’d been hearing it all her life. She’d thought it was her voice. But just because the voice had been in her skull all her life didn’t make it hers. She said the other’s name without speaking it.

Princess Boa.

Yes, of course, the other woman said. Who else were you expecting?

“Jimothi Tarrie asked you a question,” Nyritta said.

“The death of the Princess . . .” Jimothi reminded her.

“Yes, I know,” Candy said.

Tell them nothing, Boa reiterated. Don’t let them intimidate you. They’ll use your words against you. Be very careful.

Candy was deeply unsettled by the presence of Boa’s voice—and especially unhappy that it should make itself audible to her now of all times—but she sensed that the advice she was being given was right. The Councilors were watching her with profound suspicion.

“. . . I heard bits of gossip,” she said to them. “But don’t really remember much . . .”

“But you’re here in the Abarat for a reason,” said Nyritta.

“Am I?” she countered.

“Well, don’t you know? You tell us. Are you?”

“I don’t . . . have any reason in my head, if that’s what you mean,” Candy said. “I think maybe I’m just here because I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Nice work, Boa said. Now they don’t know what to think.

Boa’s assessment seemed right. There were a lot of frowns and puzzled looks around the Council table. But Candy wasn’t off the hook yet.

“Let’s change the subject,” Nyritta said.

“And go where?” Helio Fatha asked.

“What about Christopher Carrion?” Nyritta said to Candy. “You were somehow involved with him. Weren’t you?”

“Well, he tried to have me murdered, if you want to call that involvement.”

“No, no, no. Your enemy was Mater Motley. There was something else going on with Carrion. Admit it.”

“Like what?” Candy said.

She needed to lie now, Candy knew. The truth was that she was indeed aware of why Carrion had been drawn to her, but she wasn’t going to let the Councilors know about it. Not until she knew more herself. So she said it was a mystery to her. And a mystery, she didn’t neglect to remind them, that had almost cost her her life.

“Well, you survived to tell the tale,” Nyritta remarked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“So why don’t you tell it, instead of meandering around explaining nothing at all?” Helio Fatha said.

“I’ve nothing to tell,” Candy replied.

“There are laws defending the Abarat from your kind, you know that, don’t you?”

“What will you do? Execute me?” Candy said. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. You’re not angels. Yes, you probably had good reason to protect yourselves from my kind. But no kind is perfect. Even Abaratians.”

Boa was right, Candy thought. They were a bunch of bullies. Just like her dad. Just like everyone else. And the more they bullied, the more she was determined not to give them any answers.

“I can’t help it whether you believe me or not. You can interrogate me all you like, but you’re just going to get the same answer. I don’t know anything!”

Helio Fatha snorted with contempt. “Ah, let her go!” he said. “This is a waste of time.”

“But she has powers, Fatha. She was seen wielding them.”

“So maybe she saw them in a book. Wasn’t she with that idiot Wolfswinkel for a time? Whatever she may have learned, she’ll forget it. Humankind can’t hold on to mystery.”

There was a long, irritated silence. Finally Candy said, “Can I go?”

“No,” said the stone-faced representative from Efreet. “We’re not finished with our questions.”

“Let the girl go, Zuprek,” Jimothi said.

“Neabas still has something to say,” the Efreetian replied.

“Get on with it.”

Neabas spoke like a snail edging along a knife. He looked like irridescent gossamer. “We all know she has some affection for the creature, though why that should be is incomprehensible. She’s plainly concealing a great deal from us. If I had my way I’d call in Yeddik Magash—”

“A torturer?” Jimothi said.

“No. He’s simply somebody who knew how to get the truth when, as now, it was being willfully withheld. But I don’t expect this Council to sanction such a choice. You’re all too soft. You’ll choose fur over stone, and in the end we’ll all suffer for it.”

“Do you actually have a question for the girl?” Yobias Thim asked wearily. “All my candles are down and I don’t have any others with me.”

“Yes, Thim. I have a question,” Zuprek said.

“Then, Lordy Lou, ask it.”

Zuprek’s shards fixed upon Candy. “I want to know when it was you were last in the company of Christopher Carrion,” he said.

Say nothing, Boa told her.

Why shouldn’t they know? Candy thought, and without waiting for any further argument from Boa she told Zuprek, “I found him in my parents’ bedroom.”

“This was back in the Hereafter?”

“Yes, of course. My mother and father haven’t been to the Abarat. None of my family has.”

“Well, that’s some sort of comfort, I suppose,” Zuprek said. “At least we won’t have an invasion of Quackenbushes to deal with.”

His sour humor got a few titters from sympathetic souls around the table: Nyritta Maku, Skippelwit, one or two others. But Neabas still had further questions. And he was deadly serious:

“What was Carrion’s condition?” he wanted to know.

“He was very badly wounded. I thought he was going to die.”

“But he didn’t die?”

“Not on the bed, no.”

“Somewhere close by, you’re implying?”

“I only know what I saw.”

“And what was that?”

“Well . . . the window burst open, and all this water rushed in. It carried him away. That was the last time I saw him. Disappearing into the dark water, and then gone.”

“Are you satisfied, Neabas?” Jimothi said.

“Almost,” came the reply. “Just tell us all, without any lies or half-truths, what you believe the real reason for Carrion’s interest in you was?”

“I already said: I don’t know.”

“She’s right,” Jimothi reminded his fellow Councilors. “Now we’re going around in circles. I say enough.”

“I have to agree,” Skippelwit remarked. “Though I, like Neabas, yearn for the good old days, when we could have left her with Yeddik Magash for a while. I don’t have any problem with using someone like Magash if the situation really calls for it.”

“Which this doesn’t,” Jimothi said.

“On the contrary, Jimothi,” Neabas said. “There is going to be One Last Great War—”

“How do you know that?” Jimothi said.

“Just accept it. I know what the future looks like. And it’s grim. The Izabella will be bloodred from Tazmagor to Babilonium. I do not exaggerate.”

“And this will be all her fault?” Helio Fatha said. “Is that what you’re implying?”

“All?” Neabas said. “No. Not all. There are ten thousand reasons why a war is bound to come eventually. Whether it will be the last war is . . . shall we say . . . open to speculation. But whether it is or isn’t, it’s going to be a disastrous conflict, because it comes with so many questions unanswered, many of them—maybe most, maybe all—are associated with this girl. Her presence has raised the heat under a simmering pan. And now it will quickly boil. Boil and burn.”

What do I say to that? Candy silently asked Boa.

As little as possible, Boa told her. Let him be the aggressor if that’s the game he wants to play. Just pretend you’re cool and sophisticated instead of some girl who was dragged up out of nowhere.

You mean act more like a Princess? Candy replied, unable to keep the raw displeasure from her thoughts.

Well, as you put it that way . . . the Princess said.

As I put it that way what?

Yes. I suppose I do mean more like me.

Well, you keep thinking that, Candy said.

Let’s not get into an argument about it. We both want the same thing.

And what’s that?

To keep Yeddik Magash from taking us into a sealed room.

“So, if anyone has insight into Carrion’s nature, it’s our guest. Isn’t that right, Candy? May I call you Candy? We’re not your enemies, you do know that?”

“Funny, that’s not the impression I get,” Candy replied. “Come on. No more stupid games. You all think I was conspiring with him, don’t you?”

“Conspiring to do what?” Helio Fatha said.

“How would I know?” Candy said. “I didn’t do it.”

“We’re not fools, girl,” said Zuprek, reentering the exchange with his tone now nakedly combative. “Nor are we without informants. You can’t keep the company of someone like Christopher Carrion without drawing attention to yourself.”

“Are you telling me that you were spying on us?”

Zuprek allowed a phantom smile to haunt his stone face. “How interesting,” he said softly. “I sniff guilt.”

“No, you don’t,” Candy told him. “It’s just irritation you can smell. You had no right to be watching me. Watching us. You’re the Grand Council of the Abarat and you’re spying on your own citizens?”

“You’re not a citizen. You’re a nobody.”

“That was just vicious, Zuprek.”

“She’s mocking us. Do any of you see that? She intends to be the death of us, so she mocks.”

There was a long silence. Finally somebody said, “We’re done with this interview. Let’s move on.”

“I agree,” Jimothi said.

“She told us nothing, you dumb cat!” Helio yelled.

Jimothi sprang up off his chair and onto his haunches in one smooth motion.

“You know my people are closer to beasts than some of you others,” he said. “Maybe you should remember that. I can smell a lot of fear in this room right now . . . a lot.”

“Jimothi . . . Jimothi!” Candy stepped in the Cat King’s line of sight. “Nobody’s been hurt. It’s all right. There’s just some people here with no respect for those who are a little different.”

Jimothi stared through Candy not hearing her, it seemed, or listening to anything she was saying. His claws curled into the table and raked the polished wood.

“Jimothi . . .”

“I have such high regard for the visitor. I admit that predisposes me to think well of her, but if I genuinely believed she would be—as Zuprek put it—‘the death of us’ there is no sentiment in the Abarat that would make me merciful.”

“Well then, Zuprek,” Nyritta said. “I think it falls to you to prove or not to prove.”

“Forget proof,” Neabas said. “This isn’t about proof. It’s about faith. We who have faith in the future of the Abarat must act to protect it. Sometimes we will be criticized for our decisions—”

“You’re talking about the camps,” Nyritta said.

“I don’t approve of the girl hearing us discussing the camps,” Zuprek said. “It’s none of her business.”

“What does it matter?” Helio said. “People already know.”

“It’s time we discussed this,” Jimothi said. “Commexo is building one on Ninnyhammer, but nobody asks questions. Nobody cares as long as the Kid keeps telling them everything’s perfect.”

“Don’t you support the camps, Jimothi?” Nyritta said.

“No, I do not.”

“Why not?” said Yobias. “Your family line is perfectly pure. Look at you. Purebred Abaratian.”

“So what?”

“You’d be perfectly safe. We all would.”

Candy sniffed something of significance here, but she kept her tone as casual as possible, despite the sickening feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. “Camps?”

“It’s nothing to do with you,” Nyritta snapped. “You shouldn’t even be hearing these things.”

“You make it sound like they’re something you’re ashamed of,” Candy said.

“You’re reading something into my words that’s not there.”

“Okay. So you’re not ashamed.”

“Absolutely not. I’m simply doing my duty.”

“I’m glad you’re proud,” Jimothi jumped in, “because one day we may need to answer for every decision we’ve done. This interrogation, the camps. Everything.” He was staring down at his paws. “If this goes bad they’ll need necks for nooses. And they’ll be ours. It should be ours. We all knew what we were doing when we started this.”

“Scared for your neck, are you, Jimothi?” said Zuprek.

“No,” Jimothi said. “I’m scared for my soul, Zuprek. I’m afraid I will lose it because I was too busy making camps for Pure-bloods.”

Zuprek uttered a grinding growl, and started to get up from the table, his hands closed into fists.

“No, Zuprek,” Nyritta Maku said, “this meeting is at a close.” She threw an aside at Candy. “Go, child. You’re dismissed!”

“I haven’t finished with her!” Zuprek yelled.

“This committee has!” Maku said. This time she pushed Candy toward the door. “Go!”

It was already open. Candy glanced back at Jimothi, grateful for all he had done. Then she headed away through the door while Zuprek’s cries echoed off the Chamber walls:

“She’ll be the death of us!”

Chapter 3 The Wisdom of the Mob

CANDY FOUND MALINGO WAITING for her among the crowd outside the Council Chambers. The look of relief that flooded his face when she emerged was almost worth the discomfort of the highly unpleasant interview. She did her best to hurriedly explain all that she’d just endured.

“But they’ve let you go?” he said when she was finished.

“Yeah,” Candy said. “You thought they were going to throw me in jail?”

“It crossed my mind. There’s no love for the Hereafter, that’s for sure. Just listening to people passing by . . .”

“And the worst is still to come,” Candy said.

“Another war?”

“That’s what the Council thinks.”

“Abarat against the Hereafter? Or Night against Day?”

Candy caught a few suspicious glances coming her way. “I think we should continue this conversation somewhere else,” she said. “I don’t want any more interrogations.”

“Where do you want to go?” Malingo said.

“Anywhere, as long as it’s away from here,” Candy said. “I don’t want to have any more questions thrown at me until I’ve got all the answers straight.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

Candy threw Malingo an uneasy glance.

“Say it,” he said. “Whatever it is you’ve got on your mind.”

“I’ve got a Princess on my mind, Malingo. And now I know she’s been there since the day I was born. It changes things. I thought I was Candy Quackenbush from Chickentown, Minnesota. And in a way I was. I lived an ordinary life on the outside. But on the inside, in here,” she said, putting her finger to her temple, “I was learning what she knew. That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Boa learned magic from Carrion. And then I took it from her and hid it.”

“But you’re saying that aloud right now.”

“That’s because she knows now. There’s no use to play hide-and-seek, not for either of us. She’s in me, and I know it. And I’ve got everything she knows about the Abarataraba. And she knows that.”

I would have done the same thing, I don’t doubt, Boa said. But I think it’s time we parted.

“I agree.”

“With what?” Malingo said.

“I was talking to Boa. She wants her freedom.”

“Can’t blame her,” Malingo said.

“I don’t,” Candy said. “I just don’t know where to start.”

Ask the geshrat to tell you about Laguna Munn.

“Do you know somebody called Laguna Munn?”

“Not personally, no,” Malingo said. “But there was a rhyme in one of Wolfswinkel’s books about the woman.”

“Do you remember it?”

Malingo thought for a moment or two. Then he recited it:

“Laguna Munn,

Had a son,

Perfect in every way.

A joy to see at work time,

And bliss to watch at play!

But oh, how did she come by him?

I cannot bear to say!”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. Supposedly one of her sons was made from all the good in her, but he was a dull child. So dull she wanted nothing to do with him. So she went and made another son—”

“Let me guess. Out of all the evil in her?”

“Well, whoever wrote the rhyme cannot bear to say, but yes, I think that’s what we’re supposed to think.”

She’s a very powerful woman, Boa said. And she’s been known to use her powers to help people, if she’s in the mood. Candy reported this to Malingo. Then Boa added, Of course, she is crazy.

“Why is there always a catch?” Candy said out loud.

“What?” Malingo said.

“Boa says Laguna Munn’s crazy.”

“And what—you’re Candy, the sane lady? I don’t think so.”

“Good point.”

“Let the mad find wisdom in their madness for the sane, and let the sane be grateful.”

“Is that a famous saying?”

“Maybe if I say it often enough.”

The geshrat talks a lot of sense . . . for a geshrat.

“What did she say?” Malingo asked Candy.

“How did you know she said anything?”

“I’m starting to see it on your face.”

“She said you were very clever.”

Malingo didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, I bet she did,” he said.

Their route took them back to the harbor via a selection of much smaller streets than those by which they had ascended to the Council Chamber. There was an air of unease in these narrow alleys and tiny yards. People were going about anxious, furtive business. It was, Candy thought, as though everyone was making plans for what to do if things didn’t turn out right. Through partly opened doors that gave access into shadowy interiors she even caught a glimpse of people packing up in preparation for a hurried departure. Malingo clearly interpreted what they saw the same way because he said to Candy:

“Did the Council talk about evacuating The Great Head?”

“No.”

“Then why are people getting ready to leave?”

“It makes no sense. If anywhere’s safe, it’s the Yebba Dim Day. Lordy Lou! This is one of the oldest structures in existence.”

“Apparently old age isn’t what it used to be.”

They walked on in silence then, down to the harbor. There were a dozen fishing boats or more trying to find docking places so that the cargo of detritus could be unloaded.

“Bits of Chickentown . . .” Candy said grimly.

“Don’t let it bother you. The people here have heard so many things about your people over the years. Now they’ve got something to actually hold in their hands.”

“It looks like trash, most of it.”

“Yeah.”

“What are they going to think of Chickentown?” Candy said sadly.

Malingo said nothing. He hung back to let Candy go on ahead to examine the stuff the fishermen had scooped from the waters of the Izabella. Did the people of the Abarat think any of this was of value? Two pink plastic flamingos, washed away from somebody’s garden, a lot of old magazines and bottles of pills, some bits of bashed-up furniture, a big sign with a stupid bug-eyed chicken painted on it, and another that announced the subject of the Sunday sermon at the Lutheran Church on Whittmer Street: The Many Doors of God’s Mansion.

Somebody among the crowd, a golden-eyed, green-bearded individual lubricated by several bottles of the Kid’s Best Ale, had decided to take this opportunity to pontificate on the subject of how dangerous humankind and its wicked technologies could be. He had plenty of supporters and friends among the crowd, who quickly provided him with a couple of fish crates to stand on, from which perch he let loose a venomous tirade. “If the tide carried their treasures here,” he said, “then it’s going to bring some of their owners too. We need to be ready. We all know what the people of the Hereafter will do if they come back. They’ll be after the Abarataraba again.”