Malingo shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. He had his copy of the Almenak open and used it to nimbly change the subject. “You know I’ve always wanted to see Hap’s Vault,” he said.

“Really?” said Candy, still staring at the rocks where the man had fled. “Isn’t it just a cave?”

“Well, this is what Klepp says—” Malingo read aloud from the Almenak. “‘Huffaker’—Hap’s Vault’s on Huffaker, which is at Nine O’clock in the Evening—‘Huffaker is an impressive island, topographically speaking. Its rock formations—especially those below ground—are both vast and elaborately beautiful, resembling natural cathedrals and temples.’ Interesting, huh? You want to go?”

Candy was still distracted. Her yes was barely audible.

“But listen to this,” Malingo went on, doing his best to draw her thoughts away from the old man’s talk. “‘The greatest of these is Hap’s Vault’…blah, blah, blah…‘discovered by Lydia Hap’…blah, blah, blah…‘It is Miss Hap who was the first to suggest the Chamber of the Skein.’ ”

“What’s the Skein?” Candy said, becoming a little more interested now.

“I quote: ‘It is the thread that joins all things—living and dead, sentient and unthinking—to all other things—’”

Now Candy was interested. She came to stand beside Malingo, looking at the Almenak over his shoulder. He went on reading aloud. “‘According to the persuasive Miss Hap, the thread originates in the Vault at Huffaker, appearing momentarily as a kind of flickering light before winding its way invisibly through the Abarat…connecting us, one to another.’” He closed the Almenak. “Don’t you think we should see this?”

“Why not?”

The island of Huffaker stood just one Hour from the Yebba Dim Day, the first island Candy had ever visited when she’d come to the Abarat. But whereas the great carved head of the Yebba Dim Day still had a few streaks of late light in the sky above it, Huffaker was smothered in darkness, a thick mass of clouds obscuring the stars. Candy and Malingo stayed in a threadbare hotel close to the harbor, where they ate and laid their plans for the journey, and after a few hours of sleep they set out on the dark but well sign-posted road that led to the Vault. They’d had the foresight to pack food and drink, which they needed. The journey was considerably longer than they’d been led to expect by the owner of the hotel, who’d given them some directions. Occasionally they’d hear the sound of an animal pursuing and bringing down another in the murk, but otherwise the journey was uneventful.

When they finally reached the caves themselves, they found that a few of the steep passageways had flaming torches mounted in brackets along the cold walls to illuminate the route. Surprisingly, given how extraordinary the phenomenon sounded, there were no other visitors here to witness it. They were alone as they followed the steeply inclined passageway that led them into the Vault. But they needed no guide to tell them when they had reached their destination.

“Oh Lordy Lou…” said Malingo. “Look at this place.”

His voice echoed back and forth across the vast cavern they had come into. From its ceiling—which was so far beyond the reach of the torches’ light as to be in total darkness—there hung dozens of stalactites. They were immense, each easily the size of an inverted church spire. They were the roosts of Abaratian bats, a detail Klepp had failed to mention in his Almenak. The creatures were much larger than any bat Candy had seen in the Abarat, and they boasted a constellation of seven bright eyes.

As for the depths of the cavern, they were as inky black as the ceiling.

“It’s so much bigger than I expected it to be,” Candy said.

“But where’s the Skein?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll see it if we stand in the middle of the bridge.”

Malingo gave her an uneasy look. The bridge that hung over the unfathomable darkness of the Vault didn’t look very secure. Its timbers were cracked and antiquated, its ropes frayed and thin.

“Well, we’ve come this far,” Candy said. “We may as well see what there is to see.”

She set a tentative foot on the bridge. It didn’t give way, so she ventured farther. Malingo followed. The bridge groaned and swayed, its boards (which were laid several inches apart) creaking with every step they took.

“Listen…” Candy whispered as they reached the middle of the bridge.

Above them they could hear the chittering of a chatty bat. And from far, far below the rushing of water.

“There’s a river down there,” Candy said.

“The Almenak doesn’t—”

Before Malingo could finish his sentence, a third voice came out of the darkness and echoed around the Vault.

“As I live and breathe, will you look at that? Candy Quackenbush!”

The shout stirred up a few bats. They swooped from their roosts down into the dark air, and in doing so they disturbed hundreds of their siblings, so that in a matter of a few seconds countless bats were on the move; a churning cloud pierced by shifting constellations.

“Was that—?”

“Houlihan?” Candy said. “I’m afraid it was.”

She’d no sooner spoken than there was a footfall at the far end of the bridge, and the Criss-Cross Man stepped into the torchlight.

“Finally,” he said. “I have you where you cannot run.”

Candy glanced back along the bridge. One of Houlihan’s stitchling companions had appeared from the shadows and was striding toward them. It was a big, ill-shapen thing, with the teeth of a death’s head, and as soon as it set foot on the bridge the frail structure began to sway from side to side. The stitchling clearly liked the sensation, because it proceeded to throw its weight back and forth, making the motion more and more violent. Candy grabbed hold of the railings, and Malingo did the same, but the frayed ropes offered little comfort. They were trapped. Houlihan was now advancing from his end of the bridge. He had taken the flaming torch from the wall and held it ahead of him as he advanced. His face, with its criss-crossed tattoos, was gleaming with sweat and triumph.

Overhead, the cloud of bats continued to swell, as events on the bridge disturbed more and more of them. A few of the largest, intending perhaps to drive out these trespassers, swooped down on Candy and Malingo, letting out shrill shrieks. Candy did her best to ignore them: she was much more concerned with the Criss-Cross Man, who was now no more than seven or eight feet away.

“You’re coming with me, girl,” he said to her. “Carrion wants to see you in Gorgossium.”

He suddenly tossed the torch over the railing, and with both hands free he raced at Candy. She had nowhere left to run. “What now?” he said.

She shrugged. Desperate, she looked around at Malingo. “We may as well see—”

“What is there to see?” he replied.

She smiled, the tiniest smile, and then, without even glancing up at their pursuers again, they both threw themselves headfirst over the rope railing.

As they plunged into the darkness, Malingo let out a wild whoop of exhilaration, or perhaps fear, perhaps both. Seconds passed, and still they fell and fell and fell. And now everything was dark around them and the shrieking of the bats was gone, erased by the noise of the river below.

Candy had time to think: If we hit the water at this speed we’ll break our necks, and then suddenly Malingo had hold of her hand, and using some trick of acrobatics he’d learned hanging upside down from Wolfswinkel’s ceiling, he managed to flip them both over, so that they were now falling feet first.

Two, three, four seconds later, they hit the water.

It wasn’t cold. At least not icy. Their speed carried them deep, however, and the impact separated them. For Candy there was a panicky moment when she thought she’d used up all her breath. Then—God bless him!—Malingo had hold of her hand again, and gasping for air, they broke surface together.

“No bones broken?” Candy gasped.

“No. I’m fine. You?”

“No,” she said, scarcely believing it. “I thought he had us.”

“So did I. So did he.”

Candy laughed.

They looked up, and for a moment she thought she glimpsed the dark ragged line of the bridge high above. Then the river’s current carried them away, and whatever she’d seen was eclipsed by the roof of the cavern through which these waters ran. They had no choice but to go wherever it was going. Darkness was all around them, so the only clues they had to the size of caverns through which the river traveled was the way the water grew more tempestuous when the channel narrowed, and how its rushing din mellowed when the way widened again.

Once, for just a few tantalizing seconds, they caught a glimpse of what looked like a bright thread—like the Skein of Lydia Hap’s account—running through the air or the rock above them.

“Did you see that?” Malingo said.

“Yes,” said Candy, smiling in the darkness. “I saw it.”

“Well, at least we saw what we came to see.”

It was impossible to judge the passage of time in such a formless place, but some while after their glimpsing of the Skein they caught sight of another light, a long way ahead: a luminescence which steadily grew brighter as the river carried them toward it.

“That’s starlight,” Candy said.

“You think so?”

She was right; it was. After a few more minutes, the river finally brought them out of Huffaker’s caverns and into that quiet time just after nightfall. A fine net of cloud had been cast over the sky, and the stars caught in it were turning the Izabella silver.

Their journey by water wasn’t over, however. The river current quickly carried them too far from the dark cliffs of Huffaker to attempt to swim back to it and bore them out into the straits between Nine and Ten O’clock. Now the Izabella took charge, her waters holding them up without their needing to exert themselves with swimming. They were carried effortlessly out past Ninnyhammer (where the lights burned bright in the cracked dome of Kaspar Wolfswinkel’s house) and south, into the light, to the bright, tropical waters that surrounded the island of the Nonce. The sleepy smell of an endless afternoon came off the island, which stood at Three O’clock, and the breeze carried dancing seeds from the lush slopes of that Hour. But the Nonce was not to be their destination. The Izabella’s currents carried them on past the Afternoon to the vicinity of the island of Gnomon.

Before they could be delivered to the shores of that island, however, Malingo caught sight of their salvation.

“I see a sail!” he said, and started yelling to whoever might be up on deck. “Over here! Here!”

“They see us!” Candy said. “They see us!”

3 ON THE PARROTO PARROTO

THE LITTLE VESSEL MALINGO’S sharp eyes had spotted wasn’t moving, so they were able to let the gentle current carry them toward it. It was a humble fishing boat no more than fifteen feet in length and in a very dilapidated condition. Its crew members were hard at work hauling up onto the deck a net full to bursting with tens of thousands of small mottled turquoise-and-orange fish, called smatterlings. Hungry seabirds, raucous and aggressive, wheeled around the boat or bobbed on the water close by, waiting to snatch up those smatterlings that the fishermen failed to get out of the net, onto the deck and into the hold of their boat quickly enough.

By the time Candy and Malingo were within hailing distance of the little vessel, most of the hard labor was over, and the happy crew members (there were only four on the boat) were singing a song of the sea as they folded the nets.

“Fishes, feed me! Fishes fine! Swim in the nets And catch the line! Feed my children! Fill my dishes! That’s why I love you, Little fishes!”

When they were done with the song, Malingo called to them from out of the water.

“Excuse me!” he yelled. “There are still two more fishes down here!”

“I see you!” said a young man among the crew.

“Throw them a line,” said the wiry bearded man in the wheelhouse, who was apparently the Captain.

It didn’t take very long for Candy and Malingo to be brought up over the side of the boat and onto the stinking deck.

“Welcome aboard the Parroto Parroto,” said the Captain. “Somebody get ’em some blankets, will you?”

Though the sun was still reasonably warm in this region between Four O’clock in the Afternoon and Five, their time in the water had chilled both Candy and Malingo to the bone, and they were glad of the blankets and the deep bowls of spicy fish soup that they were given a few minutes later.

“I’m Perbo Skebble,” said the Captain. “The old man is Mizzel, the cabin girl is Galatea, and the young fellow there is my son Charry. We’re from Efreet, and we’re heading back there with our hold full.”

“Good fishin’,” Charry said. He had a broad, happy face, which fell naturally into an expression of easy contentment.

“There’ll be consequences,” Mizzel said, his own features as naturally joyless as Charry’s were naturally happy.

“Why do you always have to be so grim?” Galatea said, staring contemptuously at Mizzel. Her hair was shaved so close to her scalp, it was little more than a shadow. Her muscular arms were decorated with elaborate tattoos. “Didn’t we just save two souls from drowning? We’re all on the Creatrix’ side on this boat. Nothing bad’s going to happen to us.”

Mizzel just sneered at her, rudely snatching the empty soup bowls from Candy and Malingo. “We’ve still got to get past Gorgossium,” he said as he headed down into the galley with the bowls. He cast a sly, faintly threatening glance back at Candy as he departed, as though to see whether he’d succeeded in sowing the seeds of fear in her.

“What did he mean by that?” Malingo said.

“Nothing,” said Skebble.

“Oh, let’s tell the truth here,” said Galatea. “We’re not going to lie to these people. That would be shameful.”

“Then you tell ’em,” Skebble said. “Charry, come, lad. I want to be sure the catch is properly stowed.”

“What’s the problem?” Candy said to Galatea, when the father and son had gone about their work.

“You have to understand that there’s no ice on this boat, so we’ve got to get the catch back to Efreet before the fish go rotten on us. Which means…let me show you.”

She led them to the wheelhouse, where there was an old and much-weathered map pinned up on the wall. She pointed a well-bitten fingernail at a place between the islands of Soma Plume and Gnomon.

“We’re about here,” she said. “And we’ve got to get…up to here.” Their destination lay past the Twenty-Fifth Hour, way to the north of the archipelago. “If we had more time, we’d take the long way back, hugging the coast of Gnomon and then passing the Nonce and heading north between Ninnyhammer and Jibarish, and rounding the Twenty-Fifth till we get back to our village.”

The Twenty-Fifth, Candy thought: she’d been there briefly with the women of the Fantomaya. She’d seen all kinds of visions, including one that she’d dreamed of many times since: a woman walking on a sky full of birds, while fish swam in the watery heavens around her head.

“There’s no chance you could drop us off at the Twenty-Fifth, is there?” Candy said.

But even as she spoke she remembered the dark side of life on the Twenty-Fifth. She’d been pursued there by a pair of monsters called the Fugit Brothers, whose features moved around their faces on clicking legs.

“You know what?” she said. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea after all.”

“Well, we can’t do it anyway,” Galatea told her. “It’ll take too long. The fish’ll rot.”

“So which way are we going?” Malingo said.

Candy had guessed already, from looking at the map.

“We’re going between the Pyramids of Xuxux and Gorgossium.”

Galatea grinned. Every other tooth in her mouth was missing. “You should be a-fishing, you should,” she said. “Yep, that’s where we’re going. Mizzel thinks it’s a bad plan. He says there’s all manner of things that live on the island of Midnight. Monsterosities, he says. Horridy things that will come flapping over and attack the ship.”

“Why would they do that?” Candy asked.

“Because they want to eat the fish. Or else they want to eat us. Maybe both. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it ain’t good news. Anyhow, we can’t be squibbies about this—”

“Squibbies?” said Candy.

“Cowards,” Malingo said.

“We gotta sail past Midnight whether we like it or not,” Galatea went on. “Either that or we lose the fish, and a lot of people will go hungry.”

“Not a good choice,” said Skebble as he climbed out of the hold. “But like the girl says, we got no choice. And…’fraid you got no choice but to come with us. Either that or we dumps you in the water again.”

“I think we’d rather stay on board,” Candy said, giving Malingo an anxious look.

They headed north, out of the bright afternoon waters of the straits between Four and Five into the dark seas that surrounded Midnight. It wasn’t a subtle change. One minute the Sea of Izabella was glittering with golden sunlight and they were warm; the next, waves of darkness covered the sun and a bitter cold swept in to surround them. Off to their port side they could see the immense island of Gorgossium. Even from a considerable distance they could pick out the windows of the thirteen towers of the fortress of Iniquisit and the lights that burned around the Todo mines.

“You want a closer look?” said Mizzel to Candy.

He passed her his battered old telescope, and she studied the island through it. There seemed to be immense heads carved from some of the stony outcrops of the island. Something that looked like a wolf’s head, something that looked vaguely human. But far more chilling were the vast insects she saw crawling around the island: like fleas or lice grown to the size of trucks. They made her shudder, even at such a safe distance.

“Not a pretty place, is it?” Skebble said.

“No, not really,” said Candy.

“Plenty of folks like it though,” the Captain went on. “If you’ve got a darkness in your heart, that be the place you go, huh? That be the place you feel at home.”

“Home…” Candy murmured.

Malingo was standing beside her and heard her speak the word.

“Homesick?” he said.

“No. No. Well…sometimes. A little. Just about my mom, really. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking.” She nodded toward Gorgossium. “It’s just strange to think of somebody calling that dismal place their home.”

“Each to their Hour, as the poet wrote,” Malingo said.

“Which is your Hour?” Candy asked him. “Where do you belong?”

“I don’t know,” Malingo said sadly. “I lost my family a long time ago—or at least they lost me—and I don’t expect to see them again in this life.”

“We could try and find them for you.”

“One day, maybe.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “When we don’t have so many teeth nipping at our heels.”

There was a sudden explosion of laughter from the wheelhouse, which brought the conversation to an end. Candy wandered over to see what was going on. There was a small television (which had red curtains to either side of the screen, like a little theater) placed on the floor. Mizzel, Charry and Galatea were watching it, much entertained by the antics of a cartoon boy.

“It’s the Commexo Kid!” Charry said. “He’s so wild!”

Candy had seen the Kid’s image many times now. It was hard to go very far in the Abarat without meeting his perpetually smiling face on a billboard or a wall. His antics and his catchphrases were used to sell everything from cradles to coffins, and all that anybody would want in between. Candy watched the flickering blue screen for a little while, thinking back to her encounter with the man who had created the character: Rojo Pixler. She’d met him on Ninnyhammer, briefly, and in the many weeks since she’d half expected to see him again at some turn in the road. He was part of her future, she knew, though she didn’t know how or why.

On screen the Kid was playing tricks, as usual, much to the amusement of his little audience. It was simple, knockabout stuff. Paint was spattered; food was thrown. And through it all jogged the relentlessly cheerful figure of the Commexo Kid, dispensing smiles, pies and “just a li’l bit o’ love” (as he would round off every show saying) to the world.

“Hey, Miss Misery,” said Mizzel, glancing around at Candy. “You don’t laugh!”

“I just don’t think it’s very funny, that’s all.”

“He’s the best!” Charry said. “Lordy Lou, the things he says!”

“Happy! Happy! Happy!” said Galatea, perfectly copying the Kid’s squeaky voice. “That’s what I is! Happy! Happy! Hap—”

She was interrupted by a panicked shout from Malingo. “We’ve got trouble!” he yelled. “And it’s coming from Gorgossium!”

4 THE SCAVENGERS

CANDY WAS THE FIRST out of the wheelhouse and back on deck. Malingo had Mizzel’s telescope to his eye and was studying the threatening skies in the direction of Gorgossium. There were four dark-winged creatures flying toward the fishing boat. They were visible because their innards glowed through their translucent flesh, as though lit by some bitter fire. They gibbered as they approached, the chatter of mad, hungry things.

“What are they?” Candy said.

“They’re zethekaratchia,” Mizzel informed her. “Zethek for short. The ever-hungry ones. They can never eat enough. That’s why we can see their bones.”

“Not good news,” Candy guessed.

“Not good news.”

“They’ll take the fish!” Skebble said, appearing from the bowels of the ship. He’d apparently been attending to the engine, because he was covered with oil stains and carried a large hammer and an even more sizeable wrench.

“Lock down the holds!” he yelled to his little crew. “Quickly, or we’ll lose all the fish!” He pointed a stubby finger at Malingo and Candy. “That means you as well!”

“If they can’t get to the fish, won’t they come after us?” Malingo said.

“We have to save the fish,” Skebble insisted. He caught hold of Malingo’s arm and pressed him toward the brimming holds. “Don’t argue!” he said. “I don’t want to lose the catch! And they’re getting closer!”

Candy followed his gaze skyward. The zethek were less than ten yards from the boat now, swooping down over the twilight sea to begin their scavenging. Candy didn’t like the idea of trying to protect herself against them unarmed, so she grabbed hold of the wrench in Skebble’s left hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that!” she said, surprising even herself.

“Take it!” he said, and went to help the rest of the crew with the labor of closing the holds.

Candy headed for the ladder on the side of the wheelhouse. She put the wrench between her teeth (not a pleasant experience: it tasted of fish oil and Skebble’s sweat) and clambered up the ladder, turning to face the zethek once she reached the top. The sight of her standing on the wheelhouse, the wrench in her hand like a club, had put a little doubt in them. They were no longer swooping down on the Parroto Parroto but hovering ten or twelve feet above it.

“Come on down!” Candy yelled to them. “I dare you!”

“Are you crazy?” Charry hollered.

“Get down!” Malingo called to her. “Candy, get—”

Too late! The closest zethek took Candy’s bait and swooped down, its long, bone-bright fingers reaching to snatch at her head.

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