Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) (20 page)

But then, as I used the book the way it should be used – no half-hearted stuff for me –
He
heard me. He started talking to me, and His voice gave me a reason to be. His struggle was mine, His war coincided with mine. We could help each other. He whispered in my ear over and over again that it would be right to feel that way, to feel that I wanted to destroy them.

He told me that I
did
feel that way already, that I had always wanted to hurt them since James had left me. He said revenge was the only way I could set myself free. I allowed myself to believe that I could be free of pain, by inflicting pain on them.

The discovery exalted me: I hardly slept, I hardly ate for months, learning all I needed to learn, moulding my heart and my soul around the new rules, the new life that was opening in front of me. A year it took to master the arts enough to call my demon. When Nocturne appeared, hurt and bleeding and dazed from the passage, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I couldn’t believe how powerful I had become. He was proud of me, like Morag used to be.

And then, ten long years to find the others. Ten years I lived on hatred and barely much else. I played like I was possessed, and I got even better, going from strength to strength as my body grew weaker. When the Valaya was ready, it was time to do what I had dreamt of for so long. The Midnights knew I was coming, but they hadn’t known it for long enough to get ready, properly ready. By then Morag was dead, and that had been a disappointment. I would have enjoyed finishing her myself, but sure, you can’t have everything.

The day after I’d killed James and Anne I felt like I was going to die. Ill, pained in all my bones. Like I’d been poisoned. I could barely move. Nocturne kept vigil hidden in the trees, and my pupils from the Valaya looked after me, fed me, cared for me, as I lay trying to stop myself from moaning in agony.

I knew then what price I was really paying for using the Dark Arts. I knew that the sickness would get better, but not go away. I thought it was a price I
could
pay; I thought it was a fair bargain.

I listened to Him as He sang to me through the pain-filled nights that followed, and His voice made me feel even more determined to finish the job. To claim Sarah for my own at last, to take her life and kill her. Faith hadn’t been allowed to live, and soon Sarah would be dead too. Only fair, don’t you think?

And if death was in the cards for me too, that would be a relief. That would be the answers to my prayers. Because the instant I had pushed Morag’s knife into James’s heart, in that moment I remembered that before I had opened that cursed book, killing would have been as alien to me as eating human flesh.

Since He had started talking to me the Cathy I used to be was gone, and there I was, cutting Anne’s throat from ear to ear, because that was slower and more painful than stopping her heart with a single stab. Looking into her eyes as she bled to death, I watched my people clean up, so that the butchering would take the name of
accident
.

And so it was done. Another Cathy had been born when I had opened the book, slowly as I worked through its pages, like a long, painful labour.

The moment I realized what had happened to me was the moment I knew there would be no real freedom from pain, nor from memories. Then the moment passed, and the woman I was lay forgotten, and Anne’s blood on my body adorned me like a scarlet cloak.

Some might call it love

This thing that holds us hostage

Too close, this time. I punished Cathy for it, of course. Once the door was open in her consciousness, once she had started encroaching on our territory, she was fair game for us. They’re all the same, really. They look at the Dark Arts as something they can use; they have a near-complete certainty that they can control the forces they summon. They are wrong. It’s easy for my father and me to slip into their minds, look at them day and night with eyes that never sleep. This time, Catherine went too far with Sarah. She’s playing our game, I know that, and she’s doing me a great service – what better way to win somebody’s heart, than to be their saviour? But she has to suffer for the pain she’s inflicting on Sarah, even if she’s doing it to my advantage. That is my decision.

Let the punishment come, until Catherine’s time to serve us is over. As for Sarah, pain and fear are great teachers. They will purify her, they will mould her, they will get her ready for me.

Silver pages

Under the moon

Memories

Of you and me

“She’s still pretty unwell. No, I don’t think she’ll be back before Monday. Thanks, I will. Bye.”

Harry put the phone down. That instant, it rang again.

“Yes?”

“Harry, it’s Juliet. Sarah wasn’t answering her mobile last night, and I’m worried.”

“Hi Juliet, she’s got the flu, she didn’t go to school today.”

“The flu? Does she have a temperature?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming up.”

“You don’t need to. It really is just flu, and a very sore throat.”
And a Feral trying to kill her
.

“I need to see how she is. I’m coming up right now, I’ll cook you lunch.”

Harry sighed. Better to let her see with her own eyes that everything was fine.

“Ok then. I never say no to a nice lunch.” Juliet giggled. Harry could be very charming, when he wanted to.

“Trevor and the girls will come too. Trevor is here for a couple of days; he’s going back to Newcastle tomorrow.”

“Great, then we can finally meet.”
Finally
, he thought, sarcastically.
I can’t wait
.

“Who was it?” Sarah had appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d had a shower, and had put on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She felt a bit better, after having slept a dreamless sleep for a few hours.

“Juliet. They’re coming to see you.”

“They?”

“Trevor, and the girls too. Don’t look
too
happy!” smiled Harry. “Back to bed now, you’ve got to rest. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

“Sure, caffeine man. How’s your ankle?” She smiled.

“Yep, that’s me. My ankle is OK, it was just a sprain. I’m walking, anyway. Oh, I phoned the glass repair guy, he’ll come later to fix your window, so you don’t have to feel like you live in an abandoned warehouse.”

“Thank you. Are you coming up to share a coffee with me?”

“I’ll be straight up.”

Sarah was still weak. She was leaning on her pillow, her face the same colour as the sheets, the blackness of her hair a startling contrast, like a raven on the snow.

“Here’s your coffee. I need to speak to you. Yesterday, while you were unconscious, the sapphire spoke. It was a woman’s voice. She said that the demon we killed belonged to Mary Brennan, and that we haven’t won.”

Sarah frowned. “I thought the spell only worked to tell us if there was an intruder?”

Harry shrugged. “I thought so too. Here’s the sapphire. I took it in case it spoke while you were sleeping.” Harry took the gem from his pocket, and put it in Sarah’s hands.

“Strange. Maybe that’s what my mum meant, when she said that spells hardly ever work like you expect. She said they can be dangerous, too.”

Sarah closed her eyes and took a deep sigh. She curled up, and her hair fell to cover her face like a silky curtain. Harry felt this irresistible desire to run his hands through her hair … He raised a hand … and stopped himself.

He was supposed to be her cousin. Had he shown any signs of how he felt, she would have been completely freaked out, and rightly so.

It was his turn to sigh, in frustration.

“Something else. This arrived for you this morning.” It was a white envelope. “It doesn’t have a stamp, so it must have been delivered by hand. Somebody put it through the letterbox.”

Sarah took it. It had her name on it, written in an elaborate, old-fashioned handwriting, like an illuminated manuscript of long ago.

Sarah opened it. Inside, a red leaf. Her heart started pounding.

“What is it?”

“It’s …” she hesitated.

Harry winced. “Jack?”

“No, of course not.” Sarah felt guilty. She didn’t want Harry to worry after all they’d been through. She took a deep breath. She had promised not to tell anyone.

“I—I see someone, in my visions. I don’t know who he is. He gives me leaves.”

“In your dreams?”

“Yes. And he left a couple of leaves around. In real life, I mean.”

Harry frowned. “You have no idea who he is?”

Sarah shook her head.“I call him Leaf. I don’t know his real name.”

She didn’t say that she had felt his eyes look straight into her soul. She didn’t say that whenever he was around, her mind seemed to freeze.

“Sarah, listen to me. If he makes contact again you need to tell me. We don’t know who he is; he could be one of the Valaya, or a demon …” Harry’s clear eyes were full of worry.

“He’s the one who sent the ravens.”

“What?”

“The spirits of the air. The ones that saved us from the demon-leech. He sent them.”

Harry was taken aback. “How do you know?”

“He told me. In a dream.”

“He can control Elementals?”
A Secret heir? A Gamekeeper? A demon? Or just a human being with incredible powers?

“Looks like it.”

“We can’t take risks, Sarah. You must tell me if he visits you again. In dreams, or in real life.”

“I know,” answered Sarah, and she let her arm fall, so that her hand dangled from the bed. The leaf fell on the floor, silently.

They heard a key in the door, followed by a cheery, shrill voice from the hall. “Anybody home?”

Harry and Sarah looked at each other. Sarah rolled her eyes.

“We’re upstairs! Come on up!”

Juliet walked in to the room, followed by Trevor and two blond girls, one of about Sarah’s age, and one who looked a bit younger. Sarah’s room filled with a mix of perfumes, the women’s flowery ones, and Trevor’s aftershave. Shadow sneezed.

“Oh my goodness, what happened to the window?”

“I’m afraid that was me. I was trying to get some nails off the wall for Sarah, my hand slipped and … Well, it was just a tiny crack, but it would have been dangerous. Someone is coming to fix it later.”

A tiny crack. There had been nothing left of the window, nothing
, thought Sarah, and she shivered at the memory.

“Anyway, I’m Harry. Sarah’s cousin.” Harry extended his hand to Trevor, who took it absently.

“Pleasure.” Trevor had salt and pepper hair, expensive golf clothes and a condescending smile.

I hate golf clothes
, Harry thought to himself.

He looks like he’s climbed out of a skip
, thought Trevor.

Sarah and Trevor were never close. The sisters, Anne and Juliet, couldn’t have chosen more different husbands. James had led Anne into the crazy Midnight world, while Trevor had given Juliet a comfortable, prosperous, middle-class life. Trevor was so different from Sarah’s family, so completely unaware of anything beyond his golf club, his DIY passion, and his beloved silver four-by-four, that Sarah never warmed to him. Trevor found Sarah difficult, mainly because he couldn’t understand her.

Juliet and Anne had never been close either. There was no animosity between them, they were just as different as night and day, ever since they were children.

When Anne had met James, she was consumed by him. She didn’t see anyone else, she didn’t want anyone else. The chasm between the sisters grew wider. Juliet often thought that James and Anne were a unit in themselves, that even their own daughter wasn’t as close to them as they were to each other.

She suspected that James’s hold over Anne was the reason why they were so isolated, as a family. There was something about him that Juliet couldn’t quite decipher, but it scared her. A sense of natural dominance, a charisma that made him different. And that mother of his, Morag … Now that was one frightening woman. Anne adored her, but Juliet thought she was a witch.

They had turned Anne into a Midnight, taken her for themselves, and she didn’t seem to need or want anything else. The Midnight family was a mystery to Juliet. She’d visited their mansion on Islay, once, and she had been intimidated, even scared. Room after room of dusty books and antiques, rows of ancestors looking at her from the walls … Juliet couldn’t help thinking of the Addams family. She thought that if only Anne had married someone else, someone
normal
, their lives would have been so different.

But in spite of all that, the sisters loved each other, and Juliet had been devastated when Anne had died. She had always had a soft spot for Sarah – so thoughtful, so bright, compared to her giggly, flirtatious daughters. But Sarah thought that Juliet wasn’t a patch on her wonderful mum.

If only she’d known how many times Juliet had begged Anne to pay more attention to Sarah, to spend more time with her, seeing how anxious, how frightened Sarah always seemed to be. Little did she know that what she saw of Sarah’s life was just the tip of the iceberg.