The Book of Storms (31 page)

And then dawn was breaking, just as they reached the bottom of the hill and came out onto the Great Butford road. Dawn, painting the sky with promise, streaming royal blue across the horizon. A whole night—how had it been a whole night since Danny and Tom had stood outside the old barn and watched the swallows dive? It seemed like minutes.

He raised his voice again, although his throat was sore from shouting. “Tom! Tom!”

There was an answering shout. He'd grown so used to everything going wrong that he didn't believe it, almost didn't hear it. But then it came again.

“Danny! Hie! Danny!”

From far away behind them came the thundering sound of hooves, and then Tom appeared through a break in the trees. In two minutes he was galloping down the trail behind them and bursting out onto Great Butford village green like a raiding cowboy.

He slid to a halt, dropped off Apple's back, and came to stand beside them. Tall, cheerful Tom, as normal and as solid as ever.

Danny looked up at him. He wouldn't quite meet Danny's eye—maybe he was still embarrassed about Apple having run off with him.

“What happened to you guys?” Tom asked. “Danny was saying all this weird stuff—I thought he'd gone properly bonkers!”

Danny's parents looked at Danny. He looked at them. But even if they didn't understand yet, they wouldn't betray him.

“We got trapped,” said Danny's dad. “In the old quarry. We couldn't get out.”

“So how did he find you?”

Danny's dad shrugged. “Lucky guess, I suppose. We'd mentioned about going there before. But we've lost your pony, I'm afraid. Danny says she ran over the side of the quarry.”

“Oh.” Tom, who had been about to ask more questions, was suddenly quiet. He stared down at his feet for a long moment and didn't say anything else.

“It's been a bad couple of days,” said Danny's mum gently, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “For everyone. I'm so sorry, Tom. But thanks for looking after Danny. You obviously did a wonderful job. We really owe you.”

“We owe you several,” said Danny's dad. “Can you leave your horse somewhere here and come back with us?”

Tom shook his head. “Mum's coming here—I phoned her. She's bringing the lorry. There's room for all of you in there. I'm sure she'll take you back. Although she might want to look a bit for the piebald.…”

And then, behind them, a shrill neigh flew out from halfway up the hillside. Through the half-light, a white, patchy shape was racketing down the trail, its ancient, unshod hooves thudding over the trodden earth. Its back was as dipped as a bowl, but its head was high and its black nostrils flared.

“Shimny!” yelled Danny.

But it was to Tom she went: to the boy she'd known all his life, who'd learned to ride on her swaying back and who'd never bothered to give her a name because he knew exactly who she was. Death had turned her back on Shimny, but Tom had always looked after her.

She scrambled to a halt in front of him and put her head down, panting heavily. Tom reached out a hand to pull at her ear and winked at Danny. “You did good, kid,” he said. “You're a braver man than most of us. We all thought it was time to go home ages ago.”

*   *   *

Danny watched as Tom loaded Shimny and Apple into the horse trailer. Aunt Kathleen was standing by the ramp, talking to his mum and dad. She looked entirely normal, dressed in tattered jeans and her shredded old farm coat. And she wasn't holding an axe. Of course she wasn't holding an axe.

His parents were talking slowly. His mum's hair was tangled, and both of them had scratches across their faces. He hadn't noticed the scratches earlier.

Three adults, two ponies, and one Tom. But there was someone missing, still. Did there always have to be someone missing?

*   *   *

They got into the back seat of the horse-trailer cab. It was dark and cozy, and the seat was full of springs. Danny's mum put her arm around his shoulders and he leant against her.

“Mum…” he said.

“Yes?”

“About Emma…”

“Yes.” She hugged him a little tighter.

“Will you tell me about her?”

His mum was silent for a moment, then Aunt Kathleen turned the key and the horse-trailer engine shook itself awake.

“Please,” said Danny. “I really want to know.”

“Oh, Danny…” said his mum. “Oh … Emma. It still hurts too much, even to think about her.… After she died, it wasn't— You can't know about that sort of thing. You're still too young.”

“I'm not,” said Danny, shaking his head. “I'm really not. You think I'm just a kid and I don't understand anything, but I always knew something had happened. It feels like you've got two families and I'm not in one of them.”

“Love, you can't think that. We wanted you to just be yourself. One day—but I hope beyond hope you'll never have to know what it's like to lose a child. That's the best thing I can wish for you, really it is.”

“But she's always there, isn't she? She always will be. She's been hanging over everything,
always
. It's just that, before, I didn't know what the hanging thing was, that's all. And now I do know. There's no point in pretending.”

He wanted to say, I know a lot more than you think, and I always have. But she wouldn't believe it.

“Oh—we'll tell you about everything,” said his mum. “Just … let's get home first. And you can tell us exactly how you managed to find us too. It must have been some journey.”

Danny put his hand in his pocket. The stick was still there. When had he last used it? To talk to that tornado, and then he'd been so overwhelmed by finding his parents again that he'd thought of nothing else.

He still had it, though. He could use it for fun things now, like talking to Mitz, who was probably finding her own way home, like those cats you read about in the papers. He'd explain everything to her, apologize for taking her into the river, and they'd be friends again. And he could talk to the horses when he next went to visit the farm. But he could see quite well that if he told his parents about the stick, they might want him to go back to talking to storms. Which was, frankly, scary.

Then again, when he thought about what he'd done, most of it involved the stick. Or Sammael. Or the Book of Storms—and he certainly wasn't going after
that
again. All of those things were best forgotten. Especially Sammael's last words to him:
There are always other ways.
Whatever he'd been referring to, Danny wasn't going to think about Sammael any more than he had to, ever again.

But what would he tell his parents?

It was time to make up a story.

He settled back into the crook of his mum's elbow. I'll begin with the storm, he thought. Because that's when they went. And after that—after that, I'll go anywhere. I'll go wherever my wildest dreams take me. It doesn't matter if no one believes me—it'll be
my
story. And I'll stick to it.

They drove through the morning, back to the places they called home. Tom put his hand on his pocket, feeling the shape of the little book. The moment he was alone, he would take it out and begin reading it properly. What a find!

Danny closed his eyes and let his imagination wander. When it began to flag, and tiredness threatened to overtake him, he gave in to sleep with a grateful sigh. Maybe he'd find a better story in his dreams.

*   *   *

On the top of Sentry Hill, a tall figure in a white shirt stood over a patch of scorched earth. He waited for an uncountable time in the hope of seeing the earth re-form and rise up into the shape of the great gray dog he had loved, but there was nothing there. Never again would she come bounding toward him on her narrow purple feet.

He tipped back his head and turned his face up to the sky.

“You can't steal from me,” he said, quietly. “No one steals from me and gets away with it. Not even Death.”

And then he crouched over the scorched earth and began to gather up the ashes.

 

Don't miss the next book in The Book of Storms trilogy

THE COLOR OF DARKNESS

Coming soon …

 

 

Ruth Hatfield
is a sometime archaeologist, sometime technician who lives in Cambridge, England. When she's not writing or digging or making circuit boards, she spends her time belting around on a bike and roaming the countryside on her cantankerous horse. This is her first book.

 

Text copyright © 2014 by Ruth Hatfield

Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Greg Call

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since 1866

Henry Holt
®
is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

mackids.com

All rights reserved.

Published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Hot Key Books.

Published in the United States of America in 2015 by Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

    Hatfield, Ruth.

    The Book of Storms / Ruth Hatfield. — First edition.

            pages    cm

    Summary: When his parents disappear after a fierce storm, eleven-year-old Danny, unaccustomed to acts of bravery, comes to their rescue after finding a valuable shard of wood that enables him to talk to plants and animals and battle terrifyingly powerful enemies, including the demonic Sammael.

    ISBN 978-0-8050-9998-0 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-8050-9999-7 (e-book)

  [1.  Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.   2.  Storms—Fiction.   3.  Missing persons—Fiction.   4.  Supernatural—Fiction.   5.  Human-animal communication—Fiction.]   I.  Title.

    PZ7.1.H38Bo 2015                    [Fic]—dc23                    2014029352

eISBN 9780805099997

First American hardcover edition 2015

eBook edition January 2015