Queen of the Dark Things (24 page)

“We made a deal,” she said.

“What was the deal?”

“They would show me where the bunyip was. That was all.”

Mandu rubbed his hands together. “Did you first make a deal with the spirits demanding that they would not and could not harm you or your people?”

The pretty little girl in the purple pajamas at once felt very stupid and she shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “No,” she said with a whimper.

“And what did these spirits demand of you in return for their favor?”

“All they wanted was rum.”

“Rum?”

“They wanted a bucket of rum to drink in the backyard.”

“And where did you get all this rum?”

“From the cupboard,” she said, looking at her feet.

“Which cupboard? Whose rum was it?”

“My father's.”

“And does your father know you stole his rum and gave it to the spirits?”

She began to cry again, sobbing. “I never got the rum.”

“Why not?”

“I fell.”

“You fell?”

“I hurt myself,” she said.

“How bad, child?”

“I'm in the hospital.”

“Well, let's get you back there,” said Colby.

“No! I'm not going back. Not if I can't dream again!”

“But if you stay out here—”

Her eyes were swollen with tears now, her cheeks glistening. She turned, running off into the night, refusing to hear the next words coming out of Colby's mouth. Somehow, she believed that if she didn't hear them, they couldn't be true.

Colby made a move to follow her, but Mandu interrupted him with a wave. “Colby, no. Look at her. That girl isn't going to go back to her body. No way, no how. She's going to die out here. And that's exactly what the spirits want her to do.”

“Why?”

“They have their reasons.”

“What are they?” asked Colby.

“The reasons?”

“No. The spirits.”

“The kutji? Shadows. Spirits with great magic.”

Colby shook his head. “What were they before?”

“What do you mean?”

“I've met a lot of shadows,” he said. “Most of them used to be people. If we know who they were before, then we might be able to figure out what they want now.”

“They're very old. I've heard that these were once pirates. Murderers. Thieves. They mostly keep to themselves. Haunt the deserts. Not many Clever Men trade favors with them.”

“Because they're dangerous?”

“No,” said Mandu. “They never seem interested in anything. Not that we have. Now they are. They wanted her to be cut from her cord. What do they want with a little girl?”

“What most shadows want, I reckon. An end to being shadows.”

Colby looked out into the dark for the pretty little girl in the purple pajamas, but she was nowhere in sight. “We should find her,” he said.

Mandu shook his head. “She'll be back in her own time. She has a very important decision to make. One that will tell us which direction to walk.”

“What if she decides to not go home?”

“Then she dies. And we protect her from the spirits as long as we can until she does.”

“Wait here,” said Colby decisively.

“Colby, I wouldn't—”

“Wait here,” he said again, even more firmly. “I got this.”

Colby wandered out into the dark, his eyes closed, feeling the ripples in the energy around him. There she was, fifty yards out, sitting on a small boulder, head down, sobbing. He slowly made his way behind her, being sure to keep a short distance between them as he did.

He wanted to touch her, to put a hand on her shoulder or to throw his arms around her, hold her, and tell her everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't okay. And she would most likely push him away anyway. Girls were weird like that.

“My parents sucked too,” he said.

The girl looked up indignantly, annoyed, a hair away from being angry. “What?”

“My parents. It's why I'm here. Like you.”

“You don't know anything,” she said.

“My mom drinks. A lot.”

She softened, just a hair, but enough to let Colby know he was on the right track. “Really?”

“Yeah. Not rum though. She liked vodka.”

“Dad says vodka is for commies and sluts.”

“What's a commie?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“Well, I'm pretty sure my mom isn't a commie.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Yeah. So I kinda get it.”

“No, you don't. I love my dad. I love him more than anything.”

“Does he drink a lot?”

“Every night. I've tried to stop him, but, he, he has his reasons.”

“There aren't any good reasons to drink like that.”

“You really don't know anything, Colby.”

“Yeah I do. But what could be a good reason to drink like that?”

“He misses my mom.”

Colby looked down, solemnly. “Oh. Is she—”

“Yeah. I killed her.”

“You what?” he asked, looking back up at her.

“When I was born. Dad said it was a tough birth. I almost died. It was her or me.” She looked at Colby with deadly serious eyes. “I was the thing that killed my mother, and now I'm the cancer eating my father. He drinks because he misses her, which means he drinks because of me. It's not fair.”

“No, it's not.”

“Maybe if I don't go back. Maybe if I stay here, he can forget. Go on. He's better off without me.”

“That's crap.”

“It's not.”

“That's not how love works. You don't just forget.”

“Yes you can,” she said. “Anyone can.”

“If it stops hurting, it isn't really love.”

She sighed. “I wish I could walk in the dream forever and never go home.”

“But you can't.”

“I don't like that world.”

The two exchanged knowing looks. “Yeah, I don't like it either. All I understand is this.” He waved at the ground. “I understand how a lot of this works. This makes sense to me. You make sense to me.”

“I do?”

Colby sat next to her on the rock, his elbow gently brushing against hers. “Yeah. I don't want to go back either.”

“You can't make me.”

“I know. But you know what I don't understand?”

“What?”

“How the girl who stared down a bunyip could be afraid of anything. Anything at all.”

She turned and looked at Colby, their faces only a few inches apart, her eyes still moist with tears. “How old are you?”

“Eleven,” he said.

“You don't sound eleven.”

“I get that a lot. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“No, really.”

“I'm eleven,” she said.

“You don't look eleven.”

“I know. I get to be whoever I want to be out here. Back home it's different. I'm a different person there.”

“No,” he said. “You're not. You only think you are. You're strong there too.”

Her breath shivered, stuttering as she inhaled. She leaned in, putting a hand on his chest, their lips brushing against each other, eyes closed, hearts thundering. And they kissed their first kiss. Gentle. Sweet. The universe falling away.

Then she pulled away.

“You kissed me,” he said, startled.

“Yeah,” she said. “I told you. I can do whatever I want out here. That's what I wanted to do.” She smiled bravely.

“I'm sorry.”

“For kissing me?”

“No. For . . . for cutting your cord.”

She looked down at the ground, trying to scuff her incorporeal feet in the dirt. “I'm sorry too.”

“For what?”

“Bringing them with me. For making a deal with them. I just . . .”

“You just what?”

She looked Colby in the eyes. “Wanted to meet you. My destiny.”

Colby nodded. “We'll find a way,” he said. “We'll figure this out.”

“I believe you.” Then she leaned close. “Kaycee,” she whispered into his ear.

“What?”

“My name. It's Kaycee.”

He smiled and took her hand. “Come on, let's find Mandu.”

M
ANDU SAT CROSS-LEGGED
before a fire, rocking gently, singing an incoherent song with words Colby didn't recognize.

“Mandu,” said Colby. “MANDU!”

But Mandu didn't respond. He wasn't there. While his body chanted, Mandu's spirit was away, elsewhere in the dream. Colby walked around him, then saw the silvery cord trailing out of the back of his head and off into the night.

His eyes opened, first dazed by reentry, then terrified and desperate. “We have to leave,” he said, breathlessly. “Now. They're coming to kill us before morning.” He looked at the girl. “We have to get you back to your body. Now.”

“No!” she said, stamping a foot in the dirt. “I told you, I'm not going back. I'm staying out here. With you.”

“I'm afraid that's what they want you to do.”

“I don't care. If they want me, they'll have to come and get me. I'll die before I go home.”

“That is exactly what will happen. It is exactly what I've seen.”

Colby looked at him, his jaw out, his chest puffed up. He took the girl's hand in his. “If they're coming to kill us, then we should stay right here. I'd rather fight them without having to run several hours to do it.”

“Your boldness will get us killed. This isn't where we fight. This, right here, is where we die. For us to fight, to stand a chance, there's somewhere else we have to be.”

“Where?” asked Colby.

“Arnhem Land.”

“How are we going to outrun them?”

“They can't track her as easy without her cord. We'll sing the land up quicker. These are our songlines, not theirs. It will take them hours before they finally have us. By then, let's hope we're ready.”

“Mandu, where did you go?”

“I needed to speak with my spirit. And there were things that needed to be done. Come, it's a long run until morning.”

C
HAPTER
32

T
HE
N
IGHT THE
D
EMONS
C
AME

W
ade Looes was as drunk as he'd ever been while still able to stand upright, staggering through the streets, muttering in what may as well have been a foreign language. His daughter, his tiny little girl who had once been so small he could carry her cradled in the hollow between his arm and his chest, was lying, skull shattered, in a coma next to a machine that beeped with the sound of her heart.

Coma
. There was no mistaking that word for any other word in the English language. She wasn't coming back. The doctors were sure about that. But he couldn't bring himself to pull the plug.

So day in, day out, his daughter lay there. Just beeping. All the rum in the world couldn't chase the beeping away, but he sure tried.
Beep. Beep. Beep.

He heard the sound everywhere. Echoing off the walls. Trailing down the streets. It haunted him. Even when he closed his eyes and drifted off, exhausted, it crept into his dreams.

Wade was short on sleep now. The only way he could get more than a few minutes' rest was to drink himself out. But he was running out of things to sell for booze.

Wade stumbled to his knees, the world wobbling with him. Nothing would stand still. Not the ground. Not the lampposts. And not the shadows. In fact, the shadows moved most of all.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He tried to stand up, to push himself off the pavement, but he only managed his way closer to it. The ground began to feel cozy. Perhaps this was as good a place as any to finally . . .

“Hey,” whispered a voice.

“Huh?” he mumbled, drifting off to sleep.

The voice whispered again. “Hey! Wake the fuck up!”

Wade swatted, as if chasing flies. “Go away. I'm sleeping.”

“Wake up, you miserable piece of shit. Would you want your daughter to see you like this?”

“No, I . . .” Wade sat up, scrambling slowly to all fours, his eyes wide open. There was no one there. “Shit.” His head was a blur of jumbled thoughts, none of them coherent, not a one of them bothering to work itself out to its logical conclusion.

“Hey,” said the voice again. “Hey, I'm talking to you.”

“Who? Who is talking to you? Was I talking to you? Us. Us I mean. What was th—?”

Beep.

“Where the fuck did that . . . ?” Wade looked around, fearful. He was too confused now. Had no idea whether he was even inside or out. It felt like pavement beneath him, but he couldn't be sure. “What's going on?”

“You killed her, you worthless son of a bitch. You killed her.”

“No, I didn't mean—”

“Oh, you're happy she's gone, aren't you? No more little mutant with the clubfoot. No more split lip. No more looks of pity.
Oh, that poor man. He can't even fuck a girl right without popping out a broken little beast.
”

“Who the fuck . . . ? WHERE ARE YOU?”

The shadows moved, shuffled, like the walls themselves were collapsing, reshaping to move the light around. Then they started peeling themselves out of the dark, breaking off in tiny chunks. Several strange goblinoid shapes, boxy, like Cubist paintings done solely in black, creeping in, bending with the spinning of the world.

“You liked it, didn't you?” asked one of the shadows. “You liked seeing her broken on the ground.”

“No!” Wade shouted.

“Prove it.”

Beep.

Wade began crying. “I . . . I don't know how. No one believes me.”

“We don't believe you. Prove it.”

“HOW?”