Abarat: Absolute Midnight

Chapter 15

Face-to-Face

MAMA?” JOLLO SAID WHEN Candy sat down beside him. She didn’t need to correct his error. “Wait, you’re not Mama.”

“Your mom won’t be long,” Candy told him. “I’m just here to look after you until she comes back.”

“Candy.”

“Yes.”

“She came out of you, didn’t she? The girl who killed me.”

“You’re not dead, Jollo. And your mom’s not going to let you die.”

“There’s some things even Mama can’t control,” Jollo said. His voice was getting weaker, word by word.

“Listen to me,” Candy said. “I know what the Princess did to you was horrible. She tried to do the same thing to me. But hold on. Please.”

“What for?”

“What for?”

“Don’t worry. You don’t have to answer that.” He raised his head off the ground and squinted at Candy. “Tell me about the Constrictor.”

“The what?”

“Boa,” he said, his face suddenly becoming a playground of mischief. “Get it? Ha! I just made that up.”

At the moment death was forgotten, anything was possible. Candy grinned. There was such sweetness in him she saw, hidden behind his melancholy.

“She was there inside you all the time?”

“Yes, she was there.”

“But you didn’t know what a monster she was, did you?”

Candy shook her head. “I had no idea,” she said. “She was part of me.”

“And now? How does it feel?”

“Empty.”

“You feel alone?”

“Yes . . .”

“Still, it’s better that she’s gone.”

Candy took a moment to consider this before replying.

“Yes. It’s better.”

Before Jollo could ask any further questions, a welcome and familiar figure appeared between the trees. “It’s only me!”

“Malingo!”

“Same old geshrat,” he said. “But who’s this?”

“You remember Jollo? Mrs. Munn’s boy?”

“He remembers me the way I was,” Jollo said. “Before Boa got to me.”

“So it worked,” Malingo said.

“Yes, she’s gone,” Candy said. “But she almost killed poor Jollo.”

“And you.”

“Well, yes. And me.”

“Where is she now?”

“Up in the trees somewhere,” Candy said.

“She’s running away from Mama,” Jollo said. He looked up at Candy. “Isn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

“But I want her back now. Just to say good-bye.”

“Maybe I should go and look for her,” Candy said.

“Yes . . .” Jollo said.

Candy took hold of Jollo’s hand. His fingers were sweaty but cold. “What do you think, Jollo? If I have Malingo stay with you, will you promise not to . . . not to . . .”

“Not to die?” Jollo said.

“Yes. Not to die.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll try. But bring Mama back soon. I want her here with me if . . . if I can’t stay any longer.”

“Don’t say that,” Candy said to him.

“It’s the truth,” he replied. “Mama says it’s bad to tell lies.”

“Well, yes,” Candy said. “It is.”

“So hurry,” he said, slipping his fingers out of Candy’s grasp. “Find her.” He turned to Malingo. “You were a slave to a wizard once, weren’t you?” he said.

“I was,” Malingo said.

“Come closer. I can’t see you in the darkness. There. That’s better. Tell me about it. Was he cruel? I heard he was cruel.”

Jollo’s interest in Candy had already slipped away; all his focus was now entirely upon Malingo. Candy got to her feet and left the two of them to talk, happy the boy was diverted.

“So how did you become a slave?” he said to Malingo.

“My father sold me . . .” Malingo began.

Candy didn’t hear any more. She retreated until she no longer had sight of Jollo, and he had no view of her. Only then did she turn her back on the place where he lay and face the tree-covered slope. This time she didn’t need any magic to plot a course to Mrs. Munn. She could hear the chase going on through the densely knitted canopy farther up the slope. Candy could even hear echoes of the incantatrix calling after Boa.

“There’s no way off this island, Boa.”

“Let me alone, will you?” Boa yelled back as she sprinted over the treetops. “I didn’t know the boy was your son. I swear I didn’t. I mean, how could I? There’s no family resemblance.”

“Liar! Liar!” Candy yelled right back, her interruption echoing that of Boa, minutes before. But she had more to say. “You knew exactly who he was, Boa. Because I knew. And if I knew then—”

“Stay out of this, Quackenbush!” Boa hollered. “Or you’ll be sorry!”

“I’m already sorry,” Candy yelled back. “I’m sorry I ever let you out of my head.”

“Ah, the sting of regret!” Boa crowed. “Well, it’s done, girl, and it can never be undone. So you’d better get used to it. I’m in the world now. Everything changes from now on. Everything.”

“Stay away from her, Candy!” Mrs. Munn hollered. “She’ll hurt you!”

“I’m not afraid of her,” Candy said.

“Liar, liar, funeral pyre!” Boa chanted.

“Well, one of us is going to have to tell the truth sooner or later,” Candy replied.

Boa finally reached the tree beneath which Candy stood, and looked down through the leaves, shaped in their fullness, like planets with golden rings around them. That Boa’s body was defined by the dual motion of bright rings was no accident. Her new skin—bought with the coin of Jollo’s suffering—had taken for inspiration the design of the foliage all around it.

“You want the truth,” Boa said, squatting on a branch so as to peer down at Candy through the canopy. “Then here: have it. I would have taken all the life force in you to heal me completely. But I was denied the total sum of you by that fat witch. And then when I do the only thing left to me—take her son—she comes howling after me as though I’d committed a crime. Ridiculous woman!”

“I heard that!”

“So? You think I’m afraid of you?”

“I know you are. I can smell the fear off you!”

There was a great commotion in the trees behind Boa. The branches were cracking as they were shaken and their motion becoming more violent as it got nearer.

“You are dead, you vile creature.”

“No. Death is what you will all inherit now. I am returned with life. But you . . . you will follow the child into oblivion, come soon, come late. No exceptions for children or lost girls. Everybody dies, come soon, come late. And you—”

She leaped off the branch where she’d been perched, heading for Candy as she descended. She grabbed hold of Candy’s face, throwing them both back through the barbed thickets to the ground. Her hand went from Candy’s face to her throat.

“You, I say soon!”