Abarat: Absolute Midnight

Chapter 76

And Beyond

FALLING AND FALLING AND falling through utter emptiness Candy, Malingo and Gazza quickly lost track of time; and—with no means of judging how far they’d fallen—of space too. The same colorless undifferentiated space to their left and to their right, and above and below. It didn’t even offer them the hope that darkness had offered: the chance that hidden somewhere was life, purpose, meaning. There was just a gray banality; a vast absence through which they tumbled without any way to judge the speed of their fall, or even, at times, whether they were falling at all.

They said nothing.

What was there to say, when there was nothing but nothing around you? There was no view to remark upon, no moon was rising, no trailing stars, nor sun departing, the sky in flames. Nor was there sky for it to fall from.

And still they fell.

Or perhaps only thought they fell. Dreamed it, perhaps.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t change their circumstances. To fall was—

to fall was—

to—

—fall.

Suddenly, there was something out of nothing. A flash of blue and scarlet, which instantly enveloped Malingo, and snatched him out of sight. Luckily he yelled his head off at this abduction and his long, loud cry appeared in the bland air, as though he’d scrawled it in a long trail of silver smoke. It was the first solid, or virtually solid, thing any of them had seen since they’d gone over the Edge. It wasn’t much of a lifeline, but it was better than the absence. So Candy caught hold of the silver strand, hoping that it wouldn’t go to nothing in her grip.

No.

It was solid.

“Grab hold of me!” she yelled to Gazza. He had his hand around her ankle before the words were out of her mouth.

Three thoughts came into Candy’s head at the same time, each demanding priority: one, that she hoped Malingo didn’t stop yelling; two, that they might not fall forever after all; and three, that she should have known, the moment she saw the mirrored word Abarataraba, that if there was a mirror of the islands along the horizontal axis, then it stood to reason that there’d also be one on the vertical. If to the left, then to the right. If above, then below.

While her thoughts fought, she pulled herself, hand over hand, along the length of the braided cry. She could see the length of it receding from her grip, and could fix her eyes upon the spot, no more than three hauling-lengths away, where it went from sight. What else could she do but follow her hands to the place, and find out the why and the how of it?

And then—Lordy Lou—Malingo stopped yelling. Candy felt the cord slacken, and let out a panicked yell of her own, which instantly formed a turquoise ribbon in front of her, like her breath on a winter’s day, before fluttering away when she stopped her cry.

She wasn’t going to let their chance to get out of the Void slip away. Whatever was on the other side of the wall of murk, it couldn’t be any worse than falling forever into Oblivion, could it? She forced her body to reach, reach—go on, fingers! Go on, hands!—beyond the end of the cord, which was already slipping up and away, carried by a gust of wind that smelled like lightning and pineapples.

Her fingers went now, disappearing completely. Her hands searched, probing through the Void . . . and touched something on the other side of the Wall of Nothingness. It was moist and warm, as though it had been painted by a loaded brush, and as soon as she touched whatever it was, whatever it was reached toward her with the same urgency. Dozens of boneless feelers as thin as string wrapped themselves around her hands and wrists.

“What’s in there?” Gazza wanted to know.

“I’ve no idea,” she told him. “But it’s alive. And it’s got hold of me. It’s pulling.”

“Does it hurt?”

It didn’t, she realized. It was a tight grip, but it didn’t mean her harm.

“It’s all right,” she murmured.

“What?”

“I said: it’s all right.”

She saw a gleam of bright columns ripple past her face.

“What was that?”

The word that went by. It was written in turquoise on a strip of air the color of mangoes.

“Malingo?”

The three syllables came out of her mouth, and flowed in purples and blues in a woven streak of sound and color.

“Yes?” he said.

“I’m not afraid,” she told him.

Again, her words poured out in woven stream of color: red, purple, blue. . . .

“Oh, will you look at that. Words like ribbons.”

And out the words came.

Words like ribbons.

Green and yellow and orange.

“What’s happening?” Malingo said. “I just saw my name fly by.”

“I know.” She reached out toward the source of the tentacles. A gust of wind blew from the place where her hand was. She felt it on her face. She heard it telling her, as winds will:

Come away. Come away.

It carried the words off toward Oblivion.

“No, thanks . . .” she said very quietly, so quietly that the ribbon was translucent. “We’ve got somewhere to go.”

She reached out as far as her muscles and joints would allow, and grabbed hold of whatever tentacles were growing from the Other Side.

Something there understood the sign she was sending. And it pulled. Candy didn’t have time to offer further word to Malingo. It all happened too fast. Suddenly there were bits of color rushing at her, tiny bits, and with them, the briefest fragments of sound. Nothing made sense. It came too fast and it just got faster.

Color, color, color . . .

Note, note, note . . .

Color, note. Color, note.

Col—

No—

Col—

No—

Suddenly, nothing.

A long, empty, gray hush.

But she wasn’t afraid. She knew how these things worked now. Everything was a mirror.

If prisons—

O!

—therefore liberty.

It’s started.

If seas—

See it?

—therefore shores.

Hear it?

If silence,

Yes!

Therefore song.

And they were in another world entirely.