Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) (17 page)

“Traditionally, in the Midnight family it’s the women taking care of the witchcraft sort of thing, if you want to call it that.”
Or so Harry told me
.

“But she didn’t have any daughters, so had my dad or Uncle Stewart not married the knowledge would have been lost.”

“She did have a daughter. Your father’s sister. Our aunt,” he corrected himself quickly. Sarah looked blank. “Did you not know?”

“What? I have an aunt?” Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
There’s aunts and cousins sprouting all around me
, she thought, flabbergasted.

“Her name was Mairead. She was killed when she was thirteen. She had barely started having her dreams. I can’t believe you didn’t know!”

Sarah felt her eyes well up. “I can’t believe nobody ever told me. Are there any pictures of her?”

“I don’t have any pictures of her, I’m sorry.”
The picture that Harry showed me is still in his house in London
.

“I never knew.”

“The Midnights seem to be very good at keeping secrets,” said Harry, and he meant it.

“How did it happen? How did she die?”

“I don’t know. I was very young. They never told me the details. I only know that it wasn’t an accident. She was killed.”

“It’s terrible. She was just a child … They must have been distraught.”

“Yes.”
Harry talked about it with great sadness
. “I’m surprised that James never told you.”

“And my mum didn’t either. There were three of them, then? Are there other aunts and uncles I should know about?”

“Just them.”

“Mairead … That’s why my name is Sarah Mairead.”

“She was called Mairead Elizabeth Midnight.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was blond, but her face was so much like yours, the same eyes, the same expression.”

Mairead Elizabeth Midnight. And she looked like me. Another lost girl.

They were silent for a while.

“Can I help you with your spell, or do you want to be alone?”

Sarah thought about it for a minute. “Stay,” she said finally.

“Very well. Let’s go. I’ll get us a cup of tea.”

“You’re like an old woman, with your cups of tea!” said Sarah, and Harry laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

He couldn’t believe they had never told her. Why did they keep Mairead’s existence from Sarah? Were they trying to spare her the sadness of Mairead’s death? Sarah’s parents didn’t have a good track record in trying to spare her suffering, or protect her from painful things.

It was a mystery.
Another one
.

They made some tea, and went upstairs to Sarah’s room to get Anne’s diary. The room was freezing, as the window had been open since that morning. The curtains were flowing in the breeze, and the silvery-grey walls were glimmering subtly. The wooden floor looked as if on fire, strewn with the light from the setting sun.

Sarah took her mum’s diary from the little drawer in her bedside table, and sat on the bed. Shadow had jumped on her lap, deliberately ignoring Harry. Since he had sent her to sleep, Shadow didn’t trust him.

“Let me see … There it is, the sapphire’s song.

        
My Sarah, if you fear an attack in your own home, do this: take my sapphires, there’s two of them in the wooden box. Pulverize some rosemary, some garlic and some dulse in the little mortar. Coat the sapphire in the pulverized plants. Then say:

            Sing if the seal is broken.

        
Lick your finger and touch the sapphires. After you’ve recited the invocation, don’t speak any more, don’t say a word, for all the time you’ll want the sapphire to keep guard. If you speak, the sapphires will be silenced. Put a gem in the attic, right in the middle of it, and keep one for yourself. If someone tries to get in, the sapphire will tell you. Remember, don’t say a word, or the sapphires won’t sing.

“That’s it.”

“It seems pretty clear,” said Harry. They went back down into the basement, and Sarah started putting some dried leaves into her mother’s stone mortar.

And then: “Sarah.” A tense, sudden whisper that made her look up in alarm. “Did you hear anything?”

“No, nothing.” Her heart had started racing. She tried to take a breath that didn’t come.

“I think I heard a noise. Stay here.”

Harry took out the
sgian-dubh
.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No, stay here and lock the door.”

“You might need me.”

“Don’t contradict me, Sarah.”

‘Don’t contradict me’? Did he really just say that?

Sarah looked him in the eye, defiantly, and walked to the spiral staircase. Harry threw his hands in the air.
Of course she’d do that
.

“At least get your dagger!”

Sarah turned her back to him and lifted her shirt quickly, to show him the
sgian-dubh
.

Harry nodded. “Good call.”

Slowly, carefully, they went through the whole house, the kitchen, the living rooms, the dining room, the library, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, James’s study.
This house is endless!
thought Harry.

Nothing. Nobody there, human or otherwise.

“It was your imagination.”

“Maybe.” Harry wasn’t convinced.

They went back into the basement, and Sarah started again from where she had stopped. She took out the sapphires, and arranged them carefully in front of her. She had already put some dried rosemary and some garlic into the mortar; she added the dried dulse, and pulverized the whole lot. She coated the sapphires in the mixture.

“I’m saying goodbye now. I won’t be allowed to speak any more.”

Harry nodded.

“
Sing if the seal is broken
,” Sarah invoked. She licked her index finger, and touched the sapphires, one by one.

And now it’s silence
.

She didn’t mind. She found the idea of not talking for a while strangely attractive. Holding the sapphires with great care, she went up the spiral staircase and up to the second floor, followed by Harry. They walked down the corridor, past their rooms, and to the landing in between the guest bedrooms. Sarah opened a door on her left, and took out a long stick with a hook at the top. She used it to open a trapdoor just above their heads, and as she did that, a steel ladder came down too. They climbed up the ladder, and into the attic.

Sarah placed a sapphire right in the middle of the floor, and kept one close to her heart. They exchanged a glance.

My first real spell.

No more words between us

Just a song

Grand Isle, Louisiana

“He doesn’t have a clue, Sean. But he’s a great fisherman.” Mike was surfing the Net while talking to Sean. Niall was on the beach, as usual.

“What?”

“He goes out fishing every night. Takes the boat out himself. Without a rod, a net, nothing. Comes back with more fish than we can eat.”

“Right. Have you heard him singing?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “All the bloody time. I’m now familiar with every single Irish song ever written, past, present and a few future ones, too. But no, he hasn’t been singing the way you mean. Thankfully he didn’t need to.”

“Yeah. It means you’re still in the clear.”

“Hopefully it’ll stay that way. How are things with you?”

“Not much weirder than usual. The heron … she’s fine.”

Mike’s eyes widened. The way he’d said Sarah’s code name,
heron
– the tenderness in his voice. It all sounded very, very personal.

Has he fallen for her? That’d make things pretty complicated.

“Anyway, I’ll turn in. Will send you the Signal.” The Signal was the text they sent each other every morning and night, to make sure they were OK. To make sure they were still alive.

“Yeah. Here comes Niall. God spare me.”

Mike could hear Sean laughing as he pressed the ‘end call’ button.

“There. Our dinner.” Niall threw a wet bag on the shack’s uneven wooden floor. His brown hair was dripping.

“Crayfish.” Mike’s face fell.

“And clams,” Niall added cheerfully.

“Great. I mean, I love shellfish but we’re eating nothing else. I’m turning into a seal.”

The shadow of a smile flickered over Niall’s lips, so quick that you might have thought it never really happened. A moth was dancing around the gaslight, projecting strange shadows on the walls and on their faces.

A pause, with Niall inspecting the peeling paint on the window frame, lost in thought.

“I wonder when we can go home,” he said. He looked very young, very pale.
He’s only seventeen
, Mike pondered.
And his life was pretty complicated already, before all this started.

“Soon. We’ll find a way.”

“We don’t even know who’s after us. Who’s behind all this.”

“Not yet. But we will. And we’ll sort it. Now, why don’t you sing something for me? That will cheer you up.”

“Seriously?”

“No.”

“Thought so. Going to light the fire.” Niall shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly. He was impossible to irritate. He was so mellow.

“You do that.”

“By the way, I’m going out tonight.”

“You are what?”

“Going out. Looking for a party.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“Niall, you can’t go out. It’s dangerous. We can’t bring attention to ourselves, you know that.”

“Try and stop me.”

“I will!”

“You can’t.”

“Jesus, Niall …”

“Come with me.”

“No way. I’m not going, and neither are you.”

“We are going out. You don’t want me to stun you with my magical voice and stuff, do you?”

“Go away, Niall.”

“Just one night. One night. You’ll come, won’t you?”

Mike sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll show you a Louisiana night out. Brace yourself.”

An hour later they were standing right in the centre of a blaze of accordions and fiddles, dancing clumsily with a glass in their hand. When the tune came to an end, Niall’s grey eyes were shining with the drinking and the happiness of that stolen night.

“That was amazing!”

“That was Cajun, my friend!” exclaimed Mike, his arm around a pretty French-speaking girl. “That was
our
music!”

Niall gave Mike his glass to hold. He stepped just under the little wooden stage, and whispered something to one of the fiddlers. The fiddler nodded and handed his instrument to Niall. A crowd of expectant eyes turned onto him.

“This is for the heron.” Niall’s voice was clear and foreign-sounding in the awaiting silence.

He began to play. It was a haunting, melancholic tune that spoke of misty hills, of wind and of the grey Atlantic. It spoke of his home far away, of regret, and fear of the future. The room had fallen silent; they were mesmerized.

When Niall came off the stage the audience was speechless, and so was Mike. All he could do was hand Niall back his glass.

A small, sweet-faced girl was beside them like a shot. “That was incredible. I loved it,” she said, with eyes that left no doubt as to what she really meant.

Niall was smug. “Thank you …”

“Caroline.”

“Caroline. Fancy a walk?”

“Sure!”

The music had started flowing again. Niall whispered in Mike’s ear, “Fiddlers always get the girls, my friend.”

“Do they? Well, not
this
fiddler. It’s bed for you, young man.”

“What are you, his father?” Caroline had her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed, petulant.

“Do I
look
like his father?” laughed Mike, gesturing at his black skin beside Niall’s milky complexion.

“He’s my bodyguard. He’s FBI.” Niall’s face was perfectly straight.

“Come on!” Mike dragged him away, out into the warm, balmy night.

“Mike!”

“She could be one of them. She could be anyone! You couldn’t possibly be alone with her,” he whispered once they were out of earshot.

“You’re just jealous.”

Mike’s hearty laughter filled the darkness around them. “I feel your pain, man.”

A riveting tune like a flowing river was spilling out of the bar, its notes tumbling out of the open door, lingering, following them home. A memory already, a little light in the dark times that were to come.

“By the way, that was amazing. The tune you played. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. Do you want to hear another song?”