Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) (37 page)

Sarah drew herself upright.
It’s not supposed to do that. That’s not how the spell works!

In her diary, her mother had warned her about spells working differently for each person who cast them, and being unpredictable – like a recipe coming out differently every time.

Was it always going to be that way? Casting a spell and not knowing what came of it?

She lay awake until dawn broke on the moors, wondering if the sapphire would speak again, thinking of her interrupted dream and fearing the day ahead.

Wind and rain hiding my plight

Standing in the cold

Daughter of a place that is no more

Knowing you must go

The rain was tapping on he roof, trickling down the windows, soaking Anne’s garden. It was dark, and the sky was so low, so swollen, that it looked as if it wanted to open up and swallow the earth. Sarah loved the rain, but she had a deep sense of foreboding that had followed her since the sapphire spoke, and the weather added to it.

When she’d told Harry about the sapphire singing again he had nodded quietly. It was as if they’d made the unspoken choice to wait calmly, to grab those last moments of peace. It had been a slow day, slow and dreamy, just the two of them in a world of their own. Sarah playing, Harry listening intently. Sarah writing her diary, Harry reading books he’d found among James’s things. And then music, and tea, and chatting in a low voice about things that had nothing to do with death, and danger, and what was ahead of them.

Swirling in Sarah’s head were thoughts of her almost-kiss.

Trust me to be weird in this as well. Can I not be normal, for once?

She drew a deep breath.
The Mistress. At last. At last. It’s nearly over. There’s only one name left on the list. It must be her. Catherine Hollow
.

“Not long to my audition,” Sarah said dreamily, her fingers touching some music sheets piled neatly on the coffee table.

“Let’s focus on staying alive, we’ll think of your career later.”

“Fair enough.” Sarah sighed.

“If you don’t get into the RCS then you can go somewhere else. There are plenty of places that teach music.”

“My mum went there. And I don’t want to leave this house.”

“It’d only be for three years. I’d come with you.”

“You’d come with me?”

“If you want me to,” he added quickly. “Not if you’d rather share with friends.”

“What would these friends think, when they see what I do at night?” she said sadly.

“I suppose. I’m used to that.” He smiled.

“Exactly. And you keep the caffeine flowing.” She smiled back.

“I’ll cook for you and polish your cello.”

Sarah laughed.

“Make you soup after the concerts.”

“Iron my evening gowns.”

“No, I’m terrible at ironing. You’d be one shabby musician.”

They looked at each other. A few unspoken words.

And then Harry chose sarcasm. “Perfect timing, the Valaya. Just before your audition.”

“Yes, perfect. Just in time to destroy my future!”

“As long as there is a future.”

He has a point. S
he thought of Leigh, and a lump of tears formed in her throat.
How could I have laughed, just a minute ago? How can I ever laugh again, when she’s dead?

“I’m going to have a shower,” she said, a catch in her voice.

Harry felt the change in her mood, and wished he could bring her back from the sadness. But he couldn’t.

“I’ll cook dinner,” he said instead.

I’ll look after you
was what he meant.

Sarah undressed under Shadow’s watchful eyes, and ran the shower. She sat on her bed, wrapped in a towel, waiting for the water to get hot.

A distant thunder resounded in the room, followed by another fanning of hard rain against the glass. The sky was yellow. A proper storm, coming in from the sea.

Sarah shivered. She couldn’t get her heart to beat slowly; she couldn’t get her blood to run the way it should. She felt anxious, as tight as the strings on her cello.

She closed the bathroom door and shut the world out. Steam had covered the mirrors, and the room was hot and damp. It was a world of her own, full of lovely scents and potions, the place where she could be alone and safe. Sarah folded the towel neatly, placed it beside the sink, and got into the shower. It was wonderful. She closed her eyes, letting the water run down her hair, her face, her body, like a hundred gentle hands caressing the fear away. She lathered herself in her peach-scented soap, breathing in the beautiful scent. A deep breath ran through her, releasing some of the tension.

Better.

Sarah couldn’t let herself get away with more than fifteen minutes under the hot water. She forced herself to get out of the cabin, reaching quickly for the towel sitting beside the sink. She wrapped it around her, her hair dripping …

Standing in front of the steamed-up mirror, Sarah grabbed another towel and started drying the length of her hair. She caught a glimpse of herself, blurred by the steam – the ghost of a pale girl, white skin and night-black hair, troubled eyes, a long story to tell. She opened the body lotion and started massaging it into her legs, enjoying the sweet perfume and the feeling of softness against her skin. Her hands felt rough, made raw by the cleaning rituals. Sarah looked at them with a pang of shame.

A sudden cold current ran over the side of her body. The room changed in temperature, as if the steam had been let out. Sarah shivered.

She stopped dead.

The bathroom door had been opened, ever so slightly.

“Harry?”

He wouldn’t walk in on me like that. He wouldn’t come into the bathroom while I’m having a shower.

“Harry?” she called again.

She felt exposed, naked as she was and wrapped in a towel, her wet hair still trickling down her back.

It’s nothing. It’s a draught. It’s nothing.

She stepped forward to close the door. Her hand was barely on the handle, when the door was grabbed from her and opened wide.

“Hello, Sarah.”

A woman was standing in front of her, a short, blond woman with cold eyes and a black tattoo on the side of her neck. A ring. For a second, Sarah saw black and felt her legs giving way. Her heart was beating so hard, she thought she’d die of fright there and then.

The sgian-dubh is on my desk. My hands. I need the blackwater. Harry, she’s here, Harry!
Her thoughts were exploding in her mind like fireworks, the noise deafening, one of them stronger than the rest:
She’s here to kill me.

“Are you the Mistress?” she whispered, her voice coming from far away, as if someone else had spoken.

“I’m Cathy Duggan. Or Catherine Hollow, if you prefer. Come and sit down, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?

She touched Sarah’s arm, softly, leading her towards the bed. Sarah jumped at the touch, and Cathy laughed.

“I’m not going to kill you yet, silly!” Cathy’s fingers burrowed into Sarah’s bare skin as she forced Sarah to sit down beside her.

Sarah flexed her hands, and felt the blackwater flow into them … but her instinct told her she had to listen to what Cathy had to say.

Cathy was smiling. She was beautiful, with those startling blue eyes, her high cheekbones and her fair, wavy hair around her face. Still, there was darkness in those eyes, infinite darkness. And something else.

Fury
, Sarah realized.
Pure fury, and I’m the object of that rage. Why?

“Why are you here if it’s not to kill me?” Sarah was shaking so hard her teeth started chattering. She wanted to run away, she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t move, she couldn’t cry out. Her blood had turned to ice.

“I enjoy seeing you frightened out of your mind. That’s why I’m here.”

Oh God. She really is crazy.

“You have your father’s eyes.” Cathy stroked her face with cold, delicate fingers. “Shame about your mother’s hair.” She ran her hand through Sarah’s wet hair, gently, then yanked it down suddenly, painfully, making Sarah cry out softly.

“It’s nearly over,” Cathy whispered, stroking Sarah’s hair in long, soft movements. “You managed to kill them all, somehow. But not mine. It’s the end of the Midnights.”

“When?”

“Soon, my darling. I love to see you so scared, but it can’t last forever, can it? Even the best things come to an end.”

“Where?”

“I think you know. I’ve got a big surprise in store for you. Oh and by the way, keep practising your cello. I was told you’re very good.”

Who told you?

“Shame you’ll die too young to do anything with it.”

Crazy cow
, Sarah thought, hate burning her up. Cathy touched her face again. Sarah recoiled.

“Soon it’ll all be over, pet. Oh, and give a message to …
Harry
from me. Tell him I know.” Cathy leaned over to kiss her, and the feeling of Cathy’s cold lips on her cheek made Sarah heave.

Cathy’s body seemed to blur, to lose its contours slowly. She rose from the bed and floated to the window, as if she’d been a ghost. She was now just a watermark etched against the glass, more and more see-through, until it disappeared completely.

All that was left was the noise of the rain tapping on the glass.

“She was here. The Mistress. She was in my room.”

Harry looked up from his phone to see Sarah framed in the living-room doorway, white and shaking. She had thrown on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was falling in damp strands about her shoulders.

“Oh my God, Sarah, are you OK? Where is she?”

“She’s gone. I’m OK.” Sarah touched her left arm, leading Harry’s gaze to it. The red imprint of cruel fingers, slowly turning purple. Harry took Sarah in his arms and felt her trembling.

“What did she say?”

“That they’ll come for me. Soon. And that I know where it’s going to happen. But I can’t think where …” Sarah shook her head.

“Shhhh. Don’t think about that now.”

“She gave me a message for you.”

Harry’s heart stopped.
She knows. Oh God, she knows
.

“She said to tell you that she knows,” Sarah echoed.

Yes. Of course.

Of course.

“What does she mean?”

“Nothing. She’s just crazy.”

Sarah studied his eyes.
He’s keeping something from me
. But she couldn’t think of that now, she had to hide her face in his chest; she had to breathe him in.
Harry
.

“She disappeared,” Sarah said into his shoulder. “Sort of … dissolved. How did she do that?”

“I think … I think it wasn’t her. She wasn’t
really
there. It was her astral self – her astral
drop
, it’s called. She can travel out of her body.”

“She was real enough.” Sarah showed him the darkening bruise on her arm.

“Astral drops can touch things, they can feel things.”

“Can you do it? Can you travel out of your body?”

“No.”

Sarah held him tighter. She wanted to hide her face in the crook of his neck and just stay there. Forever. They sat in each other’s arms, in silence, each with their own fear, with their own burden. They both felt the ground was about to open under their feet – they both feared that the fall would kill them.

It was as easy as breathing, really, something Sarah’s body did for her, something she had no control over. She had to be close to him, and that was it. She had to hide her face in his chest and hold him tight, she had to breathe him in, to touch the back of his head and braid her hands behind his back, to keep him there forever. She felt so alone she could have cried – he was the only one who could save her.

She wasn’t expecting him to break the rules. She wasn’t expecting him to push her down on the sofa like that, pinning her down by her shoulders. She couldn’t have imagined that she’d
want
him to do that, as much as he wanted it, and more. She realized that until then she hadn’t known what desire was; she’d never felt it before, and it felt as strong as terror, as sweet as love. And though she knew it was so, so wrong, the tingling feeling coursing through her body gave her no option but to give in.

A wave of tenderness swept her from head to toe, and left her warm and limp, ready to fall. She felt her loneliness melt away, and for the first time in her life, she felt safe.

Harry was drowning. He was afraid it’d all be over by tomorrow – he knew it would all be over soon, anyway – and he couldn’t lose her without claiming her first. As she put her arms around him, tenderly, he couldn’t take it any more.

I’m not your friend; I’m not your family.