Текст книги "Carry On"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

BOOK FOUR

70

NICODEMUS

She won’t talk to me. Hasn’t since. Because it’s against the rules.

She wasn’t so concerned with the rules when we were kids. Made our own rules, didn’t we. We was so brute, who was gonna stop us?

I’ll never forget the time Ebeneza spelled the drawbridge down so the three of us could go into town and get pissed. The look on the headmistress’s face when she caught her own sister sneaking back in legless! (Fiona never could hold her cider.) Mistress Pitch was steaming—standing on the Lawn in her dressing gown and nine months up the duff.

Ebb lost her wand—her staff—for a week because she was the one who snuck us out. Then the next night, Ebb spelled the bridge down with my wand. (We could always use each other’s pieces.) Gutty as fuck, she was.

Course we got caught again.

Getting away with it wasn’t the point.

The point was that we were young and free and full of magic. What was Mistress Pitch going to do? Toss out her own sister and the two strongest magicians at Watford?

They weren’t going to toss out Ebeneza; they were too worried she’d go rogue on them. Too worried she’d realize she could do more with all that magic than stick the desks to the ceilings—or call every shaggy dog in the county to Watford, like she was the Pied Piper.

I realized. What Ebb could do. What I could do.

*   *   *

I get to our street and cut down the alley, then let myself into the back garden. The gate creaks. I’m a few minutes early—Ebb’ll be inside still. I make my way over to the willow tree and sit down on Mum’s bench.

Wish I could have a fag.

Gave ’em up when I crossed over—almost twenty years ago. But that Pitch brat blew smoke in my face, and now I’ve got a taste for it again.

Fi and I used to roll our own, on menthol papers.

Ebeneza wouldn’t have any of it. Said tobacco gunked up her magic.

“Your sister’s trynta stay pure,” Fiona would tease. “Like an athlete. Like Princess Di.”

We used to give Ebb hell over being a virgin. Hell, she’s probably still a virgin. (Does feeling up other girls even count?)

The back door opens, and I look up. But it ain’t Ebb. Just somebody—no one I recognize—stepping out for a smoke. I close my eyes and inhale. This vampire nose is good for something.

Ebb’ll come out soon, and she’ll walk out into the garden and lean against the gate. And she won’t talk to me. That’s the agreement. That’s the rule.

She’ll just talk.

She’ll tell the wind how she’s doing. She’ll catch the Christmas moon up on all the family goings-on. Sometimes she might do magic—not for me. Just for the sake of it. Anything alive comes out to say hello to Ebb, even in the dead of winter. Last year, a deer pranced up the alley, caszh as anything, and rested its head in Ebeneza’s hands. I knifed and drained it as soon as Ebb went back in. I think she knew that I would—maybe it was a gift. Maybe she was trying to keep me pure for a day.

Anyway, I had to haul the deer’s body a mile before I found a bin big enough for it.

Ebb’ll come out soon. And she’ll talk. And I’ll listen. I don’t talk at all—don’t think Ebb would want that. It would be too much like a conversation. Too close to breaking the rules.

Plus, what would I say? I’ve got nothing to report that she wants to hear. No news that won’t turn her stomach. All Ebeneza really wants to know is that I’m still here. Such as I am.

Mostly my sister talks about the school. The grounds. The goats. The kids. That dryad she’s been mooning over since sixth year. She doesn’t talk about the Mage. Ebb’s never been one for politics. I expect she stays out of his way—though she told me once that they got into a royal dust-up when one of his merwolves ate one of her goats.

I’ve never seen the merwolves, only heard about them from Ebb. It’s the only animal I’ve ever known her not to like. She says they try to throw themselves up on the drawbridge. That the bridge shakes while the children and goats are crossing it. One of the wolves actually made it out once—dragged itself around the Lawn, snarling, until Ebb came and cast it back into the water. “I spell them to sleep now when the bridge is down,” she told me. “They sink to the bottom of the moat.”

Whoever it was who came out for a fag finishes it and goes back in, slamming the screen door shut.

*   *   *

I was early. But now Ebeneza’s late. Real late.

The noise has stopped inside the house. The kids’ll be in bed. Ebb says all our brothers and our little sister have kittens these days. I never thought about having any of my own before I crossed over. I think about it now. Me and Fi. Coupla sprogs. Her family woulda had a fit if she settled down with me. Guess she was never gonna settle down with no one.… I know where Fi is now. Our paths would cross if I let them. Don’t fancy she wants to hear anything I have to say either.

Ebb’s late.

Maybe she forgot.

Not like her to forget. Never has, in all these years.

Can’t call her. Don’t even know if she has a mobile these days.

I stand, and pace a bit under the tree. Normally, Ebb casts a spell so that no one sees me.

I’m antsy. I creep up closer to the house. If anyone’s up, I should be able to hear them. The house is dark. One of the kitchen windows is cracked, but I can’t smell dinner. Ebb says she helps Mum with the cooking now. Roasted gammon, it’ll be. And bread and butter pudding. Ebb usually brings me out a plate.

I go up the back steps and peek inside the window in the door. The kitchen is empty. I can’t hear anything.

I twist the knob, not expecting it to turn, but it does, and the door gives. I step forward gingerly, not sure whether I’ll be allowed—but the house accepts me, and I stand there for a moment feeling right sorry for myself in my mum’s kitchen.

I smell the child before I see her.…

She’s hiding behind the doorway, peeking out at me. “Is that you, Aunty?”

“Aunty?” I say. “Do I look like somebody’s aunty?”

“I thought you were my Aunt Ebb. You look like her.”

She’s a little blond one in a red plaid nightgown. Must be my sister Lavinia’s. Vinnie wasn’t much older than this herself last time I saw her.

“I’m family,” I say. “I come to talk to Ebb—why don’t you go get her for me? She won’t be mad.” Not at the girl, anyway.

“Aunty Ebb’s gone,” the chick says. “She left with the Mage. Grandmum’s still crying. We can’t even have Christmas.”

“The Mage?” I say.

“Himself,” the girl says. “I heard everybody say it. Mum says Aunty Ebb was arrested.”

“Arrested! For what?”

“I don’t know. I guess she broke a rule.”

I stare at the child. She stares back. Then I turn for the door.

“Where are you going?” she calls after me.

“To find your aunty.”

71

SIMON

I wake up feeling hungry.

And not until I’m awake do I realize that it’s not me who’s hungry.

The air is dry. And itching. Pulling at my skin—pulling with needles, pricking at me.

I sit up and shake my head. The feeling doesn’t go away. I take a deep breath and then it’s inside my lungs, too. Like sand. Like ground glass.

The Humdrum.

I look over at Baz’s bed—the sheets and blankets are cast aside. He’s not there. I stumble to my feet and out of the room, standing in the blood-dark hallway. “Baz,” I whisper.

No one answers.

I follow the bad feeling down the hallway, down the stairs, to the front door of the manor—the night sky and the snow are so bright, there’s light streaming into the foyer. I open the door and run out into the snow.

The feeling is stronger out here. Worse. Almost like I’m standing inside one of the Humdrum’s dead spots. But when I reach for my magic, it’s still there: It rises to the surface of my skin and hums in my fingertips. It pools in my mouth.

I try to force it down again.

I follow the itchy feeling forward. (I should go back inside. I should put on shoes.) I find myself running towards the private forest that sweeps along the side of the Pitches’ house like a curtain.

I’m wearing Baz’s red-and-gold-striped pyjamas, and they’re wet to my thighs. The hungry feeling gets stronger with every step. It sucks at me. I feel my magic slipping out, sliding around my skin. A tree branch drags against me and catches fire.

I keep pushing forward.

I don’t know where I’m going—I’ve never been in this forest before. Plus there’s no space between the trees. I’m not on a path, there isn’t a clearing.

When I hear him laughing, I stop so abruptly that my magic sloshes forward, spilling up over the sides of me.

He’s right there, leaning against one of trees.

Him. The Insidious Humdrum.

Me.

“Hello,” he says, tossing his ball in the air. He catches it, frowns at me for a second, then tucks the ball into the pocket of his jeans.

“You can talk,” I say.

“I can now. I can do all sorts of things now.” He looks up into the tree and reaches for one of the slimmest branches; his hand passes through it. He grimaces and tries again. This time his hand closes around the twig, and he snaps it off. Then he looks back up at me and grins, like I should be proud of him.

“Why do you look like me?” I ask. This still feels like the most important question.

“This is just what I look like.” He laughs. “Why wouldn’t I look like you?”

“But you’re not me.”

“No.” The Humdrum frowns. “Look at you. You’re different every time I see you. But I always look just like this.” The twig is still in his hands. He breaks it in two, then drops it and steps towards me. “You can do all sorts of things I can’t do.”

I step back. Into a tangle of branches. “Why are you here—what do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. But what does he want from you? That’s the real question.”

I hear someone groan. There’s something moving in the trees.… I wish I could see better, and as soon as I wish it, my magic gets brighter—I’m glowing. The Humdrum laughs again.

“Simon?” someone calls. I think it’s Baz, but he sounds wrong. Like he’s out of breath or in pain.

“Baz? Are you okay?”

“No, no … Simon!”

Then I see Baz ahead of me, twenty feet or so, leaning against a tree. The Humdrum is above us now, sitting on a low branch, watching. Baz’s head hangs low.

I rush forward. “Baz!”

He lifts his face, and it’s wrong, too. Twisted. His eyes are dilated and black, and his mouth is full of white knives—his lips have retracted to make room for them.

I should back away, but instead I squeeze between the trees to try to get to him. It’s Baz who backs away from me. “Something’s wrong,” he says. “I’m hungry.”

“Baz, you’re always hungry.”

“No. It’s different.” He shakes his head and shoulders like an animal. “I saw you in the forest,” he says. “Just now. But you were young—you looked like you did the very first time I saw you.” His words are slurred. Like he’s shoving them through his teeth. “I thought for a minute that you were dead. I thought it was a Visiting.”

“It wasn’t me.” I take a step towards him. “You saw the Humdrum.”

“You touched me,” he says. “I leaned down and you put your hand on my face.”

“It isn’t me,” I say.

“And then you pushed it into me.” He stumbles backwards, staying a step away from me. “Like you do, Simon. But it wasn’t magic this time. It was a void. You pushed a void into me, and everything else left to make room.”

“Baz, stop. Let me help you.”

He keeps shaking his head. He reminds me for a moment of the red dragon, swinging her head back and forth.

“It’s easy with creatures,” the Humdrum says. He’s standing behind Baz now. He reaches out and presses a hand onto Baz’s hunched spine. “I just take what I got and give it to them.”

Baz whines and unfolds until his back is arched.

“What?” I demand. “What do you give them?”

The Humdrum shrugs. “Nothing. I give them some of my nothing.”

Baz lifts his face to me, all pupil and fang. He takes a step forward. “Get away, Simon. I’m hungry.”

“I give them some of my nothing,” the Humdrum says again, “and then they’re drawn to the biggest of all somethings—you. And then you give me more nothing. It’s a great game.”

Baz keeps coming for me. I stand my ground.

“Get away, Simon! I’m hungry!”

“What are you hungry for, Baz?”

“For you!” he shouts. “For magic, for blood, for magic—for everything. For you. For magic.”

He’s shaking his head so fast, it blurs.

There’s a tree between us, and Baz rips it from the ground and tosses it aside.

“Wicked,” the Humdrum says. “I’ve never tried it with one of these before.”

Baz ploughs into me like a steel gryphon. I catch him in my arms and roll to the ground.

He’s much stronger than I am—but I’m made of magic right now, so there’s no crushing me. We thrash around on the ground. I hold his head in both my hands, pushing his jaw away.

“I’m so hungry,” he whines. “And you’re so full.”

“You can have it,” I say, trying to look in his eyes. “Baz. You know you can have it.”

I push on his chin and grab at his hair, holding him back—but I let my magic go.

I let it flow into him from my every pore. Baz sobs and abruptly stops fighting. It feels like I’m pouring water into an empty well.

It goes.

And it goes.

Baz’s body sags against mine.

“Wow…” the Humdrum says. “That’s even better than fighting.” He feels close. I look up, and he’s standing right over us, rock solid in the moonlight. “When did you learn to do that? It’s like you turned on a tap.”

“Did you take his magic?” I shout at the Humdrum.

“Did I take his magic?” he repeats, like it’s a hilarious question. “No. I don’t take anything. I’m just what’s left when you’re done.” He grins, like the cat with the canary, and it’s an expression I’ve never seen on my own face.

“Simon!” Baz is shouting beneath me. I look down—he’s glowing now, too. His fangs are gone, but he still looks like he’s in pain. He’s squeezing my triceps. “Enough!”

I let go of him and roll away. But the magic is still pouring out of me, through me. It is like a tap. I concentrate on turning it off. When it feels like the magic’s staying inside me again—when I stop glowing—I get up on my hands and knees. “Baz?”

“Here,” he says.

I move towards his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” He’s lying on the ground. “I just feel a bit … burnt.”

“Are you on fire?”

“No,” he says. “No. Burnt on the inside.”

I look around, but I don’t see the Humdrum. Or hear him. Or feel him sucking at my breath.

“Is he gone?” Baz asks.

“Seems like it.” I collapse next to him.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Baz gropes for me with his arm, and when he feels me, he wraps his arm around my neck and shoulders, weakly pulling me towards him. I move closer until my head falls on his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asks again.

“Yeah. You?”

“Tip-top.” Baz coughs, and I push my face into his chest. “What was that?” he asks.

“The Humdrum.”

“Simon, are you the Insidious Humdrum?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

BAZ

I feel burnt out.

Incinerated.

That kid—it was Simon—emptied me somehow. Like he pressed my magic out or down.…

And then Simon filled me up again with fire.

I feel like a phoenix rebirthed itself in my lower intestines.

Simon’s hiding his face in my chest, and I hold him tighter.

It was Simon. Like seeing him again for the very first time. Crap jeans and dirty T-shirt. That rawness in his skin, that hunger in his eyes. When I saw him step out from between the pines tonight, I wanted to kick him in the knees—it was definitely Simon.

Simon—the grown one—is trembling, so I wrap my other arm around him, too. My arms feel hollow, but Simon feels solid through.

Simon Snow is the Humdrum.

Or … the Humdrum is Simon Snow.

SIMON

“Did I take his magic? No. I don’t take anything. I’m just what’s left when you’re done.”

I’m lying on Baz, and he has both arms around me. And I keep trying to shake the Humdrum’s face out of my head. (To shake my face off his head.)

“I give them some of my nothing … and then you give me more nothing.”

I sit up and rub my eyes. “Do you still need to hunt?”

“No,” Baz says. “I was finishing up when he found me.”

I move into a crouch, then stand, holding out my hand to him. “Did he say anything? Before he attacked you?”

Baz takes my hand and pulls himself up. He doesn’t let go. “He said, ‘You’ll do.’”

I close my eyes, and my head drops forward. “He used you. He used you against me.”

“Everyone does,” Baz says softly. I feel his arm slide, slowly, gently, back around my waist.

I slouch into him. “I’m sorry.”

BAZ

If Simon Snow is the Humdrum … that makes him a villain. A supervillain.

Can I be in love with a supervillain?

SIMON

Baz is shaking, and I think he might be crying—which would make sense, after what just happened. I open my eyes and lift up my chin.

He’s not crying—he’s laughing.

He’s laughing so hard, he’s falling against me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “Are you in shock?”

“You’re the Humdrum.”

“I’m not,” I say, trying to push him back by the shoulders.

“I’m dead, not blind, Snow. You’re the Humdrum.”

“That wasn’t me! Why are you laughing?”

Baz keeps laughing, but he’s also giving me a sneery grin. “I’m laughing because you’re the Chosen One,” he says giddily. “But you’re also the greatest threat to magic. You’re a bad guy!”

“Baz. I swear. That wasn’t me.”

“Looks like you. Sounds like you. Tosses that infernal red ball in the air like you.” He holds me tighter.

“I think I’d know if I were the Insidious Humdrum,” I say.

“I wouldn’t give you that much credit, Simon. You’re exceedingly thick. And criminally good-looking—have I mentioned that?”

“No.”

He leans in like he’s going to bite me, then kisses me instead.

It’s so good.

It’s been so good every time.

I pull away. “I’m not the Humdrum! But why does thinking so make you want to kiss me?”

“Everything makes me want to kiss you. Haven’t you worked that out yet? Crowley, you’re thick.” He kisses me again. And he’s laughing again.

“I’m not the Humdrum,” I repeat, when I get the chance. “I’d know if I were.”

“What you are is a fucking tragedy, Simon Snow. You literally couldn’t be a bigger mess.”

He tries to kiss me, but I hold back—“And you like that?”

“I love it,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because we match.”

*   *   *

We make our way out of the forest. Baz knows the way.

It really is stocked with deer just for him. It doesn’t creep me out at all to know that—apparently I can get used to anything.

Apparently he can, too.

“That thing,” I try again. “It isn’t me.”

“Maybe it’s you in the past,” he says. “Maybe you’re a time traveller.”

“But wouldn’t I remember it? If he’s me when I was a kid?”

“I don’t know how time travel works,” Baz says. “It’s not magic.”

“You’re not limping,” I say.

He looks down and shakes out his leg. “It feels better,” he says. “Crowley, Snow, you’ve healed me. I wonder if I’m still a vampire?”

I raise my eyebrows, and he laughs. “Calm down, miracle boy, I’m still a vampire—you still smell like bacon and homemade cinnamon buns.”

“How can I smell like bacon and homemade cinnamon buns?”

“You smell like something I’d gladly eat.” Baz stops and holds an arm out in front of me. “Wait. Do you feel that?”

I stop, too. It’s faint, but it’s there. That parched feeling. That scratch in the back of my throat.

“The Humdrum,” Baz says. “Is he back?”

There’s shouting ahead of us, somebody calling Baz’s name.

I hold my hand above my hip, trying to call my blade. It doesn’t come. I can’t feel my magic anywhere.

Baz has his wand tucked into his pyjamas (of course he does). He whips it out and tries to cast a spell. Nothing happens. He tries again.

“It’s a dead spot,” I whisper. “It’s one of the Humdrum’s dead spots.”

“Basilton!” Baz’s stepmother is screaming and running towards us. She’s wearing her nightgown, and her hair is down. “Malcolm, he’s here!”

“The Humdrum…” Baz looks over at me, as pale as I’ve ever seen him, his face chalky and white in the moonlight. “Snow. Run.”

“What?”

“Go,” he says. “You did this.”

72

SIMON

I could probably walk to London.

If I were wearing shoes.

And if there weren’t all this snow.…

When Baz told me to go, when he blamed the dead spot on me, I wanted to argue. But his parents were running towards us, and they were panicking, and I couldn’t tell what was happening. Had the hole swallowed up their entire house? Their whole estate?

I turned to run back into the forest—but it was on fire. From me. From my magic. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it, because now I didn’t have any.

“Go!” Baz said again, so I did. I ran.

I got to the drive, and my feet were going numb from cold, but I kept running. Down the long, long drive. To the road. Away from him.

I’m still running.

My magic comes back to me all at once and sends me to the ground, shaking. If only I had my wand. Or a mobile …

I could hitchhike—would anyone pick me up? Would anyone be driving down this road, in middle-of-nowhere Hampshire in the middle of the night? On Christmas Eve? (Father Christmas isn’t real—the Tooth Fairy is.)

I’m kneeling in the snow at the side of the road. I can do this, I think. I’ve done this before. I just have to want it. I have to need it.

I think about getting away, about getting to Penny, I think about my magic filling me up and shooting out my shoulders. And then I feel them tearing through Baz’s pyjamas—

Wide, bony wings.

There are no feathers this time; I must have been thinking about the dragon. These wings are red and leathery with grey spikes at the hinges. They spread out as soon as I think about them, and pull me up out of the snow.

I tear off the remains of my flannel shirt, and I don’t think about how to fly; I just think about where I want to go—Up. Away.—and it happens. It’s colder up here, so I think about being warm, and my skin starts to flicker with heat.

Baz’s house is below me now, in the distance. The fire I started is still burning; I watch the smoke pouring out of the forest, and try to move closer—but I can’t. I’m made of magic, and there’s no magic there anymore.

I hover in the sky.

I think about putting out the fire. The clouds are full of freezing rain—so I think about pushing them towards the forest, and they go.

And then I think of Baz telling me to go, so I do.

And then I stop thinking.