Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf

11 | The Man Who Could See In The Dark

The sandstone wall appeared between the trees like a giant wave breaking the early morning mist. Relief washed over Oliver's skin. His heart skipped in his chest. The outlines of Iron Bridge had returned.

Ahead, Sadie staggered from side to side, her body shaking in the cold morning air. The temperature appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever. However, a deep worry coursed through his veins like a virulent poison.

"What do you mean?" he'd said back in the depths of the forest. "Danver. Your closest friend. Your best friend."

"You're my best friend, Oliver. No-one else matters."

"But what about Danver? And Hurtmore House? We have to save him. Right?"

"Save him? I don't even know him." She smiled at Oliver then. "What's gotten into you? Don't tell me you've started creating people out of thin air too!" Sadie giggled and Oliver had to resist the urge to pursue the matter.

Now, standing at the wall, Sadie stared in both directions. Sandstone bricks, vines and creepers blocked their path. She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate. Oliver wondered if she could conjure the brightly painted door with her mind or think up some marvellous way to scale the wall. But nothing happened. Oliver knew he could return to the house whenever he wanted. The simplest thought and whoosh! he'd be there. But Sadie was not like him. She was flesh and blood and bone and all manner of things he did not understand.

"I suppose we'd better head for the Glade. It can't be too far," she said, and Oliver nodded.

The sun had cleared the top of the Carcassus Mountains when the North Gate appeared. Sadie's pace increased as she half-walked, half-ran towards it.

The North Gate. Bookended by two stone gargoyles: chipped, cracked, and smothered in a patina of moss and filth. One gargoyle had the body of a bird and the head of a crocodile. The other, a lion with the tail of a serpent.

"What are these?" said Oliver.

"That's a Harpy," Sadie said, pointing at the bird with the crocodile head. "In Menzani myth they have the head and torso of a woman, but I think this is an Hiero-Menzan hybrid, the head of Balek, the Crocodile God, brother of Abnar."

"Is that so?" said Oliver, not keen on the history lesson. "And the Lion with the—"

"A Chimera," she answered. "Specifically, in this case, a fire-breathing monster of Menzani origin. Sometimes there'd be a goat in the mix too."

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"Books."

"Of course," he said. "You cannot forget."

Sadie raised an eyebrow. "Not one thing."

Oliver's worry deepened.

Sadie strode through the North Gate, negotiating the broken cobbles. Inside, the forest thickened. Sadie hopped over low-hanging branches and nests of thistles, skirting between the dark bark of the Sandarac trees. Surrounding them, tombs, headstones, crypts, and sepulchres nestled amongst the trees and weeds, designed with a myriad of religious connotations. Angels and demons and birds and beasts, carved from stone and wood and bone and iron, stared down at the two friends.

Save for the rustle of leaves, the yawning wood, and the distant vibrations of Darachna Forest, the Glade remained silent.

But they were not alone.

Ghostly shapes moved with them through the timberland. Oliver watched nervously as they peered out from behind trees, and crypts, and stone monoliths. Their eyes seemed cold and heartless, almost empty of anything resembling life. They flickered too, invisible and barely there: failing, faint, promising to vanish forever.