Sadie woke the following morning with a head full of moonbeams, monsters, and magical-memory-make-believe. Draping herself in several shades of black, which included her favourite cardigan—threadbare at the elbows and adorned with numerous zips, pockets and assorted metal buttons—placed over her long dress, knee-length stockings, and hard-wearing boots, she bounced downstairs, her body fizzing with excitement.
Sadie joined Eli at the kitchen table.
"Mmm, smells amazing in here!" tooted Michael, entering the room. Snapping his heels together, he ordered, "Attention!"
Sadie and Eli stood upright and saluted their father. "Good morning," he said, walking round the table. "The Hellhounds were kept at bay then. I don't see any life-threatening claw marks." Larissa shook her head at the stove. "I trust you slept well," he continued. "And you too, Eli."
"Very well, thank you," Sadie replied. "I had the most wonderful dreams."
Frowning at her husband, Larissa handed out plates piled high with pancakes.
Sadie beamed, reaching for the syrup.
Natalia wafted into the room smelling of cucumber, coconut, and apple blossom. Late for breakfast as usual. Michael shook his head comically as the smells surrounded the table.
"Crikey me! Is Dimitri about?"
"No Father," Natalia blushed. "He's coming for dinner this evening."
Michael flicked his gaze towards his wife.
"Please tell me you didn't forget!"
"Of course not, darling," Larissa smiled.
The doorbell chimed. Sadie skipped through the hall. Swivelling in his chair, Eli used the dials and levers to focus the Monster Magnifiers at Sadie as she heaved the arched oak door open.
"Danver's here," Sadie announced, beckoning her friend inside. They stood in the hallway talking while the rest of the Madisons finished their breakfast and Larissa stuffed school bags with sandwiches wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
At the door, Eli wrestled his arms into his winter coat.
The girls laced their boots.
Larissa knelt beside them, helping with the bootstraps. Sadie studied her mother's face. She looked drawn and pale, as though sleep proved a hard-fought battle. "Are you okay?"
"Of course, dear," Larissa replied. "What makes you—"
"Nothing," Sadie replied, her eyes drifting towards the door and the glistening snow beyond.
Larissa smiled. "It's a magical world out there, Sadie. A world filled with adventure and mystery, opportunity and endless possibilities." She took Sadie's arm, spinning the girl to face her. "But a world filled with danger and darkness too: River Wraiths, Fire Wolves, The Winter Witches—"
As Larissa spoke, a knowing look bloomed on her daughters' face.
"You don't believe Father's stories," Sadie said. "Do you?"
Larissa bit her lip. "No...but I do believe in your father." She attempted to fix Sadie's hair, but quickly gave up. Kissing her mother's cheek, Sadie fastened her amaranthine coat and waited on the porch.
The Madison children, accompanied by Sadie's friend Danver, ambled past the family Jongelier and waited silently beside the automobile. Eli peered through the filthy windows with his Monster Magnifiers, adjusting the dials, his notebook peeping out the top of his school bag.
"Can we take the automobile today, Father?" Natalia asked. "It's been months since we used it. And it's so cold."
"I'm sorry, Natalia. I...I think there's something wrong with it." This wasn't a lie, despite sounding like one. "I'll have a tinker with her at the weekend. Then perhaps we'll go for a trip...or something."
Natalia looked a little crestfallen but shrugged it off. Michael took the lead as they made their way down Leviathan Crook, past frosted trees and bushes, descending the snowy streets of Iron Bridge towards the River Myr.
Across the street Danver's father, Arnold, stood smoking a pipe on his whitewashed porch. A tall man, quiet and reserved, with dark skin and thick hair; a stark contrast to the porch and snow. Around the top of his arm he wore The Black Moon: a red fabric band embroidered with a crescent moon and stars in dark cotton and thread.
Everyone that believed in the gods, no matter what denomination, wore The Black Moon by order of Minister Craven and the Eighth Day Assembly.
You didn't see The Black Moon too often. Not anymore. Michael had told Sadie most people had forgotten about the gods. Others hid their beliefs behind closed doors, worshipping in secret and shadow.
Danver wore one too.
The Madisons were a godless family. Always had been. But her father had hundreds of stories about the gods and the Divine Wars. He told them to her like all his other tales, but these were whispered, and forbidden, and came with a heavy price.
Stories of the gods and the Divine Wars were terrifying and violent. War always was, Sadie supposed. For, as the final story went: Women and men of Earth stared up at the gods, their faces filled with contempt and hatred. And then, as the sun rose on the Eighth Day, they took up arms against the gods and vanquished them all.
Sadie smiled at Danver's father, throwing a cheerful wave.
Nervously, Arnold Tomes waved back.
* * *
Iron Bridge Elementary School had been built as a hospital during the Divine Wars; erected on the bank of the River Myr at the same time as the famous bridge itself. Made of rough stone and crumbling plaster, the school and playing fields were encompassed, like most of Iron Bridge, by Darachna Forest. The vast woodland snaked along the base of the Carcassus Mountains for thousands of miles, covering the entire Shadow Valley from the spring of the River Myr—high above the town of Hüntesgaard in the northern mountains—to the mouth of the Sapphire Seas at Fort Campion.
The Madison house backed onto Darachna forest, separated by a large sandstone wall to keep the forest and its inhabitants at bay. At night, Sadie had heard noises in the trees—mostly Fire Wolves and Frost Bears with their noses to the wind—but some nights there were other noises. Sounds she could not explain. She'd told her father about them and he, in turn, told her stories of Goofang, Cactus Cat, the Winter Witches, Axe-Handle Hound, Glawackus, Hodag, Wendigo, Ratchet Owl, and hundreds more. All her father's stories thrilled her, but they never felt as real as the one about Grandfather William, the Narrowers, and the Gathering.
"Alright, Sades!" hollered a voice. It came from a group of boys watching Sadie salute the Monument to the Victorious Dead.
"What are you doing?" Danver said in alarm. "Best not hang around, Sadie. Let's get inside where it's safe!"
Sadie squared her shoulders and stared.
The boys wandered over.
"Now we're in trouble," grumbled Danver, frantically pulling Sadie's sleeve.
"Well, what do we have here?" one of the boys said, a look of surprise on his face. "A last stand before the winter holidays?"
Sadie remained blank, as if nothing stirred behind her eyes. The boy fidgeted, then laughed and turned to his friends. "What you getting for Christmas, Tobin?" he asked.
"Model railway."
"And you, Xander?"
"A wireless for my room."
"Verden?"
"Either a steam motorkart or an air-rifle. Not decided yet. What about you, Cale?"
Cale Boswick was unusually large for his age. He had a thickset jaw, closely cropped hair and shark-like eyes that occasionally shone with honey and green fire. "Well, I'm getting my own boat," he said. "Top of the line. No expense spared." He glared at Sadie. "What about you, Sades? What are you getting?"
She returned his stare.
"Are you going to build a time-machine and go back to the Divine Wars so you can stand and salute all the troops as they march to their death?"
Sadie didn't respond.
"And what about your brother? Eli, isn't it? What's he asking for?" Cale leant forward, cupping his hand around his ear. "Oh, silly me!" he rasped. "He can't ask for anything, can he? Poor little Eli can't ask for anything because he hasn't got a voice."
Cale smiled wide and cruel.
"It's not her fault that Eli doesn't speak!" Danver yelled, but Sadie held him back.
"Leave us alone," she said, finally.
"Leave us alone!" Cale sneered. "What are you going to do if I don't? Insult me with your sign-language?" The boys roared with laughter. "I've got a Christmas present for you," said Cale and grabbed Sadie by the hair.
She struggled for a moment as his grip tightened. Pushing her towards the ground, the snow bit her face, sharp and cold. She clenched her teeth, fighting Cale's grip.
"Get off me!" she yelled, thrashing around. "Get your wretched hands off!"
The school bell rang. Cale grumbled. "Not long until lunchtime, Sades," he said, his mouth almost touching her ear. "Be seeing you then!"
The boys retreated inside, laughing as they went.
"I hate him," Danver said. "I hate Cale Boswick with every fibre of my being."
Sadie rolled onto her back and smiled. "Only another six months and we'll be rid of him forever." She grabbed Danver's hand, pulled herself up and hurried inside before they were late for their first class.
* * *
Lunchtime was inevitable. The hands of the classroom clock moved towards it like a pendulum-axe descending on its ill-fated victim.
"Where shall we hide today?" Danver asked the moment the bell tolled.
Sadie led Danver out of the classroom and into the busy hallway. "Let's go outside and find Eli."
"No. Let's run and hide."
"Why?"
"Because we always run, and we always hide. Why is today so different?"
Sadie studied her friend.
"Plus, I saw Ryndai in the schoolyard earlier," Danver added urgently.
"Okay," Sadie said, sighing. "Just for you."
Down two flights of stairs they ran. Along a dark corridor filled with framed paintings of lecturers and professors until they came to a door with a large M emblazoned above. Most pupils presumed it stood for Music, but Sadie knew it meant Morgue.
She put her ear to the batwing doors while Danver stood on tiptoes to peer through the circular window. "Don't see anyone," he said.
Damp and cold swirled through the music room. Odd-shaped instruments lurked against the walls cast in long shadows. The windows—positioned up high where the room met ground level—were covered in frost and heaped with snow.
They swept across the room like fleeting spirits and, lifting the edge of the dust sheet, found their way beneath the grand piano. Sadie imagined they were adventurers sitting in an expedition tent somewhere deep in the Winter Continent, tracking the Wampus Cat, or a Chupacabra, or a scamper of Bogeymen.
"What's with you today?" Danver asked, shaking his head.
She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Something happened. Something...amazing."
Sadie told him the story of Grandfather William. About the Narrowers and the Vents and the Gathering. Danver sat in silence, his eyes unblinking in the faint light.
"So, everything we forget is taken to these...Vents...for all time?"
"Yes."
"And your father is the son of a billion-year-old spirit?"
"Yes."
"Making you the daughter, of the son, of a billion-year-old spirit?"
Sadie smiled. Her eyes gleaming. "I believe it does."
"Come on," Danver laughed, the worry in his voice vanishing for a moment. "Your father is always telling crazy stories. There's one about a woman who labels all her possessions and another about a tree and some witches and—" Danver faltered, the stories escaping him. "This one is no different."
Sadie frowned. "It's true. All of it."
"Yes, of course," he chuckled. "Spirits steal into our houses—like the Urisks, or the Tooth Fairy, or Gruselmann—and take away the things we forget and store them in some mystical unfathomable dimension! It's nonsense, Sadie."
"It's not," she insisted, folding her arms. She pointed at The Black Moon on his arm. "You believe in the gods. What's so different between that and the Narrowers?"
Danver shook his head. "You and I are not allowed to discuss the gods, Sadie. You know that. And you know what the Eighth Day Assembly will do if they find out."
"Something horrid, I should imagine. But I'm not afraid of The Eight Day Assembly or Minister Craven. She's thousands of miles away in San Cristophe, sitting in some high castle. No one can hear us here."
"She has ears everywhere," Danver said, his voice a hushed whisper. "The Ryndai."
Sadie sniffed, cradling her chin in her hands.
Danver fiddled with his arm band. "Why?" he asked suddenly. "Why do the Narrowers take away what we forget? Why do they keep them? What possible reason could there be?"
Sadie didn't know. She hadn't thought to question her father.
"If it were true," Sadie said. "What do you think happens to people who...cannot forget?"
Danver turned. "Everyone forgets, Sadie. As sure as everyone lives and everyone dies."
"But what if someone couldn't forget? Can you imagine?"
Danver took a moment. "If that were true, then it would be as amazing as the idea of the Narrowers themselves. If it were me, I'd be top of the class...like you! It'd turn me into some kind of supernatural, magical entity, right? I'd be a titan or a...god!"
Sadie knew exactly what it felt like. It didn't feel like a supernatural power to her, and she certainly didn't think of herself as a titan or one of the gods. Her mind had always been busy, complicated, memories fighting for every square inch. But the idea of truly forgetting something—anything—felt terrible, like leaving a favourite toy on a steam train bound for distant lands.
"Then again," Danver continued. "Wouldn't a person who remembers everything run out of space? Eventually, I mean. Sooner or later their brain would become full...and overflow! It'd be like my mother and her apples. She's always buying too many and they end up spoiling on the larder floor."
"Rubbish," Sadie exploded. "Overflowing brains? That'd never happen!"
"They'd go mad," Danver went on, chuckling. "Driven mad by overflowing brains. All spoilt and rotten!"
"Stop it," she said, her eyes glistening. "You're talking utter drivel!"
Danver stopped laughing. Fear had, for the first time today, appeared on Sadie's face. "Are you okay?" he asked. She lowered her head towards her chest, avoiding his eyes and wrapping her arms around herself. "What is it?" he asked again. "Tell me."
She looked at him. "I'm one of those people."
Danver wrinkled his face. "What?"
"You said it yourself: 'If it were me, I'd be top of the class...like you!' And I am top of the class. Always top of the class."
"I thought you were incredibly smart," he replied. "I mean, you are incredibly smart." His imperfect mind appeared to contemplate the magnificence of hers. "It's impossible though, right?"
Sadie shook her head. "Test me," she told him quietly. "Ask me anything."
Danver put a finger to his lips. "What's my middle name?"
"Easy. Jaguan. Next."
"Where was my father born?"
She sighed. "Still easy. North Holt. The eastern border of the Salt Flats, near San Cristophe. And his name's Arnold and he works at one of the Copper Mills, and he collects coins, and he believes in the gods and the original creation story. Next. Make it as hard as you can."
"How many times, in our entire lives, have we hid beneath this piano?"
"Eighty-four times. Including today."
Danver sat back, aghast. "That's amazing. But there's no way to prove it."
"Then why did you ask?"
He chewed his lip and ventured one final question. "What am I thinking right now?"
"I'm not a mind reader," Sadie groaned. "I can only remember the things I've seen, or heard, or read, or...experienced. I can recall every last word of my father's bedtime stories. I can remember the smell of the delivery room where I was born: jasmine, lemon root, and turpentine. I can see every sunrise, every smile, and every frown. I can taste every meal. I can hear every song played on our wireless or been sung to me as I drifted off to sleep—"
A single pair of feet padded into the room.
The music room doors flapped shut.
Sadie and Danver held their breath.
Was it Cale Boswick?
Or perhaps Professor Kanossof preparing for his next class?
It couldn't be The Eighth Day Assembly come to take them away for discussing the gods, could it?
Whoever it was, if they were discovered, they'd be in trouble. Outside of class, the music room was strictly off limits.
Sadie and Danver could hear instruments being moved aside. The door to the store cupboard creaking open. The ticking of the clock. The sickly thud of their frantic heartbeats in their chests.
The stranger's feet crept around the edge of the piano.
Closer. Closer.
The dust sheet moved.
Danver put his arm around Sadie. He closed his eyes as if an atomic blast might detonate and reduce them both to cinders. As the dust sheet rose, a glowing pair of spectacles filled the gloom with phosphorescent light.
Sadie exhaled and grabbed her brother's hand.
What are you doing here? she signed to Eli.
Looking for you, he answered with his hands. Found you.
Eli nestled beside them. The eerie light from the Monster Magnifiers made their faces look ghoulish and forsaken. For as long as anyone could remember, Sadie's brother had been afraid of the dark. To remedy this, his father had built Eli his very own spectacles (out of magical materials from another dimension, so Michael's story went). If Eli focused them in the right way, the spectacles would enable him to see any kind of monster, ghost, critter, or demon.
What are you doing? Eli signed. Hiding from Cale again?
"Yes, alright," Danver replied. "I'm a big coward. Your sister is too."
"No. I'm not. Not anymore," she said. "Not today."
Eli shrugged.
"Oh yes, Eli. For some reason, today is different. Something has happened—"
Sadie silenced him with a finger.
What happened? Eli asked.
"Nothing," Sadie lied. "I feel different. I'm not afraid of Cale anymore and I don't need to hide!" She crawled out, hauled the dust sheet onto the floor, and flicked on the lamps. "I don't care if he finds us. I can't live in fear of a school bully for one more day. I welcome a confrontation!"
She paced over to the piano and, lifting the lid, hammered on the keys with her fists and forearms, filling the room with a thunderous, atonal din.
"Someone will hear you!" cried Danver, scanning the room for somewhere new to hide. "Cale will hear you!"
Sadie shrugged, continuing to smash the life out of the keys.
Danver grabbed her by the wrists. "Stop it," he implored. "He'll hear you. He'll come for us! I'm begging you, Sadie. Please stop hammering!"
But Sadie was overcome by a melancholic, dreamy sensation, as if floating outside her body. All the days of anxiety and suffering at the hands of Cale Boswick were present in her mind, but they no longer dominated her.
Her fingers reached down from Danver's grip and pressed on the piano keys. Sadie watched it happen, feeling utterly disconnected. She started to play. Slowly at first, one note following another. Her fingers effortlessly worked their way over the keys, skipping on the smooth ivory, producing a beautiful song. She didn't need to try. She didn't need to concentrate. As if her fingers were under the control of a master puppeteer.
Like a tsunami meeting her head on, the melody from last night returned.
Music filled the room with heat and colour, dancing through the air and into her heart. Images flicked through her mind. Strange images of people she did not know. Places she had never been. The images felt like CineFilm versions of her father's monstrous paintings. She shook her head, desperately trying to sweep them away.
But then it all changed.
A new note rang out.
Something ill-fitting, something dark and malevolent, discordant and biting.
Eli grimaced as though Sadie had hit a wrong key, but Danver leaned back and opened his mouth wide, breathing in the dark notes. Her friend's entire body began to shake and judder, his eyes wide, menacing. The dark notes darted around the room, enveloping him like a swarm of locusts.
And then—he ran.
The melodies chased him through the batwing doors and down the corridor like a legion of demons across the Plains of Hell. Sadie and Eli tore after him as he flew up the stairs and outside, feet beating into the white earth.
Cale Boswick looked up to see them approaching at incredible speed.
"Well, look who's come to play—" Cale snorted, but his words were silenced by Danver's whirring fists. Falling onto the snow, Cale whined like a trapped animal. Danver pounced on the boy, hands thrashing and wheeling into his face.
With feet pounding, their breath ragged, Sadie and Eli arrived. They dived headfirst into the melee, pulling Danver away, landing clumsily on the reddening snow.