Darkwater

twenty-six

Scrab drove them home.

For most of the way no one spoke. Azrael lounged in the back with Tom and Simon; Sarah sat in front, grimly clutching her backpack. Sickening disappointment numbed them; they were cold and nauseated with it. The only sound was the car’s low purr, and Scrab sucking his teeth or whistling through them cheerfully. Stone walls gleamed in the headlights. A few drops of rain pattered on the side windows.

Finally, Azrael stirred. “Well. I did warn you. You could never have escaped from me.”

“It was worth a try!”

He shrugged, unhappy. “Even after all this time, Sarah, you still don’t trust me.” He sounded depressed. “I find that very hurtful. Have I ever hurt you? Do you really believe that I’m some creature of evil, that I seek anybody’s destruction?”

“Only mine.”

Azrael sighed. He rubbed his face with one open palm. “I’m not evil, Sarah. Evil is stealthy. It whispers and insinuates. It uses fear, turns soul against soul. All I want to do is finish my Great Work. To make gold from dross.”

“Whatever it costs?”

He sat back morosely. “It costs everything.”

“I did what you asked, Azrael. I made up for all the Trevelyans, their oppressions, their greed. I spent a hundred years on it.”

“There is still one Trevelyan you haven’t atoned for.”

She glared at him, twisting around. “Who?”

“Yourself. And you’ve forgotten this.” He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it up. She saw her red signature again, firm and clear. Tom and Simon stared at it curiously. Then Azrael folded it and put it away. “People always find it so difficult at the end,” he said sadly.

The car purred up the long drive to Darkwater in silence. They climbed out, stiff and cold, the gravel crunching frostily. Simon held his torn wrist as if it ached. Tom stood by Sarah. No one spoke.

They climbed the steps to the porch and the gargoyles leered down at them, small drips from the lips of one splashing Scrab’s head so that he swore. Azrael took his bunch of keys and unlocked the door, and as they went in he flicked the lights on in the marble hall. One of the clocks in the house chimed gently. It was eleven forty-five.

“This way,” Azrael murmured. To their surprise he didn’t climb the stairs to the library but crossed instead to the small door of the cubbyhole under the landing, half hidden by the vast dark growth of the Christmas tree.

“There?” Sarah sounded disgusted.

Azrael shrugged, opening it. “Here. The door is always where you least expect it.”

A faint red glow lit the tiny space. Behind hung-up coats and mildewed suitcases, they saw a small metal staircase, spiraling down. Sarah flung her backpack under the Christmas tree and drew herself up. Then she held out her hand firmly.

“Good-bye Tom. Thanks for all your help.”

He didn’t shake it.

“No. I’m coming.” He glanced at Azrael. “I want to see.”

The alchemist hesitated. Then he shrugged elegantly. “If you wish. Scrab, stay at the back, there’s a good fellow.”

He picked up a lantern from a corner and lit it with a small silver lighter. Then he led them down.

At first their feet clattered on the iron stairs, but at some point in the dimness of the descent the steps became stone and the walls, rock. Tom ran his hand down; the surface was wet and warm, with dripping green lichens sprouting through the cracks. It got hotter. He undid his coat, already sweating.

The glow increased. Below him was a redness, and Azrael’s faint candle was lost in it, a fiery heat scorching up at them.

“Listen to that!” Simon said in his ear.

The underworld river roared. Far below them it thundered through deep chasms in the rock, and Sarah heard it too, gripping her hands tightly together, not turning her head. Come on, she thought acidly. What use was a hundred years of life if it didn’t prepare you for death? She wouldn’t tremble or beg. She’d take it, like she’d taken the five cuts all that endless, impossible time ago. And for a moment she remembered the swish of the cane, the fine strands of hair unpinning from Mrs. Hubbard’s glossy bun. Maybe pride was good for something after all.

Azrael came to the bottom of the steps and put the lantern down. Turning, he helped her around the last corner. She stared.

The caverns were enormous. One out of another they led deep into steamy distance, and flooding them all was a vast lake of simmering black water, the vapors that rose from its surface condensing on the invisible roof, dripping and plopping from rock to rock like an eternal rain. It was unbearably hot. Half glimpsed in the steam were fissured tunnels and arches, seamed with crystal and quartz. And far away in the depths of the earth the chasm thundered, the fall of the water deafening, as if it plummeted down circle after circle, weir after weir, into a bottomless pit.

On the shingle was a small boat, painted black, with two oars.

Azrael gave Scrab a nod; the little man spat on his hands, then crunched over and pushed the boat afloat. He clambered in, awkward. “Come on then. ’Aven’t got all day.”

Azrael looked at Sarah. He held out his hand.

She went to take it.

“Wait!” Tom’s voice echoed. A thousand drips fell. He grabbed her. “Wait.”

“Tom, it’s . . .”

“No.” He turned to Azrael. “Listen. You want a soul, you can have one. I’ll go.”

“You?” Azrael smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Tom, I can’t allow that.”

“He doesn’t mean him. He means me.”

Simon shouldered between them. He was wet and bedraggled. The dirty handkerchief around his wrist was crusted with dried blood. His clothes were as cheap and scruffy and mud-splattered as Tom’s. They had never, Sarah realized, been so alike.

“This is the bargain,” he said quickly. “You take me, and you leave Sarah. I want that.”

“Well, I don’t!” Sarah snapped hotly.

“You must!” Simon pulled her away from Azrael’s hand. “Please. I don’t want to stay. Maybe it’s a journey I should have made years ago.” He turned to Tom. “Don’t you think?”

Tom was appalled. Every part of him wanted to cry out no. And yet something had changed. He and Simon. Somehow they had swapped places, become each other. He reached out gently and took his brother’s hand. Then he hugged him close. Over his shoulder he said, “Yes.”

Azrael was watching carefully. “Sarah?” he murmured.

She couldn’t speak. It took her a long time to say “I can’t.”

Tom stepped back. “You have to. We’re doing it for you.”

“I can’t take Simon away from you.”

“It’s not that,” Tom said, exasperated. “You still won’t give in, will you? You’re still Miss Sarah Trevelyan, far above the rest of us, last of the proud, terrible Trevelyans. Please, Sarah. End it all. Let it go.”

She stared at them both, her eyes faintly wet. Then at Azrael. “Would you agree?”

He folded his arms, his face tense with excitement. “I would. But you must accept it. You have to say yes. You have to throw away your pride.”

The Darkwater roared. Steam rose. In the boat Scrab fidgeted tetchily. “For Gawd’s sake get yerselves sorted out! Some of us ’ave a life to live.”

“Yes.”

The word was so quiet they barely heard it.

She said it again, firmer, looking at Tom and Simon.

“Thank you. Yes.”

Azrael smiled joyfully. “At last! Sarah, I am so delighted!” He kissed her quickly, climbed into the swaying boat, and sat down, taking out a small box from his pocket, a snuffbox that she recognized as her grandfather’s. Azrael opened it, looking pleased, and rather shy.

“The Great Work,” he said, “is completed.”

A small circle of gold glinted inside.

“You did it!” she gasped.

“We did it. Despite all the mistakes of the past, all the pride of the Trevelyans, the cruelty, the selfishness. After all the fear, finally, we have something to show.” He took the gold out carefully and held it out to Scrab, whose greedy fingers closed on it quickly. He bit it, nodded, and shoved it in his pocket with a grin of satisfaction.

“Right. Let’s be ’aving yer.”

Simon glanced at Tom, climbed down into the boat, and sat. Scrab took the oars, grinding one against the shingle. Slowly, the boat turned.

“Yes, but what happens to me?” Sarah said suddenly.

Azrael sat back. “From the last stroke of midnight, our bargain is dissolved.”

“Will I turn into dust or something?”

He looked at her, darkly amused. “You’ll grow up, Sarah. What exactly do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I’ll ever know.”

The boat was fading, lost in the mist.

“One day you will,” Azrael’s voice said faintly. “But good-bye. For now.”

“See you,” Tom whispered. Simon waved, a shadow, then a grayness, then nothing at all. Only the slop of oars came back, a ripple of water.

And the echo of his own voice.

“See you,” it said.

For a long time they stood there, the empty water lapping at their feet.

Outside, on the steps of Darkwater, they came out into the cold and counted the chimes from the church. After the twelfth there was a faint burst of cheering. A rocket went up from a boat in the harbor. Fireworks began, popping and whistling and cracking into colored showers.

“Feel any different?” he asked.

She shrugged. “No. You?”

“Empty.”

She nodded, looking out at the stars. “Will you come to this school, Tom?”

“I’ll try. I owe Simon that.”

“You’ll get in,” she said drily. “I’ll make sure.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I’ve learned what I needed to. But what will you do?”

She was silent a moment. Finally she said, “You can tell me where Emmeline’s grave is. And then, I’ll go to college.”

“I’d have thought you’d have done that already.”

She was rubbing her eyes. A tiny lash came off and lay on the edge of her finger; she stared at it in delight.

“Never been old enough,” she said.