to keep it that way, at least for one day. She was arranging a centrepiece made of red candles and holly as Niall and Winter barged in. The moment she saw their faces, she knew something had happened. The Christmas decoration seemed so absurd all of a sudden, like a little raft in a stormy sea, a desperate attempt to hold on to some normality.
“Hey, man. Are you OK?” called Mike, noticing how pale Niall was.
“Not really,” said Niall, and lifted the book for everyone to see.
“Between Two Worlds,” read Sean, taking the leather-bound volume from him. “What’s this?”
“We found it in the library,” Winter intervened.
“Look here,” said Niall, opening to the page he and Winter had read.
Sean and Sarah crowded around him.
Niall read the relevant parts aloud, and the kitchen fell silent.
“The King of Shadows. That is what you said during the scrying spell, remember, Sarah? The King of Shadows is coming,” said Sean.
Sarah’s face was white. She nodded. “The Enemy is the King of Shadows.”
“There’s more,” said Niall. “Listen. It is rumoured that a gate to the Shadow World exists and can be entered, though no one has yet succeeded in finding it. A gate. A gate to the Shadow World.”
“So we know who he is, and where he is! What’s stopping us?” Mike exclaimed.
“We need to go and find him. It’s as simple as that,” stated Sean, lost in thought.
Sarah was silent.
“Sarah,” Niall said gently. She was standing still, the certain stillness that descended on her sometimes.
“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes. We need to go, but how will we know where to find him? Shouldn’t we think this through?”
“I agree with Sarah,” came Nicholas’s voice from the corner of the room. “We need to think about this, calmly. In the morning. We’ll leave when we know more about what we’re dealing with.” He hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken as Niall and Winter spoke. They had forgotten all about his presence. But he’d been standing there all along, hands curled into fists to stop them from shaking, trying to quell the fear racing through him.
“Nicholas is right, we can’t leave till we know where we’re going. Might as well enjoy the evening, and all this.” She swept her arm towards the boiling pots and pans, the gently glowing oven roasting the sweet-smelling turkey.
Sarah looked to Sean, her face solemn, pleading.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Mike put his hands up. “But—”
“Mike,” said Nicholas in a low voice. “We need to figure out what’s happening.”
“I suppose so,” Mike agreed reluctantly.
A look passed between Sarah and Sean, a look laden with meaning. The storm is coming, were their unspoken words.
Nicholas stepped out into the frozen afternoon air. He’d muttered something about needing a walk – he often did that, and nobody questioned it. He stood on the watermark, the wind whipping against him. He was shaking badly, anxiety was sweeping through him and devouring his thoughts, leaving a black knot of fear growing in his stomach.
They’ll know soon. They’ll know who I am.
But now, I know who I am. It doesn’t matter. Not to them, anyway.
A strange elation took him, easing his anxiety. He turned back towards the house – he could see the lights of the kitchen, and the silhouettes of Sarah and her friends moving within. One of the windows upstairs was lit too: Elodie’s room. She’d gone back there to lie down for a while.
The waves ebbed and flowed, the water winter-dark, hiding what lay in wait beneath its surface.
53
Christmas at Sea
The untold stories
And how they end
A vast oak table stood in the middle of an ancient hall, covered in red silk and as many flickering candles as Sarah could find. Seven chairs, seven people and seven sets of secrets and hopes and fears.
On one side, a black-haired man burning with fear, white-as-snow hands clutching the napkin on his lap in terrible anticipation, and beside him a tall, fair woman with bandaged arms and weary eyes.
At the opposite side, a girl with silver hair, placid and beautiful and brimming with kindness, beside a man whose grey eyes always smiled, and a dark-skinned man between them, his desires and hopes well hidden away, buried beneath selflessness and duty, strong and loyal as the roots of a tree.
At either end of the table, the ones with the invisible chain between them – Sarah’s hair flowed down her back in a sweet-scented stream, the scars on Sean’s arms shone white in the light of the candles against his bronzed skin. Unspoken words went back and