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Candy was not sure what she expected when she finally stepped inside the Dead Man’s House. It had slammed down on the tiny island, unfolding into a precarious mansion against the sharp grey cliffs. She had agreed to meet Christopher Carrion in the Straights of Dusk, where it was neither night nor day. The sky was lavender and gold, tiny stars peering through the haze while the rain paused for a moment.
There were no servants to greet her—it was a staggering sense of loneliness, the sprawling empty house on the uninhabited island. The interior was grey and black, as if she had wandered into an old movie. But the curtains and bookcases were not dusted with cobwebs and the stairs were a dark, polished wood. She wondered if the Lord of Midnight had cleaned before she arrived.
She was not sure what rooms she should try to open, since every door was closed. What if there were dangerous rooms, enchanted objects? Candy knew that most things in the Abarat were not what they seemed. She was, absurdly enough, glad that she had changed out of her filthy shirt and pants from scaling the Noontime Cliffs with Malingo. Her long black tunic top and leggings, while not a dress, certainly felt more appropriate.
After ten minutes inside the house, Candy had no idea where Christopher Carrion was. It seemed dangerous to go blindly into the Dead Man’s House, at least any further than the hallway. She wondered if the boy with the boat—the one with the terrible sailing spell—was still lurking outside. But she also thought he might work for Carrion and it would do no good to ask him for a ride.
A door opened at the top of the stairs and Candy stopped dead. Her breath froze in her throat.
A voice came from the darkness on the upper floor: “I must apologize since I’m afraid you were waiting on me.”
“No problem,” Candy replied mechanically. She turned from the hallway to the stairs, feet painfully slow but heart pounding. The owner of the voice descending one stair at a time into the candlelight.
Christopher Carrion was wearing long black robes—the same kind she had seen on other notable people in the Abarat. But his were trimmed with a cold and gleaming silver and trailed behind him like a shadow. He was extremely tall, so tall that Candy would barely reach his shoulder. On his shoulders sat a glass bowl filled fluid and pale, shapeless things that swam around his neck, coiling up there against his pulse like cats in the sun.
Behind the glass was a face as pale as death, scarred lips and eyes rimmed with deep purple bruises. He had a strange half-smile as if his mouth could not stretch far enough.
“Welcome to my home,” he said. His voice was distant but not muffled by the fluid around his face.
“Thank you,” Candy said. The decision to meet the Lord of Midnight was suddenly real—horribly real, inescapable, definite, irreversible. Candy felt as though her entire future had changed.
“Shall we?” he gestured towards the third door on the left. It was unremarkable, the same as every other door in the hallway. She thought he might open it but Carrion remained at the foot of the stairs. She was forced to step past him and try the handle herself.
She did not have to turn it; the door opened as soon as her fingers brushed it. Candy felt as though she had passed a test she did not understand.
Inside was a receiving room, just as dim and filled with heavy wooden furniture. Candy chose a chair to sit in as Carrion chose the couch. Separated by less than an arm’s length, Candy felt half her size next to him. His hands were large enough that his fingers could wrap around her leg; they were covered by gloves made of a delicate chain mail.
“I got your letters,” she said.
“Yes, of course. I paid quite a lot for those messengers,” Carrion replied. It was almost dismissive. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
He seemed hopeful in a desperate and ghastly way. The letters were full of poetry about stars and destiny, so passionate that Candy could not doubt his intentions. He believed that she could change his world—the fate of the Abarat, the divide between Night and Day. She was overwhelmed, to say the least. In eighteen years of her life no one had ever declared their love for her.
She had considered it, of course, on the long sail between the Carnival Island and the Straights of Dawn. Everyone has told her horrible tales of the Lord of Midnight—his gruesome appearance and cruel nature. Sitting beside him in such an unassuming room, in such a casual conversation, Candy found that her decision was changing.
“They were beautiful,” she said. “But I don’t think I could marry you. I’m sorry—really, I am.”
“Is it that you feel rushed? I admit, the situation is not ideal. But I think that in time, I could show you the hope you have given me, what you have inspired…”
“No, it isn’t that,” Candy said quickly. “I don’t doubt your intentions. But I don’t think I could marry someone I couldn’t even kiss. What kind of marriage would that be?”
“You know my heart,” Carrion replied. He leaned forward and he was so tall that it nearly closed the distance between them. “I would promise you a true marriage, truer than any other. I would devote my life to you.”
Candy still hesitated, her hands resting uneasily in her lap.
“Is it that you have never been kissed?” he asked.
His gloved hands hovered close to hers. She wanted to know if the gloves were really silver—metallic and cold. Was he those things?
“No. I kissed someone once. And it wasn’t all that grand.”
“I could promise,” Carrion said, his eyes dark and earnest, “I could promise that you would never think of it again.”
Candy lifted her hands up so that they were palm to palm. The gloves were heavier than she thought they would be, sharp like steel. She pushed back the sleeve of his robe to his wrist and, carefully tugging each finger free, slid the glove off of his left hand. Carrion simply watched her. It was hard to tell what he was thinking behind the glass.
His hands were unremarkable, besides the fact that they were twice the size of hers. His skin was very pale, but what could she expect from a creature of the night? The gloves were not lined but they left no marks or cuts or bruises, as if he was made of stronger stuff than humans were.
“Okay,” Candy said. She was relieved by how normal it felt, holding hands. “We don’t have much time. But give me one day—show me what it would be like, for one day, and then I will answer you.”
It wasn’t the answer Carrion wanted, that much she could tell. But the hope that she might love him still burned just as bright.
“One day,” he agreed.
Candy smiled weakly. “What did you have in mind?”
He entwined their fingers, gently pulling her towards him as he stood.
“Come with me.”
Carrion led her out of the receiving room and back to the hallway, which twisted and turned the further they went. Candy was glad she hadn’t tried to explore on her own. The Dead Man’s house was a maze of doors. Carrion seemed to know where he was going, though—he turned sharply to the left and stopped. There was a set of double doors, as black as the night sky, formless and flat. He waved his right hand, the left still holding on to Candy’s, and they opened.
“You have magic,” he said. “But you don’t know how to use it.”
The room was impenetrably dark, but as soon as Carrion’s foot crossed the threshold the candles lit. It was a library, the largest library Candy had ever seen. She suspected that the entire Chickentown Primary School would have fit inside it. Volumes lines the walls, twenty feet high, and cases filled with strange and magical objects filled the floor.
“The Carrion family has the largest magical library in the Abarat. I could teach you—the others, your friends, they refused didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Candy said, captivated by a thousand years of knowledge around her.
“Magic as powerful as yours is dangerous. But I could show you how to use it. To control it. You could shape the world around you—you could end the war and unite Night with Day.”
Their hands were still joined and Carrion’s skin was still cool to the touch.
“I don’t even know why or why I ended up in this place.”
“There are no accidents. You are supposed to be here. Just as we were supposed to meet.”
Candy ran her fingers along the edge of the nearest glass cabinet. There were a series of metal objects inside—cubes that could clearly unfold into hundreds of puzzle pieces. She wondered if that was how the house worked too.
“What kind of magic could I do?”
“There are two types—conjuring and altering,” Carrion explained. “When you create a glyph, for example, you use words to conjure a new physical shape. But you can also alter things that already exist.”
“An illusion?” Candy asked.
“Not quite. May I?”
Carrion lifted his gloved hand and paused until Candy nodded. Then he drew a series of shapes—letters Candy did not know. He was going slowly so that she could watch, but she got the impression that he normally did such things wordlessly.
“Neiventalianium,” he said.
There was a strange sensation like a static charge, but it was painless. Candy did not feel as though anything was different until she looked down. Her plain clothes had been transformed into a beautiful dress; it was black but it glowed cool and clear like moonlight, pooling on the floor around her feet. When she touched it, the fabric slid between her fingers as real as her shirt had been. It draped high across her shoulders but low across her back.
“There. Now you look like a Queen of the Night,” Carrion said.
“What did you do?”
“I changed the clothes you already had. It is reversible,” he added, as though she looked concerned. But Candy was still in awe—of the library, of the magic, of the entire absurd situation.
As she moved the sleeves of her dress fell backward, exposing her forearms. Carrion’s hand moved tentatively to the inside of her wrist, to the inside of her elbow, as if he worried she might break.
“Altering enchantments can serve other purposes,” he said. “They can enhance a touch or sensation. Would you like to try?”
“Yes,” Candy replied. He made a similar series of runes, but not as slowly as before.
“You have to repeat the spell,” he told her. “Sierasescarcium.”
“Sierasescarcium,” she said. It was a perfect imitation and Candy felt a small rush of pride, but also of the same static charge. It coated her skin in a low hum.
Carrion stepped forward and gripped her shoulder, using his bare hand to trace a long line down her spine. It felt like his fingertips were ice cold and red hot at the same time and Candy gasped as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Carrion stopped, still close to her.
“Do that again,” Candy said. He did and it felt just as intense. “Give me your other hand.”
He obeyed her and Candy slid off the glove. She laid it carefully on the glass case with the puzzle cubes. He did not touch her so lightly again—instead he rested on palm just below her ribs and slid the other up to her shoulder. He stopped short of touching the dress.
Candy did not want him to stop, so she pushed the dress down. It was thin and fluid and she held the front up to her chest while the shoulder seams slid down to her elbows. She hardly felt exposed, though she was half naked and standing in a library full of curiosities.
She, herself, was a curiosity. So was Christopher Carrion.
The enchantment made everything feel so much more. There was nothing Candy could compare the sensation to, no moment in her life that had ever come close.
Carrion ran his fingertips up her neck, behind her ear, and then down again to her collarbone. He brushed the tops of her shoulders and along her sides, just as much as the dress revealed.
“How long does the spell last?” she asked.
“An hour or so.”
“An hour,” Candy repeated. “That’s a long time.”
He went further, down to her hip.
“We could have an eternity,” he said.
Candy felt something snap. She had made a decision when she stepped inside the house, when she followed him into the library. She made another decision to let the dress fall. It poured off of her, collecting over her feet. She looked back at him, over her shoulder. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip and she pressed a kiss onto his fingers.
“This is your chance to convince me,” she said, her breath fanning on his skin.
Carrion did not need to be told twice. His grip tightened, his hand stretching over her hipbone and down to her thigh. He wrapped his fingers around her throat and dragged them down, past her collarbone, over her breasts. It felt unbearably good.
Candy leaned forward against one of the glass cabinets—cool and smooth, nothingness—as Carrion pushed her thighs apart. The first touch was soft, tentative. He traced the curve of her leg with purposeful slowness. She made a low, murmuring noise when he finally slid his fingers between her legs.
He was so close that his robes brushed her skin, holding her still as he slipped one finger inside of her. Candy wanted to scream so badly that she bit down on her lip. His hands were so cold that she could feel everything a thousand times over. She could imagine his strange half smile when she let out a moan. The sensation was almost too intense and she had to brace her elbows on the glass cabinet underneath her.
She rolled her hips against his hand and he added a second finger, keeping up a deliberate rhythm. Candy felt her body begin to tense, her stomach begin to coil.
“Scream,” Carrion said, raking his other hand across her stomach. He pushed her onto the cabinet, grabbing her breast and then her throat again as she writhed underneath him. Candy did when finally came; she screamed louder than she ever had before.
The high lasted for longer than it usually did. Carrion kept going, letting her ride it out. When it was over Candy was breathless and collapsed against the glass. Carrion made lazy circles on her back, still sparking although the spell was beginning to fade.
“What do I call you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone calls you the Lord of Midnight. Or sometimes Christopher Carrion. But you call me just Candy. Should I call you just Christopher?”
“No one has ever called me Christopher.”
“So, I should then,” Candy said. She pushed herself up and rolled over to face him. The dress was still tangled around her ankles.
“If you would like.”
He was staring at her so intently Candy wondered if something was wrong.
“Your eyes are two different colours,” he said. She smiled; one was brown and one was blue. They had always been that way. She almost touched the glass around his face but hesitated. The fluid inside was a silvery green, different from before.
He pulled away from her and Candy suddenly felt exposed. She slid the dress back up as he stepped away. Had she done something wrong?
“Tell me, are you as repulsed by my appearance now?” Carrion asked. He performed another spell, too quickly for her to catch, wordlessly. The glass bowl rose above his head, the pale forms inside vibrating, and it shrank to the size of a marble. It rotated across his head, down to the back of his neck, where it sank into his skin.
Candy gaped at him. “You—that was only magic?”
“A conjuration,” he said stiffly. “And as all things, it can be undone. How would I sleep?”
“You just didn’t want to kiss me!”
Carrion looked surprised. He was not as gruesome as everyone had told her—pallid and glowering, but not monstrous. His lips were scarred as if they had been sewn shut. But he looked as human as anyone else.
“You did not want to be subjected to my face. The marks that this life has left on me. My grandmother promised to undo them, once,” he grimaced at the memory.
“No,” Candy said. On her tip-toes she could reach far enough to put her hand on his cheek. His skin was dry, as if the glass bowl had never been there. His eyes were dark, endlessly dark. “Don’t do that.”
She grabbed the glass cabinet—which was at least three feet tall—and jumped onto it. Sitting up on her knees she was almost tall enough to look him in the eye. And Candy kissed him just as the enchantment was undone, so that it was just warm and pleasant and not at all what she imagined.
“Christopher,” she said. They were nearly nose to nose. She could feel him breathing. “I like the sound of that.”