“I don’t know what the hell—or who the hell—has got into you, but you are not my husband . . .”

“What’s happening?” Ricky said, with an edge of panic in his voice.

Bill pointed at Candy.

“You’re the reason this town has lost its way. Lost its mind. You brought freaks onto our streets so they can gain a hold on our world.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Candy said. “Whoever is still here was just left behind when the waters receded. I’m sure they all want to go home.”

“Home? Oh no. These deviants are never leaving this town. Except in coffins.”

“What?”

“How much plainer do I need to be? We are fighting a war against these invaders. My foot soldiers are ordinary men and women, who come to worship at my church, and have heard me speak. They’ve seen these freaks with their own eyes. They know they exist. Demons, from the bowels of hell!”

“No, Dad, they’re just lost people who want to get back home to the Abarat. Let me go back there and talk to the Council. They’ll find some way to peacefully get all the folks who were left behind out of your town without blood being spilled.”

“Did you hear her, Ricky? Folks, she called these demons. As though they were the most natural things in the world.”

“Yes, sir. I heard.”

“What’s to be done, Ricky? She’s your sister. If you tell me to be merciful, I will be. But be very certain. I don’t want to turn my back on her and find she’s using her magic against us. Just look at her. There’s nothing natural about her.”

“Why are you so interested in magic all of the sudden?” Candy said to her father. “You would’ve said anyone talking about that was crazy.”

“That was before I found my vest of many colors.” He ran his palm over the garment, and it responded to his touch. A ripple of pleasure ran through it, causing its designs to intensify.

“Hats!” Candy said, suddenly remembering where she’d seen all the pieces of the patchwork before. “It was five beaten-up hats.”

Bill’s expression was glacial.

“Clever,” he said.

“I knew the person who owned them, Dad. Now he was bad. He murdered the people who owned those hats just so he could have them for himself.”

“Disgusting. You’re making all this up as you go along. Just like your mother. Lies, lies, and more lies. That’s all you women are capable of.”

“I swear,” Candy said. “That’s why he’s talking all weird, Mom. He’s got a little bit of Kaspar Wolfswinkel in him, because that was where his power was. In the hats he stole from the dead.”

“You’re not frightening me, if that’s what you’re trying to do,” Bill said. “Your sorcery won’t work on me. I think we should take her to the church, Ricky.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t need your religion, thank you,” Candy said.

“You’re not getting any. You see, I’ve been having visions. Imagine that. Your drunken lump of a father, who everyone laughed at behind his back—”

“I never laughed, Dad. It was sad.”

“Shut your mouth! I don’t need your pity! I’ve built a machine.” He tapped the middle of his forehead. “It came from a vision. And I couldn’t understand what it was for. But now I know. It all fits.”

“Bill!” Melissa broke in. “Maybe we should listen to her.”

“No. A greater voice speaks to me. And I listen to it.” He paused, and for a moment closed his eyes. “Even now, it speaks. It’s telling me what it needs.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Candy said.

Bill’s eyes opened in an instant.

“You.”

Part Four

The Dawning of the Dark

No need to fear the beast

That comes alone to your door,

For loneliness will be its undoing

Nor need you fear those beasts

That hunt in packs.

They will die when divided from their clan.

Fear only the one

That does not come at all.

It is already here, standing in your shoes.

Chapter 26

The Church of the Children of Eden

“CANDY? WE’RE ALMOST THERE.”

Even though Candy had told Malingo not to wake her, she surely couldn’t have meant him to leave her sleeping once they’d arrived. Still, he’d learned to be delicate when he was rousing her from sleep.

There was no great urgency. The ferry had only just sailed into Tazmagor Harbor. It would be several minutes before they docked. Even so, there was an unease among the passengers that was nothing to do with their arrival. Their voices were shrill, their laughter forced. Malingo knew why. There was a mysterious sense of foreboding in the air. Something was coming: something that wasn’t welcome. He had no more idea of the approaching something than the passengers who hurried past him. But it wasn’t good. His stomach was tied in knots, and there was an itch behind his eyes that he first remembered feeling the day his father took him to be sold. He did his best to put the itch and the unease out of his mind so as to concentrate on waking Candy. He put his hand on hers, and shook her gently.

“Come on, Candy. Time to wake up.” There was no response. He shook her again. “Come on,” he said, leaning toward her now. “You’ll have to finish this dream another time. Wake up.”

“I’m just dreaming this,” Candy reminded her father. “I don’t have to listen to you. I can wake up at any time.”

“Well you’d better not, because if you do”—he pointed to Melissa—“she is going to be the one who suffers.”

“Stop it, Bill,” Melissa said.

“Why? Because you think I don’t mean it? I mean it. Ask your daughter.”

“There’s stuff in his head right now he can’t control, Mom,” Candy said. “Somebody stronger might have fought against it. Dad just didn’t want to.”

“You’re going to regret that,” he said.

“Candy? What’s wrong?” Malingo asked her.

The expression on Candy’s sleeping face was no longer calm. A frown furrowed her brow, and the corners of her mouth were turned down.

“You’re starting to scare me,” Malingo said. “Why won’t you wake up? Can you even hear me?”

Did she nod her head? If she did it, was the tiniest of motions.

“Oh, Lordy Lou. What is going on? Please wake up.”

Now it seemed she shook her head, though the motion was as subtle as her nod. So subtle he wasn’t sure she’d moved her head at all.

“Is it that you don’t want to wake up right now?”

And again she nodded. Or at least he thought she did.

“All right . . .” Malingo said, doing his best to sound calm. “If you want to stay asleep, I guess that’s okay. There’s not much I can do about it anyway. You just keep dreaming. I’ll deal with things on this end.”

There was neither a nod nor a shake by way of response. Her face simply became more intensely troubled.

It was strange to be walking the streets of Chickentown again, even stranger to be walking them at her father’s side—though of course she was invisible to everyone but him—and to see people’s responses to him and how his reputation had changed in the time she’d been away. A few people were openly afraid of him. They either crossed over the street to avoid him or hurriedly ducked into stores. But others, seeing him coming, made sure to pay him their respects. Some simply nodded or offered a quick “good afternoon.” But not one of them was able to entirely conceal the unease they felt in his presence. A few of them actually called him Reverend, which Candy knew she’d never get used to. Reverend! Her father, the brutal alcoholic who beat his wife and children: Reverend! Her mother had been right: things had certainly changed in Chickentown.

Once they were off Main Street and there weren’t so many people to see him apparently talking to himself, he said to Candy, “Did you see how much respect I get?”

“Yes, I saw.”

“Surprised you, didn’t it? Didn’t it?”