The five brave souls who’d seized hold of Candy changed their minds, and let go of her. Only one, the father of Deborah Hackbarth (Candy’s one-time friend and, later, school-ground nemesis), stepped in to do what the others had declined to do. At school, his daughter had always boasted about her noble origins; hence, she said, her delicate bones and perfect manners. To the extent she had such qualities at all, they did not derive from her father, who was a fat-bellied thing of a man, who took no little pleasure in squeezing Candy’s arm to achieve the maximum discomfort.

Candy felt a rush of wind against her face and a welcome voice said: “Let go of the girl this instant.”

Candy looked toward the front door, whence the voice had come. It was still closed. But Diamanda and Henry Murkitt had passed through it, and were standing inside the church.

“I said, let go of her,” Diamanda said. “Don’t make me force you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Deborah’s father laughed.

“As you wish.”

She started to whisper something, the words she was speaking forming an agitated cloud in front of her face, which with a tiny flick of her forefinger she dispatched toward Hackbarth. The words were upon him in an instant, circling his head. He tried to swat them away with his free hand, but that didn’t work, and they quickly began to sting him, resulting in a burst of obscene language from Hackbarth. He let go of Candy in order to employ both his hands to ward off the attack.

“You can wake up now!” Diamanda insisted.

“What about my mom? I can’t leave—”

“I’ll take care of her. Get back to the Abarat! Now! They need you there.”

Candy began the process of waking herself. She heard Diamanda speak again.

“Defend them, child! You’re the only one who has a hope of stopping it.”

“Stopping what?” she muttered.

“The war, child! The war between Night and—”

Candy opened her eyes, as the last syllable Diamanda uttered “—Day!” fell away into the no-man’s-land between sleeping and waking. She looked up and saw her friends, Malingo, the Johns, Geneva, and Tom.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m back.”

Chapter 33

No Stranger Now

EVERYONE HAD QUESTIONS, OF course. Where had Candy been in her dream travels? And who (or what) had she encountered on her journey that had caused her to struggle so desperately while she slept?

“It’s complicated,” Candy told them all. “And I’m hungry. Could we go find some food and I’ll tell you while we eat?”

There was no disagreement on that. Everybody was hungry.

“Let me and the boys lead the way,” Mischief said. “We’ll find somewhere to eat. Eight pairs of eyes are better than one.”

So saying, he and his brothers headed down the gangplank and onto the dock, leaving the others to follow at a more leisurely pace. As she walked Candy was struck by the peculiar hush that lay upon the harbor. Though it was far from deserted—there were people working on board the fishing boats that were moored along the quay, and the streets that led up into the town were busy—everyone was talking very quietly. There was no shouting or cursing from the fishermen, nor laughter and chatter among the women in the market. Even the large Abaratian seagulls, which were usually even more raucous than their brethren in the Hereafter, were not making their usual demands. In fact all but those few too ancient to fly were in the harbor. The rest had gone; the only sign of their numbers was the white droppings all along the seawall where they’d perched.

Candy surreptitiously snagged Malingo’s arm.

“There’s something wrong here, isn’t there?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said quietly. “But what?”

In search of an answer Candy scanned the streets of the town, which was built on the flank of a steep hill, its whitewashed houses neatly arrayed on its zigzagging streets. Many of their windows were shuttered and their drapes drawn. Clearly, a lot of the residents in the town had no desire to even look outside, much less step.

“Oh, Lordy Lou,” Malingo murmured.

“What?”

She glanced at Malingo. He was staring at the sky. She did the same.

There was a wind blowing up there, carrying before it, in a northerly direction, a great flotilla of clouds. It wasn’t the clouds, however, that had caught Malingo’s eye. It was the birds that were flying through them. A mass migration was underway, not just of the seabirds that had vacated the harbor, but of hundreds of species—no thousands—many of which challenged the very definition of a bird. There was a flock of what looked to be winged boars, and several flights of feathered dragonflies. Their size was hard to gauge, but if the boars were the size of pigs, the dragonflies were the size of seagulls. The giants of this chaotic flock, however—creatures as big as airships, and kept aloft by the same bloated bodies, but trailed streams of flickering tentacles, like the tails of countless kites intertwined with quarter-mile strings of Christmas tree lights.

“So many,” Geneva said, amazed. Then, more darkly, “But where are they all going?”

“Have you seen anything like this before?” Candy asked.

“No, nothing,” Malingo said. “Even as a kid.”

“Me neither.”

There were shaken heads from everyone.

“There’s plenty of eating places along the harbor front,” Mischief and his brothers had already returned to report.

“It’s mostly fish,” said John Slop.

“It’s all fish,” said John Fillet.

“There’s crab,” said John Moot, “and squidling.”

“It’s still fish,” countered John Fillet.

“A crab isn’t a fish,” John Drowze said.

“Let’s just eat,” said Tom.

Candy looked at Malingo. The massive migration of birds had passed out of sight. With their disappearance there wasn’t much else to discuss.

“Agreed,” Candy said.

They wandered along the small cafйs and restaurants along the harbor front, consulting the menus on view outside. But their harassed proprietors quickly appeared to offer them some bad news. Tonight’s dining would be delayed. It had yet to be filleted, battered and fried because it had yet to arrive. Everyone tried to make the delay sound quite inconsequential, a common occurrence. But they didn’t fool Candy.

“Where were they fishing?” she asked one of the cafй owners.

“To the west,” the owner replied, “in the straits between Gnomon and Gorgossium.”

West, Candy thought. The direction from which the birds were flying. What was going on? Something out of Gorgossium, more likely than not.

With all the premises along the harbor front proving useless, they decided to head up into the town in search of other sources of sustenance. The cobbled streets were steep, and the climb was hard work. But the reward was the sound of laughter, mainly where children were playing. Busy though the market street was, it was hard to miss the sight of the green-skinned man with piercing eyes towering over the crowd. It was an odd sight, considering the green man was shorter than he was green.

“Well, look who’s here,” Candy said with a smile. “Legitimate Eddie!”

“Where?” said Malingo.

“Straight ahead. And he’s standing on Betty Thunder’s shoulders.”

“Eddie and Betty?” said Two-Toed Tom. “Are you making this up?”

“They’re actors,” said Malingo. “They put on a play about us once. It was very funny.”

“I don’t see anyone,” said John Mischief, who was the shortest of his brothers.

Tom peered ahead and nodded.

“I see them. Oh, look at that. She looks so glamorous. All those sequins. All those muscles.”

They emerged from within the crowd and everyone could now see that they were accompanied by their playwright friend, a five-foot ape named Clyde, who was waving.

“Well, well, well,” said Legitimate Eddie. “If it isn’t Qwandy Tootinfruit and her friend Jingo.”