There was a lot of panicked shouting and cries for help. There were some voices too, that did not express such terror and confusion. They did not shout, they sang: a great multitude of voices rising together to sing in Old Abaratian. It mattered not at all that Candy couldn’t make any sense of the words. The majestic calm in the tune reassured Candy the way her favorite Christmas carol, “Silent Night,” reassured her. She wondered if they knew the story of love being born in a stable, with shepherds and kings, and a bright star, high above, to mark the place, and for a moment, she wasn’t on a boat drifting on an alien sea as a living darkness eclipsed the moon. For a moment, she was back on Followell Street, on a night long gone, before she’d come to fear the stink of beer on her father’s breath.

“The moon’s almost gone,” Malingo said, monotone.

“You don’t sound very bothered about it,” Candy said.

“Well, what can I do about it? It’s a big cloud, and I’m a geshrat with a fish-gutting knife I got from a stowaway, which I wouldn’t know how to use properly anyway. I should give it back to him.”

“No,” Candy said very firmly. “You hang on to that. You might need it one of these days.”

“One of these days? There aren’t going to be any more days.”

“Oh, there will be,” said John Mischief. He’d climbed up to share the view. “Clouds come. Clouds go. It’s the way clouds are. You can’t rely on them. They’re too . . .”

“Flighty?” John Moot suggested.

“The very word!” Slop said.

“It’s not that simple. This isn’t an ordinary cloud. It can’t be blown apart by a gust of wind. It’s a living thing,” she protested.

“How come you know all these things?”

“Because she’s becoming a shaman,” said John Drowze.

As Candy drew breath to remark that she didn’t much like being talked about as if she wasn’t there, she heard somebody call her name. A woman’s voice. For a moment, she panicked. Boa? No. It couldn’t be. She glanced around, looking for the person who’d spoken. The brothers, meanwhile, continued to discuss Candy’s shamanic potential as though she wasn’t even there, and the tempers on both sides of the argument were becoming ragged.

“If she’s a shaman,” said Slop, “then I’m an only child.”

“He’s right,” said Fillet. “The girl’s half crazy—”

“Only half?” said Sallow.

“You underestimate her,” John Mischief said. “Yes, she’s a little unpredictable, but that’s what we need if the Abarat’s to survive.”

“She knows more than’s good for her—”

“More than she knows she knows—”

Candy? Come here.

Meanwhile, the debate raged on.

“Fillet’s right!”

“She’s a sweet girl—”

“But all that power—”

“She can’t deal with it—”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

Pay no attention to their babble, Candy, the voice said.

You’re not Boa, are you? she asked, knowing she only had to form the thought for it to be heard.

No.

Lordy Lou . . .

Please. We have very little time, Candy. You’re going to have to step away from them for a minute or two.

Step away? Are you kidding? Candy replied. I’m on a boat.

We know, another said. We can see you.

When the second voice spoke, Candy knew who she was talking to. She scanned the water looking for some sign of the women of the Fantomaya.

Leave your chatty friends on the boat. Come and talk to us.

Where are you?

Fourteen paces off the stern. Come to us, Candy. Quickly. Mater Motley’s seamstresses are after us. They’re riding fever wheels, and they’re moving fast.

What’s a fever wheel?

If you see one you’ll know and if you don’t then you’re blessed not to have the sight in your head.

Now that Candy knew where to look, she saw Joephi and Mespa. They appeared to be simply standing on the swell, illuminated by a light in the water that surged and then waned again in rhythm with the waves. Even at this distance Candy could see that the journey had taken a considerable toll on them. Their robes were dirty and tattered, and their faces and arms bloodied.

Come on, Joephi said, beckoning to Candy.

I can’t walk on water.

Yes, you can, Mespa said. Have faith in yourself.

I’m going to sink.

Faith. Hurry!

She turned back toward Malingo and the John Brothers.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to them.

Then she climbed down the ladder. Legitimate Eddie was staring up at the bizarre bonfire blazing on top of The Great Head.

“There’s one of them up there,” he said.

“One who?”

“One of the eight. Gan Nug!”

He pointed and Candy looked up at the Head to see that there was indeed a tall creature there, his stylish clothes, high-coiffed hair and reptilian wings garishly lit by the pyre he tended.

“Any idea what he’s doing?” Candy asked him, keeping up the same casual tone as she clambered over the side of the boat.

“Calling something up, I dare say,” Eddie replied. “From the depths.”

“Wait! Wait!” Gazza said. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

She looked up at him. The light from the swaying lanterns made his face seem to shift, the only steady thing his immense gold eyes.

“There’s some friends of mine I need to talk to.”

Gazza looked out across the Izabella.

“Are those women walking on water?”

“Lordy Lou, you ask a lot of questions. Yes.”

“Witches?”

“I suppose so.”

“You’re one as well, are you?”

“Not really. I’m learning, but—”

Are you coming, Joephi said, or are you just going to flirt with the boy?

“They say you’re a boy.”

“The witch women?”

“Yes.”

“If you want to talk to Candy,” he hollered, his voice echoing off The Great Head, “then come to the boat!”

Come, Candy. Or if the boy has your heart, don’t. Just make up your mind.

“I’m coming,” she murmured, and set her foot on the water.

She tested her weight on the frothy water. The news wasn’t good.

My foot’s sinking!

“You’re going to drown!” Gazza yelled. “Get back up here.”

Are you barefoot? Mespa asked.

No, you didn’t say anything about—

Isn’t it obvious? It’s you who’s walking on water, not the shoes.

All right! No shoes.

She headed back to Gazza.

“Hold my hand.”

“Finally, some common sense!” he said.

“Don’t get excited. I’m just taking my shoes off. Keep hold.”

“I’m not letting go.”

“Oy. They bicker like man and wife,” said Eddie.

“All right. I’ve just . . . got to . . . got to get . . .”

The sentence came out in fragments as she struggled to get the shoes off her feet, attempting not to lose them as she did so. She liked the shoes. They were Abaratian: iridescent blue, with little animals performing on them in a shoe sky circus. But it was an awkward maneuver to reach over Gazza’s arm to get her fingers under her shoe to keep from—

Her left shoe slipped off and dropped into the water with a palliative plop. It sank instantly. The other shoe came off more easily, and for a few seconds, the last gleam of the smothered moon caught the animals prancing upon that perfect blue that no sky had ever been. She tossed it on deck.

“There,” she said to Gazza. “I’m ready.”

Then get on with it, Mespa said.

Candy let go of Gazza’s hand and walked back to the ladder, despite his protests. She set a naked foot, the left, down in the water. No, not in the water, on it. The surface wasn’t entirely solid, but certainly enough to support her. She glanced up. Malingo was looking down at her.

“Tell me you’re not going to walk!”

“Well . . . I’m a horrible swimmer,” Candy said, “so . . . yes!”

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Gazza said.

She suddenly felt the water that had supported her foot softening.

Don’t listen to doubt, Candy, Joephi said. All great things come of paradox.