The Color of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “You can’t walk the ground in Chromos. No earthly creature can. Your mind would eat itself up. Content yourself with your eyes, for now.”
    Beside the house there was a brick well with a metal bucket hanging on a chain. As they drew closer, Cath saw a dark patch of shadow spread over the ground next to the well, a thin layer of powdery gray fog clinging like mist to its surface.
    The longer she looked at the patch, the heavier her stomach grew, until she felt as if she’d eaten a bagful of cold fries. Wisps of smeary smoke drifted up and collected in small whirlwinds above it.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIt’s a path,” said Zadoc. “It links Chromos to the current owners of this house, wherever they are on earth.”
    â€œWhat? But you said this is just my dream, didn’t you? I made it up.”
    â€œOh no,” Zadoc assured her. “What you see in Chromos is no mere dream. Many things here do indeed exist on earth. There is even a creature that makes a trade of mixing Chromos and earth, and it is he who is responsible for that path. Sammael, they call him, the Master of the Air. His business is none of ours, but thanks to his work, if you jumped down into that patch, you’d land on earth right next to this house. Or your mangled corpse would, anyway. Probably your brains would have exploded out of your ears on the way down, but most of you would get there.”
    â€œWhat if you take me?” asked Cath, letting herself feel hopeful for a second.
    â€œOh no,” said Zadoc. “My colors would get all jumbled up and I’d die. Not immediately, but soon enough.”
    Cath didn’t see how the house could possibly be real if she couldn’t go to it. Zadoc was lying to her—this was something she was imagining, and very soon she would have to stop it and go back to the Sawtry, which did exist, and was where she really belonged.
    At once the plain lost its greenness and darkened into khaki, and then dusty violet. The sky became streaked with yellow, and black clouds swam up from the horizon.
    â€œDon’t,” said Zadoc. “Don’t compare it to what you’re used to seeing. Don’t call that reality. This is reality, right now…”
    But suddenly Zadoc’s hooves were clattering against pavement. He stumbled on a sharp stone and began to run away in pain, tripping and falling over his own feet, galloping faster and faster.
    â€œNo…” Cath tried to say. “Barshin, don’t let him … Make him stop … I want to stay…”
    Barshin had his eyes closed and his head pushed into Cath’s armpit, and she had to cling to Zadoc again to keep on his back, his wide, lumpy ribs rolling from side to side, bouncing her painfully on his spine. Her head snapped up and down so hard she thought her neck would break, and then they were falling through endless space.
    *   *   *
    Zadoc came to a sudden halt, and Cath pitched over his shoulders, and then she was standing on the old railway line in a clearer part of the thicket, holding a hot, struggling Barshin in her arms. The hare’s legs kicked against her until she dropped him, then he leapt high into the air and jackknifed twice before settling back onto the ground. His entire body was shaking.
    â€œOh—oh dear,” he stammered. “Oh dear, I’d forgotten—I’d forgotten—quite how blinding that place can be.”
    â€œWhere’s Dad?” said Cath. “Is he still here?”
    Now that her feet were on the ground, her legs felt as if they’d been drained of their blood. She scanned the edge of the bank, but Dad wasn’t standing there, and neither was Elvis the dog. How much time had passed in that place? Was it really long enough for Dad to have given up and gone home?
    â€œI’ve got to go there again,” said Cath. “I’ve got to go back. What was that