Absolute Midnight

Absolute Midnight
Clive Barker

A dazzling fantasy adventure for all ages, the third part of a quartet appearing at two yearly intervals, richly illustrated by the author.The Abarat:a magical otherworld composed on an archipelago of twenty-five islands – one for each hour of the day, plus an island out of time.Candy Quackenbush, escaping her dull, dull life from the most boring place in our world, Chickentown, USA, finds that in the Abarat she has another existence entirely, one which links her to marvels and mysteries; and even to murder…In this, the third volume in Clive Barker's extraordinary fantasy for both adults and children, Candy's adventures in the amazing world of the Abarat are getting more strange by the Hour. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has sent his henchmen to capture her. Why? she wonders. What would Carrion want with a girl from Minnesota? And why is Candy beginning to feel that the world of the Abarat is familiar to her? Why can she speak words of magic she doesn't even remember learning?There is a mystery here. And Carrion, along with his fiendish grandmother, Mater Motley, suspects that whatever Candy is, she could spoil his plans to take control of the Abarat.Now Candy's companions must race against time to save her from the clutches of Carrion, and she must solve the mystery of her past before the forces of Night and Day clash and Absolute Midnight descends upon the islands.A final war is about to begin. And Candy is going to need to make some choices that will change her life forever…

Abarat: Absolute Midnight

Clive Barker

Dedication (#u1ca9fb81-c285-563e-86ac-6667464e1734)

Johnny 2.0 Raymond

Mark Miller

Robbie Humphreys

Epigraph (#u1ca9fb81-c285-563e-86ac-6667464e1734)

There’ll be no sun tomorrow morning.

There’ll be no moon to bless the night.

The stars will perish without warning.

These lines proclaim the death of light.

Contents

Cover

Title Page (#u8137ec82-3d83-54dc-adce-948d282d011e)

Dedication (#u1e998641-512a-54b4-8265-bff51bc4bb94)

Epigraph

Prologue: What the Blind Man Saw

Part One: The Dark Hours

Chapter 1. Toward Twilight

Chapter 2. The Council Speaks its Minds

Chapter 3. The Wisdom of the Mob

Chapter 4. The Kid

Chapter 5. Remnants of Wickedness

Chapter 6. Under Jibarish

Chapter 7. The Sorrows of the Bad Son

Chapter 8. Laguna Munn

Part Two: You, or Not I

Chapter 9. A New Tyranny

Chapter 10. The Sorrows of the Good Son

Chapter 11. Severance

Chapter 12. One Becomes Two

Chapter 13. Boa

Chapter 14. Empty

Chapter 15. Face-to-Face

Chapter 16. Laguna Munn Angered

Chapter 17. Snake Talk

Chapter 18. An EndGame

Chapter 19. The Price of Freedom

Part Three: Many Magics

Chapter 20. Tomorrow, Today

Chapter 21. Boa at Midnight

Chapter 22. Turning Away

Chapter 23. Cold Life

Chapter 24. At the Preacher’s House

Chapter 25. No More Lies

Part Four: The Dawning of the Dark

Chapter 26. The Church of the Children of Eden

Chapter 27. Interrogation