Still shaken by the death of his older sister, 14-year-old Jeremy Gardela is sent on a mission by his panicked aunt, to find a family secret she believes is buried in the dark forests which surround their small rural town. When Jeremy returns, he is leading a mysterious stranger who represents a vein of magic that has run for decades within the Gardela family. Within This Darkness is a deeply felt story about loss and friendship, and finding something, or someone, to hold onto, when you’re drifting helplessly into the night.
Still shaken by the death of his older sister, 14-year-old Jeremy Gardela is sent on a mission by his panicked aunt, to find a family secret she believes is buried in the dark forests which surround their small rural town. When Jeremy returns, he is leading a mysterious stranger who represents a vein of magic that has run for decades within the Gardela family. Within This Darkness is a deeply felt story about loss and friendship, and finding something, or someone, to hold onto, when you’re drifting helplessly into the night.
Prologue
Douro, Ontario, Canada
Summer 1915
Katryn and her sisters moved silently along the narrow dirt road in the midnight forest. At times, the moon was bright enough to illuminate the road beneath their feet, and the walls of dark spruce and pine trees beside them, but when clouds drifted past and shrouded the moon, the forest was nothing but darkness, and silence.
Katryn’s footsteps slowed when the trees ahead began to glow with a dull light. As the road curved slightly, and met the open space of the compound, she reached her hand out in warning. “Stop,” she whispered. Following behind their older sister, Eva and Dorota paused, and the three of them gazed for a few moments at the high fence, the small cluster of buildings, and the dim lights shining weakly in the darkness.
“Come.”
Katryn stepped from the dirt road into the wall of trees. They pushed through the branches and needles to the edge of the clearing, where they could kneel and gaze at the compound unobserved. Seconds passed. Minutes. Finally, a soldier appeared from their far right, walking along the interior of the fence. He paused at the gate, hooked his fingers into the fencing and gave a tug. Finding it locked and secure, he continued on, disappearing off to the girls’ left.
Silence.
Katryn closed her eyes, and a moment later, when she reopened them, she was inside the fence. She stepped quickly to the wall of the closest building, and paused for a moment, catching her breath. She crept along the side of the building to peer around the corner. Finding it clear, she continued circling the building, disappearing from Eva and Dorota’s view as they watched from the forest. A moment later she was beside them again, kneeling beneath the boughs of the trees.
“Three buildings,” she whispered. “Just the one soldier walking the grounds. The others must be asleep.”
“Could you tell where they are keeping Agata?” Eva asked.
Katryn shook her head. “There’s no way to know. We will have to check each building.”
Eva, at 17, was the second oldest. She gazed through the fence at the three dimly lit buildings. “Shall we pass through, and meet where you appeared, near the closest building?”
Katryn nodded. “We should search each building together. And try to remain unseen. If we’re noticed, and the camp awakes, we may have no choice except to flee without Agata.”
“I’m finding Agata,” Eva muttered, her voice tense.
“Remain unseen, Eva,” Katryn said, staring at her younger sister through the darkness. “This becomes impossible if we have to fight off the entire camp.”
Eva remained silent, staring through the trees and through the fence, at the small army camp. In one of those buildings, their sister lay asleep.
Katryn turned to her other sister. “Dorota?”
“I’m ready,” Dorota answered softly. She was the youngest of the three of them, but older than Magda, who, at the age of ten, had been left behind in Toronto.
“The nearest building then.”
The three sisters closed their eyes and imagined themselves standing beside the nearest building inside the fence. When they opened their eyes again, that is where they were - a quick use of concentration and imagination, and the talents that ran in their family, allowing them to move magically from one place to another.
“How should we do this?” Eva whispered, turning to stare at the wall. Her mind was racing, wondering, thinking of possibilities.
“I saw windows on the other walls, but they’re shuttered, and dark.” Katryn touched her fingers to the wooden planks of the building. “We could create a hole in the wall, to look through, but with the interior dark, we won’t be able to see anything.”
“Does that mean going inside?” Dorota asked.
Katryn nodded. “I think so. Come. The door is on this side.”
They crept around the building, finding the steps that led up to the door. Eva tried the handle, but finding it locked, she glanced at her older sister, who nodded, and Eva quietly imagined the door ajar on its hinges, and when she opened her eyes again, so it was.
A one room collection of 10 to 12 cots, a few desks, chairs. The breathing and mutterings of several men asleep. The sisters backed out, closing the door behind them.
The next closest building was the smallest, with another set of steps leading up to the doorway. The three buildings were aligned in such a way as to create something of an interior courtyard between them, with each doorway facing the courtyard. Again, the door was locked, and again Eva imagined the door ajar, and they entered.
Candlelight. A figure upon a bed. A soldier reading in a chair, peering through the dim light at the book in his hand. Another soldier seated, but not even attempting to stay awake, his head tilted back as he snored.
The soldier who’d been reading was aged, weathered. He didn’t speak when he looked up from his book and saw three young girls standing before him. He merely dropped his book and grabbed his rifle, leaning against the end-table that held the few burning candles. He stepped quickly across the room, and aimed the butt of his rifle at Eva, closest to him. Eva fended the blow off with her hands, but the movement of their bodies allowed him to swing upwards now, catching Dorota under the chin, and knocking her off her feet. Dorota stumbled, and with the door which they had just entered still open behind her, she toppled backwards, falling down the stairs.
Katryn spun and placed her hands on the man’s back, which was turned towards her as he watched Dorota fall. She pushed him heavily through the door, where he tripped, and fell past Dorota lying at the bottom of the steps. Katryn raced down the stairs and picked up her sister, now barely conscious, and gripping her by the waist, dragged her up the stairs into the cabin. As she did, Eva closed her eyes, and used her imagination and her talents to send the soldier who was still asleep in his chair out into the grass in the middle of the compound. When Katryn slammed the door behind her, the three sisters were alone. Katryn, still holding Dorota, stared at Eva, and then, the two of them turned towards the figure on the bed.
Placing Dorota on the floor of the cabin, Katryn moved towards Eva, already standing at the side of the bed. Eva held a candle over the sleeping form, and, with her other hand, brushed the hair from the girl’s face. “It’s her,” Eva whispered. “We have her.”
Katryn knelt beside the bed, leaning towards her sleeping sister, cupping her cheek in her palm. “Agata,” Katryn whispered, “Agata, can you hear me?”
No response.
Shouts and yelling beyond the small room - the camp obviously buzzing now. The first blows began to land against the outside of the door.
“Strike her,” Eva muttered.
Katryn stood, and struck her palm against Agata’s cheek, but there was no response.
“Can someone be imagined awake?” Eva whispered.
The door was now shuddering under repeated blows. Voices, shouts.
“I don’t know,” Katryn answered. She glanced down at Dorota. “If I handle Agata, can you do Dorota?”
“Yes. Where?”
The blows upon the door tore the bottom hinge from the door frame. The door lifted slightly, and then another blow tore away the top hinge, and the door clattered to the floor. Two soldiers stood breathing heavily at the entrance, exhausted from their battering of the door, and behind them were a murky sea of faces and bodies. Katryn closed her eyes and imagined a wall in the room, between the girls and the soldiers.
“Hurry,” she gasped at Eva. “Hold Dorota’s hand, be connected to her. Imagine the road we walked in on, that bend where we first saw the lights of the camp. Only that far for now. Take her.”
Eva touched both hands to Dorota’s right arm, gripping and holding her younger sister. Dorota was fourteen years old with fine blond hair, and a narrow face. She stirred and murmured softly as Eva gripped her wrist, but didn’t wake.
“Imagine both of you – both of you – at that bend in the road. You kneeling just as you are, Dorota lying just as she is. Concentrate, and imagine both of you there,” Katryn said.
Eva closed her eyes, and searched her imagination for that narrow road, the walls of immense dark trees, the black night outside. She searched for the picture that she needed – where the road turned slightly, and where they’d spotted the fence and those dim lights. She searched for an image of Dorota, blond hair, dark dress, lying on the road, with herself kneeling on the road beside her, holding Dorota’s arm.
She found it. She whispered the soft yes inside her mind, which set the scene. Then she opened her eyes. The road. The dark forest. Her sister. Eva lifted Dorota in her arms and carried her more to the side of the road, closer to the cover of the trees. “Come on Katryn,” she muttered, “let’s go.”
In the cabin, Katryn sat on the edge of the bed beside Agata. She put her hands on Agata’s arms, and closed her eyes, and searched, but….
Agata. Where are you?
She opened her eyes. Agata was lying there, still and unmoving. “Is she breathing?” Katryn wondered. She slid her fingers to Agata’s lips, felt a flutter of breath. Yes, she was breathing, and alive. Katryn closed her eyes again, but on the shadowy canvas of her imagination, where the girls used their magic to make changes in the real world, she couldn’t find Agata. Couldn’t create a picture of her there. “Agata,” she whispered, looking down at her again. “What did you do to yourself?”
The soldiers were using axes now, hacking and splintering their way into the wall that Katryn had imagined and placed within the room.
Katryn, at nineteen, was the oldest, the most composed, and the wisest of the sisters, but now she was lost in indecision. Vanish the rear wall, and bodily drag Agata to the fence, vanish the fence, and drag her unconscious sister into the forest? But the soldiers were everywhere, and would be on her immediately. Leap back to the bend in the road and ask Eva to return to the cabin to help? But help, how? Eva was stronger with magic than Katryn, but likely not strong enough. The sister they needed, the sister who might be powerful enough to do it, was the one lying before her on the bed.
“Agata!” Katryn shouted, hugging and shaking her sister. “Agata! What did you do?”
A story of family, magic, and loss that spans a century, Within This Darkness connects 21st-century Ontario with WW1 in both Canada and Europe.
Jeremy Gardela stands on the cusp of high school, but a family tragedy interrupts the normal progression of his life. Spending his autumn days outside of school, he finds solace in the Canadian wilderness. However, when his ailing aunt receives an unwelcome visitor digging into the family's past, she must turn to Jeremy to help recover their secrets. A unique blend of treasure hunt and personal discovery, Within This Darkness explores themes of grief and what it means to be connected to one another—and the powerful ties of family.
Tomasini clearly respects his juvenile readers. This is something that many authors have difficulty doing. He is able to keep his readers’ understanding of the world in mind. Understanding that his readers may be at an introductory level when it comes to world history of the 20th century, he never condescends, providing context when needed with a glossary and bibliography at the end of the book. He recognizes that as a 9th grader, his protagonist possesses a deep understanding of the world around him and experiences the same complexities of grief that adults must wrestle with. This respect for his readers’ inner lives is also reflected in the real-world matters Jeremy engages in, such as tracking wolves or camping solo.
Another point where Tomasini shines is the effective simplicity of magic in Within This Darkness. Many books that include magic in the real world try to explain it away with science—be it a mutation, an experiment gone wrong (or very right), or exposure to chemicals. However, Tomasini doesn’t feel the need to bring in such explanations, and the book is better for it. His embrace of magic allows readers to immerse themselves in the story. As important as the magic itself are the qualities that Jeremy holds as a person—not every challenge is overcome supernaturally. Jeremy’s interest in the wolves his dad studies, combined with his ability to push himself to run with incredible endurance, creates a strong supplement to the magic around him.
Within This Darkness is a book that will help readers who are grappling with family loss. Tomasini provides insightful descriptions and observations that validate grief, rather than serving up trite platitudes and explanations that are meant to help but end up coming across as disingenuous. I was struck by how well Tomasini dissects and presents the timelessness of grief, the flickers of hope we hold to, and then the acceptance of what is. The topics of both shared and individual grief are beautifully handled.
Presented through various voices, Within This Darkness is a page-turner your juvenile readers should not miss. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting Tomasini's next book!