The Shadow Society

by Marie Rutkoski

  Maddening, to have to work with him. Sickening, that he had fooled me. Impossible, that he was the key to my return home, and my past.

  Impossible.

  I followed the brass disks. This would be a distraction, something to unknot my nerves. It would also be a weapon. I refused to be so much at Conn McCrea’s mercy, and if there was anything I could do to hold my own against him and not rely so much on the whims of the IBI, it was to learn more about this world.

  The disks led to a house that was simple and old, but in pristine condition. I recognized it from my sketchbook, and this alone—that shiver of recognition, with no memory to explain it—drew me closer.

  The house was a tourist attraction. Scores of people milled around, talking excitedly. A group of schoolchildren seemed to be on a field trip, and oohed and ahhed as they listened to their teacher, who stood in front of the door. A group of adults gathered in the front yard around a bronze statue of a man raising a torch that burned with a small, living flame. I heard the teacher’s voice rise and fall with authority.

  “… Cecil Deacon,” she was saying, “who led the 1871 crusade against the Shades in the Alter where, of course, this house burned down and he tragically died. Hundreds of human lives were lost and the fire left many homeless, making the Alter’s Great Chicago Fire the most traumatic event in the city’s history. Yet it was also ultimately uplifting. We must remember the heroism of Deacon and his followers. They accomplished the unthinkable. They rid their world of Shades.”

  “We should do the same,” I heard a man mutter.

  “Notice,” the woman continued, “the wooden sidewalks that lead from Deacon’s house. They date back to the early nineteenth century, and very few remain in the city. They are a Chicago Heritage monument, and can be traced back to this house, almost”—she smiled—“almost as if Cecil Deacon is the origin of everything that makes Chicago special.”

  So Orion had been telling the truth about the Great Fire. I stared at the woman, shocked that anybody could be so enthusiastic about the deaths of so many people. And maybe I would have spoken up, but I noticed something.

  One of the schoolgirls had an extra shadow. It was the vague shape of a person, longer than the schoolgirl’s, and cast by no one. No one, anyway, that I could see.

  I went very still.

  Who was it? Zephyr?

  Maybe Orion.

  Or was it someone else?

  It was possible that this was a random Shade, doing some random sightseeing on a random day. That dark blur didn’t necessarily have anything to do with me. There was no reason to think I was being followed.

  If this sounds like wishful thinking, that’s because it was.

  I turned my gaze from the front door and the children gathered in front of it. I pretended to study the sculpture. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow glide away from the girl and bury itself in the greater darkness cast by the house itself.

  I snapped my gaze from the statue and strode toward the river.

  If I really was being watched, I’d find out soon.

  It was easy enough to cross the river, though several cars speeding over the bridge nearly mowed me down. Traffic was picking up. Here, cars zoomed everywhere, and when I was several blocks east, getting closer to Lake Michigan and my meeting point with Conn, cars jammed the streets. I pretended to survey the bumper-to-bumper gridlock, then shot a quick glance down the street, in the direction from which I’d come.

  A shadow was slinking through traffic. It seeped into the trunk of one car, spilled out the windshield of another. It was about fifteen feet away, but crept closer and closer.

  Toward me.

  I hurried east, down quaint wooden sidewalks, my feet rattling the planks. I touched the railing, ran fingers over carvings of flowers and flames, grateful for all this newness, this difference, this everything that made it easier to pretend that I hadn’t noticed a shadow dogging my heels.

  I had to lose the Shade. I couldn’t be seen with Conn.

  Street signs flew past, ones that should have read La Salle and Dearborn and State, but instead said Deacon, Wildfire, and Blaze.

  It was when I reached Grant Park (here, 1871 Memorial Park) that I saw my chance: a farmers’ market set up under bare trees. I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the sharp elbows and rude stares that would soon create yet another problem if those eyes got a little beadier and saw that I was a Shade.

  I’m human, I’m human. I pressed deeper into the hundreds of people, hoping the shadow would lose me in the crowd. Please believe me.

  I shuffled north past stalls of home-baked goods and winter vegetables and slaughtered chickens. Then the row of stalls ended and the crowd thinned.

  I ran. Swung around a frozen pond and headed back to the city streets, to Michigan Avenue. Sprinted up the sidewalk, no longer caring who saw me, not even knowing what time it was or what I would do if Conn wasn’t there, and what I would say to the Shade if he—or she—caught me and asked what I was doing and why I was afraid. I couldn’t say, You. You frighten me, because I’m like you.

  And then I was at the corner of Michigan and Van Buren. I stood still, panting.

  Conn wasn’t there.

  Just a row of stately brownstones that didn’t exist in my world.

  My chest heaved, cold air stabbing into my lungs.

  A door opened.

  “Come inside,” Conn called from the town house. “Quickly.”

  24

  “You’re shaken.” Conn shut the door behind us.

  I didn’t look at him. Instead, I cast a glance around the marble entryway, where an empty fountain stood in the center of the hall. Its silence seemed to make a lot of noise.

  “Tell me,” he insisted.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here.” I tried to steady my breath. “I mean, I thought maybe. Maybe you’d come every Tuesday at the same time. To check.”

  “I came every day.” He let his hand rest on the doorknob. “I practically lived here.”

  I walked down the hall into a bright white parlor. Conn had to be lying. Everything looked as if it hadn’t been touched for years. Sheets covered the furniture. A fog of dust lay on the mantelpiece.

  “It’s not mine,” he said. “This house belongs to the IBI.” He stood behind me, far too close.

  I edged away. Tossed my itchy wig on the grand piano, shoved my sunglasses in a coat pocket. I pulled a sheet off the sofa, revealing blue velvet brocade, and curled into its corner. Maybe it was the luxury that calmed me, or the quiet of the house, which felt like it had been quiet a long, long time. I felt suddenly safe, even with Conn there.

  He pulled a chair in front of me and sat on its dusty sheet. But I knew that when things really mattered he’d rip off any sheet. He’d strip anything bare.

  “Darcy, please say something. You have no idea what the past two weeks have been like for me.”

  “I have no idea? Me?”

  “I only meant—” He stood. Something flickered across his features. On anyone else’s face it might have been hurt. But this was Conn. His mouth hardened, and I remembered the word Ivers had used to describe him: ruthless. “You missed our meeting. You broke your agreement with the IBI. You are required to tell me why.”

  So I told him about meeting Orion, about my prison, my escape attempt, my trial. I shouted it, my voice ringing so loud my ears hurt. I rose to my feet, and so did he, and all the while his eyes looked into mine, when they didn’t have any right. When they were, in spite of everything, too horribly beautiful to bear.

  “You have no idea,” I said. “You have no idea what you’re making me do.”

  The room echoed with my words. It echoed with everything that was between us.

  “I want that photograph,” I said. “I need to know if it’s really me.”

  “You haven’t told me enough.”

  I stepped toward him, and even though he towered over me I felt my arm tense with the kind of power that could smash a man’s
face. “Give it to me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Give me a location. You haven’t said where the Society lives.”

  “I’ve told you plenty. Now you know how they live. You know about their customs. You know that there’s infighting.”

  His expression turned scornful. “What makes you so sure this is news to the IBI?”

  “Give me the photograph, or I walk out of here and you will never see me again. The deal is off.”

  He stalked to a bookshelf that had only appeared empty. Now I noticed a few books stacked on the lowest shelf, resting near an envelope.

  Conn tossed the envelope onto the velvet sofa. “You can’t keep it. You’ll have to leave it here. Yes, I understand that I can’t force you to listen to me. You’ve made your point. But if the Shades find that photograph they’ll ask questions you won’t want to answer, so make the smart choice. I’ll give you your privacy,” he added in a tone that made clear he was glad to get away. “I’ll be down the hall in the kitchen. Find me when you’re done.”

  When the oak door swung shut behind him, I sank down onto the sofa. I touched the slim manila envelope and my arm went limp. It took a lot of strength to open the envelope, more than I would have thought possible, since this was what I had wanted: to find the truth about my past.

  I shook the envelope, and the photograph fell into the palm of my hand.

  The photograph was in color, but looked as if it had been taken in black and white, the girl’s cheeks were so pale, her hair and eyes so dark.

  And I remembered.

  The little girl’s birthday was soon. Right around the corner. I was going to be five years old. A baby tooth wiggled in my mouth and I wondered if it would fall out when I turned five, and who would remember my birthday here. I wanted to hold my mother’s hand and press my face against her stomach, where she was soft, but she wasn’t there and if she were she’d say what she always said, that I was too old for that. I needed to learn.

  I gripped the photograph so hard that it bent and my image warped. The memory drained away before I could remember where “here” was, or why I was there, or what my mother’s face looked like. I tried, but my mind got stuck. What I knew—without knowing how I knew—was that this photograph had been taken before I was abandoned in the Alter.

  The girl’s eyes stopped my heart. I hadn’t known, until I saw the photograph, how I had really felt that day outside the Chicago firehouse. Over the years I had told myself a certain story about that girl. That she had downed the caseworker’s hot chocolate and asked for more. That she hadn’t minded the DCFS doctor’s cold stethoscope because it was a lot less chilly than being outside. But the girl in the photograph had eyes stained with fear.

  Me. I had been terrified.

  I couldn’t actually remember where I’d been when the photograph was taken, but I didn’t need to. I knew the answer: the IBI.

  I slid the photograph back into its envelope and smoothed a hand over its surface, as if soothing it to sleep. I looked up, because I had to look away from the memory of that girl, and noticed again the three books on the otherwise empty shelf.

  Undusty books. New ones. Conn’s.

  I drew closer.

  Two of them were about mechanics. Dense, complicated stuff with blueprints and equations that gave me queasy Pre-Calc flashbacks.

  The third was the collected poems of T. S. Eliot.

  It made sense. Conn was thorough, and passionate about his job even if he’d never truly been that way about me. And he saw a lot, much more than the simple fact that I cared about J. Alfred. Of course he’d studied the poem. Pretending that he cared about it, too, had been part of his cover.

  This didn’t explain, though, why he kept it with him still, now that he had nothing to fake, nothing to hide.

  I set the book and the photograph on the shelf. There were mysteries I had to solve, I reminded myself. But not about Conn.

  My boots made no sound on the hard hallway tiles. The kitchen door was wide open. When I entered, Conn was gazing out the window at the garden, where snowflakes drifted and swayed through the dead branches like silent white bees. Even though he was expecting me, he hadn’t yet realized I was there, and the light silvered his face into something vulnerable.

  “You were right,” I told him. “The photo is of me.”

  He turned. The news did not make him happy.

  “What?” I said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that you were taken into IBI custody. You were arrested.”

  “For what?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Information connected to that photograph is classified.”

  “Unclassify it, then.”

  “It’s not that easy. There’s a file about that girl—about you—but it outranks me.”

  “Conn—” I don’t know what I would have said, how I could have convinced him, but he interrupted. “I’ll find out for you,” he said.

  I waited for him to add something, and when he didn’t I crossed my arms. “What will I owe you for that?”

  Anger flared across his face. Then it was gone, like every other trace of emotion he had ever shown me. “Nothing. But … don’t get your hopes up. It’ll take me a while to find anything out, and you might not like what I find. There are ways of getting around a classified file, especially in this case, because it’s strange for the IBI to arrest a child Shade. That’s one of the reasons the photograph caught my eye when I saw it in the database. People will remember that arrest. I can talk to some of the older agents in the Bureau, pull unclassified files from that year—”

  “It was 1997. I don’t remember much else.”

  “1997? You’re sure?”

  I nodded.

  “All right,” he said slowly. “This will take time. But I’ll do my best.”

  The crazy thing was, everything that made me resent Conn was exactly what made me sure that his best was very good.

  “Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t let a Shade catch you doing it. I’m pretty sure the Society is watching me, and I don’t want them to have any reason to connect me to you.”

  “What do you mean, the Society is watching you?”

  “I was followed by a Shade.”

  “When?”

  “Just before I got here.”

  “And you’re telling me now?” He was instantly alert, his gaze skittering into the corners of the room.

  “Don’t worry, the Shade’s not here.”

  “You can’t know that,” he said. I watched his eyes transform the kitchen into a potential war zone. “Everything we said could have been heard. Everything.”

  “Trust me,” I said, and explained how Shades cast shadows. “So some humans could see that Shades are there, even if they’re incorporeal. That’s what Orion said.”

  “That’s incredible.” It took me a moment to realize that the sound in Conn’s voice was hope. “Why haven’t we heard of this before?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe people doubt what they see. Maybe they think it’s a trick of the light.”

  “But why some humans and not others?”

  “I don’t know. You figure it out.”

  He fell silent, and I realized it was warmer in the kitchen than in the rest of the house, and slightly damp, as if water had recently been boiled to make tea or pasta. Pencils lay on the table of a breakfast nook for four, and there was a toothbrush in a glass by the sink. In a barely noticeable way, Conn had been practically living here. I felt a flicker of a feeling I couldn’t name.

  “Priming,” he said.

  “What?” I was less startled by the word than by my discovery.

  “Priming is a psychology term.” He caught my glance. “I’m trained in psychology. Agents have to be, for interrogation.”

  Whatever emotion I’d been feeling withered. “Of course you do.”

  “Priming is when the mind is prepared to understand something that would otherwise be too extraordinary to believe. Like interdimensional por
tals. Even if somebody in the Alter is standing by the Water Tower, he’s not going to stumble through that portal into our world. He won’t even see it, because he can’t conceive that it’s there. But if someone told him it was, or if his mind was otherwise primed for the possibility, he might see it. Maybe that’s how seeing the shadows works.”

  “Like an optical illusion—the one everyone knows, that looks like a white goblet. Then someone tells you that, no, it’s really two black faces in profile, and suddenly they’re there.”

  “Exactly.” He smiled. “This is valuable information, Darcy. Thank you.”

  “Valuable enough for me to skip town and head back to Lakebrook, courtesy of the IBI?”

  His smile grew smaller. “Not quite.”

  “Then what is?”

  “The exact location of the Sanctuary would be a good start.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t leap at the chance to give the IBI the perfect site for a big bonfire. You’d wipe them out.”

  He made an impatient noise. “We’re not monsters.”

  “Really. What about the Great Fire?”

  “What about it?”

  “Humans killed every last Shade in my world.”

  “Yes, in your world.”

  “So if there’s a war,” I said, “humans started it.”

  His expression was quickly growing angry. “It was more than a hundred years ago. Besides, you can’t possibly blame this Chicago for something that didn’t even happen here.”

  “This Chicago is drooling after the Great Fire.”

  His voice got dangerous. “Meaning?”

  “You people are obsessed with it. You name streets after it. You make art out of it. Just because the Holocaust happened a long time ago in Europe doesn’t mean it’s okay for me to build a shrine to Hitler in my backyard.”

  “Street signs. Street signs,” he hissed. “I forgive the Society, then. They murdered innocent people, but I forgive them, because now I understand that the street signs hurt their feelings.”

  I leaned back against the window and felt the cold glass against my shoulder blades. “I will never tell you the location. I don’t trust you.”