All Things in the Shadows

by B. D. Messick

  She doesn't get up from the chair as she studies me.

  “So, Father was right,” she says, apparently to herself.

  “Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my room?” I ask, my heart racing a little faster.

  “I'm using your computer,” she answers, matter-of-factly.

  For a second, I don't know what to say. I have a crazy person in my room armed with a knife and sword like she's on the way to the renaissance fair, but something tells me those weapons aren't props. Then again, maybe all this is in my head.

  “Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,” she says, as if we're having a normal conversation.

  “That's what every bad guy says before they hurt you.”

  “You watch too many movies.”

  I honestly have no idea why I'm still talking with this strange girl, instead of running outside, or calling the police, or something.

  “How do I know you're not some crazy girl who climbed in through my window?” I ask before planting my feet firmly, just in case she flies off the handle.

  She looks at me and smiles.

  “Maybe you sneak in here and go through my stuff while I'm at school,” I add before making a mental note to wash all my clothes.

  “I've never gone through your stuff,” she says, sounding a little offended at my inference.

  “So, you've been in here before,” I say with a smirk.

  She pauses for a few moments before answering. “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should just call the cops, have you arrested.”

  She smiles at me again and shakes her head, a small chuckle escapes her lips.

  “You can give it a try. Don't be surprised if they lock you up instead.”

  “Why would they do that?” I ask, a trickle of doubt seeping into my voice.

  “Been hearing voices lately?” She locks eyes with me.

  That stuns me into silence for a few seconds.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing.” She tilts her head to the side as she looks at me, before spinning around in the chair again.

  “How do you know about the voices? Is this some kind of joke, or something?”

  “If it is, it's not that funny.”

  “I'm calling.” I pull out my phone.

  Meanwhile, she does nothing to stop me, which makes me pause.

  “What's the matter? It's only three digits, did you forget them?”

  “No,” I shoot back.

  Even a crazy person would be concerned the police might haul them off to jail, but not her.

  I slip my phone back into my pocket. She sighs and shakes her head.

  “Well, at least we're done with that. He told me you'd probably react like this. I suppose I should have listened.”

  “Who told you? What are you talking about?”

  “I want to show you something,” she says as she stands and walks to the window, completely ignoring my questions.

  I watch as she opens it and steps out onto the rusty, old fire escape, and then something odd strikes me. Even though the window made noise as she opened it, groaning quietly as the old paint rubbed inside the tracks, when she stepped onto the metal grate, her boots didn't make a sound. My mind is reeling when she bends down and looks back at me through the open window.

  “Well, are you coming, or what?”

  I don't know why, but I don't even hesitate to follow her. By the time I get myself through the window, she's already down on the ground. Two floors, really? It takes me more than a minute to walk down the stairs, and then climb down the ladder, dropping the last five feet into the alley. She's waiting for me, leaning against the wall with a wicked little smile on her face.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Nowhere in particular. I just want to show you something.”

  She turns on her heel and heads toward the end of the alley where it joins the sidewalk that runs in front of our house. For a minute I stand there watching her walk away and then I dash after her, catching up just as she moves out onto the busy pavement. It's probably around four o'clock and there are people everywhere, but this odd girl with a sword dangling at her side slips into the flow of people going about their daily lives. The first thing I notice is that no one, and I mean, no one, is looking at her. Besides the fact that she's armed to the teeth, she's also much prettier than I first realized, with tight jeans, a snug fitting shirt that shows off her assets, and a dazzling smile. I speed up a little, so I can catch her.

  “So, what did you want to show me?” I ask.

  She looks at me. “Do you notice anything?”

  “What?”

  “No one is looking at me, the girl with the sword.”

  She's absolutely right. The few people paying any attention at all, are looking at me, instead of her.

  “You aren’t saying you’re invisible, are you?”

  “You tell me.”

  We continue weaving through the crowd of people. Some of them move out of my way, but I quickly notice she's the one who gets out of their way; dodging, turning, and slipping by them. Her movements are graceful, quick, and completely silent. I watch as a young kid with a baseball cap turned to the side, approaches her. She reaches out and grabs his hat, holding it in the air for a second before tossing it straight up. He doesn't look at her. He watches the hat, as if she's not even there. I see her laugh, I can hear her laugh, but no one else seems to.

  In the blink of an eye, she pulls out her sword, and in a move that would rival even the best world class dancers, she sweeps the sword down and to the left while deftly avoiding a passing cyclist, cleanly cutting a branch off one of the small trees planted along the sidewalk. A woman screams, and for a moment I think she may have seen her, but then I realize it's because the falling limb nearly hit her. A few other pedestrians stop, some of them with annoyed expressions on their faces. Strangely though, none of them look at the girl with the sword, instead they focus on the tree and severed branch.

  “Must be carpenter ants,” I hear one of them say, even though the ‘break’ is perfectly clean and smooth.

  She slides the sword back into its scabbard and makes her way through the crowd, carefully avoiding any contact with the dozens of pedestrians. I dash after her, even though I have no idea where she's leading me. While she's graceful and quick through the mass of people, I'm like a bull in a china shop, bumping and battling my way along the sidewalk. It's hard to keep track of her, as she bobs and weaves, and for a second, I lose sight of her. I don't know why, but I start to panic that I've lost her. I should be grateful she's gone and turn around and head straight back home, locking the doors and windows, but something deep inside me needs to know who she is and why she's so interested in me.

  I move past a particularly large man eating a slice of pizza, and I catch a glimpse of her slipping into an alleyway just up ahead. Muscling my way past a few more indignant pedestrians, I dart off the sidewalk into the narrow alley. For a moment, I don't see her anywhere, but then she seems to appear as if she materialized out of the shadows.

  “Hey,” she says, grinning at me, her strange blue eyes sparkling.

  “Hey.”

  “So, you saw everything right?”

  “I saw something.” Part of me is still not willing to believe my eyes.

  “You saw me grab that kid's hat and cut that branch, and no one looked at me. You saw me walking down the sidewalk with a knife on my hip, and a sword in my hand and not a single damn person gave me a second look, let alone a first.”

  I don't even know what to say in response. I saw all of that, I guess.

  “So, what do you think now?” She leans up against the grimy brick wall, waiting for my response.

  I shake my head. “I don't know what to think. I don't know if this is really happening, or I'm just going crazy.”

  She smiles at me and laughs. “Listen sister,” she says as she takes two small steps back into a shadow cast by the building to our right and she vanishes
. I spin around, my eyes searching for her, darting left and the right when I hear her voice again coming from above. I look skyward and she's leaning over the edge of the building, four stories up. There's no fire escape, no ladder, no way she could have gotten up there.

  “If you think you're crazy now, you've got no idea what's coming,” she yells down, laughing harder than before. “See you soon!”

  “Wait!” I shout, just as she moves away from the edge. A second later, she reappears, peering down at me. “What's your name?”

  “Kateri.”

  And then, she's gone.

  Chapter Three

  I walk home in a daze. To be honest, I hardly remember how I got from the alley to our front steps. I can't stop thinking about this girl. There's something about her that has me out of sorts. My mind feels like it's literally spinning like a top, and my heart is racing as I try to come to grips with what just happened. I sit down on the second step and sigh, looking up at the slightly grimy white marble facade. After running my hands through my hair a few times, I take a deep breath, close my eyes and do the relaxation exercises my mom taught me. It doesn't feel like one of my panic attacks, but I can't take any chances.

  Ever since I was little, I've had to deal with them. I've seen dozens of doctors, but none of them could ever give me a definite reason why they keep occurring, or what I can do to stop them. There were suggestions that I take this or that medication, but my mother always refused, probably because she knows there was no way in hell I would take any of them.

  What's worse, a few panic attacks, or being a drugged-out zombie? As I approach seventeen though, they've gotten more frequent and intense, much like my sightings and the voices I hear. I keep that part to myself. Going to the doctor is one thing, seeing a psychiatrist is another. Slowly, I begin to relax, and I check my phone. There’s still another hour till my mom gets home. Getting to my feet, I turn and walk up the steps to the door, and even before I put my hand on the knob I know I'm locked out. I went down the frickin' fire escape!

  “Shit.”

  I sigh and lean against the railing.

  “This is just great.”

  There's no point in checking the alley. The ladder for the fire escape rises back up automatically after it's used, and it's too high to reach from the ground. I rub my face with my hands and then I hear a ‘click’ from the door, and it slowly swings open. I step inside cautiously.

  “Mom?” I ask, even though I know she's not home.

  I know who unlocked the door.

  “Kateri?” I call out, almost tentatively.

  I sprint upstairs to my room, half expecting, and if I'm honest, hoping she’ll be there. She's not. A little part of me is disappointed, until I spot a small piece of folded paper on my pillow. I snatch it up quickly and open it.

  Couldn't leave you out in the cold

  Kateri

  I dart to the fire escape and stick my head outside, but no one's there. After closing the window, I look at the paper again, running my fingers over the letters. I don't even know why I do it, but I discover the writing is raised, not pressed into the paper. At least this is proof she’s real, and not a figment of my imagination. I slip the paper into my pocket and step over to the bed before flopping down on my back. Staring up at the ceiling, I start thinking about what to do next.

  Should I tell anyone?

  Can I tell anyone?

  If so, who the hell would I tell?

  I suppose most seventeen-year-old girls would have a boyfriend they could talk to, but not me. Unfortunately, I don't have a girlfriend either, at least not right now. Actually, I've never had one. I mean, there's Amanda, but I don't like her like that, and I'm pretty sure she's straight. So, yeah ... I'm gay, if you hadn't figured that out yet, hence my treatment by some of the other girls in the locker room.

  Anyway, my mom took the news pretty well when I told her last year. She looked at me and then smiled.

  “I just want you to be happy,” she said.

  I'm sure she meant it, she's a very open-minded person, but like I said, I've never had a girlfriend, and the first time I bring someone home will be the real test. I've kissed a few girls, mostly at parties and such, but nothing serious ever developed, mostly because they were just ‘curious’ and not looking for anything real.

  I pull the paper out of my pocket and look at the writing again, holding it up with both hands. It doesn't look like the lettering was done with a pen, more like it just…appeared on the surface somehow.

  I start thinking about telling someone again, but then the real question hits me. What the hell would I tell them?

  “Hey, everyone, I just met a girl who is apparently invisible, able to scale a three-story building in the snap of a finger and can vanish into the shadows like she's made of them,” I rehearse in my head.

  “That's nice and look what we have for you. A lovely white room with padded walls.”

  No thanks.

  I roll onto my side and grab my copy of The Hunger Games off the nightstand and slip the paper inside, about halfway through the book. The vibration of my phone scares the crap out of me and I pull it out of my pocket. After swiping the screen, I can see that it's my mom. I tap the accept button.

  “Hey Mom.”

  “Hey sweetie. I'm going to be a little late, the meeting's running over.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you make something for yourself for dinner?”

  “Sure,” I say, although I'm barely paying attention to the conversation.

  There's a long pause before my mom replies, “Is everything okay?”

  “What? Oh yeah, it's all good. I'm just tired.”

  “All right. I'll be home as soon as I can.”

  “Okay, I'll see you later.”

  “Love you, Eve.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I look at the screen again and notice that I had four missed calls from Amanda. I skipped lunch and then got the hell out of there without even seeing her at the end of the day. I should call her back, but I’m not up to talking.

  I casually toss the phone onto the bed next to me and head to the bathroom to grab a shower before making something for dinner. After turning the water on, I stand for a few minutes looking at myself in the mirror. I swear for a second that I see other colors in my iris, besides green, and there's a ring of bright white between my pupil and the colored portion of my eyes, but when I blink, it's gone. Steam slowly obscures my image in the glass and I turn and slip into the shower. As the water cascades over me, I close my eyes and breathe in the thick, steamy air. My mind is spinning like a carousel as I try and make sense of everything and then, without thinking about it, images of Kateri break through the clutter. I can feel a flutter in my stomach as I recall her piercing blue eyes with the strange white pupils, her lips that part seductively even when she's not speaking, and the way her clothes hug every curve and enticing angle of her body. I sigh deeply and lean against the wall of the shower, pressing my forehead against the hard tile.

  What is going on with me? Why does she have such a hold on me?

  I turn off the water and step out of the shower, my wet feet settling into the soft bathroom rug. Reaching up with my hand, I wipe the mirror and spin around, my heart threatening to leap out of my chest when I see Kateri's face looking back at me, a wicked grin on her face.

  “Wow,” she says with a little whistle from her position by the towel rack on the wall to my right.

  I spin around, wrapping the towel around me, and trying to cover myself as best I can.

  “What are you doing?” I yell.

  “What? I wanted to be sure you got in. It looks like you did.”

  “What's wrong with you? You can't go around breaking into people's houses. I'm taking a shower for fuck sake.”

  I'm annoyed, but not as much as I probably should be. I've no idea how long she's been watching me, but there's a tiny part, deep down inside that sort of likes the idea.

  “Yo
u sure are,” she says, grinning at me. “Looking good by the way.”

  She moves toward me and then passes behind, opening the door and slipping into the darkened hallway. By the time I can even turn to see where's she heading, she's gone.

  “Wha ...?”

  I look back at the mirror, and I can see the astonishment written all over my face. Then I hear her voice coming from my bedroom.

  “Are you going to be all day in there?” she calls out.

  I drop the towel and dress as quickly as I can, skipping my bra, just pulling a shirt on over my head. My hair is still wet and hanging limply down to my shoulders. I stride barefoot into my bedroom. Kateri’s sitting cross-legged on my mattress surfing the web again, just like she was when I first encountered her.

  “You're dripping,” she says, looking up briefly.

  I pull my hair back, tying a quick ponytail and letting the excess water soak into my shirt.

  “Why are you back?” I ask while standing in the doorway.

  “Didn't you miss me?” She winks at me, a sparkle in her eye.

  I sigh and roll my eyes.

  “How could I miss you? I'm not even sure you're real.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asks before leaning back and picking up my copy of The Hunger Games and plucking the piece of paper out from between the pages. She holds it in the air, pinched between her middle and index fingers. “This wasn't enough?”

  In a sleight of hand move, too quick to follow, and a flick of her fingers, the paper vanishes.

  “There, now you don't have to worry about it.”

  I stare at her for a moment, my heart sinking at the loss of the note, although I'm not quite sure why.

  “Why are you back here?” I ask again, trying to cover my disappointment.

  She looks over at me, closes the lid on my laptop before setting it down on the blanket. I watch, a little nervously, as she swings her legs off the bed and stands. She moves closer, and I take the tiniest step back. As I look at her, I can see more than blue in her eyes, it's like a storm of colors where aqua is the dominate hue. Green, gold, brown, and even more exotic colors like violet and crimson are swirling around in a sea of blue. I swallow hard as I feel my heart beat speeding up.