A Shiver of Shadows

by Hunter J. Skye

The more I watched the ghosts gliding through the mists of their immaterial madness, the more I realized this world was an elaborate hoax. It had layers and layers of falsehoods piled to resemble depth and width. But there weren’t any. There was no depth. There was no width. There were no walls or iron bars. At any glimmering moment I could reach through it and pull myself into something different, better. I was the cell. I was the pain. I was the self-doubt…I was the arrow.

  My mind began to turn. The cogs of time and space whirred inside me the way they clicked and ticked inside Rasmus. He had given me a gift. In fact, he’s given me two. In his thoughts, I’d discovered how to consider a problem from a place outside of consequence or emotion. He’d also given me something else. He’d given me a curse.

  I slipped my arm through the bars as far as it would go. My shoulder caught and I made a choice. Stay inside a scenario that someone else had scripted or accept what my stammering heart had been trying to tell me this whole time. The will of God unbound me the same way it unbound Rasmus—in splinters and pieces. Bits of my arm disintegrated. My elbow crumbled. My shoulder collapsed and passed through the bars.

  My heart thundered with excitement as I realized what that shitty priest had done for me. I might not have been turning into a pillar of salt like him, but I was far less glued together than I had been.

  My chest collapsed and my hips fragmented. I pushed them through the bars and with a prayer toward heaven I let my head fracture. My brain fizzed with the subatomic disintegration. I stepped from the cell and the fragments of myself regrouped.

  I stared at the tiny bit of moonlight still trapped in the prison I’d just left. Rasmus had seen my predicament as a momentary impediment. I’d been like a caged bird to him, fluttering my wings in desperation.

  “Thank you, Father,” I whispered as I turned my hands and checked my arms. Beneath the thin gown, my legs were on straight and my feet were attached.

  Fear-tinged relief washed over me as I stumbled toward the open door. I tried to recall the path the Sisters had taken as they’d dragged me from the throne room several nights before. But that had been in another life, before I’d known the very worst this world had to offer. I couldn’t be sure of anything that had happened since I’d cut Mephos’s arm off. It was all a horrific blur.

  The night was almost gone. There was no time to waste. I had to get out of that room. What if I ran into the Sisters in the hall? What if they recaptured me? Was the White Lady close enough to call? If she was, would she be of any use against the Sisters of Immaculate Pain?

  Now that I had a hint of what had happened to her, I understood why she couldn’t stand against them. Neither could I. Rasmus’s cold reason was draining from my brain. He must have left the convent. My heart was returning to a normal beat. I had to make a run for it while I could, but I needed to know where I was in the building. Three sides of the complex were a sheer drop off an impossibly high cliff. I needed to make my way to the side with the stairs.

  I peered out the window next to the door to get my bearings, and that’s when I saw them. The nuns stood naked in the courtyard forming a ring around the sculpture of Christ. Each clutched a slender rod. I watched through the glazed glass as arms lashed and bodies flinched. They flailed themselves in unison as the pre-dawn light bloomed across the surrounding mountain peaks. With their habits gone, the high-altitude wind currents lifted their long flowing hair, tossing the strands over the angry flog marks on their backs. My empty stomach spasmed, reaching for bile or anything else it could throw up. Cataplexy fluttered through me.

  I fell against the window and heads turned. They’d heard me. The small tap of my forehead against the window had interrupted their morning discipline. Their faces were alight with something halfway between penance and sexual gratification. A chorus of hisses filled the courtyard and I fell to my knees. My jaw unhinged as, one by one, they formed a line. I was three stories up from the courtyard. They’d be on me in seconds.

  I tried to calm myself as the giant hand of narcolepsy pressed me into the stone floor. I only knew of one staircase—the small circular one they’d carried me up when Mephos had given me over to them. I’d never make it. I had to hide. My head wobbled from side to side as I scanned the barren room.

  I’d learned to dull my response to startlement and smaller triggers, but sheer, wailing terror, I didn’t have a plan for.

  Think of something calming, a soothing moment, a soft memory.

  The sweet scent of oranges found me, and with it came the memory of Grayford’s thumb brushing against my cheek. The dark outlines of his frost-blue eyes caught me up in their sacred space. The drowning depth of his gaze was a place only I could go.

  My legs spasmed then bent. My arms dragged under me, and I pushed myself up. Somewhere below me I heard a door fling wide and crash against a wall. I launched through the doorway and into the hall. There was only one way to go. I ran on feet made of air. I poured down the hall. Left. Then right. Then left again. The stairwell twisted ahead of me like a dark seashell. I rushed onto the worn steps and peered down the dreadful spiral. Shadows flooded onto the stairs below. I couldn’t go down. I wouldn’t stay where I was. There was nowhere to hide. I only had one option. I had to go up.

  I spun up the twisting steps in a dragging, leaping surge of motion. I gripped the stairs with hands and feet as I tripped over the baggy gown. I bunched the material in one hand and launched myself up and around in dizzying circles.

  Pale, blue light leaked into the slot windows as the convent structure fell away. I was climbing blindly up the corkscrew steps of the tower without a plan, just the dire need to get away. I couldn’t be recaptured again. I wouldn’t.

  Just keep moving, I urged myself on as hisses threaded up the tower. How close were they? Two floors? One? Were they close enough to grab my ankles?

  Life condensed as the future and the past fell away and the raging now took over. This was it, I thought as I raced for my life toward an uncertain sky. This is what the Star Clan had been trying to tell me. Life was a bright, burning ember streaking from the flames, tumbling into the hungry night. How many moments had I wasted worrying, doubting, hiding? I was meant to burn bright. I was the arrow.

  I reached the last step and the wind snatched me from my feet. I slid across the stone and slammed into the crumbling turret. It seemed the icy cold wind currents would make my decision easy. If the Sisters tried to take me…I’d jump.

  A hand appeared from the stairwell. And another. This was it, I laughed to myself. I’d done everything I could to be a decent person, to make a difference, to be worthy of God’s love. I was good and kind and angry and blind. I was a friend, a lover, a daughter, a sister. I was broken and lost. I was found. I was extraordinary. And I was thankful.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Arms of the Wind

  Grayford

  The arms of the wind swung back and forth over the summit with a ferocity not meant for living things. The constant tearing currents swept the top of the mountain bare of everything but rounded rock and ice.

  I flattened my body to the crusted snow and dug for a handhold in the stone beneath. Nothing moved around me but sparkling razors of ice. No sounds cut through the howling of the wind. I did my best to scour the unforgiving peak, but it was vacant of souls.

  I translocated to a lower outcropping overlooking the snow-laden tops of the highest trees. The ribbons of stinging ice curled into sparkling eddies, and the frigid air thickened enough for me to fill my lungs again. I jumped from cliff to cliff, searching for any sign of life. Anguish wrapped through me as I surveyed the emptiness.

  Take whatever is left. The red-haired vampire’s words came back to me. What had they done to Melisande? What had they done to my beloved?

  I cleared the western exposure and jumped to the east. I’d seen the northern side from a distance, and the jagged cliffs were a sheer drop into rock-strewn slopes. The eastern side of the mountain looked down on hills dotted with
farmland. At the foot of the mountain range, almost too far to see in the darkness, was the glimmer of a town nestled in a dark delta. No structures clung to the eastern exposure, so I moved my desperate, solitary expedition south.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Goodbye

  Melisande

  “It’s okay,” I whispered to the wind. I pushed to my feet and folded the fleeing night around me. The stars bent to hear my message. “William!” I called his name for all the world to hear. “I love you. I know you tried to find me. I know you tried. I love you!”

  I stepped between the crenellations of the turret and looked over the edge. I’d end on the broken stones of this fearsome mountain and haunt this beautiful land forever. Maybe I’d guard wayward travelers or bless the pilgrims who climb the frozen heights in search of life’s mysteries. I’d protect them from vampires and heretics and rockslides and avalanches.

  The memory of Grayford’s embrace encircled me. The urgent press of his sweet lips tingled across my mouth. It was the last sensation I’d ever know. I laughed as I stepped from the crumbling stone. His kiss would be forever on my lips. I fell into the arms of the blessed night. “Goodbye.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  William

  Grayford

  I picked a spot beyond the curve of my sight and materialized at the far end of the mountain. The valley below held the remains of an ancient tectonic battle. Great spears of jagged boulder were strewn about the rubble-filled gorge making the southern end of the valley uninhabitable. I searched the desolation until finally I fixed my gaze on a bleak outcropping hanging from the mountain’s southern tip. The blade of stone supported a thin road which led to an isolated structure.

  My heart leapt. I translocated to the road and examined the fortification from its base up. The cluster of buildings tapered in layers up to a solitary tower, which pierced the gloom of passing clouds.

  William.

  My name was on the wind.

  ****

  Melisande

  “Melisande,” the mountains muttered.

  “Melisande,” the lowlands lulled.

  “Melisande,” the crevasses called.

  ****

  Grayford

  “Melisande!”

  In the space of a breath, the haunting tune that had once wound through my very soul returned. The woodwind brush of her fingers, the harp string quiver of her smile, the soft staccato of her ever-present heart returned to me. She was there, ahead of me, wavering on the edge of the tower, a perilous look in her eyes.

  “No! Melisande!”

  Her love was a symphony in my mind. A sweet, sorrowful song searching for me. And then she dropped. I’d never make it. Her head would hit the stones before I could cross the space between us. This was not the way it was supposed to be. This couldn’t be God’s plan. Why? Why would He unwind our hearts like this? I didn’t want this feeble flesh if I would never feel her touch again.

  No. Space was an illusion. Distance was the dream of a sleeping universe. It was not real. I closed my mind to it and let it fall away. Instead, I lifted my hands and caught her feathery weight. Her battered body filled my arms. I would never be separated from her again. The Joining glimmered around us as I folded it to my will. I slipped gravity’s unforgiving grip and pressed her to me as we translocated to the ground.

  “Melisande.” I whispered through the dreams she’d pulled close to her. “Melisande, I’m here.”

  Her amber eyes fluttered open, precious golden rings floating in a sea of blackness. And then, as I gazed into the eyes that owned my heart and soul, the darkness drained away. Jagged stones welcomed my feet. I knelt in the rubble and lowered Melisande to my lap. She lifted a trembling hand to my face. And a look of disbelief washed the despondence from her expression. My heart clenched as her eyes welled with tears. She knew I had her.

  “How?” Her voice reached my ears on moths’ wings.

  “I heard you call me.” I swallowed against the knot in my throat and drew her against me. She felt light and brittle and drained. Tears slid from my eyes as I cradled her. “I heard you call my name.” I smiled and loosened my grip so that I might look upon her face again. Her eyelids fought to stay open, to not break our gaze. It made me smile from the inside out. “You called me William,” I teased, but that one word had restored my soul. This woman knew me in every way a person can be known. No matter what she called me, I felt seen, weighed, appreciated. But when she called me William, she was letting me see her too.

  “Did not,” she whispered, and a trace of a smile answered mine.

  “Sslleeep,” I gently breathed, and her tired eyes closed.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  That humbling, soul-expanding sensation that is love.

  Melisande

  My real estate agent had made it clear that she would finish the purchase of my cottage under the circumstance that she never be asked to set foot near the structure again. If I wanted to sell it in the future, I’d have to find another agent.

  I was very glad Grayford had accompanied me to the realtor’s office for moral support. We sat at a table across from the poor family that I’d nearly scared to death when I’d pulled the poltergeist from their home. First, I’d endangered them when I’d released the entity from its prison on the Ghost Fleet. Then, I turned their life upside down in an attempt to regain control over it. They had no idea I was the reason they’d lost their beautiful waterside home. Guilt forced me to break eye contact with them when we were introduced. What was worse was the look of shame on their faces as they sold me a clearly haunted house.

  “I just want you to know that I love the house. I know there’s been some damage and”—I laughed—“reports of paranormal activity.”

  The husband and wife blanched. Their tiny son continued to play with his dinosaurs on the floor in a blissful state of unawareness.

  “But the good news is I’m a ghost hunter, and he’s an expert at historical restoration, so the property is a perfect match for us.” Their eyes widened, but their faces seemed to relax a smidge. “We can handle it. You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. I’m sorry you have to walk away from such a beautiful home. We promise to take good care of it.”

  The woman’s face transformed into a glassy-eyed smile, and her husband let out a held breath. They signed the papers, and the agent passed them to me. I signed them and passed them to Grayford.

  The Colonel gave me a confused look until I placed my finger on the empty line below my name. The print below the blank line read William Scott Grayford. He turned his blue-within-blue eyes on me and seemed for once to be at a loss for words.

  “I had you added to the deed. Is that okay?” I trapped the plump portion of my bottom lip with my teeth as a wave of butterflies tickled my stomach. I was sitting in the chair next to him, but it felt like I was down on one knee.

  I fought a wave of cataplexy as I waited for his response. Would he be happy? Would he be annoyed that I’d not consulted him first?

  The moment stretched like taffy, folding into eternity. I couldn’t take it any longer. I flung wide the connection that had been reforged between us. The mystically entwining force known as the Joining had bound us together again several weeks ago, in the early morning shadows of the Pyrenees Mountains. It had shackled us together again by that dangerously addictive tether, allowing us to experience each other’s emotions as if they were our own. I couldn’t help it—I laughed as his incandescent joy spilled over me. It drowned me in acceptance, belonging, and that humbling, soul-expanding, all-encompassing sensation that is love.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  A word about the author…

  Hunter J. Skye was born with a rare nightmare disorder, and was raised in a haunted late Victorian home. Those two factors predestined her to write ghost stories. With a Bachelor of the Fine Arts, Hunter first went into museology, but her love of the written word drew her back to the keyboard. She now writes full time a
nd paints part-time.

  Hunter’s debut novel, A Glimmer of Ghosts, won four RWA awards pre-publication. It is the first book in The Hell Gate Series, an urban fantasy/paranormal romance series set in coastal Virginia.

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  For questions or more information

  contact us at

  info@thewildrosepress.com.

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  www.thewildrosepress.com

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press

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