The Shadow Fabric

by Mark Cassell

  “The shadowleaves.”

  “Yes. We’re dealing with the most evil Entity known to humankind. The darkest power there is.”

  Goodwin, Victor, Isidore, I didn’t know any of them. I caught my reflection in one of the chrome shelves—I didn’t even know who I was.

  “You’re such an idiot, Goodwin.” I barged past him into the corridor with Isidore close behind.

  “We managed to contain the Fabric,” I heard Victor say. “For now.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I mumbled to Isidore, who simply nodded, eyes closed and massaging her temples with both hands. My head was fuzzy, not unlike my nausea before. I needed fresh air.

  Victor and Goodwin joined us in the corridor, and with Victor rubbing the back of his neck and Goodwin looking like shit, I reckoned we all needed some air.

  And so the four of us left the oppressive room behind, with our mission to destroy those boxes entirely forgotten.

  * * *

  Returning to the studio, it was a relief to see everything as we left it. The Shadow Fabric remained immobile, walled in by the fortress of Witchblade fire. The dusty smell of the stitchers clung to the air and I tasted the familiar hint of ozone.

  “Victor?” Polly said. “Cubs? Is that you?”

  Victor ran to her. “Yes, it’s me.”

  The shadows had left her. She strained against the leather restraints, veins bulging as they dug into her forearm. Her blind eyes were wide—searching without seeing.

  “Good to have you back.” Victor unfastened the straps of the Hourglass. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since the sand ran out. It was white. No hint of black there at all.

  “Dear God,” Goodwin said. He came to stand beside me and Isidore. His attention was on the Shadow Fabric and the screen of crackling flame around it. He leaned against the wall, his chest heaving. Our ascent back to the studio had clearly been an effort for the man, and on the way we’d stopped several times for him to recover from a coughing fit.

  “Why was she in a trance, Leo?” Isidore asked. “We weren’t like that.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Maybe it was all too much for her.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Goodwin groaned and his legs buckled. He slid to the floor, limbs sprawling. I reached for him and he knocked my arm away.

  “Leave me.” He managed a smile which must’ve hurt. “Leave me be.”

  With reluctance, I straightened. Isidore hadn’t moved, hadn’t made any effort to help him. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to. This madness stemmed from his experiments. His playing with the Hourglass and using dream cameras to see into people’s heads. I, on the other hand, had been quick by his side. Had I forgiven him? Perhaps. With his crumpled body at my feet, there was also pity there.

  Something else took our attention.

  Polly and Victor.

  She was on her feet now, and Victor slowly backed away from her. She held the Hourglass in one hand and its compartment in the other.

  “Polly, I—” He raised the Witchblade.

  “What colour is my shadowleaf, Cubs?”

  Cradled in the rectangle of wood, there was no mistaking its colour. Her leaf was black.

  CHAPTER 39

  Polly placed the Hourglass onto the chair, taking a moment to make certain it sat centrally. She set the compartment beside it and squinted as she removed the shadowleaf. Her eyes were no longer a blind stare. They were black as the leaf she held. The way she composed herself and looked directly at Victor suggested she could see. The darkness in her eyes had somehow given her sight.

  She wiggled the shadowleaf at Victor. “Cubs, what colour is it?”

  Victor came to a stop, as did Polly. “Your eyes,” he said. “Polly, your eyes.”

  Her mouth twisted into a smirk. “What about them?”

  “You can’t be a necromeleon. The darkness…”

  She laughed at him.

  “Where is Polly?” he demanded.

  “I am Polly. I am flesh and blood. Don’t think I’m anything else.”

  “Then what—”

  “Oh, Victor, you’re more intelligent than that.” Her dark eyes wandered about the room and settled on the Fabric.

  “Tulip Moon?” Victor asked, and I knew he was right. Polly was behind everything.

  She nodded without looking at him. “Well done.”

  “But—”

  “Annabel?” Her once-blind eyes roamed across the gleaming surface of the Fabric. “We both played the role of Tulip. I needed someone who could see. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blind, or was.”

  I tasted the evil in the air and the pungent scent of decay, something dead. The remains of bodies—the stitchers, shrivelled to dry skeletons—heaped the floor in places, yet this was different. I heard something too, a hum as though an engine approached. No, more a rumble. Like an earthquake. Or a bestial growl rising from the depths of some creature’s gut.

  Isidore experienced it too. She had a hand to her throat, rubbing it. Her eyes darted about the room as if in search of something, and they settled on the Fabric. It pulsed. Still encased in the flaming wall of intricate script, it now pushed at the confines, teasing its way side to side, up and down, testing its limits. It wouldn’t be long until it escaped.

  Already the surrounding shadows—the lesser shadows—slid across the floor. They circled Isidore and me, forcing us closer to Goodwin and away from the door.

  “Some people are known to have stared into the sun and gone blind.” Polly laughed. Her black eyes were deeper, more piercing, than a necromeleon’s. “Whereas, I simply stared into the darkness.”

  Victor’s mouth hung wide, his eyebrows twitching as he dragged his gaze from Polly to the Fabric.

  “Did you people forget something?” she asked.

  “What?” His forehead creased.

  “You went beneath the House to burn the shadowleaves,” she said. “And forgot all about it when you got there. Clever, yes?”

  My head ached.

  “How—” Victor began.

  “Don’t be dim witted, Cubs. You of all people shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “The Fabric,” he said. “It channelled through you.”

  My mind raced. Forgotten what? What were they talking about?

  “It did, Cubs, it did.” A smirk cracked her wrinkly face in two like an egg.

  “What have you done?” Victor asked.

  “I command the darkness, I have been the gateway, and now it’s here.”

  “Why, Polly?”

  “Simple answer…” Her eyes widened, the darkness in them impenetrable. “Why should I be blind when others can see?”

  “Polly—”

  “Shut up, Victor. Just shut up. Think about it, you know why I went blind.”

  His mouth opened a fraction.

  “You know.”

  He hung his head. “Yes.”

  “I tasted evil.” Her mouth twisted. “I tasted evil the moment your brother forced himself on me…in me.”

  “Polly, please—”

  “I said shut up!” She snapped her head forward. “The sun went down on my life then. You know how young I was. You know I was impressionable, innocent.”

  Victor’s shoulders slumped and the Witchblade hung from his hand ready to drop.

  Isidore and I huddled against the wall, unable to move with the shadows shifting about our feet—showing no evident signs of danger. Isidore pointed her gun at Polly and all I had was fury. Speechless, I watched as Victor stood before Polly. Looking at the small woman, I couldn’t believe she’d been behind it all.

  “Cubs, when you showed me no interest, when you told me you didn’t feel the same about me, of course I ran into the arms of your brother. I was a heartbroken little girl. Weak. Pathetic.” She spat these last words. Her back straightened and she continued. “How was I supposed to know he’d take me, and in any way he chose? Locking me in that room for days on end. Only wanting one
thing from me.”

  “I am so sorry, Polly. I am. You know I am.”

  “No!” She took a few steps back. “No, you’re not. No one is truly sorry. No one knows the hell I went through. My eyes simply switched off like a light. You and Goodwin may have disowned Stanley, the two of you may have taken me under your wing like the good guys you try to be, but look at you now.”

  Goodwin mumbled something. His eyes had closed and his chest rose and fell rapidly. A tight ring of shadows now surrounded the three of us. We had nowhere to run. Not that I wanted to; I wasn’t leaving Victor again, I would be with him to the end.

  “Both of you,” Polly was saying, “are as pathetic as each other. Beaten down and worn. The light isn’t going to shine through. The darkness is already here.”

  Victor shook his head.

  “It’s going to be dark for a very, very long time.”

  “Infinity,” Victor said.

  And like this to infinity was something I recalled from one of his books. I still had a cloud of confusion in my head, blocking something more. What else had I recently forgotten? Something to do with boxes? Earlier, Victor mentioned something about channelling?

  “And as for you and that foolish brother of yours,” Polly said. “You two were perfect to play against one another. It simply wouldn’t have worked with anyone else. It had to be the feuding brothers. Time to get you at each other’s throats by giving one the Fabric and the other the Witchblade.”

  “But the man in the antique shop…” Victor said.

  One side of Polly’s mouth curled. “I knew you’d offer to help, so I sent you there. By channelling, the Shadman with the Witchblade was already waiting for you.”

  Victor grunted. “He was an original Shadman?”

  Polly sniggered. “And easily influenced, having witnessed the death of his companions and gone quite insane.”

  “What about the shop owner?”

  “He was just stupid.”

  Victor looked down at the Witchblade in his hand.

  Polly pointed at him. “Your hatred was fuelled by that knife, and when you killed Stanley, it gave the Entity a being to take. Stanley was evil anyway, no denying it. Could there have been anyone else so perfect for the Entity to possess?”

  “You played us,” he said. “You knew what would happen.”

  I gaped at Polly; the clever, manipulative bitch.

  “That is how the Entity managed to regain so much power,” Victor added. “To manifest enough and to absorb Stanley’s dying life force.”

  “Of course,” Polly said. With a flick of her wrist, she threw her shadowleaf towards the Fabric. It glided through the air and the fire parted. The surface of the Fabric bulged and split, opening like a toothless mouth to swallow the leaf. Its mass bulked up as though it flexed its muscles, and the fire surrounding it warped and cracked in places. Hissing as parts of the barrier broke, the flames dwindled. The Fabric heaved against its confinement.

  I kicked away a shadow which had crept over my boot, and Isidore did the same. The coiling tentacles evidently saw no threat in Goodwin, and it was only us they concentrated on. They snatched our ankles, wrapped around our legs, and then yanked us upside down. My shoulder crashed into the floor as Isidore’s gun bounced near my head. The shadows dragged our thrashing bodies up the wall, and forced us against the ceiling high above Goodwin.

  The side of Isidore’s head gushed red.

  The final spirals of fire sputtered out, no longer able to confine the Fabric—inside which, the Entity forced itself to the surface in scintillating waves.

  My shoulder screamed at me and my whole arm was numb. I flexed my fingers, urging life back into them. I’d landed on that shoulder. As the shadows pressed me to the ceiling, the pain gradually subsided.

  Victor faced Polly without showing any signs of fight. It was almost as though he had given in.

  Hemmed in by squirming shadows, Goodwin lay motionless. One eye peered through his swollen face. I still didn’t know how to feel about him.

  My arms had a little movement, and more importantly, my head remained unrestricted—unlike before when bound up and gagged. Such a relief not to have a mouthful of shadow. I caught Isidore’s eye. Shadows covered her torso as they did mine. Blood trickled along her cheek.

  “Not again,” she said.

  “You’re telling me,” I muttered. “This has been happening to me all afternoon.”

  Polly was staring Victor down and he appeared to shrink beneath her gaze. He hung his head. She grinned.

  Surging to life, the Shadow Fabric bulked and shifted from the corner. So much darkness in the room, with the lesser shadows snaking over the floor. They licked the remains of the stitchers.

  There I was, helpless again, pushed against the ceiling. Strung up, useless, and the shadows tugged off my gloves. They fell in a double slap. Why didn’t the shadows simply kill us?

  Their floating darkness had now swallowed the dumbbells and mats, and most of the floor. And the Hourglass was still on the chair. Further away was the upturned box of shadowleaves, with its contents spilled like a discarded jigsaw puzzle, the pieces all black. With piles of dusty clothes and skeletal limbs heaped in places, I couldn’t decide where to look.

  Something else was there, too. Something which glowed bright like a beacon in the darkness. It was my shadowleaf. My white one. The one which had been extracted from the Hourglass after Stanley—the Entity in human form—had forced me into the straps. Even though Stanley had managed to find my grey shadowleaf and had somehow controlled me with it, there was my white shadowleaf.

  Two lives, two leaves. What did that mean? Not only that—if Stanley could control me, how many others had he controlled, or did he intend to control? And what else had he done with other shadowleaves? At least Isidore’s leaf had been lost amongst the rest of the discarded pile. Stanley hadn’t been at all concerned with hers.

  More questions. And it wasn’t the time to ask. I had to do something. I thrashed against the shadows, trying to force my arms out. Like before, I failed.

  Beneath us, roiling shadows circled that white leaf as if repelled.

  Isidore saw it too.

  “Leo,” she said. “Look.”

  “I know.”

  Victor cried out as an arm of shadow knocked the Witchblade from his hand. The athame spun across the floor. The shadows parted, each wispy tendril careful not to touch the blade. Another tentacle clamped around Victor’s head and looped around his neck. He choked and clawed at it with both hands. Polly laughed.

  The Shadow Fabric rippled as if energised. It puffed out as though inhaling, as if it held its breath, ready for something. The air, heavy, clawed down my throat. I felt dirty, as foul as the Fabric. It shuddered, once, twice, and blasted through the wall in an eruption of brick and glass.

  I shouted something as the destruction rang through my head.

  A part of the ceiling groaned as gravity snatched it in crumbled masonry and twists of timber frame. Dust drifted into the room over scattered glass.

  Then silence.

  I didn’t realise I held my breath. With the Fabric no longer in the room, the mind-fog cleared, replaced by an image of the box room. We hadn’t burned the boxes—this was what Polly referred to. We forgot to burn them. No matter our intentions, we simply didn’t do it. After all our deliberation, standing in the room with me persuading Victor to hold tight, not to burn the boxes. At the time we’d not known where Goodwin was, and that had been my case. When Goodwin joined us, bruised and broken, we left the room without further thought, without further discussion. Victor and I had voiced our mistrust and disappointment, and we left. Isidore followed us without a word regarding our initial intentions. That would explain our fuzzy heads. All of us had symptoms of an outside influence, a channelling, as Victor had said.

  All of us had forgotten.

  And so we retreated, by no conscious thought of our own. Not having burned the potential ammunition, we returned to
the studio in time to witness the extraction of Polly’s shadowleaf.

  The Entity can influence others by channelling its powers via a perceptive mind. In this case, it was Polly. Her lack of sight gave way to the heightening of other senses, essentially creating a sixth sense. With the capabilities of mind control—despite the Fabric restrained by Witchblade fire—the powers writhing behind the veil of darkness were strong enough to bounce from Polly’s mind and into ours. Channelling.

  So we’d left the box room without following through with our plan. We’d gone to use fire, yet didn’t get around to it. Distracted, as simple as that…clever.

  And now the Fabric raged into the evening.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Shadow Fabric filled the view beyond the studio’s crumbled wall, blocking what little light remained of the day. It was impressive, there could be no denying it.

  I struggled behind the restraining shadows. Isidore too, desperate for release.

  “Leo!” she screamed. Her hair stuck to her blood-streaked face in clumps. “We’ve got to get away.”

  My teeth clenched. There was nothing I could do.

  The Fabric throbbed, hovering above the gardens. I saw Neil—working late, as always—manoeuvring a wheelbarrow. He stopped and looked up, his mouth and eyes wide. The darkness lunged downwards. One moment, Neil stood there, hands clamped around the handles, and the next, he wasn’t.

  He and the wheelbarrow had vanished.

  A second later the barrow burst from the pulsing Fabric, followed by bone shards falling to the ground. Torn clothes fluttered and his skull smashed onto the pathway.

  I bucked against the shadows—too many good people were dying. I’d known them for the last couple of years and all of them were like family. I slumped into the shadowy embrace and shook my head. A wind pushed into the room and its chill dried my unblinking eyes. In the distance, rain clouds formed.

  With shattered glass glinting at her feet, Polly nodded at her achievement. Framed by splintered timber, she placed her hands on her hips, and as a chunk of masonry fell from the ceiling, she stepped casually aside.