The Shadow Hour

by Melissa Grey

  “Found your diary.” Her mother’s words tripped over themselves like drunks stumbling out of a bar after last call. “Is this the kind of shit you’ve been wasting your time on when I’m at work?”

  Something else was wrong, Echo could feel it. Everything was as she’d remembered it, as if the mountain had mined her memories to reconstruct her old house as faithfully as it could. Each and every detail was painstakingly rendered, from the ash burns on the carpet near the end of the couch her mother always sat on to the way her mother’s breath smelled like a distillery, even from halfway across the room. But something was off. Something wasn’t right. Echo’s eyes darted around the room, never quite letting her mother out of sight, an old habit that felt like hopping on a bicycle after not riding for years. Violent drunks were unpredictable. One should never let them out of one’s sight.

  “I’m talking to you,” her mother said, her voice rising with anger. Every fiber of Echo’s being screamed at her to run, to hide, to ward off the beating she knew was to come, but her feet were planted so firmly that she might as well have grown roots deep down into the earth, like a tree. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Her mother stumbled toward her, knee knocking into the coffee table. The pile of textbooks swayed, one falling to the ground. An Introduction to Calculus. Calculus? But Echo had left home when she was seven. She hadn’t been taking calculus at age seven. She was smart, but not that smart. That was a high school class, and Echo had never gone to high school. She might have, in an alternate universe in which she’d never run away.

  Her mother bent, awkwardly, like her joints hadn’t been greased, and set her wineglass on the table. “You always did have an active imagination,” she slurred, opening the book. Only a few feet separated her from Echo, and Echo could see the name scrawled on the book’s cover. It was a name she’d walked away from a decade ago, a name she’d shed like snakeskin when the Ala told her she could choose her own. And it was written, unmistakably, in Echo’s handwriting. But it couldn’t be hers. She couldn’t have written that. This wasn’t her life. This wasn’t real. She had left home. She had escaped. None of this was real.

  Her mother skimmed through the pages, one painted red nail scratching across the lines of text as if she could draw blood from paper. “And you’ve got little drawings, too.”

  She flipped the book around so Echo could see it. The page was covered in Echo’s handwriting, small and neat and cramped. Bursting from the margins were illustrations. A girl with long, flowing feathers for hair and eyes as black and wide as a dove’s. A boy with feathers as sleek as a falcon’s, and another with scales gracing the angular cut of his cheekbones. On the next page two figures held hands, one wearing an eye patch that had been filled in with the blue ink of a ballpoint pen, the other with a shock of feathers atop his head in all the vivid shades of peacock feathers. A woman with skin so black she looked like she’d been formed from the night itself took up almost an entire page. Lines of white had been left blank to signify feathers.

  “Nice little family you made,” her mother said, turning the book back around. Echo almost reached out to snatch it from her grasp, but her palms had gone cool and clammy, her fingers refusing to obey the signals her mind was sending them. “Nice way to spend your time while I’m out there busting my ass to put food on the table.” Loose papers fell from the back of the book where they’d been tucked in as if hidden. Echo knelt down to retrieve them before her mother could.

  They were college applications, half filled out. There was even a handwritten draft of an essay. The first sentence read: “Growing up with an abusive alcoholic is a character-building experience, to say the least.” Before Echo could read any more, her mother yanked the papers from her hands, leaving nothing but a torn corner of the essay in her loose fist. Her mother read the opening of the essay in silence, her face slowly reddening.

  Echo remained where she knelt, like a woodland creature cowering before a predator. If she didn’t move, maybe the monster wouldn’t see her. But the monster always saw her, always found her, no matter what Echo did.

  Her mother’s voice pitched low and dangerous. “Is this how you see me?” She threw the paper to the floor. In comical slow motion, it flitted down, down, down.

  Scuffed tennis shoes approached. “You think you’re better than me?” Her mother’s foot struck out and caught Echo directly in the stomach. The wind whistled out of her lungs and she clutched an arm protectively over her gut. It had been years since someone had kicked her like that, but her body remembered the pain, the bone-deep humiliation. Footsteps retreated to the kitchen. Bottles were rummaged through in the refrigerator. A cap was popped open. “I read your diary,” her mother said. “You think your prince is gonna come and save you? Your imaginary friends with the feathers?” Her voice, already thickening, grew closer. Echo cowered just as she always had. “You are nothing. D’you hear me? Nothing. And you’ll never be anything more than—”

  Echo heard the first syllable of a name on her mother’s tongue. The old name. The one she’d left behind.

  I am not that girl.

  Another voice, the same one that had haunted her dreams asked: Then who are you?

  She didn’t look into her mother’s eyes as she pushed herself to stand. She didn’t respond to the name she no longer called her own. This life of fear and hurt and isolation was not hers. This house was not hers. This monster had been slain already, not by a knight brandishing a weapon like in her stories but by the decision to leave. And Echo had. None of this was real; it was an illusion crafted by magic from the raw material the mountain found in her memories. But she was certain about one thing.

  I am a sword.

  She stood, and the life that was not hers crumbled like paper burned to ash.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Her mother was gone. As were the coffee table and the peeling wallpaper and the stack of college applications and the room in its entirety.

  Slowly, Echo sank to her knees, exhausted. Breaking free of the hallucination’s shackles had been harder than she would have anticipated. She was kneeling in the middle of Fifth Avenue, between Forty-Second and Forty-First Streets, right in front of the library. Her instincts screamed for her to run, to get out of the way before an overzealous cabdriver mowed her down. But no cars drove down the avenue. Puddles of slick black fluid pooled beneath the husks of rusted vehicles that crowded the street. Smoke flavored with the scent of oil clogged the air. The windows of the buildings on either side of her were dark, all the lights out despite it being twilight. The clouds were gray, but not the gray of rain clouds; it was as if someone had scorched the sky. The white stone lions that flanked the stairway leading to the library’s entrance were gray with filth. One of them was missing a head. It was deathly quiet. Not a soul in sight. When Echo rose, her left boot caught on something. She looked down. It was a license plate, but not one of the newer ones with the yellow background. This one was old and had once been white, though the layer of grime that covered it made it hard to read the numbers. Through the muck, a red outline of the Statue of Liberty stared up at her, its torch held aloft, blue capital letters boasting NEW YORK above it.

  Her surroundings were as real as the house she’d left behind, and also just as fake. The minor details gave it away. The incorrect license plate. The black-and-white checkered stripes on the yellow taxis that had been abandoned at haphazard angles all over the avenue, as if their drivers and occupants had fled on foot in a hurry, away from whatever it was that had wreaked such havoc on the city. Cabs hadn’t been checkered in New York City for ages. For as long as Echo could remember.

  None of it was real. But the smell…By god, that smell was real enough. Echo held one hand over her nose, but that only made it worse. Something both slick and sticky transferred from her hand to her face. She looked down and bile rose in her throat, tangy and acidic. Blood coated her hands. Some of it was old and drying, darkening as it oxidized in the rank air, but s
ome of it was fresh and bright. She stumbled backward, her hands held in front of her as if they belonged to a stranger, but she couldn’t run from herself.

  “You have some nerve coming back here.”

  Echo spun around, eyes darting left and right as she looked for the speaker. From behind the hulk of an overturned city bus emerged a figure with a rifle slung over its shoulder. A hood masked the speaker’s face, but the voice—a woman’s—sounded familiar. Familiar, but slightly off, like the rest of the hallucination. That was what it had to be. It was the mountain, playing more tricks.

  The speaker approached cautiously, as if expecting Echo to attack at any moment. Echo raised her bloodstained hands, palms open to show she meant no harm. “Who are you?” she asked. “What happened here?”

  The speaker stopped. The hooded head tilted to the side. One gloved hand reached for the rifle and unslung it to hold it at the ready, but not aimed at Echo. Not yet, anyway.

  “Please,” said Echo. She lowered her hands slowly. On second thought, displaying the blood that drenched them was perhaps not a terrific idea. She didn’t know to whom the blood belonged or how it had gotten all over her hands, but if it had come from a friend of this person’s, then maybe it was best not to brazenly show it off. Again, she asked, “What happened here?”

  A tendril of smoke rose from a tangle of metal beside the bus. It might have been a motorcycle once, but it was so badly mangled it was hard to tell. The speaker let the silence hang between them for a few tense moments before moving. She raised a hand to her hood and pushed it back. The white feathers were matted with sweat and dirt, but they still shone brilliantly in the ruins of Midtown, catching the feeble light around them like flowers desperate for the sun. Ivy glared at Echo with one black eye. The other was gone, replaced by a mass of scar tissue. Burn scars dominated the right half of Ivy’s face, the feathers near her temple blackened with soot. “You happened here.”

  “Ivy?” Before Echo could take one full step forward, the rifle was pointed squarely at her chest. She froze. “Your eye…I don’t understand.”

  Ivy’s lips twisted into a grimace. “Is this a joke to you?” She cradled the butt of the rifle against her shoulder. “Haven’t you hurt us enough?”

  “I didn’t…” Echo shook her head. She had to get out of here, but she could spot nothing in the immediate vicinity that seemed to be a viable exit from the dream or hallucination or vision or whatever it was. The mountain was trying to teach her something. There was a method to this madness, but Echo had no desire to puzzle it out. All she wanted was a way to leave this horror show behind. This was not her Ivy. Ivy carried herbs and poultices, not high-powered weapons. Ivy was a healer. Not…whatever it was this Ivy had become. “Where is everyone? Where’s Rowan?”

  “You killed him.” The rifle’s barrel dropped a few inches, as if it had become too heavy for Ivy to hold. “And Caius. And Jasper. And Dorian. You tore down every single person who tried to stop you. I was the last person left who believed you could be saved.” She snapped the gun up, her vigor renewed. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Before Echo could beg or plead or try to explain, Ivy pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the flesh and muscle of Echo’s abdomen, the shock of it knocking her off her feet. She clutched her stomach. Her own blood mingled with the blood on her hands, but what poured out of her body wasn’t red. It was black. As black as oil. As black as shadows. Boots crunched over gravel and stray scraps of metal. Echo struggled to keep her eyes open. Ivy came into view and towered over her, the barrel of the rifle pointed at Echo’s face. Echo opened her mouth, but her words were drowned in a gurgle of blood. She felt her power pulse in time with her heart—she could summon it. It was there, simmering beneath her flesh. But she would not hurt Ivy. She would never hurt Ivy, no matter what this nightmare version of her best friend said. Echo wasn’t a monster who would harm the ones she loved.

  She wasn’t.

  She wasn’t.

  Was she?

  “And they said you couldn’t be killed.” Ivy’s tone was devoid of emotion, her one good eye as dead as her voice. “Let’s see if this does the trick.”

  Again, Ivy pulled the trigger. An eternity was compressed into the space of a single second. The boom of the shot. The smell of gunpowder igniting. This time, Echo felt no pain as darkness engulfed her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Light, bright and vengeful, seared Echo’s eyes as she fell out of the void, her knees landing on packed dirt and dry grass with a painful thud. Her fingers dug into the earth, capturing fistfuls of pebbles and dead leaves, as she heaved in deep, shaking breaths. The world spun and her eyes burned.

  Power surged within her, fueled by anxiety. She couldn’t hold it back. It was like trying to close floodgates after a wave had already rushed through. Fire flowed from her hands, scorching the earth and rushing around her, forming a circle. Her eyes watered and struggled to focus as she looked around. She was in a cavernous room with two arched doorways. The one behind her must have been the one she’d fallen through after leaving that nightmare hallucination. The expansive space glittered with the light of her fire. Veins of silver ore wove through the rough-hewn stone walls like a vast circulatory system. A faint glow emanated from the silver, as if it were lit from within by some strange magic. The sound of her breathing reverberated through the space, adding to the low drone of whispers that Echo had all but ceased hearing after the first few hours walking down those stairs.

  In the center of the room stood a massive fountain, its basin filled with rich, dark dirt and stringy red weeds that grew despite the lack of sun. Droplets of water trickled from the eyes of a stone beast perched astride the basin, its head angled downward as if in mourning. It was neither purely a bird nor a dragon; it possessed the traits of both creatures. Its outspread wings were coated in feathers so expertly carved they appeared to be fluttering in the wind. Great taloned claws gripped the edge of the basin. Scales covered the creature’s legs and torso, blending seamlessly with a ruff of feathers on its chest. Though its fangs were as long and deadly as those of a saber-toothed tiger, there was something unbearably melancholic about its countenance.

  Who are you?

  The whisper came from all around her, spoken not by one voice but by hundreds. Thousands.

  “I don’t know,” she said in a soft, broken voice.

  What are you?

  “I don’t know,” she repeated.

  But she did know. She wasn’t a girl. Not the one who had lived in that awful house or the one who’d taken up residence in the library or the one who had fallen in with a race of magical beings beneath the streets of New York. She was more than that, and less. She was the firebird. She was a creature. She was a monster. It didn’t matter if she outran her childhood. She had left a home designed to turn her into something dark, and darkness would not be denied. Her past had primed her for corruption, and the cosmic force coursing through her veins had found a seed inside her that could be watered. The firebird was neither good nor bad, the Ala had told Echo all those months ago when she had first learned of its existence, before her journey had led her here. Its nature was ambiguous, determined by the nature of its vessel. And Echo knew the truth now. Even if she won a battle against her demons, she was still losing the war.

  The fire continued to burn all around her, and she was powerless to stop it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  When Caius emerged from the darkness, the sight that greeted him made his heart ache even more than it already did. The residue of what he had witnessed—of what the mountain had shown him—clung to him like the stench of smoke after a fire. He brushed the memories away as he focused on the girl in front of him.

  Flames of light and shadow danced around Echo’s huddled form. Her face was buried in her knees, and even with the crackling of the fire, he could hear her shuddery breaths, punctuated by the occasional soft hiccup. The blaze undulated with the rhythm of her uneven br
eathing.

  “Echo?” he called out quietly.

  She didn’t look up when she said, “Leave me alone.”

  He paused, remembering the horrors he had just endured. “What did you see?”

  Echo sniffed and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” The fire continued to burn. “I can’t control it.” She tightened her grip on her knees. “I can’t make it go away, no matter how hard I try.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration. The fire around her began to abate, but small flames continued to burn, leaving sooty marks on the ground in the shape of a circle.

  Caius took a tentative step forward, and when Echo didn’t protest, he walked to the edge of her flames. He could not advance any farther unless she allowed it. Provided she could allow it.

  “You’re stronger than this,” he said. “You control your power. It doesn’t control you.”

  She shook her head again and a ragged sound tore from her chest. It took Caius a moment to recognize it as laughter, though it was mirthless and hollow. “I’m not strong,” she said. “I’m a coward. All I do is run away.” She looked down at her hands. “And now I’m a monster. I can’t run from that no matter how hard I try.” As she spoke, her voice rose, and the fire rose with it.

  Caius was forced to step back or be burned. “No,” he said. “You’re not. I don’t know what you saw, but you are no monster.”

  She glanced at the fire around her. Tears gleamed on her cheeks in its glow. “I am,” she said. “I will be. I saw it.”

  Gods, what Caius wouldn’t have given to cross the threshold of flame and embrace her. Her voice was strained, as if she was curling in on herself, trying to force the wild parts of her being into a cage too small to contain them. “You’re not,” he said. “You are so good, Echo. Better than anyone I’ve ever met.”