Shadowghast

by Thomas Taylor

  Oops.

  “Ne-ow!” shouts Erwin, and he jumps to the door at the back of the box. I run after him and hurry down the steps to the backstage area. But before I get more than three paces, a silhouette fills the doorway below.

  It’s Tristo.

  Who rushes up the stairs to grab me.

  I pull Erwin back into the box by his tail, slam the door shut, and wedge a wooden chair under the doorknob. There’s an explosive bang on the door, which buckles under the strain, but the chair holds.

  “Heh!” says Erwin.

  “Yes,” I reply, “but now we can’t get out!”

  Behind me I hear the audience laugh and applaud, clearly taking the strange antics in the spotlighted Royal Box to be part of the show.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” calls Caliastra, from center stage. If she’s surprised to see me, I see no sign of it on her face. “May I introduce Herbert Lemon, your very own Lost-and-Founder. Here to take part in our show tonight!”

  The crowd cheers, while behind me Tristo flings himself at the door, nearly bursting it off its hinges.

  I give everyone in the audience an awkward wave. I’m sure it goes nicely with my awkward grin. Then, because I can’t think of what else to do, I bow and pop my Lost-and-Founder’s cap back on.

  The crowd cheers louder than ever.

  Down on the stage, the strange perfumed smoke of the lantern is already billowing and rolling into the auditorium—guided by Caliastra with her cane—while needles of intense light are projecting from around the silver orb in the dragon’s mouth.

  The whole of Eerie-on-Sea sits in its sights. Rictus reaches for the silver ball, and I realize that my plan is already in tatters.

  “Violet!” I shout, grabbing the railing of the Royal Box. “Vi! It’s me! Wake up!”

  “Ooh!” goes the audience in anticipation, enjoying this strange twist in the story of Ghastly Night.

  Violet glares up at me and shakes her fist.

  “RUN!” I say desperately, turning to the audience. “You’re all in terrible danger! Run while you still can!”

  The audience erupts in laughter.

  It’s at this moment that Rictus plucks the orb from the dragon’s mouth, and the supernatural light of the Shadowghast lantern pours out over everyone.

  The audience holds up their hands to shield their eyes, their shadows stretching out behind them. As smoke rolls in front of the cone of light, it shimmers in glowing clouds.

  Then the snatched shadows that are imprisoned in the lantern start to appear, creeping one by one from the mouth of the dragon. Mrs. Fossil’s shadow is one of the first, rolling around the clouds in confusion. Jenny Hanniver’s comes next, reaching here and there, looking for a way out. Behind them comes Standing Bigley, and the whole host of lost souls.

  I clutch the railing tighter than ever when I see Violet’s shadow, small and alone, stumbling blindly around in the ever-expanding clouds, arms outstretched.

  “Vi!” I shout again. “Violet!”

  But the only answer I get is the splintering of wood as Tristo finally breaks down the door behind me.

  And what do I do? Faced, as I am, with the complete failure of my plan, before it has even begun?

  Well, I jump, don’t I?

  I mean, what else can I do?

  I step up onto the railing of the Royal Box, high above the audience below, and leap out into space.

  But I’m not here to be the fall guy.

  Instead of tumbling to a dramatic but ridiculous death, I manage—by sheer desperation—to grab onto one of the ancient theater curtains. My fingers catch in the moth-eaten holes, and there’s a great rending sound as my weight causes the holes to widen. I find myself ripping slowly down toward the stage, in a cloud of velvet dust and sackcloth shreds.

  “A-aa-h!” goes the audience. Someone even shouts, “Go, Herbie!”

  They think this is part of the show!

  I pull myself to my feet and tip my cap at the audience. On the stage, the smoke is thicker than ever and filled with eerie lantern light and strange shadow shapes. But I can still be seen in my blue uniform and shiny brass buttons. I wave, and hundreds of hands wave back.

  And suddenly I wonder—now that I have taken the audience’s attention away from Caliastra, maybe . . . ?

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” I cry. “Everyone, on your feet!”

  And, despite some obvious confusion, many in the audience begin to stand, chuckling among themselves. I’m just about to tell them all to leave the auditorium, when a voice from the audience calls, “Look out! She’s behind you!”

  Before I can react, there’s a wallop on the back of my head, and I fall on my face. Clouds of smoke roll over me, and the audience roars with laughter and sits back down.

  I look around urgently, coughing in the perfumed clouds, and see Violet, holding a plank of wood. She is shadowless and full of rage.

  “It’s too late!” she yells at me through the smoke. “You cannot stop us now!”

  She swings the plank again, and I only just manage to roll out of the way before it smashes down onto the boards where I was just lying.

  “Vi!” I cry, struggling to my feet once more. “It’s me! I’m here with Erwin! I said I wouldn’t leave you, remember? I promised!”

  “Oh, no, you didn’t!” calls a singsong voice from the audience, to more laughter. Whatever else you can say about this strange situation, at least the people of Eerie-on-Sea are enjoying the pantomime.

  “I should have known you would get out,” Violet shouts, bunching her fists. “I told Cali you were sneaky. Now I’ll have to stop you myself . . .”

  So, I run. I take off back into the spinning clouds of light and smoke, away from a fight I never want to have again. In a moment, I am lost in the glowing smoke, though I imagine my silhouette must be clear for the audience to see. From somewhere in the mist, I hear Caliastra’s powerful voice reclaiming control.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” she cries, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for . . .”

  And that’s when I see her.

  Violet.

  Or rather Violet’s shadow! Stumbling and crawling from cloud to ashy cloud, near the lantern.

  But before I can reach her, Caliastra finishes her declaration with the words “Behold, the SHADOWGHAST!”

  The audience gasps in wonder as a new shadow pours from the lantern like thick oily smoke and skitters around the auditorium with a cackle of echoing menace.

  The shadow of a grinning man with horns upon his head.

  The Shadowghast is here!

  To cries of delighted horror from the audience, the dark spirit of the lantern leaps and darts, here and there, seizing the shadows that are still blindly trying to escape. Mrs. Fossil’s shadow, with a silent scream, is snatched and devoured in a moment, then Jenny’s. It recaptures shadow after shadow, and as each one is absorbed, the ghast grows darker and more solid, and grows stronger with it.

  Soon Violet’s shadow is one of the few remaining. I run toward it, just as the Shadowghast dives—his snatching claws reaching out to add Violet’s shade to its own.

  “No!” I cry, jumping between them.

  The Shadowghast recoils, thwarted, and tries to skitter around behind me, so I spin around. Again, the shadow specter pulls back. I’m daring to hope I’m correct that my shadow is somehow distasteful to this strange being. Behind me, Violet’s shadow is cowering, reaching out to me, as if it can sense I’m there.

  THIS SHADOW IS MINE.

  The terrible roar of the silent voice booms through my head, just as it did down in the Netherways.

  STAND ASIDE!

  “None of these shadows are yours!” I shout back. “You’ve stolen every one.”

  The Shadowghast makes a final lunge, trying to pass right through me to reach Violet’s shade, but he recoils again, quivering as he tumbles back.

  YOUR SHADOW . . . he roars, NOT RIGHT . . .

  Then the Shadowghast shoots
away, out into the auditorium after easier prey. But I know he’ll be back to claim Violet when he’s even stronger.

  “Violet, take my hand,” I say, reaching out to her shadow.

  But, of course, my hand touches nothing.

  “Maybe . . . ?” I say. “Maybe . . . this?”

  And I try again, this time using the shadow of my hand, and yes! my shadow hand finds Violet’s shadow hand, and the two clasp each other. And it’s really eerie, this feeling of our two shadows touching, but I have no time to wonder about it.

  I pull Violet’s shadow along, deeper into the clouds, until . . .

  “There you are!” says a voice, and Violet herself, assistant to the great Caliastra, steps out of a smoke bank and swings her very solid fist at my very squashy nose. I duck, but when I stand up again, Vi’s other fist is already closing in like a missile, and it’s all I can do to catch it in my hand.

  “You will never stop us!” cries shadowless Violet, trying to pull her fist free.

  I bring my other hand up—the hand that is holding hands with Violet’s shadow—and clasp Vi’s fist with that, too.

  Shadowless Violet kicks me in the stomach. She yanks her fist free as I hit the deck. But when I look up, I see that Violet is shaking her hand, as if trying to detach something from it.

  It’s her own shadow, which is stuck to her now, clinging on.

  “Get it off me!” Violet cries, trying to brush her shadow off with her other hand.

  But now that Vi’s shadow has finally found its rightful body, it starts oozing up Violet’s arms in a tide, then over her shoulders, feathers, sequins, and all. Violet fixes me with one last look of fury before the shadow washes over her head and fades away, as if being absorbed back into her body.

  Then Violet’s shadow reappears, shooting out across the stage floor, attached to Violet’s feet just as a shadow should be, and the audience gives a great cheer!

  “Herbie?”

  “Vi?” I gasp in reply. “Vi, is it you? Really you, I mean.”

  “Did Cali . . . ?” Violet starts to say, clutching her head. “Did Caliastra make me her puppet? Did the Shadowghast snatch my shadow? I can’t remember . . .”

  Then she looks down.

  “What am I wearing?”

  “No time for that!” I shout. “Look!”

  And I spin her around to face out into the auditorium. Through gaps in the smoke, we can see people gazing at the glowing clouds above them in amazement and fear as the Shadowghast dives here and there, snatching and devouring their shadows with glee.

  “We’ve got to stop it,” Violet cries. “Those people won’t even know what’s happened to them. Caliastra will capture them all!”

  “But it’s not Caliastra,” I say. “No, don’t look at me like that, Vi. It’s true! It isn’t Caliastra who is doing all this. It never was.”

  “Who would have thought,” says a voice like dark honey in the smoky air behind us, “that finding an assistant would be so much trouble.”

  We spin around as Caliastra strides through the smoke, swishing her cane.

  “Wait!” I say to the magician, rummaging in my pocket till I can pull out my flashlight. I point it at her like a magic wand. “I can explain!”

  Caliastra throws her head back and laughs.

  “Is that supposed to stop me, Herbert Lemon?” she cries, raising her cane to point back at me.

  So I flick the flashlight on and shout the magic word.

  “Prestocadabra!”

  The flashlight is pretty feeble, but it’s just strong enough for Violet to see.

  Her eyes go as wide as scallop shells.

  “No shadow!” she gasps.

  “What do you mean?” demands Caliastra, doubt and confusion in her face for once. “What are you staring at?”

  “It’s true,” Violet says, amazed. “Look for yourself. You have no shadow!”

  “None of them do,” I say to Vi. “Not Mummery, not Tristo, not Caliastra. They’ve all had their shadows snatched by the Shadowghast.”

  “But, then, who’s the Puppet Master?” Violet asks. “Who commands the Shadowghast lantern? And, wait, what about . . . ?”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  And we turn toward the magic lantern behind us, where it stands wreathed in perfumed smoke, projecting its eldritch light. Leaning against it is Rictus, rolling the silver orb from one hand to the other, chuckling through his horrific face-paint grin.

  “So,” he says, speaking for the very first time since we met him. “You’ve finally figured it out.”

  Violet startles visibly and clutches my arm.

  “That voice!” she gasps. “It sounds like . . . but it can’t be!”

  “Ha!” says the grinning mime artist. “Oh, yes, it can.”

  He lifts his arm and drags his sleeve over his face, smearing much of the paint off. The grinning mask of the mime artist Rictus is rubbed away. In its place is revealed another face, grubby but recognizable. It’s a face we never thought we’d see again.

  “Eels!” Violet whispers in disbelief. “Sebastian Eels!”

  Sebastian Eels, wreathed in the smoke of the Shadowghast lantern, and clutching the silver orb, points at me and Vi and shouts a command.

  “Seize them!”

  Caliastra grabs at us and gets a handful of Violet’s hair. Violet swings a kick, and the magician cries in pain but holds on. Tristo, summoned back down from the Royal Box, comes cartwheeling through the smoke and grabs me by the arms. Dr. Thalassi, Mrs. Fossil, and Jenny Hanniver all clamber onto the stage and close in around us.

  “People of Eerie-on-Sea!” Eels calls, addressing the audience. “Silence!”

  In a moment, every single person in the audience stops cheering, and an unnatural quiet falls over the auditorium. The people of Eerie-on-Sea are enslaved, captured by the Shadowghast and the will of the man who controls it.

  “Shadow spirit!” calls Sebastian Eels, into the smoke above us. “You have done well. Come! Come to your master!”

  The Shadowghast flitters around the smoke, darting from cloud to cloud, his fire-crackle chuckle the only sound we can hear.

  “I said, come!” Eels yells, raising the silver orb above his head. “Kneel before me!”

  There is a rush of wind, and the smoke clouds billow.

  Sebastian Eels looks slightly confused. But then a look of satisfaction crosses his paint-smeared face as the clouds part and the Shadowghast steps out and stalks across the stage toward Eels.

  “Should it . . . ?” Violet whispers to me. “Should it look quite so . . . solid?”

  And I’m wondering this, too. The ghast has absorbed so many shadows, and grown so dark, that it is moving like a thing of flesh and blood, approaching Sebastian Eels not like the beaten dog he seems to think it is, but like a being of great power. Sebastian Eels seems to notice this, too, and takes a step back, alarm in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Violet cries to the panicky author. “Overfed your little pet?”

  “Stop!” Sebastian Eels shouts. “Stay back!”

  “YOU SAID COME,” roars the Shadowghast, in a terrifying voice we can all hear now. “SO, I COME.”

  And the Shadowghast reaches out toward Sebastian Eels with monstrous, snatching hands.

  “I order you to stop!” the man yells, holding up the silver orb that stoppers the lantern. I see for the first time that it is engraved with strange symbols and marks. “I hold the orb! I am the Puppet Master! I command you. I have always commanded you!”

  The Shadowghast, looming over the man—his crooked fingers almost touching Eels’s face—comes to a reluctant halt and quivers with frustrated menace.

  “I HAVE WAITED,” the Shadowghast says, slowly and carefully, his hands pressing into some invisible barrier around Sebastian Eels. “WAITED FOR A THOUSAND YEARS . . . FOR THE STRENGTH . . . TO TAKE . . . THE ORB FOR MYSELF. TO CONTROL . . . MY OWN DESTINY. I NEED BUT A SINGLE SHADOW MORE . . .”

  And with wicked speed, th
e hand of the Shadowghast darts out and snatches the shadow of Sebastian Eels from where it is cowering behind him. The creature rolls Eels’s shadow into a ball, opens his frightful mouth, and devours it in a single horrifying, gulping motion.

  Then the Shadowghast’s great black hand closes over the silver orb, as the shadowless Sebastian Eels falls on his knees before him.

  “AND NOW,” the Shadowghast roars, “I AM THE PUPPET MASTER. I COMMAND ALL.”

  Around us, the people on the stage, and the folks of Eerie-on-Sea in the audience—everyone except me and Violet—fall and cower before their terrible new ruler.

  “NO ONE CAN STOP ME NOW.”

  “Yes, they can!” I squeak. Then I shout, at the top of my lungs, “Plan C, Erwin! C for cat! Do it now!”

  From the wings at the side of the stage, I see Erwin make his leap. He lands on the master switch that controls the lighting rig above the stage, and he pulls it down.

  There is an explosion of light as all the theater’s stage lamps turn on at once—just as they did during Caliastra’s first rehearsal. They flood the stage with intense, brilliant light that blazes down from directly above.

  “Arrgh!” everyone cries, throwing up their arms to shield their eyes.

  The Shadowghast roars and slumps down onto the stage as if the sudden light is pressing down on him with great force. Shadows—the shadows he has been absorbing—are pushed out of him in all directions, forced out by the ferocious illumination. They tumble on all sides and start seeking out their proper bodies again. And as they leave, the Shadowghast grows weaker and fainter. The silver orb trembles and then falls straight through the Shadowghast’s spectral fingers, crashing onto the stage.

  Violet dives forward and scoops it up.

  “Be gone!” she commands the ghast, as he flails in the blazing light and snatches half-heartedly at the departing shadows. “I have the orb now, so I, er, I guess I’m in charge. I command you, Shadowghast, to get back in your lantern!”

  With a roar of wind, the Shadowghast is whipped off the ground and sucked toward the fizzing lens of the magic lantern. He makes a last, desperate scrabble against the opening, but he is sucked inside with a POP!