Shades of Darkness

by A. R. Kahler

  Her hands were fire. They burned into my skin, rode my bones and veins like an electric current, searing my heart, my lungs, my brain. It was ecstasy.

  “Who are you?” I asked her.

  She didn’t answer.

  She clenched tighter. My wrists shattered. Vision turned white. Everything burned white and black and I was there, floating above Brad as he wandered drunkenly through the school’s football field. A light coat of snow frosted the ground, everything beautiful and pastoral and perfect. He was humming to himself. I felt inside his heart; he was ecstatic. He felt like a god.

  He stopped when he saw the girl. The naked girl with skin white as snow, a raven on her shoulder.

  “What’s . . . what’s a fine piece of ass like you doing out here?” he slurred, grinning. He shambled forward, already excited. She was naked and alone and he was on fire. He’d fucked one girl already. This was his night.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she sauntered toward him, and wait, hadn’t there been a bird on her shoulder earlier? He shook his head and fell to his knees. She didn’t turn away from his drunkenness. She walked right up to him and knelt down, forced him to sitting. She straddled him, and it was then he realized she wasn’t fully naked. She had gloves. Red gloves. And they were dripping.

  Her lips found his in an instant and his heart swelled with heat. She smelled like cinder and dirt and she leaned into him, pressed him to the ground with the sheer weight of her lips and torso. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t think beyond the friction of their skin, the steady beat of his blood.

  He didn’t see her reach above his head to trace a thick, bloody line into the snow, arching her arms out to the sides like wings, dragging my blood in a halo around them both. So much blood. How had I lost so much blood?

  She bit his lower lip and tugged, causing him to gasp.

  “In humility I offer this sacrifice,” she whispered heavily into his ear. He squirmed, his eyes closed. Fuck, he wanted her. He wanted her more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. And he would have her. “May his soul nourish the great Yggdrasil. Through his suffering, may the Tree grow.”

  She slid her hands to his chest and arched her back, looked straight up into the sky. Straight at me.

  “May his life pave the way for the Great Battle. May his sacrifice give you strength.”

  Then she plunged her bloodied hands into his chest. I felt her fingers claw around his heart, stop the blood in his veins. I felt the scream die short in his lungs as his soul was sucked down, down into the roots of the Underworld. His death was swift. Painless. But his death, I knew, was just the beginning of his punishment.

  She stood smoothly. No wound in his chest. Her hands still bloody.

  “For you, Kaira,” she said. “This is all for you.”

  Then, from the shadows, the great raven Munin flew toward her, fast as an arrow. He pierced through her chest and pain pierced through mine as both she and the bird and the football field exploded in a torrent of feathers and smoke.

  I opened my eyes and was back in my dorm room. The raven still sat on the windowsill. He didn’t need to show me the rest; every day was a testament to the power Munin had wielded. I rubbed my wrists. The skin was smooth, never kissed by a blade. I’d woken the next morning in my bed—no blood in the bathroom, no cuts on my skin. A bad dream. Until Mom told me Brad had been found dead on the football field.

  “Why is this happening?” I whispered to the bird. To Munin’s messenger. I pushed myself to sitting. “Why is he back?”

  The bird didn’t answer, but it didn’t fly off. It cocked its head toward the pillow.

  And I knew then what it wanted. I reached under and grabbed the crystal Mom had sent me. It was hot to the touch, and the crow flapped its wings the moment it saw it.

  I held it out to the bird.

  “Is this what you want?” I asked. “You want me to dream again.”

  The raven cawed.

  “Can I stop it?” I asked. “From happening again?” I thought of Ethan and Elisa and Oliver. And Chris. “Can I keep them safe?”

  The bird shuffled. I pushed myself to standing and walked over to the window, my legs unsteady with the memory of memory, the weight of my past dragging my heels. I didn’t want to reclaim anything. If I did, I’d have to admit that I was the one who killed Brad, that I’d wielded some great and terrible power against him.

  And I’d have to admit to myself that I hadn’t felt bad about it. Not once. Terrified, maybe, but only of myself. I was just as cold and ruthless as the violet-eyed girl, and that’s why no one could love me. I wasn’t safe.

  I opened the window and held out my hand, the raven only inches from my skin, its black beak poised over my wrist. I waited for it to strike, to lash open my flesh and take back the blood that shouldn’t still be pumping through my veins.

  Instead, it looked up at me with those dead black eyes and waited for the question still lodged at the back of my throat, the one I’d been fearing since I woke up to see Jane’s body drawn in my hand.

  “Are you the one doing this?” I whispered. “Am I?”

  Munin’s reply was fast and sharp.

  No.

  Then the raven plucked the crystal from my hand and took off, disappearing into the darkness.

  I watched it fly off, my blood as cold as the snow. This had nothing to do with me then—this wasn’t my past or curse catching up. This wasn’t some strange karmic retribution. But that meant it was someone else. Someone else was killing my friends. And if it wasn’t the gods I knew, I couldn’t imagine being able to stop it from happening again.

  Dreams tumble

  Yggdrasil’s roots stretch from floor to ceiling

  break past desks and chairs

  and there is Jonathan, drawing circles on the chalkboard

  and there are the owls, sitting silent in their chairs, watching.

  Waiting.

  “You’ve come back,” she says

  and I turn to see the violet-eyed girl.

  She stands among shadows and ravens,

  her blade drips blood.

  “I thought you had turned away.”

  “I need to know,” I whisper.

  “I need to know what is happening.”

  The girl presses a hand

  to a gnarled root.

  Ravens twine under treeflesh.

  “The end times come,” she whispers.

  “Our battlewith the Aesir comes,

  but another . . .

  another god stirs,

  one who should not waken.”

  “But my friends. Why are they dying”

  “Because the gods require blood.

  And this god starves.”

  “But why them?”

  She turns, and the raven on her shoulder tilts his head. Munin watches us. Waiting. His beak drips crimson.

  “They were chosen,

  as you were chosen.”

  “Chosen for what?”

  “To serve.”

  Shadows stretch and through the gaps

  I see a battlefield, bodies prone and bleeding,

  ravens harvesting.

  “The owls are screaming,” she says,

  tilting her head to the sky.

  Blood drips against her porcelain skin.

  “And the ravens have gone silent.”

  “How do I stop it? How do I keep them safe?”

  She steps closer and in her violet eyes I see the void.

  “No one is safe. Not from what is yet to come.”

  Her blade kisses my skin,

  the tip drags against my neck.

  “This is not how things were meant to be.

  We must stop this new god.

  Before he throws off the balance.

  Before he kills again.”

  “You saved me once. How do I save my friends?”

  She doesn’t smile.

  But I swear that Munin does.

  “By giving yourself to me. Be m
y vessel.

  Together, we will fight him.

  When he is gone, our battle with the Aesir may begin.”

  Roots twist tighter around us,

  bind my arms and legs.

  “Vessel?”

  Her blade presses deeper,

  draws shadows from my neck.

  “We gave you your life,” Munin says.

  “Now, it is time to give it back.”

  Class resumed as normal the next day. I nearly slept through breakfast without Elisa there to wake me up, but at least when I did drag myself from bed there weren’t any new scribbles in the notebook. My dreams were like a bad aftertaste in my mouth; I remembered only snippets of them, but I didn’t want to know the details, not really. All I knew was that the thought of them made my pulse race, made me feel like I was living on borrowed time. Like everyone was. Every time I blinked I saw that damn circle, the one surrounding Jane and Brad and most likely Mandy. Every time the darkness closed in, I saw the violet-eyed girl with her hands in Chris’s chest, offering him to the World Tree. Swearing that this was my power.

  But in this case, it wasn’t my power. If this was the same thing as what happened to me, a life for a life, then other kids were dying and being saved and having scapegoats go in their place. Was that even something I could stop? Maybe no one was summoning the gods—maybe the gods were coming here of their own accord. Meddling.

  Another god stirs. . . . Chills raced across my skin at the thought. It didn’t make sense—none of it did—but did it even matter? Did the gods ever make sense to mortals? I had to save my friends. That was it. Understanding the gods’ motivations could wait.

  The boys were already at breakfast when I arrived, and there was an odd sort of tension between us when I sat down. Elisa and Oliver were deep in conversation about something in their shared French class, but Chris and Ethan just sat there, stirring coffee or picking at scrambled eggs and staring out the great picture windows at the frozen lake beyond. My stomach twisted. I wasn’t an actor, but I knew I had to be cheerful, witty Kaira. It was the only way forward. But I really didn’t think I had it in me today. Not with my carefully constructed walls between myth and mortality dissolving.

  “How goes?” I asked, setting my tray down beside Ethan. He glanced over at me and shrugged.

  Chris, at least, was a little more talkative.

  “Sleepy,” he said. His jaw cracked with a yawn. “Bad dreams.”

  “Me too,” Elisa replied. “Though maybe it was from sleeping on the floor.”

  “I have a funny feeling everyone’s having bad dreams,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. He gave me a look that clearly said especially after what we saw. I knew he and I needed to talk. The painting studio discovery was probably more of a shock for him and Chris than it was for me, for different reasons. But he’d be more inclined to think there was a killer on the loose, rather than something mystical. I almost laughed; the fact that I was more comfortable with this being supernatural in nature rather than a psychopath was crazy.

  “We should do something tonight,” Chris said. “You know, movie night or something.”

  “We could rent a movie from the library,” Elisa ventured.

  “Or go off campus,” Ethan said. His expression lit up—he was a Sagittarius, and I knew he was always eager to get on the road, even for small trips. “There’s a really great comedy playing at the cinema.”

  Of course he was the type of boy to say “cinema” rather than “movie theatre.”

  I had no doubt the next few nights would be spent doing everything we could to get off campus. Something about Islington had changed—it no longer felt like a bastion of safety as it had before. It was starting to feel like a tomb.

  We spent a few minutes talking about movies and homework and upcoming concerts. I couldn’t focus on the conversation. It took everything I had to move my fork to my mouth and swallow. There was a voice screaming in the back of my mind, a goddess ranting about power and duty. The crows that kept sweeping past the windows didn’t help. With every black shadow that crossed my gaze, her voice grew stronger.

  “You okay?”

  I shook my head and forced my attention back. Back to the cafeteria, back to my friends, and away from the oil of feathers and pressure of power. Chris looked at me with serious eyes; something about that expression helped root me down and force the voices away. When I was focused on him, the rest of the crazy world went silent.

  I realized he’d asked me a question.

  “Sorry,” I said, glancing down to my plate. “Just a bit distracted.”

  He placed a hand over mine and squeezed my fingers. I didn’t flinch like I usually would have. I was just too damn tired to care.

  “I understand,” he said. And it sounded like he actually might. That was dangerous. “Do you need to talk?”

  I shrugged. “I’m okay. Just a lot on my mind.”

  “That’s a lot of justs,” he replied. “I gotta head to class, but let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m here for you.”

  I looked in his eyes again and felt the weight of his words. I’m here for you. I didn’t want to admit how many years I’d yearned for someone to tell me that and mean it. Ethan and my mom, sure . . . but this was different. This made my heart ache with the promise of something I couldn’t let myself desire. Then Brad’s face flashed behind my eyes—him in the bathroom and him dead on the field—and I drew my hand back to my lap.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Of course,” he replied. I could tell he was hurt by my withdrawal. It was better that way, though. There wasn’t a point in falling for me. You couldn’t date someone with a bloody past and no future.

  I watched him walk away. Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

  “He’s really sweet,” Elisa said. I turned around and realized she and I were the only ones at the table. Had Ethan and Oliver said good-bye without my noticing?

  “He is,” I replied.

  “I thought you said you weren’t dating.”

  “I’m not . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Everything I wanted to say felt like a lie.

  She studied me for a moment. We’d spent so much of our friendship being smart-asses. There wasn’t room for that anymore. Everyone’s life had been colored by the events of the last few weeks. In this new hue, none of us could act the same.

  “I think you should do it,” she said. “Fall hard and fast and don’t think twice about getting hurt. Life’s short, Kaira. Life’s way too short. You gotta take the good when you can and that boy is about as good as it gets. I say this as your friend: If anyone’s worth the hassle of falling in love, it’s Chris.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. A week ago I would have told her it was stupid. I would have gotten pissed and said I couldn’t date and how dare she tell me I should fall for a guy because I was independent and didn’t need something as stupid as love. But now her words struck chords in me that drowned out the resentment.

  Despite the fact that we had ten minutes before class, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want this moment to end—it felt important, like this was the first breath after a long silence. Chris vanished through the door, but I could still sense him, still feel his hand over mine. And in spite of everything, he was the one thing in my world that felt right. For some insane, impossible reason, the wrongness of wanting to date Chris paled in comparison to the wrongness of everything else.

  “Go for it,” she whispered. “Before he’s gone.”

  She sniffed as tears filled her eyes. I knew she saw Jane every time she blinked. I stood and walked over to wrap her in a hug, and she cried in my arms for a few minutes. Then, with the sniff and shiver of an actress putting on a mask, she collected her things and led us out of the cafeteria toward Jonathan’s class.

  • • •

  I spent all of Folklore thinking of Jane. It was impossible to think of anything else with Jonathan talking about the
Vikings invoking their gods for battle or Egyptians calling down their deities for fertile harvests. So much of humanity’s past involved conspiring with the gods. When had we lost that thread?

  I barely even registered when class ended.

  “Doing okay, Kaira?” Jonathan asked. He stepped over to my desk while the rest of the class filtered out.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “You sure? You seemed pretty out of it all of class.” He gave me a grin. “I’m not that boring, am I?”

  I tried to laugh and failed, fumbling with my notebook in the process. It fell in a flurry of papers. He reached down and picked it up for me, his eyebrows furrowing.

  Shit.

  It was open to the page I’d scribbled in my dreams.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  I snatched it from his hand and flipped it closed.

  “Brain dump,” I said.

  “That looked like Jane,” he replied. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I wondered then if he had seen the crime scene as well. Helen would have called him, would have wanted support. If he drew any correlation between my sketch and the scene though, he didn’t admit it.

  “Fine. I mean, as good as I can be.”

  He nodded, not breaking his gaze.

  “I was kind of disappointed you weren’t at the tutorial yesterday,” he finally said.

  “Sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t really. I had too much on my plate to feel guilt over missing a study hall.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand you’re busy. But I do wish you’d drop by.” He looked to the notebook in my hand. “I think it would be good for you. What we’re studying. The support of your peers. I think you might find it helpful in navigating life right now.”

  I shrugged. The room felt heavy and close, way too close, and I wanted to get out of there immediately.

  “Maybe next week,” I said.

  “Actually, we’re having another meeting tonight. Yesterday wasn’t a good day for anyone, so I figured I’d reschedule. We’ll be meeting after dinner.”