Shadowshaper

by Daniel José Older

  “Whoa. Did you have to squinch up your eyes and whatnot to see ’em?”

  “Oh, so you do know a thing or two about all this, huh?”

  Sierra looked away again. “No thanks to you.”

  Juan poked the simmering egg and yucca mix with a spatula. “Anyway, nah, after a while you learn to just see ’em without the squinty thing. They were murmuring, humming to themselves in that way they do.”

  “They can talk?”

  “Kinda. It’s like you hear it in your head. But it’s not your thoughts. It only makes sense once you’ve felt it.”

  Sierra remembered the creature’s awful voice echoing through her and shuddered. “I think I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, the spirits said you were in trouble. Like bad trouble.”

  She sat down at the kitchen table, feeling like someone had splashed cold water down her insides. She knew she was in trouble, and tonight, for the first time in her life, she’d felt like death itself was staring her in the face. But, somehow, hearing that these strange shadows thought so too made it even worse. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “So I got on the next bus here.”

  “Didn’t you have Culebra gigs?”

  “Yeah, I canceled them.”

  “Wow … Thanks, Juan.”

  “You’re my sister and you were in trouble. And there’ll always be other gigs. I told Gordo to see if he could set us up a acoustic show over at El Mar for tomorrow night. You know, for old time’s sake or whatever.” Gordo was a big ol’ Cubano cat who had been teaching Juan music since he was little. He sat in with Culebra when they played New York gigs. “So what happened to Robbie?” he said, prodding his spatula into the yellow, lumpy concoction. A pungent garlicky aroma filled the kitchen. “He just up and disappeared? That kid’s always been a weirdo.”

  “Imma slap him next time I see him,” Sierra said. “Leave a girl alone like that when there’s all kindsa phantoms and thugs around.”

  “Yeah, that ain’t right. Can you get me two plates?”

  Sierra suppressed a smirk — it still gave her a little glint of pleasure to be taller than her older brother. “So lemme see if I have this right,” she said, setting down two plates. “From what Robbie said, the shadows are spirits wandering around, and then a shadowshaper comes and gives them a form, yeah?”

  “Right.” Juan set out the silverware and got Sierra a glass. “Like a painting or a sculpture.”

  “And the shadow spirit goes through the shadowshaper into the form, yeah?”

  “And then the shadows become more powerful and can do cool stuff and whatever.”

  “That what the official manual says, Juan? They can do cool stuff?”

  “You know what I mean!” Juan shrugged and heaped a few lumps of steamy egg and yucca scramble onto the plates.

  “What was Abuelo’s form that he did, though?”

  “He was a storyteller, remember? Apparently that’s pretty rare and powerful. Usually it’s painting, like Papa Acevedo.”

  “A storyteller? I mean, he always told us cool bedtime stories, but …” Sierra sighed. The list of things she didn’t know about her grandfather seemed to get longer by the minute.

  “Yeah, he was bad with it. I mean, from what I hear. Never saw him in action. But I heard if someone was coming at him, he’d just stand there all quiet-like and mutter to himself, right? And then whatever it was he was mumbling about would literally take shape around him, like materialize from the ether and go after the bad guys or whatever. The shadows would do what he wanted them to do. Abuelo was a straight G with it.”

  And now Lázaro couldn’t even form words, Sierra thought. She sighed again. Too many thoughts crowded her head, and all of them were tainted with the image of that shadow creature lurching toward her and the golden shrouds’ inhuman laugh.

  “So, you don’t know what that thing was?” Sierra asked.

  “The mouthy thing that jumped you? Never heard of anything like that. Or the golden things. That’s on some other level. All I ever seen is the tall, lanky shadow dudes. Sorry, sis.”

  Sierra shook her head. “It’s fine.” She ate quickly, said good night, and hurried upstairs. Someone was after her, after all the shadowshapers. Maybe Wick had the answers. She climbed into bed and spread the professor’s file out in front of her.

  Alas, I cannot create. I am a man of science. My only powers are those of observation and analysis. I cannot conjure something out of nothing like the painter Mauricio Acevedo or Old Crane, the metalworker.

  The spirits, for reasons still unclear to me, shun my every attempt to channel them into my unfortunate sketches. I can send them into others’ work, even enliven some inanimate objects, and once that’s done, the results are brilliant. But they will not come to my own work.

  There is a power vacuum now with Lucera gone. But here I am, a stranger as skillful as any of the old-timers, more so considering how recently I was initiated, and ever faithful to Lázaro…. Yes, the Sorrows have advanced me in ways that L need not know about. But they are my powers now, part of me.

  The Sorrows. He’d mentioned them earlier. They sounded like some other secret cult thing. She scribbled the words on a scrap of notepaper.

  And yet, when I ask Lázaro about filling the void that this overbearing spirit woman left behind, all I get in response are murmurs and shrug offs.

  This weekend I will approach Laz one more time about assuming the role that Lucera has vacated. As I understand it, only she can pass on the powers she holds. Surely he knows where she’s gone. She will listen to reason, and if not, surely Lázaro will help me convince her. She must understand one can’t simply abandon all that power, all these souls depending on her … No. She must share her power. She will be swayed, if not by my logic, then by the sheer fact that already the disastrous effects of her exile can be seen: Shadowshapers slip away daily. Lázaro has no sons to inherit his legacy and his daughters reject it outright. (He does have three grandchildren, perhaps a new generation of shadowshapers that must be looked into …) All over Brooklyn, the murals are fading. It is slow, the process, but the fact that it has begun so soon should convince her of the urgency of this matter. The shadowshapers must be saved! Lázaro must speak! Tonight, I will convince him.

  The entry was dated March 16 of the year before, just three days before Lázaro’s stroke. Had Wick had something to do with that? What had he done?

  Many hands tugged at Sierra’s clothes. More hands held her up, keeping her from floating off into an endless ocean of nothingness, and she knew they would help her get to the surface, if she only could figure out which direction it was. For a minute she allowed herself to hang deep underwater, floating somewhere between utter desolation and euphoria, all alone and yet surrounded by the hands of a million murmuring ancestors.

  Then something flickered at her from far away. It was a soft yellow glow, rippling like a flag in the summer wind. She concentrated on it, mentally letting the ocean hands know where she needed to get. Then she relaxed into the tremendous upsurge as huge torrents of water heaved her toward the surface.

  And then something clacked sharply against her windowpane.

  Sierra sat up in bed. The fury and fear that’d coursed through her earlier had simmered to a dull headache. She was sweating into her clothes, hadn’t even taken them off before she passed out. Night was a thick blanket around her. Only the little red broken-line numbers on her alarm clock cut the darkness. It was almost one.

  Clack.

  Outside her window, Sierra could just make out the dim haze of the neighbors’ backyard lights. Who was lurking behind her house? She crossed the room at a bound and laid her back flat against the wall, commando-style, then reached one hand across and forced open the screen. “You gonna show yourself or just break my window?” she hissed into the darkness.

  “It’s me!” someone whispered loudly from down below.

  “You’re gonna haveta be more specific than that.”
/>   “Robbie.”

  Ah, there came that rage again, along with some other strange rumblings deep in her tummy. “Oh, c’mon up,” Sierra called, trying not to sound angry.

  The fire escape clanged and quivered. and then Robbie’s smiling face appeared in Sierra’s window. “Hey,” Robbie said.

  She slapped him as hard as she could. His cheek had a soft layer of fuzz on it, a world away from her dad’s sharp scruffiness. Robbie pulled his head back and almost lost his balance.

  “What was that for?”

  “You don’t leave a girl behind when there’s bad guys on the loose, asshole!”

  “I …”

  “No. You just don’t. You effed up. Period.”

  “But I …”

  “If the next thing you say to me isn’t I’m sorry, Sierra, I messed up, Imma toss you right off this fire escape, Robbie, I swear to God.”

  They stared at each other for a full twenty seconds. Sierra watched his tense face soften. “I’m sorry, Sierra,” he said slowly. “I did mess up.”

  “That sounded genuine,” Sierra said.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Apologies made under threat of bodily harm usually aren’t.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, then, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Hang out out there, I guess.” Sierra sat cross-legged on her bed and rested her chin in her palms. Slapping Robbie had given her a whole new outlook on this otherwise grim night. “Now what’s your big fancy excuse for being a complete barbarian to me?”

  “I thought,” Robbie said carefully, “that the guy was only after me.”

  “That’s what you get for being self-centered.”

  “And then when I saw the other one, it was too late to double back. When I got away, I came to look for you and you were gone.”

  “I thought I was gonna die tonight, Robbie.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  The lump was back in Sierra’s throat. It was the shadow creature barreling toward her with that uneven gait. It was those laughing golden shrouds. It was her grandfather’s secrets. It was everything. “How do I know you’re not with them?” She narrowed her eyes at him. Bennie had warned her … “Every time you come around, something bad happens and you disappear. How you think that looks?”

  “Sierra, I know it doesn’t look good.” Robbie began pulling himself through the window.

  “Back. Get back,” she said. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know you. You’re just some stupid painting kid. You’ve brought me nothing but trouble.”

  “I didn’t …”

  “Shhh.”

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking,” Sierra said.

  The horror of running from that creature in Flatbush kept coming back to her, but so did the look on Robbie’s face both times they had been interrupted by corpuscules. He had seemed terrified, genuinely so. The kind of terrified you can’t fake.

  “I’m very trustworthy,” he said.

  “Be quiet. Now you’re trying too hard. It was going better for you when you weren’t talking.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  She stood up and took a step toward the window, watching him carefully. Robbie was biting his lip, obviously trying very hard not to talk.

  “I’ve had …” She rubbed her forehead, trying to stop overthinking and let the words come out on their own. “I’ve had a very, very bad night, Robbie.”

  “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Something attacked me in Flatbush after you left, and …”

  “I’m sor —”

  She cut him off with a raised hand. “Shh, don’t. Just let me talk. My brother Juan showed up and brought me home. The creature didn’t hurt me, I don’t think — I mean, nothing permanent. But … I’ve never felt so close to death, so at the mercy of something so huge and terrible. And no one in that neighborhood would help; they just thought I was another drunk Puerto Rican from the club. And Juan said he’s known ’bout the shadowshapers his whole life and Abuelo never even mentioned it to me, Robbie, not a thing, and now he’s a babbling vegetable and my mom won’t talk about it, denies what’s right in front of her face, like she’s ashamed, and here I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of something that doesn’t even have anything to do with me really, that —”

  Her voice quivered; a deep sob lingered in her throat, ready to gush out. Robbie looked at the ground.

  Sierra took a deep breath, steadied herself. “That’s just for the boys, I guess, and I’m just tired and afraid and sad all at once, Robbie, and I don’t know which one I’m more of because I’m all those things so much.”

  “Sierra …” He was inside the room when she looked up, standing a few inches away from her.

  “And then you go and disappear, the one person that I thought I could maybe trust in all this, who also knows what’s going on.”

  “Sierra.”

  His arms wrapped around her, and it felt good, right. She put her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t say you could come in, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You can, though.”

  “Thanks.”

  They held each other for a few minutes, their breaths rising and falling as one, their bodies rocking gently to the rhythm of whatever silent music the night was playing for them.

  “I’m sorry,” Robbie finally said. His hands slid up and down her back, and she wondered how far he might let them wander, imagined him tilting her chin up so that her mouth met his, and she really didn’t know what she’d do if that happened.

  “You said that already,” she said.

  “It doesn’t ever seem like enough, though. What … what was it? That attacked you tonight, I mean.”

  “I don’t … I’m not ready to talk about it.” She held him for a few quiet moments, letting her fear dissolve beneath Robbie’s fingertips. “Come, show me that little Haitian dance you do again.”

  He took her arm, raised it up, and placed his other hand on her hip. “Ooh! I love a little belly fat on a girl.”

  “Shut up!” Sierra laughed and felt the blood rush to her face. “No one asked for your opinion.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  She pulled his arm in front of her face and eyeballed his extensive tattoo work. “A-dayum, son, that’s a lotta ink.”

  He smiled. “Wanna see the rest?”

  Sierra nodded. Robbie pulled his T-shirt off, and she gasped. “Mmhmm,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “That was about the paint job, a-hole, not your skinny-ass chest.”

  “Oh, right.”

  It was miraculous work. A sullen-faced man with a bald head and tattoos stood on a mountaintop that curved around Robbie’s lower back toward his belly. The man was ripped, and various axes and cudgels dangled off his many belts and sashes.

  “Why they always gotta draw Indians lookin’ so serious? Don’t they smile?”

  “That’s a Taíno, Sierra.”

  “What? But you’re Haitian. I thought Taínos were my peeps.”

  “Nah, Haiti had ’em too. Has ’em. You know …”

  “I didn’t know.”

  The warrior gazed out across a teeming cityscape that crossed Robbie’s abdomen and wrapped around his back. It was Brooklyn, Sierra realized, spotting the clock tower from downtown. The moon hung low over the city, just below his nipple, and was stained with a strange splotch.

  “Whatsamatta with the moon?”

  “That’s Haiti,” Robbie said. “See how one side’s flat? That’s where it borders with the DR.”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  Across from the Taíno, a Zulu warrior–looking guy stood at attention, surrounded by the lights of Brooklyn. He held a massive shield in one hand and a spear in the other. He looked positively ready to kill a man. “I see you got the angry Afr
ican in there,” Sierra said.

  “I don’t know what tribe my people came from, so it came out kinda generic.”

  “Oh, this is … all your peoples?”

  Robbie nodded. “For me, they’re like the most sacred kind of mural. My personal source of power — ancestry.”

  Sierra remembered staring at the sprawling art peeking out of Mauricio’s sleeves when Grandpa Lázaro would bring her around the Junklot. “Turn.”

  Just by Robbie’s armpit, a little man in a three-pointed hat and a colonial jacket stared suspiciously off to the side, one hand gripping his sheathed sword. “Got a little French in you too, eh?”

  “Oui,” Robbie said. “Just a leetle beet.”

  Sierra rolled her eyes. The Brooklyn Bridge swooped up from the cityscape toward Robbie’s neck. Stars scattered across his shoulders. A few swirling lines suggested a rush of wind and some clouds. It was a breathtaking piece of body art.

  “Not bad,” Sierra said. “Let’s dance.”

  “Alright.” Robbie slipped his shirt back on, then took her hand again and placed his other hand on her hip. “Watch my feet.” He backed up a little so she could see his steps. The moves came quickly, just like in the club — a simple and beautiful strut, ancient but casual, like walking down the street. Sierra found her footing, then put her hips into it.

  “Uh-oh,” Robbie said, breaking out his big grin again. “Lemme stand back so you can do your thing.” He sat on the bed. Sierra kept her sweet rumba up, imagining congas winding beneath a softly humming voice, letting Robbie’s eyes take her in fully. She spun, felt the moment push her along, guide her steps, and then caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror hanging on her closet door. For the first time in a while, Sierra was struck by how much her face resembled her mom’s: that sharp chin, her full lips. The thought was somehow exhausting and beautiful at the same time. She closed her eyes, swinging her hips slowly, and then the shadows burst into life, reaching out from the corners of the room with long, pulsing claws and screaming faces.