Shadowshaper

by Daniel José Older

  Tee sipped a tiny mug of flavored coffee. “One thing I’ll say for these yuppies …” she said with a grin.

  “Jesus, babe!” Izzy put a hand on her forehead. “You have to be so loud? We’re surrounded in here. Besides, these ones aren’t yuppies, they’re hipsters.”

  Sierra looked up from her iced tea. “What’s the difference, anyway?”

  “Far as I can tell,” Tee said, “hipsters are basically yuppies with tighter pants and bigger glasses. Whatever they are, they make a mean mochaccino.”

  “The hellsa mochaccino?” Sierra demanded.

  “It’s chocolate and espresso, I think. You wanna try it?”

  “Oh my God, she’s crossing over!” Izzy squealed.

  Sierra shook her head. “I’ll stick to Bustelo. This iced tea is just brown water. Blegh.”

  “It’s three dollars and twenty-five cents’ worth of brown water,” Tee reminded her. “So you better enjoy it.”

  “You guys are ridiculous,” Izzy said, looking around. “Utterly ridiculous.”

  Everyone else in the little wood-paneled coffee shop was studying quietly or whispering into cell phones. Splotchy brown-and-gray paintings covered the walls, and a chalkboard behind the counter listed a whole slew of colorfully named overpriced beverages.

  Where lonely women go to dance … Beyond Wick’s ramblings about “crossroads,” the line was still the best clue she had that would lead to Lucera, and it still meant absolutely nothing to her. She had scribbled the words in her notebook at least twelve different times in various handwriting styles, from bubbly to elegant. It hadn’t helped. Lonely women. They went to dance clubs. Parties. Weddings. “Weddings?” she said out loud. “No, right? No.”

  Tee and Izzy rolled their eyes. “No,” they said at the same time. Sierra had explained everything to her friends as best she could, leaving out all the actual supernatural stuff she’d seen. She could tell they weren’t really convinced, but they played along anyway.

  Funerals. No one danced at funerals. Or did they? Sierra had a vague memory of Gordo going on in music class about how, in certain parts of Africa, they used to throw big parties and parade through the streets when someone died. The tradition had carried on to the Caribbean — the Haitians would march in wild circles with the coffin so that the spirit wouldn’t be able to find its way back home to bother everybody. And New Orleans … Something about New Orleans …

  “Imma write a book,” Tee announced. “It’s gonna be about white people.”

  Izzy scowled. “Seriously, Tee: Shut up. Everyone can hear you.”

  “I’m being serious,” Tee said. “If this Wick cat do all this research about Sierra’s grandpa and all his Puerto Rican spirits, I don’t see why I can’t write a book about his people. Imma call it Hipster vs. Yuppie: A Culturalpological Study.”

  “But there’s black and Latin hipsters,” Sierra said. “Look at my brother Juan.”

  “And my uncle is most definitely a bluppy,” Izzy put in.

  Tee rolled her eyes. “There’ll be an appendix, guys. Sheesh.”

  “What the hell is culturalpological anyway?” Izzy demanded.

  “It’s like the slick new term for cultural anthropology.”

  “You made that up!”

  “So what? I’m on the forefront. If I say it’s slick and new, then slick and new it is.”

  Sierra burst out laughing. “You two need to stop distracting me!”

  The wind chimes jingled against the glass door as it swung open. Big Jerome came in, still wearing his church suit and looking quite dapper. “Whatsup, ladies,” he said, leaning over to plant cheek kisses on Sierra, Izzy, and Tee.

  “Lookatchu all cleaned up,” Izzy said. “And same old same old over here: Tee bein’ ridiculous as usual, and Sierra nerding out over there on some riddle.”

  “As it should be,” Jerome said. “I’m getting a coffee.”

  “Bring your life savings!” Tee called after him. Izzy cringed.

  Where lonely women go to dance … Costume balls. Nightclubs. Churches. No. Sierra’s mind wandered back to the image of her chalk ninja shooting up a tree. She wondered what other spirits watched over her. “Hey, you guys know where your people are from?”

  “Of course,” Tee said, looking up from her comic book.

  Jerome placed his coffee cup on the table and pulled up an easy chair. “You Haitian like Robbie, right, Tee?”

  “Actually …”

  Izzy sighed loudly. “Everybody think that just ’cause her name’s Trejean and she black, she gotta be Haitian. There’s other French-speaking islands in the Caribbean, you know.”

  “Izzy …” Tee said.

  “She’s actually Martinique … Martiniquian. Whatever — she’s from Martinique.”

  “But Izzy, you said the same thing when you first met me.”

  Jerome snickered.

  “Yeah, well, that’s not the point,” Izzy insisted.

  “But yes, Sierra, to answer your question,” Tee continued, “I was born in Martinique, and my parents were too. My mom’s parents were from Martinique, and my dad is half French, half Nigerian, from the Igbo people.”

  “Sheesh,” Sierra said. “You weren’t kidding about knowing your people.”

  “What about you, Sierra?” Jerome asked. “You just Spanish, right?”

  “If she’s Spanish, I’m French,” Tee said.

  “Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

  “You’re Puerto Rican, right, Sierra?” Tee said.

  Sierra was beginning to wish she hadn’t brought up the topic. “C’mon, Jerome, you know it ain’t as simple as Spanish.”

  “Yeah, but we just say Spanish. Like Spanish food. Whatever, that’s just what we say.”

  People around them were starting to look up from their books and take their headphones off. Sierra felt her ears get red.

  “I doubt her African and Taíno ancestors feel like it’s ‘whatever,’ ” Tee said.

  Sierra was stunned. “Tee, since when you start talking ’bout ancestors?”

  “You think Puerto Ricans’ the only ones got ghost stories? Please. My uncle Ed’s been tellin’ me ’bout his ghosts since I was tiny. Said they wouldn’t come up to New York with him, though, that it was too cold or something. And now he all depressed and won’t leave his room. Half my family got ghosts.”

  “Whadup, y’all!” Bennie burst in. “Who buying me coffee?”

  Everyone looked at Jerome. “What?” He scowled at them.

  “Never mind, I got it.” Bennie went to the counter and came back stirring milk into a paper cup. “What we talkin’ bout?”

  “Tee’s jacked-up uncle,” Jerome said.

  “Shut up,” Tee said.

  “Sierra was asking us about our ancestors,” Izzy said. “And trying to figure out some dumb riddle. And Tee is acting the fool and making the rest of us cringe as per standard operating procedures.”

  “I don’t like any of you anymore,” Tee announced.

  Bennie smiled and sipped her coffee. “Sounds about right.”

  “Hey,” Jerome said, “did anyone else notice the Searchlight didn’t come today?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Izzy said. “My mom was like all freaked-out about it, said Manny’d never missed a day since 1973.”

  Sierra’s stomach plummeted. No Searchlight? And Manny hadn’t been at the Junklot. And he was in her abuelo’s photo of the shadowshapers…. She stood and made her way around the other chairs. “C’mere a sec, Bee.”

  “Where you guys going?” Izzy demanded.

  “Private conversation,” Bennie said.

  “Something about this isn’t right,” Sierra whispered once they were a few steps away. “Manny wasn’t at the Junklot either.”

  Bennie furrowed her brow. “And now the paper ain’t come? I don’t like that. You think maybe something happened to him?”

  Sierra had been thinking exactly that, but trying not to say it out loud. She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t kno
w. But there’s only one way to find out.”

  The B52 bus was taking forever, but there was still really no quick way to get to certain parts of Bed-Stuy. “Just wait till they get a couple more bakeries and boutiques stuffed in here,” Bennie said as they started and then ground to a stop for the four hundredth time. “New train stations’ll be poppin’ up real quick.”

  “True story,” Izzy said.

  “What you talking ’bout, Izzy?” Tee said. “All you do is sit around in those bakeries and write poetry.”

  Izzy looked truly offended. “That’s not the point, jackass!”

  Big Jerome rolled his eyes. “Here we go. They been like this since school got out.”

  “The hell we have!” Izzy and Tee said together.

  Sierra was in no mood for the banter. She watched Brooklyn pass as the achingly slow city bus lurched ahead. The past three days replayed over and over in her mind, but nothing made any more sense than it had before. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling that Manny was in serious trouble and it was somehow her fault.

  “You alright, Sierra?” Bennie said quietly. Sierra nodded, but her friend’s face was suddenly elsewhere. Then she realized: They were passing Vincent’s mural.

  Bennie looked like the wind had just been knocked out of her. “You can barely even see it anymore,” she said under her breath. Sierra took Bennie’s hand in hers and squeezed.

  “It’s back here, ain’t it?” Jerome called.

  They were standing outside a broken-down church. It looked as if it’d been hit by a couple of hurricanes and left for dead. Weeds posed grotesquely in the side yard. Jerome had ventured through the fence and was peering around back, but everyone else waited safely on the curb.

  Jerome came back to the group. “Manny’s spot is around the other side and down some stairs to the basement, if I remember right.”

  “When were you here?” Tee asked.

  “Mr. Draley took us here to see the Searchlight offices on one of those get-to-know-your-neighborhood trips in the sixth grade. But they coordinated wrong and Manny was out making a run, so we never got to see the printing press or nothing.”

  “Nice.”

  “You see the entrance back there?” Sierra asked.

  “I think so. C’mon.”

  The four girls followed Jerome gingerly into the side yard. There was no way to walk without the icky weeds brushing up against you like greasy old men in the street, so Sierra just gritted her teeth and kept moving.

  “God,” Izzy said, “imagine the rats that must hang out here.”

  “You’re always so grim,” Tee said.

  “They probably play dominos and whatnot too.”

  Sierra was about to shush them, but then they rounded the corner and everyone got quiet and serious.

  “This don’t look good,” Bennie said.

  The trapdoor entranceway to the basement was wide open. Cement stairs led into the darkness.

  “Not like him to leave it open, I suppose,” Sierra said.

  “Maybe he went for some coffee and forgot to close it,” Jerome tried.

  Sierra braced herself and then stepped forward. “I’m going in.”

  “You’re crazy,” Izzy said.

  “I’m going in too,” Bennie said.

  “You’re both crazy.”

  Tee frowned. “Ugh. Me too. I hate you guys.”

  Izzy sighed loudly. “Fine,” she said, taking Jerome’s tan hand in her small brown one. “But I’m taking the big guy with me. C’mon, Jerome.”

  Once Sierra went down the first few steps, the darkness surrounded her completely. She pawed blindly at the wall inside the doorway but found no switches. “Cell phones out, people,” she said, flipping open her own. The dim blue glow didn’t do much, but at least she knew there weren’t any walls in front of her as she moved deeper into the space. Izzy cursed as she tripped over some debris at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Can you make anything out?” Bennie said from just beside her. Sierra could see her little phone light dancing through the darkness.

  “Nope.” Sierra reached out a hand and touched a cool brick pillar. Lava-lamp color splotches spun in the darkness around her and gradually faded as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Every tick and tremble was a towering throng haint lying in wait. For all she knew, they were surrounded by the things.

  Sierra thought she heard something scraping along the ceiling and stopped walking. At first, there was nothing. Then it came again: a raspy exhalation. After a pause came another breath. Something is down here. The breathing continued, sickly and uneven, but Sierra couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. She swung her phone around in front of her, but there was only darkness. “You guys hear that?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Sierra!” Izzy whined. “Don’t be that jerk.”

  “I’m not!” Sierra tried to keep her voice from getting all high-pitched. “I just … you really didn’t hear anything?” Had she made it up? For a second, there were no noises at all. Then it came again: a horrible rattling breath. The same one she’d heard the night before in Flatbush. It was all around her.

  “Ahhh!” Bennie yelled.

  “What happened?” Jerome called from behind them.

  “I’m alright,” Bennie said. “Just stubbed my toe on something.”

  Sierra stepped carefully toward Bennie and then watched her friend’s phone light illuminate the ancient, rusty gears of Manny’s printing press. “The dude do it old-school style for sho’,” Bennie said. Its great metal arms stretched into the darkness, and the silver turning rod shone with the ghostly reflections of the phone’s glow.

  “You guys,” Izzy whimpered, “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Neither do we, dodo,” Tee said. “But we gotta find out what’s going on. Something ain’t right here.”

  Sierra couldn’t hear the breathing any more. She inched along past the printing press, keeping one hand on it to steady herself. Her left foot bumped something just as her phone light decided to blink off. She clicked one of the buttons and swung the blue glow down to the ground to see what she’d hit. It was a boot. In her surprise she toppled forward, dropping her phone, and landed on something a few feet above the ground. It felt like a man’s fleshy belly.

  “Oh my God!” Sierra yelled, scrambling madly away from the hideous cold flesh. Footsteps came toward her from all around.

  “What happened?” Bennie yelled.

  “Where are you guys?” Izzy said. “What’s going on?”

  Sierra flailed along the ground till she found her phone. “I’m okay, but someone’s here. I think it’s Manny.” All she wanted to do was run as fast as possible out of that basement and far away, but she had to know what was going on. She raised her glowing cell phone in front of her.

  It was Manny, sitting up in a chair, his mouth twisted open in terror, his eyes staring emptily into the darkness. Sierra gasped. Then Bennie was beside her, grabbing her arm, sobbing silently.

  “Guys!” Jerome called from across the room. “I think I found the” — bright fluorescent lights blinked on along the ceiling, making everyone squint — “light switch.”

  Izzy screamed at the sight of Manny. Then Tee turned around and started screaming too. Jerome ran past them toward Sierra and Bennie. “Oh my God,” he said, gazing over the bloated, sprawled-out body.

  Manny was in an old-fashioned barber’s chair, the one folks said he sat in to brainstorm the next issue of his paper. His guayabera hung open, splayed to either side of his gigantic belly. His big arms hung limply at his sides. Sierra had seen dead bodies before, had been to more than her fair share of open-casket funerals, but this was something entirely different. His body looked as lifeless as the chair he was slouched in — an empty vessel.

  But it was Manny’s pale face that really got to Sierra. His mouth seemed inhumanly huge, like his jaw had twisted itself out of place to allow for a wider expression of fear.

  Izzy was crying. Tee wrapped an arm around her girlfrie
nd’s shoulder and sniffled quietly. Jerome stood completely still, as if any movement might make everything suddenly even worse.

  “We gotta get outta here,” Bennie said, her voice shaking. “Whatever it was did this might still be around.”

  Sierra nodded, but it didn’t seem right, just leaving Manny like that. She had known Manny practically her whole life — they all had — and now he was just a heap of lifeless flesh and bones slumped in a barber’s chair. All around them, the image of the Domino King grinned out of shiny, scribbled-on photographs with various celebrities and back-in-the-day civil rights leaders. Stacks and stacks of old copies of the Searchlight were scattered haphazardly around the giant metal printing press.

  “Sierra,” Bennie said, from what seemed like miles away.

  It was those eyes, those unseeing, terror-stricken eyes, fixed on the ceiling. Without thinking about it, Sierra reached over and closed his lids.

  Manny groaned.

  Sierra stumbled backward as all five teenagers screamed at the same time. He’d barely moved — just the slightest twitch swimming across his tormented face — but the sound had unmistakably come from him.

  “He’s not … dead?” Sierra gasped. She wasn’t sure whether to turn and run or try to help him. She took a step closer to Manny.

  “Sierra, what are you doing?” Izzy said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “But …”

  “SIERRA!” Manny gasped. Except it wasn’t Manny’s voice, it was the hideous cacophony of voices from the throng haint.

  Panic swept over the group. They dashed up the cement stairs and out into the dimming afternoon light, then bolted across the street.

  “What … was that? What the hell was that?” Izzy kept sobbing.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Tee moaned. “What’s going on, Sierra?”

  “I don’t know, but we can’t leave Manny there, you guys. He’s still alive! Even if he’s … whatever he is.”

  “You gonna go back in?” Bennie demanded.

  Sierra glanced warily at the vacant lot and dilapidated church. “No. We gonna get someone else to do it.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Sierra and Bennie strolled back around the corner, trying to act as casual as possible. Police cars and ambulances filled the street, their angry red lights pulsating against the brick buildings.