Shadow

by David L Dawson

  “Who spends more than twenty-five hours in the bathroom?” said Emily. Her face, as well as moist with tears, was now as red as an over-ripe tomato.

  “Maybe he has stomach problems,” said Cressida.

  Emily grunted. “You’re an idiot.”

  There was a voice in the back of Cressida’s head saying she should really slap Emily for this. But her mortal enemy did appear to be genuinely devastated, and Cressida felt that to be mad would be childish. When she was upset and people were sticking their noses in she would get angry too.

  “Why are you here?” Emily asked, wiping tears from her cheeks with her sleeve. “I’m not really in the mood for your ugly face in my hour of need.”

  Don’t slap her, Cressida thought. Don’t slap her.

  “We’re here to see Lichen,” she announced. “That probably sounds a bit stupid now seen as he’s gone missing or locked himself in the bathroom or whatever, but there you go.”

  Emily peered over her shoulder and eyed the group assembled by the gate. Miss Weber gave her a half hearted wave and both teacher and student groaned in annoyance. Neither liked the other. Emily thought Miss Weber knew as much about history as a pumpkin, and Miss Weber thought Emily a smart-alec and a bully. Joe wondered what Emily would make of their little group and why they were all standing by her gate and in front of a giant wooden platform parked in the middle of the road.

  “Why?” Emily asked.

  “I think that’s our business,” said Cressida.

  Emily smirked and slammed the door in their faces. An astounded Cressida, shocked even Emily could be so rude, took a moment before banging her fists loudly on the door like a madwoman and shouting, “Let us in you horse-faced turd before I get my mother to magically turn your house into manure!”

  “Maybe that’s not the best idea,” Joe whispered.

  “She can’t treat us like this,” said Cressida, stopping her banging for a second. “We were…almost polite to her and she pretends we’re not worth the effort of even breathing in our presence.”

  “She’s always like this,” Joe pointed out.

  “My life wasn’t at stake then, though,” said Cressida.

  Cressida turned back to the others. Seth was giggling. The Drake triplets were, bizarrely, picking flowers from next door’s garden and talking about the snow, which seemed to be melting rather rapidly. Miss Weber was talking to Ginger. She couldn’t see where Martin was. Her mother walked forward to join them, and she told her what Emily had said. Her mother appeared momentarily angry but soon calmed down.

  “No more banging on the door,” Ginger ordered. “I’ll deal with this.”

  Cressida felt a bit useless, having to drag her mother in to fight her battles for her. Still, if it meant she didn’t have to talk to Emily Swine then she was all for it.

  “Emily, it’s your teacher, Mrs. Widdershins,” Ginger announced loudly. “We really need to come in and talk to you. It’s important.”

  A voice, from inside, shouted, “Go away!”

  Ginger measured how she should play this. She knew Emily was a proud girl, a deeply intelligent one if a little immature. To appeal to her vanity might be a good step forward. They had nothing left to lose.

  “Emily,” said Ginger. “You are the smartest girl in my class, maybe even in the whole school. Surely someone with your intelligence realizes that all of us wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t vitally important?”

  Inside the fat ginger cat meowed a lot, and they could hear loud footsteps clomping back and forth. Then, finally, the door opened an inch or two. They could see Emily’s eyes peeking out at them, suspicious. Her eyes were red from so much crying. Cressida hadn’t realized her Elven tutor was so important to her.

  “Why are all my teachers here?” she asked, giving Miss Weber and Seth the type of look you’d give to a suspicious snake slithering up your bed. “What have I done?”

  “You aren’t in any kind of trouble. We urgently need to find Lichen,” said Ginger. “Can you let us in so we can come up with some sort of plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily grumbled. “I’d prefer to be on my own for now.”

  “Where are your parents? Perhaps we could speak to them,” said Ginger.

  “They’re out at the moment.” Emily opened the door further, picked up the cat that was in the way, and told them to come in. The cat’s name was Snaps, and it was the most vicious creature on the block. It ate other cats for breakfast, sometimes literally. Emily adored her to bits, despite her savage nature, or maybe even in spite of it.

  Ginger hadn’t seen Emily’s parents in years. They never turned up for parent’s evening anymore and they never went to any of the fairs or plays the school put on. She could hardly even remember what they looked like. She thought the father had grey hair and a lazy eye, and the mother always wore an obvious blonde wig. She often wondered what Emily would be like if the girl’s parent’s weren’t so lazy.

  “It’s like we’re heading into the lair of some beast,” Joe whispered.

  “We are heading into the lair of some beast,” Cressida whispered back. “The beast is called Emily.”

  The house was tidy but something of a surprise otherwise. There was several pictures; one of Lunander over the fireplace, spreading his many arms (he had three thousand) towards the unseen supplicants below the bottom of the picture and another, painted directly onto the wall, of a multicolored, glittering comet. If you added that to the wooden sofa and the wooden paneling and the green, leafy curtains you almost expected to find yourself in the home of an Elf. Yet this was the home of a human family, and the Elf who lived here was just a lodger. Something peculiar was going on here and Ginger was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Cressida, meanwhile, found the decor to be rather wonderful. It was like a show home, all perfect. A little too perfect.

  “I haven’t been able to get in his bedroom,” said Emily, ignoring Cressida and Joe as their eyes devoured her home. “It’s locked by a spell that I can’t break. Maybe you could do something, Mrs. Widdershins?”

  “I can always try,” said Ginger. “Lead me to his bathroom.”

  “Do you think he’s all right?” Emily asked.

  Ginger patted Emily on the shoulder affectionately and said, “I hope he’s all right for all our sakes.”

  They walked along a few corridors towards the back of the house. The thing that worried Ginger the most, and which even Cressida was beginning to pick up on, was that there were no photos anywhere. Not one single photo of Emily or her parents or any of her family. The walls were littered with paintings of trees and sticks magically twisted to form odd shapes. Ginger knew for certain they had a camera. The school had taken a trip to Bone Castle last year and Emily had taken hundreds of snaps.

  They came to a door at the end of a corridor. A window by the side of it revealed a back garden bursting with blue roses. Blue roses were only usually grown by Elves, since they could only be found on Elverica and could only be cultivated by Elf earth magic. How much of an influence did this Lichen have on the household?

  There was another twig on the door, deformed into the crude shape of a rose. Emily admired it for a brief second before trying to open the door. Ginger flipped through her mentally stored repertoire of spells and chose an appropriate one. She muttered it and the door flew open as if blown by an invisible gust of wind.

  “I’m quite sure I taught you that spell, Emily,” said Ginger as they stepped into the room. There was a wooden bed covered in messy blankets and a wardrobe. That was it. There was a window but it was covered in a sticky vine type substance.

  A thorough examination of the room was given but nothing was found that was out of the ordinary. Lichen’s clothes, however, were still in the wardrobe, and the blue vines that twisted around the windowpane seemed to move an inch every time she turned away. Only magical plants could grow that fast.

  “I have a weird suspicion,” said Cressida to Joe. Emily and Ginger were mov
ing aside the covers on the bed, looking for clues.

  Cressida and Joe moved closer to the vines. They were thin, like the roots of a small plant, and appeared to ooze some type of green-red sap. They did indeed move, more like writhe, but ever so slowly, as if they were stuck in time somehow. She touched her finger to one of the tendrils and came away with a bit of the sap stuck to her nail. It smelled like blood.

  “This is blood,” she whispered to Joe. By now Ginger and Emily had come to investigate what they were looking at.

  Joe pointed to a smaller bud that was growing out of one of the vines. It was beginning to open like a flower in the morning, reaching for the sunlight. Inside was revealed not a flower but an eyeball.

  “That’s Lichen!” Emily cried. “I can tell…it’s his eye.”

  Ginger inspected the eye up close, and it blinked; the eyelid was made up of a thin, veined plant like substance. She paused for thought, wondering what could have done this to the man. There were spells to turn people into plants but she’d never seen a plant like this before. This plant was offensive. It was an insane amalgam of flesh and flower. It shouldn’t exist except in the dark hearts of the darkest enchanters.

  “We have to help him,” said Emily, distressed. “Can’t you do something?”

  “I’m thinking,” said Ginger.

  There was the sound of something snapping. One of the vines whipped out and encircled Emily’s arm. She screamed and tried to pull away but the grip of the thing was too strong. Cressida intervened, chopping down with her hand like an axe, sure it would break it, but it was firm.

  “Get it off!” Emily screamed, and as suddenly as it had attacked the plant creature that was once Lichen gave an almighty gasp. The vine fell from Emily’s arm, drooping, lifeless, and the whole structure of the creature began to wither until it appeared to be no more than a tiny pile of crumpled, dry leaves.

  “Was that really Lichen?” Cressida wondered.

  “Yes,” said Emily gravely. “I think it was.”

  Chapter 4 – Weight of the World

  After another ten minutes Grace had begun to think that Abe had turned into a statue. He never moved, not even an inch, as he stared into his half full mug of tea. The tea must be cold by now. She wondered if she should offer to make him a fresh cup.

  “He looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders,” said Monika.

  Grace turned to her mother. “I thought you said he was trouble?”

  “He is trouble,” said Monika. “It doesn’t mean I can’t feel sorry for him.”

  I need to know what’s wrong with him, Grace thought. Maybe I will offer to get him a refill after all.

  “Can I get you another cup of tea?” she asked him.

  He looked up at her with shock. His sad eyes further ignited her sympathies.

  “I’m fine,” Abe grunted.

  She made a decision, and sat down.

  “What’s your name?” she asked him.

  “Abe,” he replied.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  He looked into her eyes, seeing Cressida reflected in them. He had to kidnap a little girl and lead her to her death. She was innocent, just like Grace, just like her little sister. If he allowed this to happen it would be like letting harm come to Grace. But what was he supposed to do? His masters were powerful beings, former gods, and they could crack him like an egg if they wanted, and he owed them a lot. They had taken him from the asylum; they had given him a purpose. Was he to throw all that they had given him back in their faces?

  “I have to do something at work which goes against my conscience,” he explained. “I’m not sure what I should do.”

  He started when she suddenly grabbed his hand. She felt warm. He had never been touched before except to be kicked or punched. It felt nice.

  “I think you know what to do,” she told him.

  She couldn’t understand. The Shadow Assemblage was like a force of nature. You couldn’t fight them, and you certainly couldn’t go against them. They were implacable and totally evil. It would pain him to do it but he had chosen to serve them long ago. He had to do his duty. No matter how I feel about it.

  He let go of Grace’s hand, thinking it might be the very last time, and strode out of the cafe.

  Chapter 4 – Ginger’s Offer

  Emily put the bits of dry vine into a small wooden box. She carved Lichen’s name on the lip with a knife and together the four of them buried him in the back garden with the blue roses. Emily said he would like to be laid to rest here. The roses were his pet project and he loved them. It saddened her that he would never see them bloom again.

  “Goodbye, Lichen,” said Emily, as the last shovelful of dirt was thrown. Ginger patted the earth down flat and they all said a prayer to Lunander to receive his spirit and welcome him. They may have been unfamiliar with the prayer, being devotees of Rafreya, but Emily knew what to say.

  “I worship Lunander,” Emily whispered as they finished.

  “Are you supposed to do that?” Cressida asked her. The aroma that hung over the rose garden like a mist was overpowering, if pleasant. The blue rose had a smell all of its own. Cressida liked it.

  “I don’t see any harm in it,” said Emily. “Besides, both religions are very similar; spookily so, in fact. Lichen was a very good teacher.”

  Ten minutes later Emily was sitting in the living room with a glass of warm milk and honey. It had been Cressida’s suggestion. That beverage always made her feel safe and calm and warm and she figured it would do the same for Emily. She couldn’t imagine what the girl was going through. As far as she knew Lichen had been with her family for many years and was more like an uncle than a teacher. To have him die in such a bizarre, unpleasant way must be terrible.

  They were all seated in the heart of the living room. A ticking clock punctuated the brief silences. Joe watched as Cressida struggled with her feelings for Emily. You could hardly hate somebody who was in such distress, could you?

  “Where are your parents?” asked Ginger.

  “They’re out at a conference, talking about how to combat some of the more destructive magical storms,” Emily explained. “They won’t be back until tomorrow. I really think there is something we can do about such things. Some of these magic storms are quite frightening.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Cressida, unaware that Emily was actually lying. “I remember the big one we had last year. It frightened me to death!”

  All of a sudden Snaps pounced onto Cressida’s knee. She jumped out of her skin, and as she tried to carefully nudge the feline back onto the floor it hissed and bit her finger. Cressida wondered what to do as the cat began to make itself comfortable on her knee, kneading her flesh with its paws like she was dough, digging its claws into her. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore the cat curled up into a ball and was fast asleep. Goddess, Cressida thought. Even the irie didn’t frighten me that much.

  Ginger gave Emily a firm look. “Tell me the truth.”

  “They left two years ago,” Emily wailed, bursting into a torrent of tears. “I miss them so much!”

  “Where did they go?” said Cressida.

  “How should I know?” said Emily. “I woke up in the middle of the night and found them packing their bags. When I asked them where they were going they said they were going to get a life. I don’t think they were ever very good at parenting. I think they saw it as a chore or a distraction from what they really wanted to do. I never saw them again after that night. Lichen has looked after me ever since.”

  Ginger sat next to Emily, pulling her into a hug. She knew the girl needed it.

  “Why did you never tell anyone?” Ginger asked. “We could’ve found you a new family to live with.”

  “Lichen was perfectly capable of looking after me,” Emily explained. “Besides, he was more of a parent to me than my actual parents anyway. He actually listened because he wanted to, not because he had to. Well, I suppose
he did have to, as he was being paid to teach me, but I could tell he wanted to as well. He’s been good to me these past couple of years and he didn’t have to. Nobody was paying him anymore.”

  Ginger looked into Emily’s eyes. She had never seen such hopelessness before in the eyes of one so young. It broke her heart. This girl had nobody to look after her now. She would end up in some foster home, sharing a ward with twenty other equally miserable children. She couldn’t have that.

  “You can come and live with us,” Ginger offered.

  “WHAT?” Cressida exclaimed. The loudness of her cry woke up the cat, which dug its claws into her legs in revenge.

  “We have several spare bedrooms,” said Ginger. “Shanks and I always planned on having a large family but for some reason we never got around to it. So we have plenty of room. You won’t be in the way.”

  “Yes she will,” said Cressida scornfully, cringing as Snaps the cat’s claws seemed to dig their way further into her skin. She tried moving it again but got another bite for her trouble.

  Ginger turned to Cressida with eyes of steel. “I never raised you to be selfish, Cressida. We can help and it’s the right thing to do.”

  Cressida felt she had no choice but to agree. She didn’t like the idea of her sworn enemy Emily Swine living with her, even though it was temporary, but the pity she felt for Emily’s situation more than outweighed that. Cressida knew she wasn’t selfish and she wanted to show her mother that. Anyway, she had to agree. Rafreya would want her to be charitable.

  “Fine,” said Cressida. The cat jumped down off her lap, padded over to Emily, and jumped onto the sofa. She curled up beside her, sparing Emily death by a thousand claws, and gave Cressida an evil look. It was a look that could destroy worlds.

  “Can Snaps come too?” Emily asked. “I couldn’t possibly be without my cat. He’s like family to me. As you know I don’t have any family left.”

  “I’m allergic to cats,” said Cressida.

  “No she’s not,” said Ginger, smiling lovingly at the cat like it was an angel sent from heaven and not a demon from the abyss. “Of course Snaps can come. I adore cats!”