Shadow

by David L Dawson

  Bram turned to Emily. What he had planned for Joe would go far smoother if his best friend were alive. He didn’t want his grandson to be difficult. “Bring her back to life this instant. Joe will need her friendship in the days to come.”

  “I want her to stay dead!” Emily sulked.

  Bram slapped Emily brutally across the face. “Do it now.”

  “I can set your brain on fire if you’d like,” hissed Emily. Bram swung his fist back to give her a harder smack this time but Emily held her hand out to show she would do as ordered. She opened the book and flipped to the relevant page.

  For now Emily pretended to be upset but inside she was feeling ecstatic. She could have the pleasure of killing Cressida all over again. Over the years she’d been thinking up such imaginative ways to bump her off. Maybe I could turn her into a cow, slaughter her, then turn her into steaks and eat her? That would be fun!

  Joe, Abe and Corona watched in awe as Emily recited the resurrection of a human spell. Joe couldn’t help but watch as yellow magical energies swirled around Cressida’s lifeless form like a whirlpool, before filtering down into her mouth. A second or two passed before Cressida gasped and sat up, her hand reaching straight for her chest.

  “That hurt!” Cressida yelled.

  Emily swayed, feeling faint. “Too right it did.”

  Joe wanted to hug her but Emily and Grandpa Bram were standing too near her, and he didn’t want to go anywhere near them if he could help it. Emily could strike him dead any time she wanted, what with the book being hers now, and as for Grandpa Bram, the man who had raised him…He didn’t know what to think.

  Cressida looked up at Emily, and staggered to her feet, backing away. “You stabbed me in the heart! You tried to kill me you bitch!”

  Emily laughed. “I did kill you.”

  “That’s not possible,” Cressida stammered, coming to stand beside Joe. “I can’t have died, otherwise I would be dead now, not…Oh Goddess you have the book. You used it to bring me back from the dead…”

  She clutched Joe’s hand, needing his presence to keep her steady. This was like a waking nightmare. She had died? She couldn’t remember what had happened after Emily had stabbed her, only a complete and utter nothingness. There were no dead relatives there to meet her; no benevolent Goddess giving her the cup filled with everlasting juice to welcome her to the afterlife. There had been nothing. Was that because Rafreya knew she wasn’t really going to stay dead, or was it because Rafreya really was dead herself and there was no afterlife anymore?

  “What’s going on, Joe?” she asked her friend.

  “Emily and my Grandpa have no shadows,” said Joe. “I’m not sure what it means exactly but…”

  “They’re hosts for members of the Shadow Assemblage,” said Abe, suddenly realizing what it meant. “I should’ve seen it earlier.”

  Grandpa Joe said, “My shadow is Phobos.”

  “My shadow is Aubra,” Emily announced with pride.

  “Grandpa,” said Joe. “We could find a way to get your shadow back. You don’t need to be like this.”

  “You think that Phobos stole my shadow?” said Bram. “It was quite the opposite. You see, Joe, many generations ago our family made a pact with Phobos to become his host. He’d become fed up of wandering around, trying to find suitable hosts when the previous ones died. Having a readymade host just waiting was something he needed. So our family became that host. When one generation died the next one took on the mantle. Your father should have been the next to take on Phobos but…Well, there’s no use thinking about that now. When I die you will give your shadow to Phobos.”

  The thought of his shadow being taken over by one of those creatures made Joe feel dizzy it was so repellent. He liked his shadow! He wanted to keep his shadow! He couldn’t believe his grandpa was doing this. It was so totally out of character. But he’d been lying to me all these years, so maybe the kindly old man act he put on was the charade and not this. This nasty evil man was his Grandpa’s real personality. The man who had loved him and he had loved in return was essentially dead.

  Bram took in his grandson’s disgust and said, “You don’t feel any pain. In fact you hardly even notice it’s gone. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Won’t I be dead?” Joe shouted. “You’ll be taking the book to them and they will use it to resurrect Frostma and kill all life.”

  “You will be spared, just like I will,” said Bram. “Cressida will be spared too. You will need a friend in the future.”

  Cressida couldn’t understand any of this.

  “How did you know we would come to you for help?” Cressida asked.

  “You didn’t come to me for help, did you?” said Emily. “You were directed to Lichen, by someone your mother thought was a friend but who actually works for the Shadow Assemblage. You see, I was the backup plan just in case Abe failed to kidnap you. After getting hold of the book they knew you couldn’t read it and so would, for various reasons, either want to learn ancient Elvish to use the book yourself or to get rid of the protection spell. They knew your mother had a friend who might someone who spoke the language. So your mother went to see him, and he directed you to Lichen. I’d killed Lichen by then because I wanted to be the one to betray you. It seemed like it would be more fun. Anyway, I was to help you learn the language, watch you dissolve the protection spell, and take the book and force you to say the spell. I was probably going to threaten to kill your mother or something. Of course you would refuse to say the spell, and then I would kill you and be bonded to the book. If things started to look like they were taking too long I was ordered to kill you anyway, but not too early. Killing you too early would alert you to my plan and give your friends more opportunities to interfere.”

  “What if I decided to just ignore the book?” asked Cressida. “What if I just shoved it under my bed and left it there?”

  “You don’t think I could have contrived some reason to come over to your house?” said Emily. “I’ll give you a list. Number one; I’ve mislaid my history homework and I really need your help and…oh, what’s that under your bed? It’s the Book of Fire…Wait a second; how I do I know that’s what it says? I know what it says because I know ancient Elvish! Example number two; I really need to see your mom, Cressida. I don’t know what else to do. I’m being bullied at school and I…oh please, I need the bathroom…Erm, Mrs. Widdershins, I know I wasn’t supposed to but I was curious and I had a look in Cressida’s bedroom and I saw this book under her bed that…”

  “ENOUGH!” Cressida shouted. “You’re giving me a migraine!”

  “Would you like me to split your head open for real?” Emily begged.

  “You really are filth,” Cressida spat. “I can’t believe I actually started to like you.”

  “I am a likeable sort of person,” said Emily.

  Cressida didn’t answer back. What magic spell would work against Emily? She thought. She had the Book of Fire now and with it she could do almost anything. A pathetic levitation spell could be countered by one that could turn her eyeballs inside out, set her on fire and throw her into another galaxy.

  “We have to get out of here, now,” Emily whispered in Bram’s ear. She could feel the tension, the way Cressida’s eyes bored into her, and Abe, who probably couldn’t wait to turn her to stone and use her as a hat stand. They had to get out of here quickly.

  Emily searched around for something to use as a distraction. Her eyes eventually came to rest on the marble statue of Ginger Widdershins. She grinned and walked up to it and pressed the Book of Fire to its side. It vanished.

  “What have you done?” Cressida cried. She came to rush forward but Emily whispered a spell and Cressida’s hair gave a shudder. Her white hair suddenly began to grow out and, as if having a life of its own, her hair wrapped itself around her body, pinning her arms and legs in place so she couldn’t move. Emily whooped with joy. She’d been yearning to try that spell out for ages.

  “Try to s
top us leaving and I will constrict the hair around Cressida’s body to the point where she pops,” said Emily. She clapped at her own innovation, and smiled at seeing her mortal enemy struggle so. It was hilarious.

  “I will not let you leave with that book!” Abe yelled. He threw his statue spell at her but Emily held the book up to block it. The spell exploded against the side of the book, its protection spell rebounding it back towards Abe. He ducked out of the way and it hit a tree, which turned instantly to marble.

  Corona landed like a homing missile on Emily’s head. She scraped one of her claws across the girl’s scalp, drawing blood. She flickered out her possession tendril, hoping to snake it into her ear. Emily grabbed hold of it and pulled as hard as she could; the tendril ripped out of Corona’s body. She screamed in agony and went into painful convulsions as she flittered to the ground, then went into deep unconsciousness.

  “I do hope it’s dead,” said Emily. She wiped her hand across her top. She hoped she hadn’t caught anything from the irie. They really were dirty creatures.

  “And for my next bag of tricks,” said Emily. She flung aside another statue spell and pressed the book against the statue of Seth. He vanished. “I can’t have you inviting more allies in to play, can I?”

  Joe cannoned into her. The Book of Fire went flying in the air, landing on the ground right beside where Cressida was struggling against the bonds of her own hair. She looked down at it as Joe punched Emily in the face; she kneed him in the stomach and tried pulling at his hair.

  “Stop this!” Bram commanded. “If you hurt my grandson I will…”

  “I’m not going to hurt him,” Emily snapped. “Not much, anyway.”

  Emily kicked Joe in the shins, and then slapped him across the face with the back of her hand. He mumbled a spell that didn’t even appear to work never mind go wrong. She fired a sleep spell at him, sending him into an instant slumber. He began to fall to the earth and Bram used a levitation spell to keep him in the air.

  Emily turned back to face Abe. She grinned and the Book of Fire flew at Cressida. When it touched her she vanished.

  Chapter 40 – Deep Water

  “You can either come after us or save her,” said Emily.

  “I won’t let you get away with that book,” said Abe.

  “You do realize that, at this precise moment, Cressida is in the river, quite possibly drowning next to the statue of her own mother?” said Emily.

  Abe made an instant choice. He had to save Cressida. So he dove for the book. He touched it and, an instant later, found himself falling into a large lake. He knew this would happen, that he wouldn’t end up in the river that snaked by Cressida’s house. There had been a lake that was closer, a very deep lake.

  He dived down under the clear green water, witnessing Cressida as she sank, struggling against her own hair as it kept her tied up. The weight of it was pulling her down as it was extremely heavy. He swam to her, using strokes he’d learned at the asylum common pool, and managed to grab hold of her feet. Unfortunately she didn’t know that and her foot, still thrashing around in panic, hit his head. The pain was bad but he kept at it, and eventually he managed to make eye contact with her. She was holding her breath as best as she could but time was running out. He grabbed hold of her and tried swimming up towards the surface as fast as he could. Her hair weighed a ton, though, so it was hard going. Just when Cressida didn’t think she could make it the two of them punctured the surface and they both gulped in the gorgeous, beautiful air.

  Abe managed to maneuver the two of them to the bank of the lake, laying her to rest beside the lapping water, coughing up water. He saw she was still wrapped up in her own hair like a mummy, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. What he really needed was a pair of scissors.

  “I really need to get out of this,” Cressida whimpered.

  “I’m trying to think of a spell,” he shushed her, thinking. One that might work suddenly popped up into his mind. He said it slowly, mainly because he’d never had the need to use it before, and stared down at the two middle fingers of his right hand; they had turned into two blades, rather like scissors.

  “That’s cool, if a bit creepy,” said Cressida, as he started snipping away at the hair. “Why would anyone create a spell like that? Why would you even learn it?”

  “One of the porters at the asylum used it to cut patient’s hair,” Abe explained, trying to hack off hair that was tangled around Cressida’s left arm. “It was a lot safer than bringing in a pair of real scissors. How short do you want it?”

  “Like it was before,” she said.

  He couldn’t remember what it was like before but he did his best. He snipped the hair off at what he considered shoulder length, mumbled the counter spell, and watched his fingers turn back to normal. Hairdressing would never be his forte but he thought he’d done a pretty decent job.

  Cressida stood up, stretched her muscles, and looked down at the huge mound of soggy white tresses on the pebbled beach by the lake. She could open up a wig shop and make a fortune. The shop could be called “Cressida’s Excess Curls.” It was a good idea if she knew she wasn’t going to freeze to death in a few days time.

  She sat on the beach, making a sigh. Everything had gone so wrong. She’d lost the book; Emily and Bram were traitors; Corona was probably dead; Joe had been kidnapped; the statues of her mother and Seth were at the bottom of this lake somewhere. There was no way they could come back from this. She had failed utterly and they were all going to die because of it. The moral of the story is, she thought, don’t trust anybody and just wait for the end to come because there’s no point in trying.

  She laid her head back on the pebbled beach, ignoring the way they dug into her head. She said, “Don’t wake me up. I’d rather not feel when the time comes.”

  Abe was incensed. This wasn’t the time to give up. This was the time for action, to make more plans! He strode over to the edge of the lake, cupped some water in his hands and threw it over Cressida’s face. She jumped to her feet instantly, her gaze furious.

  “I was nearly asleep then!” she accused him. “Leave me alone!”

  “I can’t believe you’ve given up,” Abe shouted at her. “You’re the girl who took on a dragalodon; you’re the girl who fought the irie and battled a book monster on top of a high building; you’re the girl who survived falling to earth in her own house and mocked Phobos, one of the Shadow Assemblage! You’re the bravest person I have ever known and you can’t give up!”

  “What’s the point?” she said. “Emily has the book. I can’t kill the Shadow Assemblage now, can I? They have all the power now while we have nothing. There was always the chance we might fail before, even with the book, but now…now it’d just be futile. I want to live out my final days in peace, with…”

  She looked out at the lake, which stretched for a mile in the other direction. A mountain peeked up over the trees, topped with a sprinkling of snow and circled by raptors. The sun shone as bright and bold as ever, telling the world this was a glorious new day and the planet was at peace. It all seemed so tranquil. Nature hadn’t a care in the world, it just continued on as normal. All this, though, would be gone. The water would freeze; the trees would die; the raptors, all the animals, would turn to ice as Frostma slithered around the planet, leaving a wake of burning cold. She could see it in her mind now and it horrified her.

  “Can we find my mother?” she asked.

  “We don’t know where she fell in the lake,” said Abe. “I can try, though.”

  “I want to spend my last days with my mother,” said Cressida.

  He plucked the requisite spell from his memory and created a bubble of oxygen around his head. Gingerly he walked into the water and when he felt the water lapping at his chin he dived under the surface.

  An hour later he came back up, exhausted. He approached Cressida, dripping wet, creating a ball of light to dry him off as he did so. His disappointed expression told Cressida all she needed to kn
ow.

  “I didn’t find them,” he said to her unspoken question.

  “How big is this lake?” she asked him.

  “Over a mile wide, and about a mile deep,” he said. “It would take me weeks of searching like this. We need a diving crew or a submarine.”

  Cressida sighed. “There goes my idea of spending my last days with my mother. I’ll have to die on my own then. I can do that.”

  “Don’t give up,” he told her.

  “What’s the point?” she said once again.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m not giving up. There is a woman I love, who loves me. All my life I thought I was nothing, a repulsive monster who didn’t deserve even to be alive.”

  He turned off the facade spell, revealing his true face; the face of a spider. Black oily skin; faceted eyes; mandibles that wiggled. But Cressida wasn’t disgusted, not like she would have been. She saw sadness in that face, and heartbreak, and a vast trench of loneliness.

  “Phobos told my Grace what I was; a killer. She couldn’t accept that and she spat at me. Yet I don’t want her to die. She’s the most remarkable free spirit I’ve ever met and she doesn’t deserve the fate the Shadow Assemblage has planned for her and the world. What about you, Cressida Widdershins? Who do you love that doesn’t deserve to die in such a cruel way?”

  She started to cry. “My mother, my father. Joe. I don’t want them to die. Of course I don’t want them to die! But what can I possibly do now?”

  She tried to prove her point by trying to levitate him. It didn’t work. “Now the Book of Fire is no longer bonded to me my magic gene has gone back to being inert again. I can’t do magic anymore! With the book they have all the power. What do we have?”

  “You were resourceful and clever long before the book came along,” said Abe. “Besides, you have me and Miss Weber and the entire irie species at your back!”