World of Shadows

by Emily Rachelle

  Eventually, I can’t keep the question at bay any longer. I have to ask. “Will she…is she going to be okay?”

  Sophie stops singing but takes a few moments before she answers, staring almost blankly at Louna. She’s been doing that for a while now, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind. Finally she looks at me. “We’ll soon know.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She watches Adele as she explains. “Her injuries and blood loss are great. She will not survive them. But we live with magic. When dawn comes we’ll know.”

  “So she’ll get better at dawn? When you all turn invisible?”

  “Or she won’t.”

  I don’t want to ask what that means. I can’t ask what that means.

  Sophie doesn’t resume singing, and I don’t have anything left to say. This place has come to be tied to Shadow in my mind, but Adele is the closest thing I have to family here. The thought fills me with homesickness and longing for my family back in New York. How long has it been since I even thought of them? These tunnels are filled with magic, and I feel as though they’ve enchanted my family, my life before the tunnels, my entire real-life being out of my memory. How could I have let that happen? How could I let a mysterious place with people I know so little about take over my life?

  I push the thoughts away. They’re unsettling and they’re things I do need to deal with. But not now. Not here. Not while a woman I feel an inexplicable bond with, a woman I’ve come to love like a mother or sister, lies motionless on a blood-red mattress, waiting for morning to bring life and hope…or the opposite.

  Louna sits with her doll at the table across from me, just like she’s been most of the night. She’s no longer playing; simply waiting, sitting and staring at her mother’s unconscious body. My chair is turned away from her and the table, and I sit and watch the fireplace. The barely glowing embers and baby flames that keep the room warm throughout the night have grown to the small fire that signifies the early hours of morning. They’re much the same as the flames in my own, more elaborate, fireplace. I keep watch, with Sophie still sitting by the head of Adele’s mattress, waiting for the fire to reach daytime size and for Sophie to fade in my peripheral vision.

  Dread and hope make the worst couple.

  I’m not sure when Louna woke me, or when Sophie started or stopped singing, or how long I might have been sitting here waiting. But the moment finally comes and my breath and heart collide in my throat, both stopping for what feels like several minutes.

  A flame leaps up in the fireplace at the same time Sophie begins to fade. I turn immediately to watch Adele’s form on the bed as Sophie in front of me and Louna in her chair both begin to resemble holographs or a bad image from a projector.

  Adele lies tangible and unbreathing on the mattress.

  Ten

  I wake and stretch, yawning and wondering at the lateness of the morning. Then I notice Louna lying beside me in my magnificent princess’s bed and remember. Adele isn’t coming to help me dress. She’ll never come to help me dress, or do my hair, or eat a meal with me ever again. The feeling of freshness and a bright new day is sucked out of me, leaving an emptiness in my gut. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything. All I can think is that this isn’t real.

  This entire world is wrong. Magic and griffins and a man with talons hiding under a cloak—none of it is right. It’s not real.

  I go through the possibilities in my mind. I’ve blacked out. I’m in a coma. I’m dreaming—or having a nightmare—that feels long and drawn-out now but will be short and hazy when I wake up. Maybe I’m actually injured—lying at the brink of death—and this is all one of those near-death visions or imagined worlds that miraculously healed patients talk about.

  I’m sure of two things. I’m not dead, and this place can’t be real.

  I slide out of bed slowly, not wanting to wake Louna. I pull open my closet and stare for several minutes at the dresses inside. Yards and yards of fabric and thread and ribbons stare back at me, all stitched into complicated patterns and complex designs that take nearly an hour to get properly dressed in. After a while, I shake my head and kneel down, whisking out the bottom drawer. In only a few minutes, I’m dressed. I slide the drawer back in the closet, click the doors shut, and turn to view the jeans and sweatshirt and fresh-from-bed hair in the mirror.

  I can’t say I feel like myself again. Maybe I look like myself. I don’t know. I’m not sure who I am anymore. The jeans pull in the oddest places, too tight across my skin. The sweatshirt and hair look untidy and improper. I never did like baggy sweatshirts, but I can do something about the hair. I undo what’s left of the braid I slept in and grab the brush off the nightstand. Once it’s untangled and relatively smoothed and straightened, I leave the brush and the room behind. I doubt Louna will wake before I return, but if she does, there’s an entire village here that’s spent the past five hundred years with her. They can manage without me.

  I ignore everyone and everything, moving quickly and refusing to feel out of place in my clothes. These are my clothes, this is what I look like, and this place is what’s not right—not me.

  Nobody tries to stop me, and after the first few attempts nobody speaks to me. I’m sure, in a village as closely knit as this one, they’ve all heard about last night.

  Soon I’m dragging open two enormous carved wooden doors and walking straight toward the one person I want to see right now.

  “What happened?” I demand.

  He doesn’t answer. Silent, dark, and motionless, he perches in his throne.

  “I don’t care about the stupid curse. What is going on?”

  There’s a long pause. Just as I’m preparing to shout a third time, he speaks, low and grave and monotone.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry. You’re sorry,” I scoff. “You know what? I don’t even know who you are. The only thing I know about you is a freaking name that I made up and the fact that you don’t even have human arms! I mean, you’re not even an actual person, for all I know. You hide under that enormous black thing, and control my dreams, and somehow bring me to this dark place where everything is dirt and magic and firelight. And what about my home? My family—my real life? It’s like they’ve ceased to exist down here. Is that it? Am I the victim of this curse too, drawn underground where I will live among doomed villagers and a cloaked stranger, never to see my family or understand the people around me again?”

  My anger burnt out, the ache of despair fills my lungs. I break down, unable to say any more, and fall back onto the floor. Curling my legs up next to me, I sit and sob, rocking my body back and forth. For a long time we stay that way; me crying on the floor, him perched like a statue. Finally I’ve cried myself dry, and he stands up.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeats and actually offers his hand—his claw—to help me up. I don’t move. I can’t move. Draining my tears has drained my energy. After a moment he attempts to sit on the ground next to me, awkwardly wrapping his arm around me. I don’t fight; instead, I lay my head against his chest.

  I’ve never been this close to him, this aware of him. His chest under the cloak feels odd, almost like a sort of pillow. I have no idea what he’s wearing—or, come to think of it, what he physically is, even—but I like it.

  “I’m sorry too,” I croak. My throat feels thick and dry. I’m sure I look hideous, all red and puffy and wet.

  “I don’t know why it happened. It should not have happened.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything.” Technically I don’t know that. But if Shadow had any power over the griffin, I’m certain he’d do something. If he could have stopped what happened…he would have.

  “The magic is becoming less stable, and faster than I thought.”

  This isn’t the direction I expected our conversation to go. I think about the changes I’ve noticed lately. “In the library, when I found the book…everything was dusty. And my bed hasn’t been made some evenings w
hen I come home.” I’d gotten so used to magic housekeeping that now it felt odd when the place wasn’t automatically clean.

  “Yes.”

  I suppose that’s his way of telling me that I’m right and these things are connected. Still, talking about the magic isn’t lifting the weight crushing my chest. I sniff and swipe at my eyes.

  “She’s really gone.”

  He clears his throat and I can feel his movement when he nods. “Yes.”

  “There’ll be a funeral. Won’t there?”

  “Of course.”

  He’s certainly stoic. “How are things like that arranged here?”

  “Well, most likely the minister will take care of the arrangements. I assume Sophie will care for the body.”

  “Who will speak?”

  “The minister. Maybe a few others who were close to her.”

  “Of course.” We’re silent for a few minutes. I fight the images, the memories, the waves of guilt and pain and loneliness and the rest of the tangled, awful mess that keeps washing back over me. It’s all returning and suddenly I’m a little girl gasping and shrieking into my pillow and clinging to my mother’s slippers that she always let me wear, even though they were many sizes too big.

  I’m drowning in it. I can’t fight it off—I’m losing and drowning under the weight of the pain, the crushing anger, the unbearable loneliness. Slowly, softer this time, I start to cry again.

  “It’s okay. It’s good to cry.”

  My breathing is uneven, tiny fast gasps, and it hurts. “No, you don’t understand,” I pour out.

  “Then tell me.”

  I bunch up parts of his cloak spread in front of me on his lap and hold fast to it while I talk. “My mother—oh, my mother,” I stop for breath. “She—when I was seven, she died. It-it was cancer. Wait, you know what that is, right?”

  He shakes his head, surprising me.

  “It’s a disease—there’s a bunch of different kinds—but it might or might not be treatable and it may or may not go away, for a little or a long while or forever. It…it probably kills you eventually. There’s all sorts of groups out there for research, and patient and family support, and a bunch of other stuff.”

  “Go on.”

  I nod and take a deep breath. I’ve stopped crying now, but my breaths still come a bit like sobs. “She had leukemia. That’s cancer in the blood. We thought she’d get better—really, we did, and the treatments and chemo were going so well. Dad and Damien even shaved their heads to support her, and I got my hair cut and donated it. See, the treatment for cancer…well, sometimes it works, but it always makes you really sick and awful-feeling, and your hair falls out.

  “We really thought she’d get better.” My voice is smaller now, sucked dry of the tears and the pain and left with nothing but the little-girl loneliness. “She didn’t.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I take a deep breath and press the backs of my hands against my cheeks and eyelids to cool off, and hopefully reduce the sticky, puffy feeling. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being here for me.”

  He doesn’t answer. I twist my body just enough so I can see his face—or rather, his hood. His arm slides off my back, and I feel a slight shiver.

  “Please.”

  It’s an impulsive request. I don’t think about asking it; it just sort of slips out. This time, he doesn’t ask for an explanation. Neither does he answer or respond. We sit there, me puffy-faced in my jeans and sweatshirt, Shadow dark and mysterious under his cloak, for a long time. Neither of us moves or says anything.

  Finally he bows his head toward me. My breath catches and my heart skips for a moment.

  I reach out toward the fabric and carefully hold it, like an ancient piece of paper that might crumble at my touch. Slowly and easily, the hood slides over his hair, and I feel the soft strands brush against my hands.

  I drop the hood and stare with instant recognition. Clear, sparkling eyes stare back at me. They are an unmistakable dark gold.

  Shadow’s hair falls longer than in the necklace portrait—much longer—but it’s the same dark blond color. It’s a bit…not quite messy. Maybe tousled? The texture is sharpened by the shadows cast by the torch light.

  The next thing I notice is his jaw. It wasn’t quite as distinct in the painting as it is in real life; his jaw is very angular, probably what others might call rugged…strong and prominent. Manly.

  I clear my throat, my stomach suddenly feeling jittery. Not sure what else to do, I push off the floor and stand up. After dusting the dirt off my hands and jeans, I reach down and offer to help Shadow up. The entire scenario makes me feel much less like a princess visiting a gentleman, and much more like a teenage girl talking to a guy friend. He accepts, so I hold his wrist and pull him up.

  The movement ruffles his hair; only then do I notice the feathers. Little golden feathers, the downy kind, the same color as his hair, grow in his hair. Thinking back to the armor he wore in the portrait, realization dawns.

  “You’re a hybrid.”

  He’s shaking the sleeves of his cloak back down over his arms when I say this. It causes him to freeze and look at me with honest shock and surprise. His face is much younger than I expected. The wrinkles of stress cross his forehead, but his cheeks are smooth, his hair bright. “A what?”

  “A hybrid. A half-and-half. You’re part man and part…part bird, or…” I can’t say griffin. Not after last night. That would just be too horrible. “Your dad was one thing and your mother was something else. Or something like that. I’m right, aren’t I? Tell me.”

  He shakes his head and laughs. The sound is warm and almost makes me smile. “No. No, I’m not that.”

  “Well then, what are you?”

  He sighs and looks down for a moment before looking back at me. It’s almost like this conversation pains him. “I cannot tell you.”

  I nod. Still a man of secrets, even without the hood. “Right. Okay. Well at least answer me this: you’re not entirely human or animal. Yes?”

  Slowly he nods. “Yes.”

  We stand there for a while, feeling incredibly tense and awkward. I can’t honestly think of anything I can say. After a few minutes, I remember with a shock that I left Louna alone.

  “Oh! Oh, I completely forgot. I’m sorry, Shadow, but I really should go. Louna spent the night with me—morning, really—and she was still asleep when I left, and I don’t know what the plans are for her, or where she’ll be staying, and I really should get back and check on her. Goodbye!”

  I wave at Shadow, who simply nods like the Renaissance nobleman I suppose he’s always been. It’s strange seeing his familiar movements now, without the cloak. I run ungracefully but freely in my jeans back through the empty castle and toward the village.

  That night, I dig through my closet for the simplest, least frilly, most modern-looking nightgown or underclothes to wear to bed. I settle on a shift meant to be worn under day clothing and slip into it quietly. Then I slide slowly into bed, careful not to wake Louna, who’s sleeping again with me.

  Louna was fine today—physically cared for, at least. Emotionally, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to understand a mute French orphan who’s eight years old physically but who-knows-how-old psychologically. She appears to be taking it all in stride. Which isn’t as reassuring as one might think. One thing I do know, from personal experience, is that it takes a lot of pain to grieve properly.

  Then again, I’m not the only one of us two who has been through this situation before. Maybe this really is how she can deal with it all.

  This afternoon I talked to Sophie about everything. Just like Shadow told me, she and the minister will take care of the funeral. The service and viewing will be in the garden, and then the body will be sealed into the casket. When I asked about a burial, she said it’s not possible here—there’s no place to bury a body. Apparently the magic will take care
of the body. The casket will be left clean and empty in the event of future need. The body will be gone the morning after the funeral.

  She asked me to give Adele’s eulogy. I’m sure I’ll be a mess, and I’m certain there are much better options in this village. But she insisted it’s what Adele would have wanted, so I agreed.

  The matter of Louna and her custody and living arrangements was even more confusing. Sophie was oddly ambiguous about the whole thing. My understanding is that Louna has no relatives left living in the village. Therefore, I would assume that she’d be adopted by one of the village families, maybe even Sophie’s. But Sophie—and the entire village, it seems—firmly believes I am now Louna’s legal guardian and caretaker.

  I’m sixteen. There’s no sense of time here for me, but I’m sure I haven’t been here more than a few months. While I grew close to Adele in the time we had, I hardly know Louna. How am I to step into the role of the woman who was the world to this child? How am I supposed to understand or communicate with someone whose life, language, customs, and culture are so different from what I’ve known most of my life? Besides that, I’m in no way old enough or ready to care for a child of any sort.

  I tried to explain all of that. I know she heard and understood me. But Sophie insisted, so here I am, sharing a bed with a mute young girl whose life has been permanently and completely altered.

  Tomorrow afternoon is the funeral. Maybe, after it’s over, I can talk to the minister or the villagers and see if they can sway Sophie.

  After hours of staring at the faint glow and thick shadows the fireplace cast on the ceiling during the night, it’s finally light enough for me to get up. It’s not like I can force myself to sleep. At least Louna didn’t wake during the night.

  I pull open my wardrobe doors and push through the dresses, wondering what is proper for a funeral here. Back home, Dad was too much of a mess after—well, what happened—to even think of these things. Mom must have known that would happen, because our next door neighbor had dresses that Mom had bought for us. For her own funeral. I force the memory away and blink several times.