Shadow Play_A Dark Fantasy Novel

by Jill Ramsower

  I was lost in thought and up to my elbows in suds when I registered movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned toward the table where I had seen something move and I froze, hands dripping soapy water onto my bare feet.

  Crawling around on the table was a tiny man gathering crumbs. He was about six inches tall, if he were to stand up. He had greenish skin with brown hair and appeared similar to a doll-sized human wearing little scraps of clothing. Sensing he had an audience, the little man also froze. His already large eyes opened even farther as we held each other's stare and time seemed to stand still. The moment ended in an instant when the man vanished, like a bubble that burst, he was just gone.

  I sucked in a lung full of air as I frantically scanned the room for any signs of where he had gone. As panic engulfed me, I started screaming. All rational thought fled while shrieks and obscenities flew from my mouth in a constant stream. I ran about the room searching for the man under the couch, in cabinets, and behind the blinds.

  A dripping wet Ashley flew down the stairs wrapped in a towel and wielding a blow drier like Annie Oakley ready for a showdown. “What the hell happened?”

  “Ash, I saw a tiny person on the table! He was crawling around getting crumbs and he was green with big eyes but then he just disappeared. I saw him Ash, he was there!” I rambled almost incoherently as my heartrate finally began to slow down but my hands still shook uncontrollably.

  Ash set down the dryer and stepped closer to me with her head to the side and an expression on her face as if she was talking to a lost child. “Hey honey, it’s okay. Between jetlag and having a long day and with the wine and talk about all the weird men, I’m sure your mind was just worn out. It was probably a mouse, nothing to worry about. I’ll call the landlord in the morning and have him get an exterminator out immediately.”

  “Ash—”

  “Hush, you go up and take a hot shower and then get some rest. I was done anyway, I’ll throw on my pajamas and finish up in the kitchen.” Her hand at my back, she gently guided me to the stairs.

  With a resigned sigh I took one more glance around the empty room and headed upstairs to shower. Once I had cleaned up and was snuggled comfortably under the covers of my bed, I lay awake wondering what was going on with me. Was I having some kind of breakdown? Was the crazy that seemed to infect the people around here starting to infiltrate my mind? I had never even had an imaginary friend as a child, why would I start seeing things now?

  I normally didn’t regress to needing my mom when I was upset, but at that moment, all I could think about was how much I wished my parents were there.

  My mom was the quintessential flower child. Having flourished in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, she never fully moved on from that period. She was not limited by traditional social constructs and she viewed everyone she met as a potential new friend. Her philosophy was that everyone was different for a reason and she always managed to see the good in people. Her creative tendencies meant she was a never-ending source of fantastical ideas but she was not usually the best at actualizing what she had envisioned. We would spend weekends chasing after whatever scheme she had dreamed up that week—once she decided we needed a koi pond and without further ado, she and I headed out into the backyard with a shovel and began to dig. It turned out building a pond was a bit more complicated than she had figured and we ended up resorting to buying an aquarium with some goldfish.

  Dad was never too bothered by Mom’s shenanigans. Often he was too caught up in whatever project he was working on to pay much attention. Being a writer gave him loads of flexibility in his schedule; however, there were also times he would become wholly obsessed with what he was writing and hardly emerge from his office for days at a time. I couldn’t fault him for his single-minded intensity—it was a trait I was known to exhibit as well.

  For the most part, they were patient with each other and I grew up surrounded by love. I hadn’t had a chance to see them before I left the country and it had been almost a year since my last visit. Knowing Mom, it wouldn’t be too long before they made their way over here to check on me but I wasn’t sure yet when that would be.

  Despite the late hour in Ireland, it was still only early evening in Texas, so I got up and tiptoed downstairs hoping not to disturb Ashley, who had gone to bed not long after me. Curled up in a blanket on the couch with my phone in hand, I texted my mom, not necessarily expecting a response, but wanting to feel connected to her. My mother wasn’t much for cell phones, my parents still had a beige push-button phone hanging on the kitchen wall of their house with a twelve-foot spiral cord hanging below it—not even a cordless phone. All my conversations took place at the kitchen table, where anyone could listen in. Getting a text from my mom was not a good bet, but on this particular occasion, my phone pinged a response.

  I let her know that my first day went well and she suggested a restaurant they had been to on their trip to Belfast. We didn’t cover anything profound, but just connecting with her eased my tension. With my heart a little lighter and homesickness not weighing quite so heavily on my chest, I slipped into a restless sleep.

  5

  Still in the clutches of sleep, my bleary eyes could tell that the sky was still dark and it was not anywhere near time to get up, but something had roused my consciousness.

  That’s when I sensed it—the feeling of a presence behind me. I knew I wasn’t alone and someone was watching me. I turned my head to verify my suspicion and took in the horrifying black form of a man looming over me.

  “Jesus Christ! Becca, wake up!”

  With my heart pounding in my chest, I opened my eyes and realized that I was in my room with Ash. We were alone, no shadow man.

  But he was back, the dream was back.

  “God, Ash, I’m so sorry,” I said as I rubbed my eyes, trying to scratch the image of his terrifying presence out of my mind.

  “It’s okay, you just scared me half to death. That must have been some bad dream.”

  “Yeah. It’s actually a reoccurring dream I used to have as a kid but it’s been so many years since I had it—I figured I had outgrown it.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  We sat on the bed in the dark room, the only light was the small slivers that crept in between the windowsill and the blinds.

  “It’s a waking dream. I feel like I’m waking up for real and there’s this man standing over me. There's not a face or any defining feature, just this shadowy man. I used to wake up screaming about once a month like clockwork as a kid. My mom believed I was being haunted by a spirit so she started burning incense in my room at night that was supposed to guard against evil. It may sound silly but she was right, there was some presence trying to reach me. After she started using the incense, I didn’t have a single nightmare. When I started going to sleepovers with friends, I didn’t have any nightmares and there was no incense so I eventually stopped using it, figuring the spirit had moved on.” Looking back on all those nights I had woken in abject terror, my body gave an involuntary shudder.

  “That’s awful, Bec, I’m so sorry. I could see why you had the dream though, with all these creepy men you’ve encountered recently.” Ash spoke softly and I nodded, realizing that she was probably right.

  “It’s late, let’s try to get back to sleep or I’m going to be a zombie at work tomorrow.”

  I had received an email the previous day that my things had arrived and the postal truck would be delivering them first thing in the morning, so I was up and ready despite a lack of decent sleep. At 8:30, there was a knock at the door and a delivery man stood on the front steps beside my boxes with a bored expression. I threw open the door, thrilled to have all my stuff with me.

  “These parcels are a might heavy, would you like some help inside with them?” His Irish lilt was heavy and I had to focus to understand his words.

  “Wait, there’s four boxes here, where’s the fifth?” I peered around the boxes hoping the final one was just tucked away out of s
ight. He checked the packing slip and made a whistling sound like a bomb dropping out of the sky.

  “Aye, you’re right on that one. You’ll need to come down to the office and file a report to see if they can figure out where it went,” he said in a jovial tone, like it was a rainbow I was missing and not a fifth of everything I owned.

  “Super,” I ground out, dripping sarcasm.

  One at a time, he carried the remaining four boxes into my living room as I tried to recall what I had in each box in a futile attempt to deduce what I might be missing. I would have preferred to have sorted through them right then and there, but it was getting late and I needed to head out for work.

  I had hardly made it halfway to the museum before a few sprinkles gave way to an onslaught of pounding rain. I was wearing an olive-green shift dress with long sleeves and a high neck, and while I could have worn my heeled boots with the dress, instead I chose some flattering dark gold heels that accented my toned calves. Apparently, I was being punished for my vanity because water seeped into my shoes, soaking them through in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t as cold as the previous day, but wet feet were not going to help matters.

  I did my best to hurry to the museum despite walking in wet shoes. I was about to cross the road when a car drove through a puddle, soaking me with dirty rain water.

  “Fuck!” I yelled to no one. “Goddammit what is wrong with people? I should have just gone back to bed, but nooooo, I’ve got shadow man back in my dreams so I can’t even do that! Now my stuff is missing and I’m soaking wet, just great!” I lamented along with a litany of curses as I crossed the street and made my way to the front entrance.

  I stepped inside and tried to shake myself off as best as I could while a bewildered Cat made her way around the visitor’s booth and over to me.

  “Rebecca, what happened to you? Did you not have an umbrella with you?” she asked as she took my coat to the closet and returned with a couple of paper towels.

  “Somehow I didn’t think to pack one in my suitcase and the rest of my things only just arrived this morning. I’ll find it once I have a chance to sort through it all.” Then I muttered to myself, “Assuming it’s not in the lost box.”

  We managed to make me presentable, albeit still cold, and I made my way to the elevator, my feet squishing in my heels with each step.

  That’s professional, Becca, well done.

  That’s when I noticed the small sign over the elevator call buttons that read ‘Out of Order.’

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot, the maintenance guys are doing a service,” Cat called to me. “It should be up and running by lunch but for now, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the stairs.”

  I rested my head against the stone wall and wondered what I had done to deserve such a fine morning. Four flights of stairs in wet heels, how delightful.

  Several hours later I discovered that the arrival of my packages had distracted me enough that I forgot to pack leftovers for lunch. Deciding not to go out in the rain, I headed down to the coffee shop on the first floor. I stood back from the counter assessing my options on the menu overhead.

  “You look like you could use a hot cocoa,” said a voice beside me. I glanced over to take in the man smiling at me with mischievous brown eyes. He was about five-foot eleven or so and trim, although it was a bit hard to say just how big he was under his wool coat. His dirty blond hair had a bit of wave and despite his use of gel, the moisture in the air had his curls shooting off in all directions. The kicker was his dimples—he had two perfect dimples on either cheek. He was a panty-dropper in a boy-next-door kind of way and I was feeling the effect of his good looks. My cheeks heated as a smile crept across my face.

  “I was going to grab a sandwich, but a hot chocolate sounds good, too.”

  “Excellent, you figure out what you want and I’ll start with the order,” he said with a wink and walked to the counter.

  “What?” I was suddenly confused—was he planning to eat lunch with me?

  “Unless you’ve got plans already, I’ll join you for lunch. Just tell me what you’ll have and I’ll get it ordered.”

  I was intrigued with his confident, assertive manner. After the morning I had endured, I told myself to enjoy good fortune when it came my way.

  “I’m not meeting anyone, but I don’t even know your name.”

  “I’m Ronan, and you are?”

  “Rebecca.” I wasn’t the best at chance encounters and flirting, but I wasn’t exactly the Virgin Mary either. Besides, it was time I met one man in this country who wasn’t a total fruitcake. Just in case he was yet another Irish nut-job though, I decided to vet him and make sure I didn’t need to go running back to my office.

  We put in our order and found a table by the windows. He took off his coat and set it on the back of his chair and I could see now that he was exceptionally fit but not particularly bulky, more like a swimmer rather than a weights kind of guy.

  “Were you touring the museum?” I asked after we sat down.

  “Something like that, but I seem to have gotten a little sidetracked.” He peered at me from under thick, dark lashes and I could feel a warming in my chest at his attention. “Do you work here then?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested in learning more about me.

  “I do, just started yesterday.”

  “So that would explain the accent—new to Ireland, are you?”

  I nodded in response as a server brought our food to the table.

  “Ronan, I have to ask because you seem to be decently well adjusted and so far that hasn't been my experience around here. You don't happen to make a habit of chasing girls down the street or have any other stalker-ish tendencies that I should know about, do you?” I asked with one brow raised as I took a bite of my sandwich.

  He chuckled before he responded. “Tell me that’s not the welcome you’ve received to our fine country.”

  “In fact, that and more, it’s been an interesting few days.”

  “It sounds like it. I can easily see what all the fuss is about, but I will endeavor to keep myself well behaved.”

  My eyes dropped shyly at his compliment. “Thank you. Should you feel the need to get on the crazy train, at least give me a running head start.”

  He laughed aloud and I brought my eyes back to his.

  “Well, I assure you that the good doctors who released me back into society said I was no longer a danger to those around me so you have nothing to fear from me.” He gave me a sly look and a laugh bubbled up from my chest.

  “Tell me, Ronan, what do you do for work?”

  “A little of this, a little of that—I do whatever the boss tells me to; sometimes I’m a courier, sometimes a negotiator, sometimes I do research. I'm rather boring and I’d prefer to hear more about you. Did you come to Belfast alone?”

  “Yes and no. My best friend, Ashley, came to help get me settled for the first couple weeks, but she’ll head back to the States soon and then it’s just me.”

  “That’s very kind of her, I take it you two are close.”

  “She’s like a sister to me. I’m going to miss her when she leaves.” My eyes fell to my plate as I shuffled my food around, feeling suddenly weighed down by the mere thought of Ashley leaving. Taking the conversation away from that subject, I asked about his accent since it wasn’t fully Irish, maybe a touch of Scottish to it.

  “I’ve traveled around a bit, spent a good deal of time in the Highlands, I’m originally from this area but only came back more recently.”

  “Did you travel as a child then? You don’t seem old enough to have been traveling long on your own.”

  “Maybe I’m older than I look.” He teased with a quirk of his lips. “Have you had a chance to tour the sights of our fine city?” He didn’t answer the question, but I didn't push the issue.

  “Not really. I took this job very quickly so I haven’t had any time since arriving to sightsee or learn the area much. Plus, I’m enjoying the time I have with Ashley while sh
e’s here, I can check out the city more once I’m on my own.”

  “Well, we can’t have a pretty girl like you wandering around all alone. Maybe I can show you around to some of my favorite places, starting this weekend. I’ll be at the Huntsman on Friday night, bring your friend and come out for some drinks with me and the fellas.” His warm expression and open demeanor were disarming. He appeared relaxed and genuine; although, under the table I could feel the bounce of his leg burning off nervous energy. I figured he was probably a bit more nervous than he’d like me to think, which was actually endearing, and I found myself leaning closer.

  With a small bite at my lower lip I replied, “I think that could be arranged,” and I met his gaze from under my lowered lids. I didn’t know who this sex kitten was who had suddenly possessed me but man was he hot! My cheeks warmed and I played nervously with the remnants of my lunch.

  Ronan rose from his chair and laid his coat over his arm, rounding the table to my side he held his hand out for mine. Once I placed my hand in his, he brought it to his mouth for a soft kiss. “I have to get back, but I’ll be seeing you soon then, Rebecca.” And with that he strode out of the shop without a backward glance.

  6

  By the time the museum closed, the skies had let up and though the earlier downpour had subsided, the misty air had a biting chill. My feet had long given up any hope of warmth, but despite the freezing, moist air, I was feeling optimistic and looking forward to telling Ashley about the dizzying events of my day. I was thinking it might be a wine and cheese for dinner type of night with plenty of talk about hot Irishmen.

  Reflecting on my lunch with Ronan as I walked down the dark sidewalk, I hadn’t noticed a large crack in the pavers and my heel lodged itself deep inside, rolling my ankle. I caught myself before I face-planted on the wet ground. I was fairly certain I hadn’t done any damage to my ankle besides some mild discomfort. However, I could tell in a glance that the heel of my pump had twisted loose. I took off the shoe and hobbled over to lean on a spot against the nearby wall where I could assess my shoe and determine whether it was salvageable. The awning I was under cast a heavy shadow and made it hard to see so I moved myself to a better spot. Just as I resituated myself a few feet down the wall beneath the lamplight, my eyes were drawn to a woman walking down the sidewalk.