Shadowshift

by Peter Giglio

  SUBJECT: CHET TREMBLAY

  “Tremblay?” Chet said.

  “That’s you,” the man said. “Your real name.”

  The boy squeezed his eyes shut, like he was constipated. For a moment, he took off-camera direction, nodded thoughtfully, then a hand entered the frame, holding a frightened mouse out for his inspection. The rodent’s nose twitched as its head rapidly darted around. Chet was fearful his younger self would soon make a meal of the mouse, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the boy closed his eyes again, and his pained, need-to-shit appearance returned.

  “You’re learning how to become things other than your imprint form,” the man said. “These things require study, but the imprint is always at your disposal.”

  “Why a roach?”

  “Because cockroaches are hard fuckers to kill.” The man laughed.

  The boy became shapeless, then the quavering gray blob he’d been reduced to started shrinking. When the camera found the boy again, he was no longer a boy. He had become a white mouse. The cameraman’s hand placed the real mouse next to the imposter. The two sniffed each other, then turned in opposite directions.

  The screen went white for a moment, then the projector noise died as ghostly blue light filled the theater.

  While the evidence was compelling, Chet was no sucker. This place wasn’t the real world. It was magic. And where magic abounded, there was almost always illusion.

  The man, who had been sitting two rows in front of Chet, stood and turned. “You think I’m trying to trick you,” he said, as if he’d read Chet’s mind. “It’s right for you to be suspicious.” He motioned to the blank screen. “After all, this place has shown you its share of lies.”

  “This is the Theater of Truth,” Chet said. “This place showed me my parents’ secrets, revealed the depth of their cruelty. It let me know I was alone in the world, just as I was always alone here.”

  “What about now? Are you alone now?” the man asked.

  “I don’t fucking know. I’m probably just losing my mind.”

  “Let me ask, Chet, do you believe everything you see on TV?”

  “Of course not, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  The man jabbed a finger toward the screen. “But as long as you’re alone in here, you believe everything up there, is that it?”

  “This place set me free, you freak!”

  The man laughed. “How odd of you. Here you sit, in a prison of your own design, a mere replica of a lost home you’ve forgotten, and you think these confines set you free.”

  “Who are you?” Chet asked. “You’re not my father.”

  The man nodded, then extended his arms wide. “Trust me, this is what your father looked like, before he was taken down by the thugs who dragged you away. So you’re right, I’m not your father. But Anthony Tremblay, one of the last of his kind, was.”

  “Then who the hell are you?” Chet demanded.

  With that, the man rapidly changed from form to form, never staying one for more than a second. Ray Mitchell shifted into Phillip Wise shifted into Hannah shifted into Tina shifted into Molly Mitchell shifted into…

  “I’m everyone,” the thing said, still changing, “and I’m no one. I can be any person you’ve ever known, and everything you’ve ever lost. This is where you keep me, Chet. Good times. Bad times. You didn’t discriminate, and you never had much room in your head for nostalgia.”

  The shifting stopped, the thing freezing on a countenance Chet didn’t recognize. A kind-looking woman. Short blonde hair, oceanic eyes. She reminded him of Hannah—the point of her chin, the curve of her cheekbones—but she was older.

  “I’m Agnes,” she said softly. “Your real mother.”

  “Nothing is real here,” he snarled.

  “Memories are real,” she countered. “Even those one forsakes.” She stepped into the aisle and glided toward him. The image of simplicity in her house dress. Stunning. Without a trace of makeup, this was a natural beauty. Grace in motion.

  Chet felt himself soften as she neared. Although he had never cried before, tears unaccountably stung his eyes.

  “Your father,” she said, “didn’t show you everything. How could he? He was so much like you, I’m afraid. So very forgetful. And he could sometimes be so very cruel.”

  “Maybe you are real,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her face. His hand passed through her.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “I was real. Do you remember?”

  Staring into her eyes, he saw a reflection of himself as a child.

  Concentrate, he heard her say, although her mouth didn’t move. No more turning away.

  No more turning away…

  * * *

  He stands in a graveyard, Agnes at his side, holding his hand. He’s young again, his legs wobbling as he struggles to maintain balance on the jagged, rock-choked earth. Her hand tightens around his, steadying him, and he smiles up at her.

  “This is where we bury the lost,” she says.

  All the markers here are crude, fashioned from sticks and twine, and none are uniform or made to resemble crosses.

  He remembers this place. This is where she brings him often, where she tells him about the past. And he remembers her. She’s good to him, feeds him, reads him exciting stories before bed.

  She’s gentle.

  She’s Mother.

  “Our kind,” she says, leading him down a rocky path, “were once a species like any other, struggling day by day, using our inherent skills to survive. Now, I’m afraid, we are an endangered species.”

  “Where did we come from?” he asks.

  “No one knows for sure. Legend says we rose from the oceans, and that could be true, but it hardly grants us grace. All living things, after all, were birthed from water.”

  For a moment, he doesn’t know what to say, then a flash of knowledge hits him. “Father says we’re special.”

  She stops and looks down, but he doesn’t follow her gaze. “Your father was a scared man,” she drones, “but look.” She points at an uninspiring grave marker—sticks crisscrossing in no apparent pattern. “This is where he lies.” Then she turns her severe eyes on Chet.

  “All of us,” she says, “are the same in the end.”

  A network of dried flowers lies beside his father’s resting place. Another marker, but this one more dignified, more graceful…like Mother. Looking up at her, he knows she’s already gone, and this is where she sleeps forever in the real world. Tears cloud his gaze.

  “You and Hannah are the last of our kind,” she says.

  In his mind, past and present collide. He considers how little he’s done to protect Hannah, to cultivate her talents. If only he’d known the things he’s now remembering—

  “No,” Mother corrects. “You chose to lose all this. When you found the theater, you found a place to hide your past.”

  “But why?” he asks. “Why would I want to forget?”

  “You were young, in pain, in a strange new place you didn’t understand. You were offered love, but it came from the hands and hearts of the kind who robbed you of your heritage.”

  “Ray and Molly Mitchell,” he says.

  “Yes, but they’re not to blame. To them, you were only a troubled boy they wanted desperately to help. To you, they might as well have pulled the trigger that stilled my heart. Don’t get me wrong, they helped you forget, but they thought they were offering kindness. They didn’t know the truth.”

  “Ray Mitchell beat me!”

  “No, he didn’t, but your real father took the belt to you plenty. It’s all too easy for a young boy to mix his memories, and even easier to carry those lies into adulthood. Your special place told you what you wanted to believe, but Hannah changed that for you. She turned this place into something else.”

  Chet casts his gaze back to his parents’ graves, then scans the rest of the yard. “Why are your markers so simple compared to the others?”

  “You should know, dea
r, you placed them here yourself.”

  He closes his eyes and…

  …sees himself twisting twigs and flowers together, doing his best to give his parents a proper tribute, all the while fearful that the bad men who brought him here for this grim farewell are still planning to kill him, too. Somehow, he has convinced his enemies he’s not a shifter, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can protect the truth.

  Shaking off the memory, he asks, “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, “but I’ll stay with you until it’s time to go. I’ll protect you from the shadows this time, I promise.”

  “No more turning away,” he says.

  With a nod, she says, “That’s right, baby. No more turning away.”

  PART THREE: TURNING HOME

  CHAPTER 15

  It’s the morning following Hannah’s offer to help Kevin, and the two of them push through the crowded entrance of the mall. The pungent blend of fast food and adolescent B.O. overwhelms Kevin, reminding him why he doesn’t come here anymore. He considers how different this place was when he was younger, with a large Aladdin’s Castle arcade that spilled into the food court and a six-screen movie house in spitting distance of the cafeteria-like dining area. Even still, the teens are out in full force today—boys making moves on girls, and girls putting up shy fronts. Movies and video games have moved online, Kevin muses, but hormones never change.

  “Come on,” Hannah says, grabbing Kevin’s hand and leading him free from the chaos. “There’s nothing for me here.”

  A few yards beyond the bustling court, Hannah stops at a directory and studies the listings. It doesn’t take long before her finger lands on the Barnes & Noble anchor store.

  “You should have told me you wanted to go to the bookstore,” Kevin says. “I would have parked on the other side of the mall and saved us a lot of time.”

  Rolling her eyes at him, she says, “Don’t tell me you’re allergic to walking.”

  He chuckles outwardly, but shame needles him as he ponders how convenient his life has become. Most of what he wants he orders online, and he routinely drives short distances he could easily walk. What’s worse, a child just called him out for laziness. Damn, it had always worked the other way when he was her age.

  As they fall into a side-by-side stride, Hannah says, “The bookstore is the perfect place. For one, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of a nerd.”

  “Kind of?”

  “Ha ha ha. Yeah, and you’re kind of a comedian, except you need to work on the being funny part. So anyway, it’s the perfect place for me to find other girls like me.”

  “What about boys?” he playfully goads.

  “Hey,” she says, “we’re trying to show my mom that you’re helping me come out of my shell, not trying to make you look like some kind of pimp.”

  Acutely aware of Hannah’s many shades of cool, he laughs. She’s not the nerd she calls herself. Then again, the definition of Nerd has changed a lot since Kevin was a kid. Everything has changed, he tells himself, then he’s struck by the real reason he doesn’t come here anymore. The mall makes him feel old.

  But things take a turn for the better when they enter the store. Light jazz plays, the inviting aroma of coffee wafts, and everyone here appears more civilized. True to Hannah’s assessment, the Young Adult section—smartly positioned by the store’s entrance—teems with tween girls.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asks, hoping she’ll excuse him to the café. Hannah had been in such a rush to leave the house that morning that he didn’t have time to fire up the Keurig, and his head is incredibly foggy.

  “Go see if they have any of Mom’s books on the shelves,” she says, her attention directed at a gangly girl with horn-rimmed glasses who appears in the middle of Sophie’s Choice over a pair of vampire novels. “If you find anything of Mom’s, grab what they have, then come find me. Whatever I’m doing, interrupt me and make a big deal out of finding her books here. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  As she approaches her target, he breaks in the direction of the Fiction aisles, thinking about Hannah. This side of her is new to him, and he’s impressed. At the same time, he’s mildly chilled. She’s different. Different in a good way, he tells himself, but he can’t resist voicing a grim observation. “Note to self,” he whispers, “don’t ever land on Hannah’s bad side.”

  Chuckling, he scans spines for his girlfriend’s name. When he spies a lone copy of Midnight Mourning, he snatches it from the shelf and strides back to Young Adult, where Hannah’s already engaged in conversation with the awkward vampire fan.

  “Yeah, I was really disappointed with the Divergent movie, too,” Hannah says.

  “Have you seen The Fault in Our Stars yet?” the girl asks.

  “Not yet,” Hannah says, “but I—”

  “Look what I found,” Kevin says, waving the paperback in Hannah’s face.

  She turns and glares at him. “Dad! How rude!”

  Playing along, he tries not to smile, but a grin blooms regardless. Dad!—an unexpected touch, and spoken genuinely, with just the right blend of annoyance and affection. The two girls glance at each other and roll their eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Hannah’s new friend says, “my dad’s the same way.”

  Hannah snatches the book from Kevin. “Dad, we already have hundreds of copies of Mom’s books. Like I keep telling you, we don’t need more.”

  “I know,” Kevin says, “but I never get tired of—”

  “Wait,” the gangly girl says, her eyes flaring. “Your mom wrote that?”

  “Pretty cool, huh,” Kevin says, then he extends a hand to the girl. “I’m Kevin, and this is…this is my daughter, Hannah, in case she hasn’t introduced herself. She’s sometimes bad about that.”

  “Shut up, Dad,” Hannah says, elbowing him in the gut and smiling.

  “I’m Chelsea.” The girl shakes with Kevin, but her attention is held by the book, which Hannah, quite expertly, shows no interest in. “Can I see?” She takes the paperback from Hannah and flips through pages, then tucks the book under her arm. “If I buy this, do you think your mom will sign it for me?”

  Hannah shrugs. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “That’d be amazing. I’ve never met a real-life horror writer before.”

  “Do your parents mind if you read books for adults?” Kevin asks. “We don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

  Chelsea chuckles. “My dad made me read Carrie when I was ten. Trust me, he loves this biz.” She points to the café and adds, “He’s over there somewhere, if you don’t believe me and want to check out my story.”

  Sliding out his billfold, Kevin says, “Tina would be honored to sign Midnight Mourning for you, but on one condition.” He hands Chelsea a ten-dollar bill. “It’s our treat.”

  “Thanks,” Chelsea says. Then, turning to Hannah, she whispers, “Your dad’s pretty fucking cool.”

  Hannah shrugs again, but this time she doesn’t look annoyed. “Yeah,” she says, “the old man has his moments.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Deadline looming, Tina looks blankly at her open manuscript, then glances down at her outline. Everything is crap, she tells herself. For a moment, she scrolls through her FriendSpace newsfeed, but not even her most trusted cure for bad moods—pictures of adorable puppies—sparks warm feelings. She then turns her attention to her L-shaped desk, which Kevin assembled less than a week ago. How much longer until she’s forced to break the desk down and prepare it for shipping again?

  She shakes off the question.

  One thing is certain. She can’t write. Not here. Not like this. Anger once inspired her, but sadness is a poor muse. She wants to curl up and sleep, but she promised herself long ago not to lie down when depression called. If for no other reason, she doesn’t want Hannah to see her that way again. Tired. Weak. Useless. No, that’s not who she is anymore.

  And Kevin is not Chet, she reminds her
self.

  But that brings her no closer to apology, which she considers surrender. She can’t expect Kevin to forsake his own flesh and blood, and she knows he won’t, but if Tina stays with him, his mother will always be part of the equation. If Tina forgives him, she’ll have to forgive Dee Logan, too. And that’s unacceptable.

  She drags a notepad across the desk, snatches a ballpoint, and makes a note:

  FAMILY = PRISON

  She stares at what she’s just written, and her mind drifts to Ray Mitchell, a kind and generous man. Chet had no problems icing Ray out of his life. And what about Tina’s own mother, who disowned Tina when she filed for divorce (“Respectable women don’t do that,” her mother had shouted. “You always stand by your man!”). And what about Hannah, the light of Tina’s life. What will she think if she reads this grim reflection on her mother’s desk?

  The sentiment of the note sums up attitudes of those who have injured Tina the most. But Tina hadn’t jotted the words from an empathetic frame of mind; rather, she’d channeled her own fear.

  Am I becoming like them? Am I becoming a monster?

  The garage door opens, and the engine of Kevin’s SUV grows louder. Pen still in hand, Tina scratches over the only significant words she has written in days. She shuts down the PC, grabs the empty coffee mug from the desk, and steps into the hallway as a door creaks open below.

  Staring down the long flight of hardwood stairs, she thinks about leaping headfirst. Then, afraid of losing control, she stumbles back from the edge of the landing. Her hands tremble, and the coffee cup feels heavier than it has any right to. The cup slips free from her fragile hold, bounces and rolls on the carpet, then lands on the stairs and shatters as Hannah rounds the corner.

  Hannah’s smile fades fast. “Mom, are you okay?” She dashes up the stairs and puts her arms around Tina. “You’re burning up, Mom. Are you sick?”

  “I’m fine, sweetheart.” Tina backs away from her daughter. “Be careful. I don’t want you cutting yourself!”