The Shadow Girl

by Jennifer Archer

  “You need your rest,” Addie insists. “I’ll wake you up when Wyatt calls.”

  “When I close my eyes, I see it happen again,” I whisper. I see the deer. My four-wheeler skidding. Dad rounding the corner behind me. He and Cookie sailing through the air in slow motion. I always open my eyes before they land. Then I hear the warning that Iris whispered early this morning: Be careful. Everything can change in an instant.

  Did she know what was going to happen? She must have. What else could her warning have meant? But then why didn’t she tell me?

  For the first time in my life, I’m furious with Iris—so angry I want to hurt her. I want her to ache as badly as I do.

  Dad died because of you, Iris. Cookie is hurt because of your silence.

  I didn’t know. . . .

  Then why did you tell me to be careful? And what did you mean when you said everything can change?

  I remembered something. . . .

  What? I demand. I’ve had enough of her cryptic statements.

  A feeling . . . fear. I was happy, says Iris. And then something terrible happened and I wasn’t anymore. . . .

  What are you talking about? Nothing terrible has ever happened to us until today.

  She’s quiet for a minute, and when she finally speaks, I hear more than her words, I hear her frustration. Help me remember, Lily. Please . . .

  Before I can press her to explain, the kettle whistles in the kitchen, and Iris startles and curls up inside of me, burying herself deep.

  “Will you drink some tea?” Addie asks as she takes the kettle off the stove, silencing its shriek.

  “No, but thanks.”

  “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “My iPod,” I tell her. “It’s upstairs on my nightstand.”

  “I’ll bring it down.”

  As Addie climbs the stairs to the loft, I tug the blanket over my shoulders and shift to stare out the windows overlooking the deck. The dusk sky is a dingy slate gray. Fat flakes drift on the air slowly—almost cautiously—as if out of respect for my grief, they don’t want to bother me.

  My mind drifts back to this morning. The hiker who came out of the woods and called 911 was a guy not much older than I am. I don’t know his name, but even if I never see him again, I’ll always remember his kind, dark eyes, and how they kept me from sinking during those long minutes while we waited for the rescue helicopter to arrive. When I was about to hyperventilate, he made me look at him and told me to take deep breaths. He let me clutch his hand while he talked to me in a soothing voice. His strength flowed into me, and I started to believe that he had the power to make everything all right.

  After they took Dad to the hospital in Pueblo, the sheriff drove me to meet Mom, Addie, and Wyatt there. I don’t know what happened to the hiker.

  The stairs creak, and a moment later Addie stands beside me holding my iPod. I take it and thank her, putting the buds in my ears. I find a soft country playlist and push the button to start it, hoping the music will drown my memories of the accident so I can sleep. Soon Iris begins to sing softly along with the song, so I make the music louder. I wish she’d go somewhere far away and stay there. I’m not sure I believe that she didn’t know what was going to happen. Her strange excuse about warning me doesn’t make sense.

  I close my eyes to shut out the world. And close my heart to Iris. But sometime later, as I’m finally nodding off, Dad’s voice comes to me, his words woven into the melody that drifts through my ears. We thought we did the right thing. . . .

  When I awake the next morning on the couch, every muscle in my body is sore, and there’s no sign of Addie or Mom. Anxious to check on Cookie, I take a quick shower, then throw on a pair of jeans and an old long-sleeved T-shirt with a pointing finger and the words You Need a Lobotomy on it that I stole from Wyatt. Without bothering to dry my hair, I hurry downstairs again and, this time, find Addie sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

  She glances up. “Morning, sugar.” Folding the paper, she places it on the table beside her and motions toward the coffeemaker on the kitchen counter. “Coffee’s hot. Can I get you some?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  I take a mug from the cabinet. “I didn’t wake up once all night.” Wondering why I’m still so exhausted, I pour coffee into the mug, then add half-and-half and two packets of sweetener. “Has Dr. Trujillo called?”

  “No. Wyatt stopped by a minute ago on his way to school. He said Dr. Trujillo wants you to call the clinic at eight.” She glances at her watch. “Just five more minutes.”

  I sit in the chair next to her. “Where’s Mom? She isn’t still sleeping, is she?”

  “She’s outside in your dad’s workshop.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m not sure. She was up making coffee at five thirty so I got up, too. She took her cup and said she was heading out there. She seemed skittish as a colt, so I didn’t question her.” Addie shakes her head. “Poor thing.”

  “I’ll check on her after I call the vet,” I say. Setting my mug down, I push back from the table and reach for the phone book on the counter behind me.

  “Will you eat some breakfast?” Addie asks.

  “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

  She catches my attention and holds it as I’m opening the phone book in my lap. “I’m not going to tell you that you’ll get over this, because you won’t,” Addie says softly. “I still miss Dave like crazy, every single day. And even though it’s been more than twenty years since my folks passed, I still miss them, too. But with time, the pain will ease up and you’ll find yourself remembering the good times with your dad instead of the accident.”

  I prop an elbow on the table and cover my face. “It shouldn’t have happened,” I cry. “It didn’t have to. I could’ve stopped it if—”

  “Don’t, Lily.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Blaming yourself won’t change a thing. The accident wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

  She’s wrong, but I can’t tell her that. If only Iris had given me a clearer idea of the danger ahead before we left, I would’ve told Dad that I didn’t want to go. “Thank you for being here, Addie,” I say, wiping tears from my cheeks. “You’re the best.”

  I find Dr. Trujillo’s number and call him while Addie busies herself in the kitchen. When I’m off the phone, she asks, “Is everything okay?”

  “Cookie was in a lot of pain last night. He’s doped up and resting now. Dr. Trujillo wants to keep him another day or two for observation.” My voice wavers. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Addie folds a cup towel and lays it on the counter. “I know you’re disappointed.”

  I press my lips together and nod. Putting the phone book away, I cross the room, and take my coat from the rack beside the door.

  “Lily.” Her solemn voice stops me. “I hate to bring this up, but the funeral home called. You and your mother will need to let them know what to do. If you want to have a service, and—”

  “I’ll tell her,” I whisper.

  A cool breeze blows through my damp hair, causing me to shiver as I step outside. The sky is a bright blue. The sun is shining, the thin rays slowly melting the snow away.

  I start across the small meadow at the back of the cabin, headed for Dad’s shop. It’s so strange that nothing looks any different out here. Dad is gone, yet his blue van is still parked at the side of the shop, waiting for him to load it with the cabinets he was supposed to deliver to someone in Pueblo next week.

  I pause in front of the building. On the other side of the double garage door that serves as the shop entrance, I hear a scraping noise that makes me think Mom’s dragging something heavy across the floor. Wondering what she could possibly be doing, I try to pull the door up, but it’s locked. Knocking, I call out, “Mom? Open up.”

  In a muffled voice, she says, “I need some time alone, okay?”

  “
What are you doing?”

  “Sketching.”

  I stop tugging on the door handle. Because of her arthritis, Mom hasn’t painted or sketched in more than a year. It’s a weird day for her to decide she should start again. “Can we talk?” I ask.

  “Not now, Lily.”

  Confused, I walk to the side of the shop. The building only has a couple of small windows up high on each side. Several cinder blocks are stacked against the outside wall. I lift one from the top of the pile and set it on the ground beneath a window, then step onto it and look inside the shop.

  Mom’s sitting on the floor with her back to me. A long, wide box is open in front of her. The big metal chest Dad used to store his tools. He kept it locked up in the shop’s storage closet because he was afraid that someone might break in and steal his tools. I can’t imagine why Mom would want to go through it, especially today.

  Several items lie scattered on the floor around her. I can’t make out what they are, but they don’t look like tools. Wondering why she lied to me, I tap on the window, causing Mom to startle and glance over her shoulder. She turns back around and scrambles to gather up the items and return them to the chest.

  “Mom!” I call out, my patience dwindling. “Can I just come in for a second? I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay.” Pushing to her feet, she closes the lid on the chest, then crosses to the door.

  I jump down from the cinder blocks and I’m rounding the corner as Mom comes outside. A breeze blows her silver curls into her face, but she doesn’t bother to push them back. “Is something wrong?” she asks, turning to pull the garage door down.

  “Yes, something’s wrong, Mom. Dad died yesterday. Did you forget?”

  Mom flinches. She stares at the door for a moment, still as a statue, and when she finally turns to me, her expression is fixed and unreadable.

  “I’m sorry I said that, Mom,” I say, my face burning.

  She takes my hand and pulls me to her, wrapping her arms around me. “Oh, Lily,” she breathes.

  Sobs shake my body. “What are we going to do without him?”

  “I don’t know, darling.” She rubs her palms up and down my back. “We’re going to miss him, but we’ll be okay.”

  I have a feeling that she’s trying to convince herself more than me. “It hurts so much,” I whisper.

  “I know.”

  “And Cookie . . . the vet said he can’t come home yet. Maybe we can visit him after we go to the funeral home to make arrangements for Dad’s—” I can’t even say the word. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. We need to plan his service. And write his obituary.”

  Mom goes rigid and pulls away from me. “Your father wanted to be cremated.”

  Wary of the sudden change in her, I say, “Okay. But the service—”

  “There won’t be a service. Or an obituary, for that matter.” Her voice is flat. “Your father and I have always been private people. He wouldn’t want any of that, and neither do I.”

  “We should do something,” I say, bewildered by her attitude. “Maybe an informal gathering with his friends, at least. They’ll want to say good-bye.”

  “I mean it, Lily. No ceremony.”

  “But why?”

  “I told you.” She rubs her hands up and down her thin arms. “I’m going for a walk, okay?” Turning, she starts off toward the road.

  Confusion and anger slam into me so hard I have to pause to catch my breath before yelling, “We can’t just do nothing and forget about him! Don’t you even want to say good-bye to Dad?”

  “I already have,” she answers without looking back at me, her voice firm and final. But I hear her sobbing.

  I turn and start running, my boots pounding the ground as I pass Dad’s shop. Stumbling down the hill on the opposite side, I run until my lungs ache and my cheeks sting from the cool air. Until the cabin and Dad’s shop disappear behind me. Until I’m surrounded by trees so tall that they block out the white spring sun. When I finally stop, I’m panting. I bend forward at the waist, my hands on my knees.

  Iris seeps through my pores and wraps around me, her caress as soft as dandelion fluff. I know she’s trying to comfort me, and I wish that I could forgive her, but I can’t.

  “I’m mad at you,” I sob. “You and Mom both. Why is she acting this way?”

  You know why, Iris says, her reply a quiet buzz. She’s hiding something.

  4

  Maybe Mom’s right that Dad wouldn’t have wanted a memorial or an obituary, but Addie told me those things are really more for the living, the ones left behind. Some people don’t need them to get through grief. Like Mom, apparently. But some people do. Like me.

  So on Saturday morning, against Mom’s wishes, I have a memorial for Dad at the lake down the road. Wyatt and Addie are with me, of course. And Iris. She hovers just beneath the surface of my senses, dim with sadness, wary of invading my space.

  The day is overcast and bleak, cool but not cold. Snow still covers the peaks, but it’s all melted down here below. Friends congregate on the lake’s rocky shore, as do many of Dad’s clients, some I know and some I don’t. I spot Sylvie Rodriguez, a girl I worked with at the coffee shop last summer. I haven’t seen her more than four or five times since school started last August. Sylvie has cut her black hair to within a half inch of her scalp and added a few red streaks since I last saw her. A blue dragonfly tattoo is visible on the back of her neck. I find myself wondering if it’s new, or if it was always there, hidden beneath her hair when it was longer.

  Mom didn’t come to the service, but that’s no surprise. She hasn’t spoken to me since she opened the newspaper yesterday and saw the obituary I wrote. I guess she said all she had to say then. Screamed it, really. How I had done the one thing that Dad would’ve been the most against. How I had invaded his privacy, and hers. I can’t remember Mom ever being that upset with me before.

  The photograph of Dad and me that I included with the obituary seemed to bother her most of all. In the shot, he and I are standing together next to his van. Behind us, the twin peaks are visible in the distance.

  Mom’s reaction to the photo keeps nagging me. Yesterday, Iris kept nagging me, too, coaxing me to ask Mom what she’s hiding, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t bring myself to tell her the strange things Dad said before he died, either. Mom’s closed-off expression and the fact that she’s even more emotional than I am hold me back.

  But I can’t worry about my mother right now. This morning is for Dad.

  Standing at the edge of the lake, I hold the urn containing his ashes close to me and face everyone. When their murmurs fall silent, I pull a slip of paper from my pocket and start to recite a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

  After the first line, I’m too choked up to go on. Wyatt appears at my side to save me. Taking the poem from my hand, he reads:

  Music, when soft voices die,

  Vibrates in the memory;

  Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

  Live within the sense they quicken.

  Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

  Are heap’d for the beloved’s bed;

  And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

  Love itself shall slumber on.

  As Wyatt’s voice fades, I turn to the water and stare at the peaks. Above them, the sky is chalky gray, and the clouds huddle together, as if for support. Around me, the air is so still that when I sling my arm toward the water, the ashes sail out of the urn in a perfect arc. The lake’s dark surface ripples when they hit. The reverberation lingers, echoing inside of me.

  “Good-bye, Dad,” I whisper. “I love you.”

  In that moment, I feel Iris’s warmth and hear her words, hushed and reverent in my head: I loved him, too.

  Needing her comfort too much to send her away, I mentally fold into her, and when my knees threaten to buckle, it’s as if Iris bears my weight and holds me up.

  Sylvie is a high-energy person—a walk
ing nerve ending. She’s never struck me as overly sensitive. Sylvie’s more of a tough girl. Which is why I know she’s sincerely emotional when she walks to the edge of the lake and hugs me as people are starting to leave.

  “Sorry, chica,” she murmurs.

  “Thanks for coming.” We step apart.

  “I figured you’d need your friends around you,” she says in the raspy voice I’ve always envied. “What happened to your dad just sucks.”

  I’m grateful for her bluntness and the fact that she’s not treating me as if I’m made of glass. “He was the best,” I tell her, my entire body throbbing with loss. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”

  We’re both quiet for a few moments, uncomfortable with each other all of a sudden. Death does that, I’ve discovered. Makes it difficult to know what to say, even for no-nonsense people like Sylvie.

  Suddenly, she lifts a silver-studded brow, and nudges me with her elbow. “What’s his story?” she asks in a low voice.

  I glance at her. “Who?”

  “Mr. Intense.”

  I follow her gaze past Paula and Sal, and my stomach flips over as I zero in on the hiker who helped me with Dad and Cookie after the accident.

  “He’s been watching you,” Sylvie whispers.

  I duck my head, embarrassed. “Everyone’s been watching me.”

  “Not like that. Who is he?”

  “He’s the hiker who found us on the mountain.” I glance at him again. He’s talking to Dad’s old friend Tony Dimitri, but Sylvie is right; he’s looking at me. “I should go say hi,” I tell her.

  “Sure. Go ahead. I’ll call you later.” Sylvie waves at Wyatt and calls out, “Hey, Goob!” He glances in our direction and makes a face.

  “At least he knows his name,” she says smugly. “Guess I’ll go see what he’s been up to.”