Shadow Walker

by Tina Proffitt

  From her head to her toe, he was on top of her, his heavy weight pressing her into the soft earth.

  “A Cottonmouth. Not ten more feet in front of you,” Shadow gasped between breaths.

  “How did you see it?” she asked when she caught her breath and narrowed her gaze at him.

  “This is where they live. I've seen their nests out here.” He cursed. “Dammit, I thought you were smarter than this.”

  She struggled beneath his heavy weight, causing her words to come out sounding breathless. “You would do anything it takes to have your way,” she hissed.

  “You mean like planting snakes in a field just to stop you?” Shadow mocked her. Then he shrugged as best he could without relinquishing even the tiniest amount of pressure holding her down because he found that now he was actually enjoying making her suffer a little. “I'm not denying that you have no choice. You don't. But you're just gonna have to deal with it.”

  “You’re trying to convince me that someone wants to hurt me,” she spat out. “Is manipulating women a game to you? I think it is. In fact, I think you're so good at it that you think everyone else is out to get you, don't you? You're paranoid.”

  “Call me whatever you like, n'ya. You're not leaving. If I hadn't come after you,” he said, lowering his face to hers, “you'd be dead.” He released some of the pressure on her while tightening his grip on her hands to prevent her from getting away again.

  She wanted to spit in his eye, but she thought, she was better than that so she settled for scowling.

  “And fortunately for you, I wanted my quarry more than you wanted to get away.” And with that, he crouched above her still holding her hands together like makeshift cuffs and slung her over his shoulder earning him a shriek from her that made him grin.

  “Put me down!” she cried, as he settled her onto his right shoulder. Her only view was of his broad back while one of his hands was firmly planted on her bottom.

  A nice bottom it was, he decided, as he gave it a gentle squeeze. The screech that came from her was indisputably a sound of protest that he completely ignored as he headed for home. As he ambled, carrying his delicate flower, hissing and spitting at him, the thought occurred to him that while he had succeeded in capturing her, what to do with her for the rest of the night so that he could get some sleep was another question entirely. A few choice ideas popped into his head, making the blue jeans he had thrown on over his boxer shorts become suddenly uncomfortable. But he pushed those thoughts aside. This self-righteous n'ya had the proverbial stick up her ass that would never be dislodged, no matter how much bedding down she got. And he was not about to be the one to try.

  She sat up in bed. Sweat rolled down her back into her panties. The nightmare of her father was over. But now that she was awake, she would be forced to relive it, making her wish for the sweet oblivion that only sleep could bring. And at the same time, she feared that if she fell asleep again, she would find herself in the evil grip of another nightmare.

  Bethanie had awoken in the middle of the night from a particularly startling dream in which the skinwalker stalked her father in her childhood backyard. She had seen its yellowed, canine teeth barred. Her father had been bloodied and left for dead, lying in the grass. She had gone to him, trying to comfort him and knowing all the while that his death was inevitable. She was powerless to stop it from happening again, no matter how hard she tried to contain his blood with her hands. This dream had haunted after lying in bed for hours before finally falling asleep.

  When the two of them had returned to the cabin, Shadow had been in a particularly bad mood. Even still, he had carefully placed her back in her bed and walked out without saying even a threatening word. She knew that she had tested the strength of his patience and that she would not try to leave him again, but her fear grew stronger with each passing day that she would not be able to resist temptation when it finally presented itself. Even during the walk home, as angry as she was at him for carrying her the way he did, her rebellious body had noticed the smoothness of the skin on his back. Her hands had itched to touch him.

  A light knocking on her door brought her out of her apprehension. Shadow appeared.

  He looked devastatingly handsome, his chest bare and his hair falling loosely about his shoulders. The smooth, muscled planes of his suntanned chest caused those inevitable tremors to return to her with a vengeance.

  Shadow had come to a crossroads. Her presence in his house was causing havoc with his self-control. All through dinner he had been unable to keep his eyes from her. He had watched her eat, watched her lick sauce from her lip, and wondered how soft her pouting lips would feel all over his body. And then outside, in the field, when she had been beneath him, soft and warm, he had thought about how good it would feel to be inside her then. Considering though, that she was basically a prisoner in his house and could barely be in the same room with him without coming unhinged, he knew he had to banish those fearful thoughts she held of him.

  Now, he saw right away the same signs of panic in her expression and body language he had seen the night he had barged into her dorm room. This time though, he guessed that the fear had been brought on by a bad dream.

  As he stepped closer to her bed, she watched him. The expression he wore was stern and one, she feared, that she was responsible for. “I'm sorry.”

  “For what?” He arched a brow. “Running away?”

  “I thought I might've woken you.”

  “You didn't.”

  Bethanie watched as he turned and left the room without a word only to return moments later with a glass of water in one hand, which he handed to her.

  “I want you to drink this,” he said, pouring a small packet of white powder into the glass. “It's Gaba. Drink it. It'll help your body calm itself.”

  “Yes, sir,” she whispered, lowering her head and feeling utterly childish.

  The quilt was drawn up around her neck, covering her. Her wide-eyed expression, looking up at him made her appear to him like one of her owls, quiet but fierce when need be. That was what his little owl-girl was to him. “Just call me Shadow.”

  “I'm sorry,” she said again, tipping the glass too far and sending some of its contents onto the quilt. She reached for a tissue off the bedside table to dab at the water.

  His expression turned cold, resenting her subservience towards him. It made him feel like a monster. “Stop apologizing,” he hissed. Between her scowling at him and now her apologizing, he would gladly take the scowls. “I'll give you something to be sorry about.” He looked pointedly at the quilt she was using to cover herself. “And that quilt won't be enough to save you.”

  Her eyes became even wider and her muscles began to shake, this time not from fear but from realization. The smoldering look in his eyes told her exactly what those consequences would be.

  Instead of ripping the cursed quilt from her that she was using to hide from him, he turned away, stabbing a hand into his loose hair as he left the room. He would not be sleeping any more tonight.

  Bethanie heard the slamming of the screen door as he left the house.

  It was late when Bethanie awoke again on Friday morning. The clock beside her bed said ten a.m. She had never slept this late in her entire life. As she slid her legs out of bed, she brushed up against a wooden hoop hanging from the post of her bed that had not been there when she had gone to bed, nor had it been there when she had awoken in the early morning hours before the sun was anywhere near rising. She picked it up, fingering its velvety smoothness. A lavender suede skin wrapped around a wooden hoop with thread intersecting the circle in a golden web while four downy feathers attached with beads hung from more purple suede strings at its base. She had never seen anything quite like it before.

  As she got dressed in jeans and a pink crew neck t-shirt, she continued to admire the hanging piece of art. And as she did, the delicious aroma of breakfast wafting into her bedroom from the kitchen was making her mouth water.

  Sha
dow stood at the stove with his broad back to her. A hip cocked sideways as he rested his hand on the counter, stirring sizzling bacon in the iron skillet with the other.

  “Thank you,” Bethanie said from the kitchen door, unsure of her welcome this morning.

  Shadow kept his body facing the stove and without turning to her. “Sit down. Food will be ready in a minute.”

  Bethanie was delighted that he was at least speaking to her because she was starved. She had not had much of an appetite in the past few days and now felt as though she would never get full enough even after last night's delicious food. She sat at the table that was set with goblets of orange juice and coffee cups. A plate piled high with buttered toast sat in the center of the table. She lifted the lid on a flow blue terrine and found it full of fluffy scrambled eggs. A tiny bowl of shredded cheddar sat next to them alongside a mason jar of apple butter. She wondered if she had died and gone to heaven.

  Shadow sat down and brought with him a carafe of fresh coffee and a plate full of bacon.

  “Sorry I slept so late.”

  Shadow gave her a warning glance, reminding her that his tolerance for her apologies was at its end.

  “I've never slept so long before.” She gave him an uneasy smile.

  “Well then, it's about time you did, isn't it? Your body must have needed the extra sleep.” Shadow began serving her a plate full of the scrumptious-looking fare.

  Bethanie had never considered before that her body needed the extra sleep. Growing up, her parents had almost begrudged her any rest, especially if it lasted past dawn. Even when she was feeling ill, she was expected to be up and dressed in time to prepare breakfast with her mother. She could still recall the times when she had accidentally slept through the alarm. She had paid dearly. She had lived by her alarm clock every day until the day the police had escorted her away from her home forever.

  “Did the Gaba help you sleep?”

  “It must've. I don't remember anything until I just woke up.” She yawned. “Did you make that beautiful lavender circle hanging by my bed?”

  “It's a dream catcher. They're most powerful if they're made specifically for the recipient. I made it purple for bravery.”

  She wondered whether that meant she was lacking. “What kind of power does it have?”

  “The power to consume bad dreams. When the morning sun hits it, it catches all of your bad dreams, and the nightmares fade away, dissolving in the sunlight, never to be recalled again.”

  Bethanie looked down into her juice cup. “My mother told me when I was young that evil spirits caused my bad dreams.” After that, Bethanie had been too terrified to even get out of bed again, even if she had a nightmare.

  “In Aramaic, the word for evil is unripe.” Shadow held his tongue from saying anything he might regret about the psychotic bent of parents using the threat of dark spirits to control their children's behavior. “Originally, dream catchers were seen hanging outside of front doors for good luck.”

  Bethanie looked thoughtful a moment, wondering what it was about Shadow that made her believe that things could be different from the way she had always thought. “Why are you named Shadow?”

  “It's a nickname my father gave me when I was a little guy. He used to say I was his little shadow.”

  “Isn't there a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson? I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me. Don't look so surprised,” Bethanie said when Shadow gave her a quizzical look, “nineteenth century poetry was one of the few things I was allowed to read besides the Bible.”

  “There's a lot more to you than your past, Bethanie.” Shadow reached across the table then, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. He cupped her cheek with his palm.

  “I know,” she said, her voice suddenly sounding husky.

  “Did you know that my mother actually named me after her favorite poet?”

  Bethanie shook her head.

  Shadow nodded. “Robert Frost Walker.”

  “Two roads diverged in a wood,” she began.

  Looking deeply into her cornflower blue eyes, he picked up where she left off. “Yet knowing how way leads on to way.” He leaned over, brushing a kiss across her lips.

  “I doubted if I should ever come back,” she whispered, finishing for him and turning into the kiss.

  Chapter 6

  “The eagle gets messages from Great Spirit and carries them to the hawk that gives them to the crow,” Shadow said as the two of them emerged from the shade of the trees surrounding his house into the open field.

  When Shadow had ended their kiss, he said he had some work to do around the barn. Bethanie gladly came with him since the thought of being alone in his cabin still terrified her. At the moment, the afternoon sun warmed her back as she bent over the sage bush, a pair of scissors in her hand, snipping right where Shadow had shown her. “Where did you learn all of this?” she asked after he explained to her why they asked the plant for its blessing before cutting it.

  “My father.”

  Bethanie wanted to ask more, but did not know how to without sounding stupid. “I learned everything I know about life, what not to do, from the Bible.”

  “You mean from your parents don't you?” Shadow looked at her pointedly. “I don't recall your Jesus saying anything about this anti-God called Satan, or him being the master of these so-called evil spirits.”

  Bethanie frowned. “I thought you said you haven't read it.”

  “I thought you said you had.” Shadow gazed at her. “There was one story about a farmer. I took particular interest in because my father was a farmer. The original parable told of seeds falling by the wayside. Birds carried away the seeds, not Satan.”

  Bethanie was perplexed. “The things you're saying...” She wondered if another way of viewing life could be possible for her. The way Shadow saw it. “The things you know. I've never heard before.”

  Shadow saw the bee buzzing around Bethanie's hand before she. When she did, she froze.

  Shadow placed a gentle hand around her waist. “Tell the bee that you have only come for your share of the plant, and he won't sting you,” he instructed calmly.

  She did, and to her great surprise, the bee flew away.

  “Now, before you cut the sage, ask the Great Spirit living within the plant it if it is alright. Then thank it for its sacrifice.”

  When they arrived home, the hour was late. Bethanie had become so enthralled in all that Shadow had been teaching her that until he offered to warm up some leftover stew for their dinner, she had all but forgotten to be hungry again. But this time her loss of appetite had not been due to worry about her owls. This time, it was her heart, not her stomach that prevented her from eating. The only way of life she had known up to now seemed foreign to her. She had left that part of her behind in West Virginia, but she had never said good-bye to it. Now it seemed that she would have to figure out how to let go of her previous way of seeing life in order to understand her new one. There did not seem to be any need for fear in Shadow's world, and that terrified her beyond belief. She had always imagined that she knew who her enemy was, her own sin. But what was sin really? She forced herself to stop thinking about such things. If her family knew about the questions she was asking, they would accuse her of blasphemy and warn that she would incur the wrath of God. But she was finding what little faith she still had in that old view of God was fading fast.

  She was distracted from the disturbing direction of her thoughts when Shadow announced that their dinner was ready. They enjoyed bowls of beef stew with large chunks of carrots and potatoes, even little green peas along with steaming hot yeast rolls covered in butter. She felt so good after taking her last bite that she yawned, stretching her aching muscles that seemed more than ready to go to bed.

  But as soon as the dishes were washed and put away, Shadow walked upstairs and into her room while Bethanie watched in confusion for a few moments before summoning the courage to find out what he was doing. When she turned the corn
er into her bedroom, he was using a lighter to burn the tip of a bunch of dried twigs, tied together with twine. Gray smoke drifted upwards. “What are you doing?” she finally asked in wonder, afraid he might be performing witchcraft, something she had been taught to fear from early childhood.

  “Smudging.”

  Bethanie heaved a sigh, disliking his cryptic answer. “Why are you doing that to my room?”

  “I want to bless the space. To bring healing to your sleep. The sage we cut today was cut for this purpose. It lends its purpose to your purpose. And its purpose is anything you ask of it. So, if it's your intent to be healed, the plant will heal you. I'm asking the sage to bring the darkness of your dreams to light.”

  Bethanie came closer. “I'm not so sure I'd like that.” At least in her dreams, she could wake up.

  The smell of burning sage hung heavy in the air. “Don't worry. No dream monsters will catch you in the daytime. But when they do appear, they will be banished forever to the light.”

  Bethanie drew closer to watch the smoke curl. Still completely oblivious to the attraction Shadow felt for her, she brushed up against his free arm.

  He snaked the arm around her small waist, bringing her closer to him. “There's nothing to fear, n'ya,” he said, holding her in his solid embrace. “Your curiosity is natural.”

  Bethanie looked up into his steel gray eyes. She saw peace there. There were no dark rings beneath his eyes from lack of sleep like there were beneath her own. She wanted what he possessed that brought him peace.

  As if reading her mind, he added, “No one has ever shown you the miracles that exist in nature all around you. You've been taught to fear the world around you.” He leaned down, lightly brushing a kiss across her brow.

  Her eyelids fluttered closed and she drank in the peaceful feelings that flooded her. What he said was true; she could not argue it. She had lived in fear since before she could remember.