Epilogue
das Herz des Schattens
(The Shadow's Heart)
The iron sky was awash with streaks of fiery orange as the sun set on yet another day.
Tempestuous spring weather was some of Herz’s favourite, but the longer nights of winter remained best of all.
Then, his Shadow and he were free to roam through Falchovari and mingle with humans and legendary creatures alike.
Last autumn had had an effect on Herz’s mind similar to a strong storm; it had blown through and dislodged everything he thought he had known about the world.
His Shadow called it the human realm, but humans weren’t the only ones living in it, he’d discovered.
Since he had been claimed by shadow magick, Herz had met people who turned into wolves, hares that talked, and a bold little frog who comically lacked any sense of self-preservation.
When Boy had inadvertently saved his life, it had led to him making his first ever best friend in a rather princely frog.
Boy smiled wide at the memory of the night he had met Alwin, which was—to date—the best midnight tea party he had ever attended.
The familiar silhouette of a hand, with smoky wisps of shadows where the skin should have been, enveloped his. Herz beamed up at his Shadow and swung their joined hands back and forth in the space between them.
“Did you get them?” he asked, peering round to look for the small wicker basket of fruit.
His Shadow hid the basket behind his back. “I did.”
“Can I see?” Herz attempted to swirl around his Shadow in his half-human form, but he was easily outmanoeuvred.
“You know the rules, mein Herz. These are an apology gift for purposefully frightening your brother.” His Shadow’s features darkened. “But if you behave yourself tonight, if you’re a good boy, then I have a special punnet of strawberries waiting for you in our sanctuary.”
Chastened, Herz returned to his place beside his Shadow—though he aimed the smile that split his face at the floor. He would be such a good boy on their visit to his siblings’ homestead. The best boy.
He really wanted those strawberries, and he would get his reward.
Still, he mumbled, “Boy had deserved it, though.”
His Shadow laughed loudly, and a nearby murder of crows took to the sky in protest of having been disturbed. “Regardless, even young shadow geists need to learn that they can’t embody the scarecrows in the fields and scare the farmers as they tend to their crops. Big brother or not.”
Herz muttered under his breath, and his Shadow pulled him close to kiss the top of his head. “Are you ready to behave, mein Herz?”
His Shadow didn’t wait for a response before he fully materialised and set off downhill towards Herz’s siblings’ new homestead.
In the fading light, the golden embroidery of his Shadow’s brocade surcoat glinted with each stride of his long and powerful legs, and Herz had to jog a little to keep pace.
He fashioned his clothes from shadow magick as he went, but his skill level didn’t yet match the fine tailoring and complicated patterns the older geist wore.
His Shadow had offered to do it for him, but it was a point of pride for Herz that he learned to do these things independently.
Born into servitude, any choices he could have had in his mortal life had always been made for him—from his name, to the food he ate, to the chores he did, to his father sending him to the palace to die. So when his Shadow had offered immortality beside him, Herz wanted to live it on his own terms.
Even if those terms sometimes got him into trouble, and even if sometimes he quite liked that.
“Didn’t think to expect you so soon—not after last time,” his sister Maddie, who'd reclaimed the name as her own, called out from where she sat on the porch of their homestead.
Herz couldn’t suppress his smile and raced ahead of his Shadow to reach her first. Older than him by several winters, and with the reddened cheeks and toughened skin indicative of a life spent outdoors, Maddie stood and wiped her hands over her pinafore.
A plate with a half-eaten pie, and a mug half filled with a heavy ale, were instantly abandoned on the small table beside her, and she held her arms out wide.
As warm as Herz remembered it to be, her hug surrounded him and she pulled him close. He had to consciously remember to make his human form dense enough that she didn’t end up squishing right through him—that had upset them both the first few times it had happened.
“Guten Abend,” politely greeted his Shadow in the native tongue of the east of the kingdom.
Maddie held Herz at arm’s length and looked him over before she nodded.
Relieved to have passed muster, he stepped aside and peered into their small home through the window while his Shadow received the same welcoming embrace.
The stove in the corner glowed and Herz could see his brother’s leather work boots neatly stacked in front, no doubt drying out after a hard day’s labour.
“For me?” he heard Maddie ask and pulled back to watch his Shadow present her with the basket filled with cultivars of the Royal Garden strawberry.
“They’re for you to plant, so that you’ll always have them available when I visit,” Herz cut in.
His Shadow aimed a purposeful cough and a stern look his way. Herz felt himself blush, and he dropped his gaze in favour of admiring the aged decking.
“I mean, they’re an-apology-gift-for-Boy, where is he?” Herz rushed out.
When Maddie didn’t answer straight away, he risked looking up, only to find her biting the inside of her cheek in order to suppress a smile. She was failing miserably.
“I’mmm riiight herrre,” came a sudden and gruff voice from behind him.
Herz spun on his heel and came face to face with a tall and gangly creature made almost entirely from reeds and grasses.
Its outstretched arms were held high above its head—which resembled an overgrown clump of chard—and it stumbled closer with a pronounced limp.
Herz let out a shriek and dematerialised on the spot.
He poured himself inside his Shadow for protection, and a heavy silence blanketed the small porch.
Then everyone burst into raucous peals of laughter, and the vegetable monster stumbled over onto his backside while clutching his stomach.
Herz glanced between his sister and the strange creature, who had now rolled onto its side, and that’s when he noticed it was wearing a pair of recently darned socks.
Badly darned socks at that. So badly darned, in fact, that they could only be the work of one person.
His gaze snapped to the doorway of his siblings’ homestead, and sure enough, silently laughing against the jamb whilst clutching a bunch of chard leaves, was his other sister.
Boy thumped at the wooden boards beneath him, and between large gulps of air he managed, “Revenge is best served cold, little brother.”
Herz scowled and sent forth a shadowed tendril to pull the large leaves from his older brother’s head, and if he yanked some of his hair in the process, oh well.
There weren’t many shared characteristics between Herz and Boy, given that they had different mothers, but they had both always enjoyed a good prank, and Herz was pleased they hadn’t lost that despite all that had happened in their family since last harvest.
From the safety of his Shadow, he watched his brother slowly regain composure and shed himself of his decorative weeds all over the porch.
Watched his sister step out from their new home and swat him with chard until he cleared it all off and onto the ground.
Watched Maddie retake her seat and chuckle into her ale.
Yes, Herz was beyond relieved that they had managed to overcome their initial fears from when his Shadow had first taken him back to his family’s flour mill and he had shown them what he’d become—a shadow geist. He still remembered the deathly pallor his father had adopted when he saw him materialise for the first time.
Could still hear the upset shrieks of his youngest siblings.
But mostly, he remembered the bitter swallow of truth.
Just like his Shadow had told him, his father hadn’t used his sacrifice as an opportunity to flee Falchovari. Herz’s mortality had meant nothing to his father, a fact that his oldest brother had found intolerable and had expressed by punching the man square in the mouth.
His sisters, those who shared the same mother as Herz, had wanted to understand, and had been so devastated to have failed him that they’d packed their meagre belongings and left their family’s flour mill the very same day.
It was only by chance that his Shadow knew of a derelict homestead, a way further south along the river, that had given them a roof over their heads.
“Don’t you dare! You naughty little gnome!” Maddie’s hand shot out, but she closed her fist around thin air.
The action swiped the basket of strawberries perilously close to the edge of the little table where they’d been stored, and Herz rematerialised closer to save them from splattering onto the porch.
“Missed me!” came the high-pitched taunt from the bare-footed earth geist that teetered on the handle of the basket.
Maddie let out a long-suffering sigh and aimed a hard stare at Herz. “I want you to know that I blame you for this infestation.”
The earth geist feigned an offended gasp, and with his little hand braced against his large forehead, he retorted, “We are not an infestation. And I am not a gnome.”
Maddie ignored him and arched an eyebrow at Herz, who had hoped to furtively pluck a strawberry from its stem while the tiny earth spirit caused a distraction, but his Shadow didn’t miss a thing.
“Mein Herz,” he said in a low tone as he used a leather-clad hand to prevent any thievery. “Now would be a good time to give your sister that book we found, don’t you think?”
Slowly, Herz retracted his hands from the basket and nodded in bashful agreement. He knew he’d be punished for that failed attempt later—it was hard to be overly concerned. With renewed compliance, he conjured The Ghost Hunting Handbook from the shadow realm, and handed the battered book over.
Maddie squinted in the growing dark to read the faded title.
“The Handbuch der Geisterjagd,” she read out loud, then aimed a particularly knowing look at the bold earth geist.
“I thought…” interjected his Shadow. “That our little friend here might ingratiate himself with you all better than he has, if he were to teach you about some of the things written in this book.” He paused long enough to draw Herz back into his chest, and kissed the top of his head.
“Someone very important to me once said that all they had to offer was the power of knowledge,” he inhaled deeply and Herz felt his hair move with the force of the breath, “and it saved both our lives.”
Maddie pressed the book to her chest and her eyes filled with tears.
“For example,” his Shadow continued. “Did you know that earth geists will help with household chores…”
The tiny earth spirit squeaked with indignation and opened his mouth to protest, but his Shadow spoke first, “As long as they are treated with respect.”
“And maybe for some of that ale,” added a second earth geist, who had popped up from somewhere nearby where he had no doubt been eavesdropping.
Maddie looked between the two diminutive spirits, then her gaze settled on Herz, who shrugged in response. She heaved a reluctant sigh, then flicked one of the cheeky earth geists on the forehead for trying to lift her mug.
“Before I give you any of that, you’ll bed in those strawberry plants,” she commanded.
Herz raised his brow at her in silent question.
“Please?” she added, but it was obvious it pained her to do so.
The earth geists consulted quietly between themselves, came to some sort of agreement, and sealed it with a nod.
At which point, they glowed a beautiful shade of green, and the basket of strawberries was carefully elevated and wrapped in an aura of gold.
In short measure, both the strawberries and the earth spirits disappeared, then reappeared further into the clearing beside the homestead, where they set about their task.
“Well, I’ll be…” said Boy with a low whistle. “All this time, they could have been helping.”
His Shadow hooked a finger under Herz’s golden collar. “I have found,” he said with that rich timbre that vibrated through Herz’s core. “That all geists need the right motivation to discover their purpose. Ale and respect seem to be theirs. And mine…”
He produced a large, vibrant, and deliciously red strawberry that he held between leather-clad fingers right in front of Herz’s nose. As if in a trance, Herz watched it move tantalisingly close, but he wouldn’t take the bait. Not this time. He wasn’t stupid.
His Shadow traced the outline of Herz’s mouth with the tip of the fruit, but he remained resolute. He knew better rewards awaited at home.
“Good boy,” his Shadow purred over the shell of his ear.
Herz closed his eyes.
“And that’s quite enough of that, thank you.
” Maddie gripped the book tightly in one hand and ushered them both from the porch.
“The night is young, and I’m sure you two have some terror to strike into the hearts of the ne’er-do-wells of Falchovari?
Off you go. You can start with our father if you like?
I’m sure he’s in need of a good haunting. ”
His Shadow let out a raucous laugh and pushed the strawberry between Herz’s lips. “Come on then, mein Herz, you heard the lady of the house.”
“Bye thith.” Herz grinned around a mouthful of mushed fruit. “Thee you all thoon.”
And with that, both the Shadow and his Heart disappeared into the dark of night.