Chapter 16 Danni
DANNI
Was this real? Was I really holding hands with the monster under my bed?
I turned my head on the pillow and looked at the huge, furry hand engulfing my own. The room was dim but I could tell that yes, it was definitely there. And I was awake. My heart fluttered in my chest.
"Hello?" I whispered, my voice barely more than a breath. "Who…who are you?”
No answer. Only the hush of the wind in the trees outside and the rhythmic tick of Granny’s old mantle clock from the living room. I looked at the hand. It didn’t try to squeeze or claw…it didn’t grab me and drag me down. It just held mine, like an old friend, trying to comfort me.
Again I had the feeling of missing someone I couldn’t quite remember.
Someone who had held me once—cradled me in strong, furry arms, his scent warm and comforting in my nose as I drifted to sleep.
Someone who had protected me from Duke when he shouted and banged on my door, trying to get in to punish me…
That was when I felt it. The bed shifted…a whisper of movement. Not sudden, not jarring. The motion was gentle…deliberate.
"Danni," a voice murmured. It was deep and low and it rumbled like thunder muffled by fog. "Are you all right?" it asked. No—he asked.
The Shadow Boy.
But he didn’t sound like a boy at all—not even a little. He was all grown up now, just like me.
I tensed at the deep, rumbling voice, but didn’t scream. Somehow, I wasn’t afraid.
The huge, warm hand squeezed mine gently.
"I feel your sorrow, little one,” he rumbled. “Can I hold you as I used to?"
As I used to…more memories came rushing back. The feeling of warm, strong arms around me and the feeling of fur against my cheek. The comforting sound of his heartbeat…but did shadows have hearts? I didn’t know.
I swallowed hard. My chest felt tight, my breath caught in my throat. But still, I nodded.
"Yes,” I whispered. “Please…please come up and hold me.”
The bed creaked as a heavy weight settled beside me. Then arms—thick, strong arms covered in soft fur—slid around me and pulled me gently back against a massive chest. Heat poured off his body in waves. The scent of cedar and cinnamon wrapped around me like a blanket.
"Let it out, little witch," he murmured, his voice rumbling through my bones. One big hand stroked my back slowly. "I feel your grief. Let it out."
I did. I cried in a way I hadn’t since Craig had first been diagnosed.
The tears came fast and hard like bullets.
My chest heaved with sobs I didn’t know I’d been holding in.
The monster just held me, cradling me like something precious, stroking my back and whispering soft words…
words of comfort and reassurance. I barely understood them, but I felt his meaning along with his steady, unshakable presence.
I cried for the loving marriage I had lost…
for my fears for the future…for the horrible instability of everything around me.
It all felt so scary and foreign and doomed.
The whole world felt like a ticking time bomb about to explode at any minute.
I couldn’t bear it anymore—couldn’t take the stress and grief and uncertainty.
It had been building up inside me like a poison for months—for years… and now it was all coming out.
I wept until I was finally empty and when I had no tears left, I tilted my head up and looked at him through swollen eyes—or tried to.
It was still so dark in the bedroom, I could barely make out the shape of him.
He was massive—much bigger than a human man—tall and towering, with two curved shadows that might have been horns on his head.
"Why are you here?" I whispered.
The monster was quiet for a beat. Then he murmured,
"For you, little witch. To protect you. Don’t you remember the first time I came?"
I blinked, confused.
"I…almost remember," I confessed
His big hand cradled my cheek, swiping away my tears.
"I came because you needed me. Think…try harder."
Something stirred deep inside me. An old memory, fragile and sharp like a piece of glass that might cut me if I was foolish enough to handle it.
"I’ll try," I whispered. "But…it’s scary."
"Let the memory tea you drank work," he rumbled, stroking my cheek. "You’re safe with me. Let yourself remember the very first time we met."
And I did. I relaxed and let myself drift in the warmth of his arms wrapped around me. I closed my eyes and opened myself to the past, opening a door in my mind I had locked and barred and tried to forget about for years.
Finally, the memory came.
* * *
I was ten. Duke, my new stepfather, was furious. He’d picked me up from school that day and had started lecturing me immediately. He was a big man with buzz-cut hair and a cruel look in his squinty no-color eyes.
I hated him.
I wished my Mom wouldn’t let him pick me up. He always found something to complain about. My skirt was too short, or I wasn’t polite enough to the teachers. As if he could hear what I was saying from his big, stupid truck while I stood in the dismissal line.
That was his complaint now.
“I saw you sassing Mrs. Leady,” he snarled, the minute I climbed up into the truck. The interior always smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. I hated that stink!
I knew better than to contradict him—better than to say anything but, “Yes, Duke. Sorry, Duke.” But that day I was feeling rebellious.
He acted like I was some kind of discipline problem—like I got sent to the Principal’s office every day, which wasn’t true at all!
I think, like the kids at school, he could sense there was something different about me.
He didn’t know what it was but it made him hate me with a passion. So it was stupid to contradict him.
But I did it anyway.
“I wasn’t talking back to her,” I said in a low voice, looking down at my hands, which were clenched on top of my backpack. “She just asked if that was your truck coming to pick me up and I said it was. That’s all.”
It might seem like a harmless thing to say—but nothing was ever harmless with Duke.
His beefy face—which always had a five o’clock shadow no matter how often he shaved—went beet red. I knew because I could see it from the corner of my eye.
“You sassing me, you little brat?” he snarled, glaring down at me. “You calling me a liar?”
“No!” I protested quickly, alarmed at how fast things were spiraling. “I’m just telling you what I said to her and what she said back.”
“You’re a little liar! I don’t know why your momma doesn’t beat you more! She ought to beat the sass out of you!”
“I’m not sassy!” I muttered rebelliously. “I’m just telling the truth.”
Duke’s face got even redder and he blew through a stop sign, making other drivers blare their horns indignantly.
“You better mind what you say to me, missy! Watch that smart mouth of yours or I’ll tan your bottom until you can’t sit down for a week!”
My stepfather always wanted to punish me. He said I talked back—said he had the right to discipline me since he was my father now. But he hadn’t laid a hand on me…yet.
We finished the drive in silence—I said nothing because it was clear there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t enrage him further.
I could feel how much he hated me curling around my head like sour smoke—it mixed with the fear I felt and made my stomach tight.
Driving with him was like riding beside a rabid beast—one that might break free of its constraints and attack at any time.
I just wanted to get home and go to my room to feel safe from him.
But today it was like the rage in my stepfather finally boiled over. The minute he parked the truck in our driveway, and we got inside the house, he reached for me and grabbed me by the arm.
“Hey!” I gasped, surprised because I hadn’t expected it. As many times as he’d talked about punishing me, I hadn’t really thought he would do it.
But now, the restraints were gone.
“You come here!” Duke was grinning in a mean way—his little, piggy eyes filled with angry glee. “You come here and take your punishment for smarting off to me, missy! I’ll make you sorry you ever opened your mouth!”
He dragged me to the couch and pulled me over his lap. I screamed and struggled, but he had me pinned down with one heavy arm over my lower back to hold me in place.
“Let me go! I’ll tell Mom!” I shrieked, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. My mother was a cold and distant woman—she never objected when Duke said mean things to me. Anyway, she wasn’t home right now. She had to work late most nights, which was why she had Duke pick me up from school.
“You shut your fat mouth!” my stepfather roared. “I’m going to teach you a lesson right now about sassing me!”
He raised his hand and I tensed, my whole body going stiff as a board. I was thinking, No! No-no-no! Don’t hit me, you can’t hit me! I wish someone would hit you and show you how it is!
I heard a sharp slap! But I didn’t feel anything. Then Duke gave an angry cry.
“What the fuck?”
I twisted my neck and saw his hand still raised and a dark mark growing on his already red face.
“You little bitch!” he snarled at me. “I said I’m going teach you a lesson!”
His hand fell…but at the last minute, it jerked to the side and instead of spanking me, he slapped his own face. It happened again and again—every time my angry stepfather tried to beat me, he hit himself instead.
Which only enraged him more.
“You little bitch—how are you doing this?” he shouted at me.
I didn’t know myself—I only knew I needed to get away from him as fast as I could.
The next time he went to spank me, and his hand flew towards his own face instead, he tried to catch it with his other hand—the one he’d been using to hold me down.
The minute I felt his heavy arm leave my back, I wiggled off his lap and ran to the back of the house for my bedroom.
“Get back here, you little bitch!” Duke roared with rage. A moment later I heard his big, heavy footsteps lumbering after me.
I reached my room and slammed the door and locked it.
But I knew it wouldn’t hold for long. It was just one of those little thumb locks—hardly stronger than a lock on a bathroom stall.
Just one kick from Duke’s clumsy shit-kicker boots would snap it like a stick of candy and then he would be in my room trying to hurt me again.
Quickly, I looked for a place to hide. Anyplace he couldn’t get to me. The closet was inviting…but too shallow to offer any real safety. Duke would be able to reach in and snatch me out instantly.
The only other place that offered a modicum of safety was the space under my bed.
It was a big old four-poster, heavy and solid.
My Grandma had given it to me when Mom and I moved out of her house so she could live with Duke.
Now I scrambled under it, sliding my way into the stuffy space where only dust bunnies and the occasional lost sock lived.
I went all the way back to the farthest corner, praying Duke wouldn’t be able to reach me there. Just as I got into position, I heard him start pounding on my door.
“You little bitch! You little cunt!” he raged, saying words I knew weren’t allowed in the house—at least to hear Mom tell it.
But she always turned a blind eye to my new stepfather’s transgressions.
“You get out here right now!” Duke roared, his heavy fists making the door shake with each blow.
“Get out here and take your punishment!”
No, no, no! I squeezed my eyes shut and felt the fear and hopelessness building inside me. No, please let him go away! I wish there was someone here to keep me safe! I wish someone would protect me!
I sent the wish out into the universe—a desperate plea for help and protection. And then, I felt something…something strange. A kind of tingling in the air beside me. Startled, I looked and saw the darkness was shimmering like stars.
A moment later, I knew I wasn’t alone under the bed anymore.
A boy made of shadows with golden eyes was looking back at me.
“Who…who are you?” I whispered, though my voice could barely be heard over Duke’s pounding and shouting.
“You called for me,” he answered. “So I came.”
He was young, like me, I thought, but he exuded a kind of power—being close to him made all the short hairs on my arms and at the back of my neck stand up.
“My stepfather,” I whispered. “He’s trying to break in—he wants to hurt me!”
The golden eyes narrowed and the Shadow Boy’s voice got deeper.
“Not while I’m here. He won’t touch you, Danni.”
I started to ask how he knew my name, but he was already sliding out from under the bed. The bedroom was dim—my curtains and blinds were drawn against the afternoon sunshine. But what I saw when he came out made me catch my breath and bite my tongue to keep from screaming.
The Shadow Boy began to grow—he started out just a little taller than me but then he seemed to swell with protective anger.
Before I knew it, the tips of his horns touched the ceiling of my room.
He stood in the doorway, his golden eyes glowing menacingly and his arms outstretched, as though to keep anyone from coming in.
And that was what Duke saw when he finally smashed open the door—the Shadow Boy, standing there, his eyes glowing as he glared down at my hapless stepfather.
Duke’s tiny, no-color eyes widened in fear and he took a step back. He tripped over his size sixteen boots and stumbled, falling on his ass.
“What…the fuck?” he breathed, looking up. I thought it was probably the first time he’d seen someone taller and bigger than him.
The Shadow Boy leaned over Duke and growled,
“You will NOT touch Danni! Leave—NOW!”
Duke gasped and scrambled backwards, sliding on his ass to get away. He was babbling something I couldn’t make out, something about “going fucking crazy.” The minute he was able, he got to his feet and staggered away as fast as he could.
The Shadow Boy slammed the door with a resounding bang!
For a moment I was afraid—now I was in the room alone with him! But almost as soon as the door shut, he began to shrink. Just a few moments later he was back to being just a little taller than me. He slid under the bed and came to my side.
“There—that should keep him away.” There was still a protective growl in his voice, but it wasn’t scary because I could tell his anger wasn’t aimed at me.
“Thank you,” I whispered to him. “I was so afraid he would hurt me.”
“I know—I felt it,” he said simply. “But I’m here now—you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Then he reached out and took my hand in his own, warm furry one. And for the first time since I’d moved out of my Grandma’s house, I felt safe again.