Chapter 2 Autumn #3
With newly shaking hands, she gathered up flour and linen from the familiar vendors and, trying not to run, trying to be discreet, she hurried toward the edge of town, toward home.
But she could not get home without passing the entrance to the temple grounds. And there, she remembered visiting the shadowed ones on festival night, and the way their darkness blocked the lantern light, casting their shadows up bold and dark against the stone temple walls.
They would be at risk now, too.
What had she done? Had her presence at the well awakened the monster? There had been no evidence it was even alive until she went there, no one else had reported seeing it. But Elana was certain it was the shadow monster she had encountered last night at the well.
Walking as fast as she could without drawing suspicion upon herself, her gaze darting to the feet of every person she encountered, looking for their shadow or lack thereof, she made for the edge of town.
Those she met who had no shadow she viewed anew, knowing her once shadowless body was changed and no longer like them.
And then, at the very edge of town, she encountered the old woman who’d hunched in front of the temple on festival night, her arm dripping blood.
She walked with a priestess, who was crushing herbs to sprinkle along the perimeter of town, a blessing of protection.
Elana couldn’t force her feet to take another step.
Hadn’t this woman been through enough? And now, with the shadow monster free once more, surely she was at risk of attack.
She remembered the puppets at the end of the festival puppet show, the ones whose chests had burst with red, the ones who represented the shadow monster’s massacre.
Surely the darkness would once again consume the shadows in the valley.
After a hundred years, fasting in the dark? Surely the monster hungered.
The shadowed woman watched Elana with a keen eye.
“Cat got your tongue, love?” she muttered.
She lifted her arm, freeing the soft, wrinkled skin from the folds of her cloak.
The slices in her arm were mostly healed now, scarred over, and in the bright sun Elana could see the varying ages of scar, from pink and scarcely healed to faded and silver with age.
And behind her, her shadow danced up against the wall of the building she stood before.
The woman looked back, looked at her own shadow, and waved her arm. “Get a good look then, girl. Aren’t many of these left, eh?”
Elana watched the woman’s shadow dancing against the white plaster wall, crisp and black as night. The woman linked her thumbs together, turning sideways and flapping her fingers so that her shadow took on the form of a bird.
With a firm voice, the priestess intervened. “Enough,” she barked, slapping the woman’s hands out of midair.
Elana staggered backward, imagining the newly blooming darkness at her feet taking a winged shape, carrying her back to the well. She couldn’t help the small sound of alarm that escaped her throat at the thought.
The old woman cackled, delighted at Elana’s reaction.
And Elana ran.
When at last she arrived at home, panting and gasping, her feet aching from pounding home across the meadow, the first person Elana encountered was Marcus, chopping wood in the yard.
“Did you see the priestesses?” she gasped, not bothering to catch her breath before she spoke.
Marcus’s brow glistened with sweat, his hard work in the autumn air evident on his ruddy cheeks. “Yes,” he said, looking Elana up and down. “Why?”
She tugged her skirt down so that it brushed the ground, ensuring her new shadow stayed hidden. “I was just curious. I am as invested as anyone in ensuring the safety of the valley, and I wanted to know if they’d found any evidence the monster was back.”
As she waited for Marcus to answer, she thought back through what she’d just said, praying it didn’t seem like she was suggesting she knew the monster was back.
At last, Marcus picked up the axe, propping it on his shoulder. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t seem that the monster is back. They’re not ready to give up their vigil just yet, but they haven’t seen anything to suggest we’re in any kind of trouble or risk.”
Elana swallowed thickly, her breath at last returning to normal. She nodded once. “Thank you,” she said.
“They haven’t,” he continued, “but sometimes I look at you and I wonder if I have.”
Elana’s mouth fell softly open. “What—why would you say such a thing?” She let her voice grow high pitched and offended.
Marcus didn’t answer. “Are you scared?” he asked, tilting his head at her. “Of the monster?”
Elana knew that Marcus didn’t know—couldn’t know—she’d encountered the monster. That what she had felt standing at the well as the shadows whirled around her didn’t feel much like fear.
She raised her chin in brazen defiance. “No,” she answered honestly. “I’m not frightened of the shadow monster at all.”
For a few weeks, all was quiet in the Allard household. Marcus chopped wood for the winter and glared at Elana with side-eye, Josephine fed her chickens and dreamed of love, Luc and Papa fished in the stream at the bottom of the valley, the twins caused trouble and kept Mama busy.
And Elana weaved.
One she finished the towels Mama had asked for, she chose a blend of wool with which to make a heavy cloak for the impending snows, for the nights were more than crisp now and the days bordered on frigid.
The pass of the shuttle over the warp threads and the rattle of the spool was soothing to her aching soul, though she kept her long skirts organized carefully over her loom bench to hide her growing shadow.
When the fabric was done, she washed and fulled it carefully and it wasn’t long before her new cloak, in shades of pale blue and cotton-cloud grey, hung from her shoulders, its wide hood offering warmth around her face as her blond hair tumbled from it, collecting frost from her breath in the bright morning air.
“You can have my old one now,” she told Josephine.
Her sister sighed. “Thank you, my dearest Elana. Though someday it would be so nice to have something new for my own.”
Elana had something new of her own; not only the cloak, but a new dark companion beneath her. A heavy winter cloak was exactly what she needed, long and full and perfect for hiding the new shadow at her feet.
“Someday,” she agreed.
It was lucky she finished the cloak when she did, for the very next day, snow fell.
Not much, mind; just enough for people to say look, it’s the first snow of the year. Just enough for red noses and laughter, frost-smacked cheeks and faces wreathed in fogged breath.
It was almost enough to distract from the simmering longing in her chest, which had grown once again, day by day, creeping moment by creeping moment, until it was a bubbling frenzy between her ribs.
She longed for the shadow in the well.
As the temperature dipped further until it was freezing even during the day, the desire to visit the shadow in the well grew in Elana, spreading heat through her joints until she thought they would pop with the pull of it.
Her knees ached, her wrists cracked, her neck crunching with each sudden turn of her head.
Elana burned, bright enough to keep her awake at night once again.
Worried that she would fall once more into sleepwalking, she found the rope she had wrapped around itself and tucked in her wardrobe. She stroked the stiff fibers, standing by her bedpost, trying to work up the courage to tie the rope there, to protect herself from her nightly sojourn.
“Again?” asked Mama’s voice from the door frame.
She had noticed Elana standing there with the rope, and drawn her own conclusion as to what that meant.
“What’s changed?” Her face was drawn, a tightness around her mouth and eyes that showed Elana just how hard it was for her mother to see her like this.
She hated feeling like she was letting everyone down, but it was either tie herself safely in bed, or…
Or she could visit the well again on her own.
Elana flashed a smile onto her face, pressing the coil of rope into her middle. “Nothing, Mama, I’m fine. I was just… cleaning, in the wardrobe, and found this there, and was thinking about when it used to be necessary. I was thinking about how much better I am now.”
The tense skin at the edges of Mama’s face softened ever so slightly, and Mama exhaled.
She didn’t let herself relax completely, but Elana was glad for this small lie and the little bit of comfort it brought to her mother.
Mama came into the room, crossing the floor, and took Elana in her arms. “My girl,” she whispered into Elana’s hair, “you can tell me if anything is the matter. I’m your mother, and I love you, and I want to help you. ”
Elana stiffened as her mother embraced her, then softened. “Mama, I love you too. But truly, there’s nothing to tell.” It was an easy lie, because what she meant was that she wouldn’t tell her mother of her trip to the well. She wouldn’t tell her mother what it was that was making her better.
“All right then. Sleep well, my love.” Mama gave her another squeeze, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before quietly leaving Elana alone to prepare for bed.
And Elana did, slipping into her nightgown, pressing herself flat against the mattress with her blankets pulled up to her chin—the better with which to hide the fact that she was already wearing her cloak and boots.
Her heart slammed against the mattress so hard she was sure the twins could hear it in the bedroom next to her, but her mind knew the boys were sleeping after a long day of playing in the snow.
She waited until all the sounds of the house had settled. Sleep didn’t even dance in the corners of her eyes; she was wide awake with anticipation.