Chapter 2 Autumn #4
The soft leather of her boots hushed against the wood floors, barely a breath of sound, as Elana escaped.
The night was cold, and as she slowly opened the front door she was grateful for her new cloak.
The snow was only an inch or so thick, but in the moonlight, her footsteps were as clear as day, and she was grateful that the boys had roughhoused all over the yard so that the evidence of her trespass was already occluded.
As she approached the edge of the meadow, however, it was evident that there had been no trespass there that day. Elana paused, the well in sight, but not a footstep to be seen.
Had the priestesses stopped guarding the well? Probably the weather had kept them away. Perhaps with so many months passing and no evidence of the resurgence of the shadow monster, they had decided it wasn’t worth watching.
The well was silvered with frost. A shiver ran through Elana as she let her hands touch the cold stone, leaning over to inhale that scent, glorious, dark and thrilling, and then dropped to her knees in the snow, resting her elbows on the edge of the well.
The hissing started again, and Elana’s chest filled, not with icy fear, but with a warm and buzzing desire.
This was the darkness she was cursed with, surely, this desire to be here at the well with the monster.
How could she want what her entire village had spent a hundred years fearing and despising?
How could she want what others were punished for wanting, were killed for daring to desire?
When at last the shadows breached the well, pouring out like thick heavy smoke from a chimney, Elana fell in the snow-covered grass in astonishment, scrambling away as a very clear and defined pair of hands, with long, dark fingers, curled up over the edge of the well.
Hands? What shadow had hands?
Her heart hammered against her ribs as, joint by ragged joint, a dark, curving form emerged from the well.
This was not the swirling mass of darkness Elana had encountered last time at the well. It was… a woman. Or as much of a woman as a thing of shadows could be. Her hair was long and dark, flowing like smoke over her shoulders and down across her body.
Her naked body. Warmth flooded Elana’s cheeks as the shadowy curve of breast and hip emerged from the wet darkness of the well.
As Elana watched, the shadow woman watched her as well, and as she stared, her darkness formed a kind of garment, covering the semblance of her skin.
Elana tugged her cloak around her body. She hadn’t thought of the shadow as a person, so she hadn’t considered that she would be standing in front of someone else in her sleeping clothes.
The gown the shadow woman created was the mirror image of Elana’s nightgown, only dark as coal where Elana’s was white.
Even the row of lace on the chest was identical to Elana’s.
The shadow woman had been looking closely enough to mimic Elana’s clothes perfectly.
She was dressed, but she was the one who felt naked. Naked in the shadow woman’s gaze.
She came toward Elana, sinking into the snow in front of her, mirroring her pose.
Elana began to shiver, her skin pressed into the cold ground, her blood racing.
The two women stared at each other warily for a long moment, until, in a voice of smoke and shadow, the monster spoke. “What brought you here?”
The shadow woman’s voice was one long unused, a raspy, throaty sound that hit Elana in the middle of her chest, sending a burning trail through her center that left her gasping.
Elana longed to reach out and touch the shadow woman’s throat, to ensure it was whole and real, this instrument that created such a sound.
But in the end, she was drawn to tell the truth. “My own darkness. It brought me here.”
The shadow woman stared at Elana, her eyes as dark and glinting as the bottom of the well itself.
Her long, shadowy fingers reached for Elana, and Elana steeled herself not to flinch.
The shadow woman wound a strand of Elana’s golden hair around her fingers, tugging gently enough not to hurt but hard enough to be felt.
The woman was corporeal. The shadows were real.
“What darkness could possibly be within you, Bright One?” asked the Shadow woman.
Elana thrilled at the nickname, the small intimacy.
She tried to remind herself that this woman before her was the monster that changed the fate of the entire valley, who had stolen all the shadows and massacred a dozen people.
She tried not to fall into the dark gravity that tugged her closer, closer.
She licked her lips, her eyes fluttering closed, and leaned just an inch closer to the shadow woman.
She told the truth again. “A longing. A longing for things I should not desire.”
This gave the shadow woman pause. She looked away from Elana, over the glimmering expanse of pure white snow. “For example?”
Elana wished the woman would look at her again. She swallowed, and wet her lips once more. “For example, visiting your well.”
The shadow woman turned her gaze on Elana. “And who says you should not be allowed to visit my well? What’s wrong with following your desire?” The woman stood, offering her shadowy hand to Elana.
Drawn to her, Elana placed her pale fingers in the hand of the shadow woman. She was pulled to her feet by the solid realness of the woman. The shadow monster really was this dark and gorgeous woman, bold and certain.
The shadow woman lowered her gaze and looked up at Elana through her wispy, smoke-like lashes.
“Would you like to drink of my well, Bright One?” Her hand still gripped Elana’s, and her touch was cool and fresh as a river in the night.
With her free hand, she reached for Elana’s face, and brushed a stray golden hair away from Elana’s cheek.
Elana closed her eyes and leaned into the woman’s touch.
But a hundred years’ worth of fear and indoctrination made her eyes flutter open, and she startled back from the shadow woman.
“No,” she said, her voice a ragged gasp.
“I cannot drink of your well. It’s… it is forbidden.
The townsfolk would not approve.” The shadow woman was casting a spell upon her.
She had to fight the feeling, the desire to jump head first into the darkness of the well and explore the mysterious smell emanating from within.
The shadow woman scoffed and dropped Elana’s hand, and her skin felt shivery and naked without the cool comfort of the shadow woman’s touch.
“So be it. If you would like to keep your new shadow, I would like a place to stay that isn’t the well, as it’s cold and wet down there now that winter is here. Build me a home, and I’ll let you keep your new dark companion. Fail to do so, and I know what my next meal will be.”
In no more than a heartbeat, the shadow woman’s solid reality faded to smoke and darkness, and the fluid void of her swirled again around Elana, smelling of earth and leather and spice, and bringing with her a wind that caressed Elana’s skin, and then she disappeared down the well.
Elana’s heart raced as she watched the shadows recede. So many emotions thrilled through her, and she gnawed her lip as she tried to sort it all out. She stood for a long time, her eyes dancing over the marks their bodies had made in the fresh snow.
Elana didn’t care about her shadow. She’d never had one before, so what difference did a new one make?
And how did the monster even know it was a new shadow?
Besides, she had no idea how to build a home for the shadow woman.
It had been a mistake; she never should have come here.
Let the monster devour her new seedling of a shadow.
Let her devour every shadow. Let Elana be tied to her bedpost every night for the rest of her life.
She would not succumb to the monster’s threats; she was used to living under the rule of another, and if the monster was simply one more who would rule over her, she wasn’t interested.
She tramped through the prints she and the monster had left in the snow, kicking white fluff and smearing the evidence she’d ever been here until her breaths came hot and heavy, wreathing her head in white fog.
When she was done, she fled, promising herself she would not return to the well, not ever. Who needed such temptation when there was an entire life to be lived with her family, with her village?
Once home, she snuck inside, leaving her wet boots and steaming cloak where they belonged. She slipped into her bed, now appropriately clothed, and prayed that sleep would find her soon.