Chapter 5 Summer Once More #4
Nessa strummed Elana’s shadow like an instrument, deft fingers working down the dark silky lengths, and Elana lay back on the moss, quivering. When she found the strength, she gathered the fabric of Nessa’s gown in her fist and pulled the shadow woman down on top of her.
The sliver of moonlight still fell in through their cocoon of shadows, and in its silvery brightness, they drank of each other’s darkness, the wild sweet honey of shadows on one another’s fingers and tongues, and Elana swore to worship Nessa’s shade until the darkness swallowed the light.
In the morning Elana, full to the brim with having tasted shadows all night, felt more energetic than she’d ever felt after a full meal and good night’s sleep at home.
She woke and washed her face in the tumble of icy waterfall, watching the dark curl of Nessa’s sleeping form out of the corner of her eye. It hardly felt real that she was here.
She had things she needed to do today.
Leaving Nessa sleeping, she reached for the sliver of daylight creeping in through the shadows. She felt their cool touch, and they slipped aside for her, letting her through.
She looked back, and from ten paces away she could hardly see the secret place Nessa had built for them. But she knew where it was now, and she knew where to find her.
She trekked across the meadow and home, and when she pressed in the door quietly, she was assaulted by her family members.
“You’re home!” screamed Josie, throwing her arms around Elana.
“We thought you were dead,” said Edward, scratching his armpit. Trust a seven year old to be so blunt.
Papa cuffed him upside the head, and he rubbed the spot with a scowl. Elana couldn’t help but laugh; this was the part of the family she had missed. As she hugged them one after another, even cranky, stoic Luc, her gaze wandered the house, looking for that one last member.
Looking for Marcus.
Mama’s gaze followed Elana’s, and at last they stood face to face. “He didn’t come home,” she said, her voice thick.
Elana pressed her lips together and pulled her mother in for an embrace. She felt justified in the feeling of relief that coursed through her, but she also understood her mother’s pain.
It was only human to carry complex feelings. To make space for all of it.
Mama sniffed and pressed Elana back to arm’s length. “Will you eat?”
Elana opened her mouth to decline but before she could get a word out, her stomach growled. Apparently a strict diet of sugar, mead, and shadows wasn’t quite enough to sustain this mortal body.
Mama laughed, delighted. “Sit, eat!” she cried. “Our whole life might be in shambles but there’s a roof over our head and food on our table.”
For the first time in a long time, Elana enjoyed a meal with her family, and her body felt incredible. She had slept, she had eaten. She felt like she existed again as a whole woman, not just a husk of longing and sadness.
Maybe not all was lost.
But she had to know for sure, and so once the dishes were washed and everyone was sat around, resting and digesting, Elana slid into a clean dress and slippers and disappeared out the door.
The walk to town disappeared in the scent of fire and a vision of smoke rising from the shell of what used to exist on the horizon.
When she approached, the horror of it all seethed through her. Parts of town still remained, but the main section through the middle with the temple and the town square was a blackened corpse of a thing.
But the town, resilient to the last, was already in action.
A bucket brigade had been formed, the lineup still passing water from hand to soot-covered hand, dampening hot spots that hissed with steam when the water hit them.
A woman with a paper and pencil was making a list of lost and missing persons so it could be determined who had died in the fire.
Elana watched as the woman crankily brushed at her paper, lifted her pencil again, and brushed at the paper again.
She lifted the pencil to the sunlight, and realized it was her arm, her shadow, that had fallen on the paper.
The woman slowly moved her arm in wonder, biting her lip.
Changes were come to the village, whether its people were ready for them or not.
Elana thought grimly of the flaming body that had barreled from the bonfire to the market stall, the catalyst that started the inferno.
She dug her slipper through the soot below, and headed for the temple. She was only half way down the smoking path when a sudden glint caught her eye.
Crouching among the desolation, she used her thumb to clear soot from the shine. With trembling hands, she picked it up.
Still warm from the fire, it was an axe head.
Myriad emotions pierced her then, until she was dizzy with them. Relief, that she wouldn’t have to defend herself. Anger that he’d chosen the temple over his family.
And profound grief, sharper than Marcus’s axe. No matter their history, and no matter the enmity between them, he was her brother. She had mothered him nearly as much as Mama herself had.
She tucked the axe head into the pocket of her skirt, and headed for home.
The remainder of the summer was hot, dry, and sad, with a silver shine of hope that limned everything bright and stark.
The town began the long process of rebuilding, and were rewarded with each new building developing a fresh, hearty shadow.
Awnings were added to old buildings, and everyone developed a strong desire to spend afternoons sipping cool drinks in shade they’d never before experienced.
When word of the valley’s release from the grip of shadowlessness escaped through the mountain pass, more travelers came. One young man designed a sundial to place in the center of town, a time piece to honor the shadows.
Josie became quite smitten with him, and Elana was happy for her.
Elana and Nessa spent most of their time near the waterfall. It was hard, blistering work, but they began the process of building something they could call a home within the shadow cocoon. Elana made Nessa promise to take the cocoon away when the house was done.
“Do we have to?” Nessa had asked.
“There’s no more reason to hide,” Elana said. “The temple is gone, the priestesses scattered. There’s no more reason for it at all.”
“And what about the townsfolk?”
Elana looked through the woods, where the edge of the forest was just visible. They were a long way from town, though; they would have to pass the well and the meadow and the Allard farm. “They have no reason to come looking for us anymore,” Elana said at last.
“Won’t you miss it?”
“It’s not like I won’t go back. And you can come too. People will get used to you. Used to us. Used to the idea that we aren’t a threat to them.”
Nessa chewed on that thought for a while. “What will we do with our time?” she asked at last. She hadn’t done anything for a hundred years when she was trapped under the well, and Elana knew she was restless.
“We’ll grow little crops of flax and cotton,” said Elana. “I’ll teach you to spin. We can add shadows to our threads, and sell fabrics the likes of which this valley has never seen. I’ll bring my loom here. We’ll work together. And on Sundays we can have dinner with my family.”
Nessa scowled at the idea of eating, and Elana laughed. “You can just visit. You can fill up on all the little shadows of our new crops before we go. Our flax and cotton will grow on unimpeded sunshine. They’ll be the best crops in the valley. Beyond the valley, even.”
“You’ll eat some too, won’t you?” asked Nessa.
Elana blushed. “Of course I will.” She wouldn’t have missed out on it, for now that she’d tasted the darkness, she would never go back. “And you’ll stay with me?”
Nessa scoffed. “Where else would I go? You loved me to life, Elana.”
Elana cupped Nessa’s smooth, dark cheek, leaning in for a kiss. It could be this good forever, because their love would be the darkness that would prove the light exists.