Shadow Sight
Empty road stretching into darkness. Water shimmering in wagon-wheel ruts. One cry from a night creature, cut short as a shadow snatches it up. On a road like this, it’s a sure bet something will swoop in to devour you. Which is why I’m walking right down the middle.
Come get me.
Please, come get me.
I’m watching the water-filled wagon ruts. No ripples. No one is here. Not yet. The full moon reflects in those strips of water, and as I watch, a second moon appears from behind the first.
I squint up into the night sky. The second moon is but a pale reflection of the first, yet it grows stronger as it moves into the forefront, leaching light from its double.
I wait until it is about to intersect with the first, and then I tear my gaze away.
They say that if you witness the intersection, the image will burn onto your eyes and you’ll forever see those two moons, even in full daylight.
Is that true? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Only a fool tempts fate, and we Rileys are not fools. If I had to look at the double-moon, I’d take that chance, but if there’s no reason to do it, then it’s like sticking your hand in a fire just to see if it’ll burn.
Most folks don’t need to worry about gazing on a double-moon because most folks only ever notice the one. Rileys are different. We see the shadows. We see that second moon, emerging as a pale ghost of a thing and then gaining strength until it overtakes the moon itself.
People have those shadows, too. A second self that hides behind us, wispy and insubstantial.
Normal folks sometimes catch a glimpse of it, that moment when they think a person isn’t quite what they seem to be.
But then the shadow disappears, and they tell themselves they were imagining things. They weren’t.
Once, a friend took me to a church revival.
I wasn’t much interested in the sermonizing, but I was tempted by the promise of sugar jumbles.
Sadly, to get the cookies, I had to sit through the sermonizing.
I remember the preacher going on about people’s secret selves.
Their dark and sinful innermost selves. That’s when I realized that even normal folks know about the shadows. They just can’t see them.
I can’t reckon what that must be like, meeting a person and knowing they could be the sort who’d knife you in the back or the sort who’d give you the shirt off their back, and not seeing their truth until it’s too late.
Until their knife is sticking between your ribs.
Or until you’ve planted your knife between their ribs, mistrust and suspicion guiding your hand.
The problem with the shadow sight is that it’s only really useful if you’re willing to let your own shadow grow, just a little. We Riley women do good with our gift, but to do good, we also do bad.
Rileys are hired killers. My auntie May says “vigilantes,” but that’s only because she likes fancy words. Nothing fancy about killing.
If you’ve lived in this part of the world long, you’ll hear whispers about us.
A family who’ll kill someone who needs killing.
Just don’t try saying that person did something they never did.
This family will know the truth, and if you lied, they’ll keep your money and warn the person you wanted dead.
To hire a Riley, you need to find one of our confederates.
You’ll never actually meet us. Never even hear our name.
That’s what keeps us safe. Folks expect they’re hiring men.
Brothers and fathers and sons of some magical family.
The Rileys are just a house full of women, running a ranch after their menfolk died on the road west. They do all right by themselves—got a nice house, and they’re always buying up land and paying good wages to their cowboys—but that’s because their menfolk left them a ton of money.
We Rileys hide in plain sight, and that’s what I’m doing tonight. Just a girl, not yet twenty, walking down a dark road, looking nervous as she tries to hide the jangling of her market coins.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
I squint up at the moon as its shadow self disappears.
It’s a cool night. Crisp, Auntie May would say, and I’ll admit that’s a good word.
Like biting into an apple, sharp and sweet and cool.
When I smell apples on the breeze, I’m not sure it’s real or my imagination.
It’s the right time of year, and I’ve been waiting for our orchard to ripen so I can start baking my apple pies.
My apple pies are famous around these parts, and I make nearly as much in a season as I do with a killing.
Brush crackles to my left. I tense, fingers itching to grab my knife. I have to remind myself this is what I want. To be spotted. To look innocent and defenseless.
I push aside those nasty fears of someone stalking me from the bushes.
Heaven forbid! Back to thoughts of apple pie, which makes me think about the harvest dance, which makes me think about Johnny.
He’s going to ask to woo me again, and I’m not sure what I’ll say this year.
Riley women can marry, if they want, but that means leaving the family to be a regular person, coming around for Sunday dinner with the family.
Is that what I want? I don’t quite know yet.
I reckon I have a year or two before I need to decide.
Another crackle, this one to my right, which does give me pause.
I force myself to keep walking. Gran trusted me with this job, a very important one, and if I pull it off, I’ll be a grown woman, ready to take on grown-woman jobs at grown-woman pay.
While Johnny seems a fine boy—with hardly any shadow at all—I’d like to explore my options, as Auntie June would say.
The woods have gone silent. I cast out the fingers of my magic, tickling over the road. Shadows to both my left and right. Two. Or is that a third? My fingers itch again for the knife.
Patience.
It was yesterday morning when the job came in.
One of our most trusted compatriots, Paula James, rode all night to bring us the news.
Two families of settlers murdered on the road west. Their guide claimed they’d been set on by a raiding party while he’d been off scouting the road ahead.
The family’s relatives over in Concord were sure the guide murdered them in their sleep and stole their money and valuables.
Those relatives wanted to hire us to put things right.
Auntie May and Auntie June had ridden with me most of the way. Now they’re back in town, waiting. This is my job. My test. I’m no longer a child. I can do this.
The shadow moon circles around again. Nearby, a coyote yips and then stops short.
Gran says that animals see the shadow moon—that they see all the shadows.
That’s why a dog runs up to some strangers, wagging its tail, and runs up to others, baring its teeth, and every now and then, it runs clean in the other direction.
I feel that urge now. Something is wrong here, the shadows oozing.
When I send out my own magic, it balks and slinks back, and the hairs rise on my neck.
“Evie…”
The whisper creeps over on the shadows. I spin, peering into darkness.
“Little Evie, out all alone.”
“Wh—who’s there?”
One of the shadows glides onto the road and takes the form of a woman.
I squint at her. “Paula? That you?”
Paula saunters toward me, gun in hand. I yank out my knife, and she laughs.
There’s a gun strapped to my thigh, but I don’t go for it. I quaver, and my heart beats hard enough that I don’t need to fake my fear.
“I—I don’t understand,” I say. “You come to help me catch the fella I’m hunting?”
Footsteps off to my left. I tense, and my gut screams for me not to look. Shadows pulse behind me, and I want to run. Throw my knife at Paula and hightail it into the woods.
Gripping my knife, I pivot to see two figures. A man and a boy about my age.
“You haven’t met my Billy, have you?” Paula says behind me. “This is my boy, Billy, and my man, Chester.”
Chester’s shadow slips back and forth like a child playing peek-a-boo. The boy is different. I barely see the boy at all through the shadow.
I straighten and force myself to turn my back on Billy as I face Paula.
“There was a massacre,” I say. “We heard the news. But the guide didn’t do it, did he?”
Paula shrugs. “Oh, I expect he did. None of our concern. It was just the kind of story I knew would get you out here. I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Miss Evie.
All it took was a whisper in the old woman’s ear, telling her this guide was known for fancying pretty girls and weren’t you just about old enough to do your own jobs?
Specially one as easy as this, an old fella making his way home, thinking he got away with murder. ”
“You want me?” I say. “For what?”
“Your magic.”
Behind me, Billy’s shadow oozes and whispers. I block it out. As Paula saunters toward me, I grip my knife until the handle hurts my palm.
“That’s a very special magic you got there, girl,” she says.
“I remember when I was little, my ma would tell me stories about the Riley women. How I had to be good, ’cause they’d know if I wasn’t.
How we James women were their special friends.
” She spits in the dirt. “Their lackeys, more like. We do all the work, finding clients, running messages, collecting pay, and we’re lucky to get a few dollars while you all grow fat on that ranch. ”
“You want me to give you the magic?”
She snorts. “You think I’m stupid, girl? You get that magic from your momma, who got it from hers.”
“So you want me. What for?”
She doesn’t like the question. It’s too calm. I reach down inside myself and relax the part that warns never to let them see my fear, even when I’m drowning in it.
“I—I don’t understand,” I say. “I just came to do a job.”