Shadow Sight #2
That tremor is exactly what she wants, and she squeezes my arm. “I know. It’s your gran’s fault for letting you loose with that special gift. I’ll look after you better. Billy will, too.” Her gaze turns to her son, and her eyes glow. “Ain’t he a fine boy? Big and handsome, like his daddy was.”
“I don’t understand,” I repeat, and this time, I just don’t want to.
“You’re going to marry my Billy. Tell your gran you decided to wed and keep moving west with us.” She rubs my arm. “You’ll like it better with me, child. I won’t ask you to kill nobody.”
I need to resist the urge to say, again, that I don’t understand. I let my expression answer for me, and she laughs softly.
“You think that’s all you’re good for, girl?
Killing folks? That’s your gran’s doing.
Got your head twisted right around. You can tell when someone’s lying.
When they’re a no-good son of a whore. That’s gold, right there.
Just look at your ranch. Your gran has a score of cowhands, and not one ever lays a hand on you girls or your cattle.
They’re decent men. That’s how your magic ought to be used. For good.”
I struggle to comprehend her meaning. She wants me as some kind of truth detector. She’s thinking of all the ways it would be helpful in business to know whether or not someone can be trusted.
Is that better than killing folks? Depends on how you look at it. It’s easier, that’s for sure, but what we do is good work. Gran says it’s like putting down a sick cow before she infects the herd. We put down killers before they hurt anyone else. What Paula’s talking about only benefits herself.
“You’d like to stop killing folks, wouldn’t you?” she wheedles. “And marry my Billy? He picked you from your cousins. He likes you.”
I turn to Billy, and my gut twists. He stands there, face empty, the darkness swirling around him. That darkness calls to me. It whispers that I should draw closer. I don’t want to. I really don’t, but I know I must.
Billy’s shadow seeps toward me. It whispers, like a child bursting to share secrets.
Let me tell you my truth.
Let me tell you what I’ve done.
I cautiously crack open the door, and his shadow shoves it wide and rushes in, images flooding over me, and I stagger back under the weight of them.
Oh, Paula.
In that moment, I will allow myself to feel sorry for her. To take pity on her.
Paula brought us the story of those families slaughtered on the trail west. I know now why she chose that one. Because she’d been nearby when it happened, in the town the families had left before their deaths. Left and been tracked by Billy. Murdered by Billy.
In the vision, he’s calmly awaiting his chance, a snake hiding in the long prairie grass.
I see him slit the throats of the parents as they slept.
I see him methodically hunt down the children as they scatter.
I see what he did to the bodies after to make it look like they’d been set upon by a raiding party.
And I see him rifling through their belongings, taking only the best, like when a stray dog slaughtered our whole flock of hens and only ate a few bites.
I see more, too. I see that he wasn’t alone. I see his partner, vomiting after, telling Billy to leave the bodies, that he doesn’t need to do anything to them. Maybe so, but Billy does it anyway. He wants to do it.
My gaze swings to Chester. The older man flinches, like he knows what I see.
Oh, Paula.
You’ve got no idea, do you?
I turn to Paula. “What if I said you were wrong?”
Her face scrunches. “Wrong about what?”
“You say I inherited my power from my momma. I never knew my momma. My ma killed her. She did something—I got no idea what, but it was bad enough that she deserved killing. I was a baby. Ma scooped me up and brought me home.”
Paula’s brow furrows more. “But you’ve got the magic. Your real ma must have been a Riley. She went bad.”
I shake my head. “There’s none of Gran’s blood running through my veins. None of her blood running in my ma’s or my Auntie May’s or Auntie June’s either.”
Now it’s Paula’s turn to say, “I don’t understand.”
“They ain’t related, Ma,” Billy says, his voice sharp with disdain. “The magic don’t come from the blood. That’s why there’s no menfolk living on that ranch. There were no menfolk. They ain’t never been married.”
I nod. “The Rileys take girl children from those they’ve got to kill. Girl children who’d be left alone with no one to raise them.”
“Then they give them the magic,” Paula says.
I see the moment understanding hits, her eyes glittering.
“So you could give it to me,” she says. “Me and my boy.”
“Just you. That’s why it’s always girl children.
The magic only works with them. Gran says, once upon a time, a Riley woman lost her whole family to a fellow who tricked her into thinking he was a good man.
A witch gave her the power to see the shadow side and showed her how to give it to her daughters, only she never had more, so she adopted two little girls.
Out here, there’s always babies needing folks to raise them, especially girls.
So that’s what we do. If you want the power, I can give it to you. ”
Paula licks her lips. “Course, I want it.”
“Are you sure?” I ease back on my heels.
“See, the thing is that Rileys only give it to little ones, so they grow up seeing the shadow side. To us, it’s normal.
To someone of your years?” I shrug. “I remember Ma told me about a lady she knew, was deaf from the time she was little, and then the doctor fixed something so she could hear, and she went around wearing earmuffs because the world was just too loud. You can’t hide from the shadows.
Even if you shut your eyes, you’ll feel them there. ”
A hand lands on my shoulder. It’s hot and heavy and stinking of oily shadow.
“That’s enough,” Billy says. “Don’t you be trying to weasel out of this, girl. You know you’re telling my ma a pack of lies.” He looks at Paula. “She’s tricking you, Ma. She can’t give you no magic powers.”
“No harm in her trying,” Paula says. “If it works, we’ll let her go.”
Billy shifts, and his shadow drips down my back like sweaty fingers, and it takes everything in me to stand firm.
“You said I could keep her,” he says. “You promised.”
“If you want the power,” I say to Paula, “you gotta let me go home. There are things I need to get.”
Billy’s laughter comes sharp, ringing out in the quiet night. “Girl, you think you are a heap more clever than you are. All that book learning Ma warned me you girls get.” He looks at Paula. “Now do you see what she’s doing?”
Paula’s shoulders slump, and she turns away from me. “She’s trying to trick me into letting her go back home. Pretending she needs secret ingredients for the spell.”
“I do need secret ingredients,” I protest. “It’s not like I can just cast—”
Billy thumps me between the shoulders, hard enough that I stumble, even as his voice is light.
“Enough of that, girl. You’ll just embarrass yourself now.
Come on, Chester. We’ll fetch the wagon.
” He looks at me, cold amusement lighting those dead eyes.
“And don’t go thinking you can talk my ma into running off with you.
She’s not that stupid, and we’re not going that far. ”
I slump. “Yes, sir.”
Billy walks away with Chester. As soon as they’re out of sight, I tug a folded paper from my hip pouch. Paula watches, frowning. I unfold it to show a couple of pinches of dried herbs.
“That tobacco?” she says. “Or tea?”
I lower my voice. “It’s the ingredients I need. I just wanted Billy to leave us be. Otherwise, he’d have stopped you from taking it.” I meet her gaze. “Men never want their womenfolk having an advantage.”
She stares at the herbs, and then looks over her shoulder. “How do I know you’re not poisoning me, girl?”
“You don’t need to eat them. Just put them under your tongue while I cast the spell.”
She peers at the dried mix. “Don’t look like much.”
“It’s not. It’s the magic used to make it that counts.”
Paula takes the folded paper. Then she dumps the mixture under her tongue.
There are a dozen poisons that would kill her where she stands, seeping through the lining of her mouth.
But the herbs are exactly what I said they are, and I cast the spell quickly.
When I’m done, she blinks at me. Then she steps back.
“There’s…there’s something behind you.”
“That’s my shadow self.”
She shivers. “I can feel it. I can feel the things you’ve done. The people you’ve killed.” She’s about to say more when she tenses, her body jerking as her head snaps up. “What is that?”
“What’s what?”
She convulses and then doubles over, retching.
“You—you poisoned me.”
“No, that’s a shadow you feel,” I say. “Your son’s.”
Her head shoots up again, gaze locking on mine. “You lie.”
“I do not lie, and you can tell that,” I say calmly. “When he arrives, you’ll see what he’s done. Actually see it. There’s a reason you were so close by when those families were killed.”
She pauses, taking a moment to understand, then she spits, “You lie!”
“I do not, as you will see. Him and your new beau both. They killed those folks.”
“Then it was Chester. He made my Billy do it.”
“No, I’d guess it was the other way around. But you’ll see for yourself.”
She turns as their wagon appears, dirt crunching under the wheels. She heaves again, vomiting.
“Oh, just wait until he’s closer,” I say.
“You tricked me.”
“No, you tricked us. Didn’t you wonder how I just happened to have those herbs on me?” I step toward her. “You honestly expected you could lie to us?”
“I didn’t lie.” Her voice rises. “There are two dead families. Their kin are looking for the killer, and they do think it was the guide. I was careful. I never said anything that wasn’t true.”
“Your words don’t matter, Paula. We see your intent.
Gran knew exactly what you wanted, especially when you convinced her to send me all by myself.
The plan was for me to give you a taste of the magic and then kill you for your betrayal.
But then I met your son.” I look her in the eye.
“And I came up with a more fitting punishment.”
While I talk, I bend, as if touching the ground, sensing something. Instead, I’m taking out my gun. When I rise, she sees it and goes to lift her own weapon.
“Uh-uh,” I say. “I don’t plan to kill you, but I will if I have to. Now, I’m going to leave, and you’re going to let me. Then you’re going to kill your boy.”
“Wh-what?” She straightens. “I’ll do no such thing, girl.”
“Yes, you will. You’ll see what he is—what he’s done—and you’ll kill him because you’ll know you have to. You won’t be able to live with yourself otherwise. If you’re a coward, and you kill yourself instead, then me and my aunties will come back and finish the job ourselves.”
Before she opens her mouth, I wrench the shadows from the trees and swaddle myself in them. She looks frantically from side to side as I disappear.
“You’ll probably want to kill your man, too,” I say. “But that’s your choice.” I lean to her ear. “It was all your choice. Remember that.”
With the shadows tight around me, I slip away. I’ll tell my aunties what I’ve done, and we’ll stay the night, to be sure Paula does the right thing. That’s the hard truth of shadow sight. It forces us to do the right things, the only things we can live with, and Paula will make the right choice.
She’ll always make the right choices now.