He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he scatters into the air, like someone blowing on a puff of smoke, and I’m left staring at the cobble-stoned path, awash with sunlight.
Chapter 3
Ifind Gabriel in the sitting room at the front of the cabin, waiting for me. Sunlight spears in through the window, but he sits in a loveseat in the darkest corner of the room. In the sun, he seemed to barely be there at all, but here, where the sun isn’t on him directly, I can see the shape of him better, the cut of his jaw and the broad slope of his shoulders. His eyes are still dark as midnight, no whites around them at all, in a way that’s unsettling.
I sit on the couch, as far from him as I can get, still not sure how I feel about this whole thing. I feel like I’m in a horror movie, but the horror movie apparently wants to be friends with me.
His eyes shift, moving back and forth, black moving over black.How much do you know about the Shadow People?
I blink at him. “Am Isupposedto know about the Shadow People?”
His mouth shifts, revealing shockingly white teeth as he smiles.I suppose not, though some do. The long and the short of it is that sometimes, when people die, they leave behind shadows. And those shadows–he gestures down to himself–get stuck here in the land of the living.
I scowl. “Wait. So, you’re the shadow of someone who died?”
He nods.But we’re two different people. The man who left me behind–Gabriel–he’s gone. His soul has passed on. I am not him; I was simply made in the moment of his death. There are Shadow People everywhere. We cannot leave this plane and therefore must spend eternity roaming the earth.
That sounds…lonely. But I don’t say so. If he’s sad then I certainly don’t want to make it worse. There’s no reason to be an asshole. “So, you can just go anywhere? You can enter anyone’s house, even if they don’t know it?”
I can feel him hesitate. I guess the way I worded it wasn’t particularly generous.
Well, yes. But we don’t generally stay in one place too long. If any human encounters one of the Shadow People, they’re usually just passing through. It’s easier for us to travel through the shadows during the day, so we’ll often duck into buildings just to keep moving.
I’m struck by the image of him here on that chair, in the middle of this cabin. He couldn’t look more out of place if he was an eight-limbed water alien. His shadow seems to stretch, curling along the fabric of the chair and up the wall behind him.
“If you were just passing through, why are you still here?”
At my question, he seems to shrink, the shadows pulling in tight around him again.I am not just passing through. Several years ago, I visited a woman here who knew and understood the Shadow People. Maybe she was even seeking us out; I’m not sure. She seemed to be waiting for me. She cursed me somehow. I’m not sure how she did it exactly, but she made sure I would be stuck here. I can’t travel very far beyond the confines of this house.
He’s trapped here. Maybe I could believe this was some sort of trick, some sympathy trap, if it wasn’t for the way his entire physical being seems to have altered in the face of his sadness.Where his joy showed in shimmering waves before, his despair pours off of him in obsidian waves.
“I’m sorry,” I find myself saying.
His onyx eyes meet mine, and it’s less frightening than it was a moment ago. My body has calmed at the idea of his presence.
He holds my gaze, and having his voice in my head is made all the more intimate when I’m looking him in the eye. It’s like he’s sitting right next to me, whispering in my ear.I’ve been attached to this house for over a decade. People have come and gone, hundreds of families on vacations and couples on their honeymoons. I try to stay out of sight, but every so often, someone catches sight of me. Sometimes they leave, and sometimes they just huddle together under their covers in fear.
His voice holds such regret.I’ve thought many times about reaching out to someone in hopes that they would try to free me, but I could never bring myself to strike such terror into someone.He pauses.Until you.
Warmth spreads in my belly, like someone just told me I was beautiful. Is it really a compliment to have a spirit from another plane of existence tell you you’re different?
“Why me?” I ask. “I mean, youdidstrike terror into me.”
Like a gust of wind, he moves, going from his spot across the room to the cushion right beside me so fast that I gasp. He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel him beside me, like wet vapor across the surface of my skin.
I am very sorry that I frightened you, but since you walked into the cabin two days ago, I’ve had this feeling in my gut that you would be able to help me.
Sitting this close to him, I can make out the texture of him, like black sand, glittering faintly with rainbow specks. I can make out more of him, the shape of his face, the line of his bottom lip, his eyelashes as he blinks, slowly.
And then an image pops into my head, a memory from two nights ago: my legs propped open on the dining room table as I plunged an empty wine bottle deep into myself.
My face flames, and I raise both hands, covering myself as best I can. “Oh, my God,” I whisper. I remember the way it felt like I was being watched, like there was someone in the room with me. It was him. It had to have been him.
His nearness is suddenly far from comforting. I catapult myself off the couch, putting the width of the room between us and spinning around to face him. I can see the startled confusion in the tilt of his eyebrows. “Oh, my God. Were you watching me the other night? Did you…did you touch me?” I think about that strange sensation I felt that I tried to recreate and couldn’t. Was it him? And last night? When I woke up so horny, with that voice in my head?
Gabriel’s shoulders slump, his shimmer disappearing so all that’s left is flat shadow.I will admit that I did watch you, but I swear I didn’t have contact with you. I…He trails off, and a shimmer goes through him. I imagine him recalling the entire ordeal, and I have to turn away.
“Oh God, I can’t believe you saw that. Both times! I can’t believe–”
