If he left, that was it. He would be alone forever, denying his skills and cut off from a huge part of himself. His walls even more strongly fortified. And somehow, she knew that she would spend her life missing something too.Take a chance, Kay; it’ll be worth it.
She reached out and covered his hand with her own, wanting to stop him from closing down, intending to keep him there just for a few more minutes, only to be flooded by that same overwhelming sense of connection. The same enticing mixture of heat and awareness that made her feel as if her Shadows somehow knew his. Knew them and wanted to wrap themselves around his and never let go.
She hadn’t imagined it.
They both looked down at their joined hands, neither of them moving. “You feel it too?” she tried to ask, but it came out in a rough whisper.
“What are you doing to my hand?” he asked slowly in response.
“You do feel it.” The relief was staggering. She didn’t want to think about what she would have felt like if he’d denied it. Or hadn’t been able to feel anything.
“Do you want to know where it comes from?” she asked.
Ethan didn’t answer, but he did lift his gaze to look at her, eyes wide and questioning.
“I’m guessing you first started to get a sense that you could do something other people couldn’t do when you were a teenager. Fifteen, or sixteen maybe?” Kay suggested. “I’m also guessing it probably frightened the shit out of you to suddenly start seeing things. And maybe you told someone who made you even more frightened. Someone who suggested there was something wrong with you. So, you hid it away to the point where you don’t even believe it, but not so far that you stopped doing it entirely. Am I close?”
He just looked at her, jaw tight and eyes dark, and she knew this wasn’t going to work. If he felt defensive, if he closed off any further, he wasn’t going to listen. God, she was lucky Elizabeth had come for her when she did.
“Okay, you need proof… something visual….” She looked around the room, checking that no one was watching, and then faced him once more. “Don’t freak out, okay.”
“Do I look like I freak out easily?”
No, she didn’t think he usually would. But still. “I’m willing to bet this could be the first time. Sit quietly and calm your mind. Look for Shadows, or at least open yourself to the idea of Shadows. And don’t freak out.”
She turned Ethan’s hand over so that she was holding it, palm open on top of hers and hidden from the rest of the room by the vase of spring flowers on their table. Then, with her other hand, she gently called a small Shadow.
She deftly rolled her hand, twisting her fingers to form a miniature person-shaped Shadow, and put him down to sit in Ethan’s palm. It was a trick that she, James, and Zach had perfected years ago.
Ethan’s eyes shot open, and he pushed his chair back hard, about to stand and, no doubt, run a million miles. But Kay held tight to his hand, looked up at him, and grinned. “You told me you wouldn’t freak out.”
He settled back into his seat slowly, shoulders tense, staring at his hand.
She turned a finger and the Shadow puppet stood up and walked around on Ethan’s hand a few times. She gave him a little shooing motion, and he walked up along Ethan’s arm and back down to his palm again. Then she twirled her finger and he turned around a couple of times before curling up and going to sleep.
Ethan looked like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh, scream, or call an asylum. “What the hell is that?”
“A Shadow.”
Ethan shook his head. “What. The. Fuck. Is. In. My. Hand?”
“You are freaking out!” She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out. “Don’t be such a baby.”
His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. Being laughed at was obviously not something he was used to.
Kay gently picked up the Shadow puppet and then tossed her hand up to release it. She allowed it to dissipate into thin smoky tendrils and held out her empty hand to Ethan. Okay, so it was a bit heavy on the theatrics, but it wasn’t as if she ever got to show off. It was the most fun she’d had in ages.
She leaned back, feeling pretty pleased with herself, even with Ethan’s death glare boring into her over the table. His expression didn’t bother her at all; if anything, it made her want to grin wider.
“I can’t do that….” He waved an arm in the general area of his palm.
“Sure, you can’t right now, but with practice, you’ll learn. What you can do, though, is feel into a living, breathing body and find the Shadows. You can feel where there’s a break, or a block, or an illness, and you can nudge it a little. Move things along so that the patient can heal. Can’t you?”
She smiled at him, enjoying the way his eyes never left hers. “I bet your patients get better much faster than anyone ever predicts. I bet that if you really tried, you could do a lot more than just nudge. In fact, I bet you hold it back so no one notices. And maybe, even though it’s not your particular talent, I bet that sometimes you have strange feelings or unsettling dreams—right before something important happens.”
He watched her, frowning heavily until eventually, he asked quietly, “How do you know all of this? Is this a trick?”
“No, it’s not a trick. How could it be? You’re one of us. A Shadow Weaver. Didn’t your parents tell you?” She sighed. “My parents tried to block me too, so I know exactly how that feels.”
