Shapers of Worlds Volume II

Shadow Sight

Shadow Sight

By Kelley Armstrong

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 defenceless.

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 m******e,” 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.”

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 w***e. 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.