Shades And Shadows Collection

Chapter 1-2

It was meant for an elder, for someone trained, someone who knew what he was.

It was never meant for someone like him. “Nana?”

Her eyes were closing and he could feel the cold creeping into her. “You be a good boy, Mason,” she whispered. “Make me proud.”

He felt her letting go and clung to her a little harder. “Please don"t leave me.”

“I"ll always be a part of you.” He couldn"t tell if that was her actually thinking in his head or the part of her that was inside the gift she"d given him. Her death rippled through him, activating parts of him that were meant to be dormant until he was old enough to handle them.

I"ll always be a part of you.Mason stood, his stomach churning with grief, even as his body grew hotter. There was too much light in the room suddenly, the last rays of a late spring sun slanting through the closed slats on the wooden shades, and he ran, down the stairs into the basement, drowning himself in the dark, stripping down and immersing himself in the cool waters of the soaking pool.

The water welcomed him, and he sank deep into it, clinging to the feeling of her until it slipped away and he was alone. He surfaced slowly, as his body shifted inside, as it accepted those that had come before, the memory rippling through him of times past, of ancestors tormented, chased into hiding.

Some of it he knew from the stories his Nana would tell them, some he had guessed at from her silences. His line was long, stretching all the way back to the days when Shades were the healers and shamans, before the coming of the Church had bred fear. There was too much to follow coherently. It exploded in small bursts of information, memories. It prodded at the barrier his father had put in his head to keep his mother"s last breath safe, breaking it open and doubling the effect.

Mason inhaled and sank deep into the pool again, willing the water to ease the transition. Knowledge came alive inside him and he tentatively stirred the water with his hands, letting energy stimulate the water, which in turn warmed against his skin.

He would stay there, in that cool pool of water until it had unrolled inside him, until his brain had sorted it into some sense of order and his body had adjusted. Then he would see to his Nana"s body, and decide what to do next.

* * *

Mason pulled himself up out of the pool, a little dazed, but driven by hunger. He wasn"t sure how much time had passed, but he knew he needed to eat.

He dried himself and pulled his clothes back on, climbing the stairs wearily. He opened the basement door cautiously, checking for sunlight, but all was dark. He eased through the door and stopped in the kitchen. It was too quiet. Not that she had been loud, exactly. Her presence could fill the house and now that she was gone, the silence was empty. He pulled bread from the cupboard and ham from the refrigerator, throwing together a sandwich to satisfy the hunger inside him.

His time in the dark had given him insight into what was possible, but did nothing for his practical knowledge. There was more to learn than he had ever imagined. It all bubbled there inside him, and he had no idea what to do with it all.

Once he was done with his sandwich, he checked the time. It was nearly one in the morning. It gave him time to do what needed to be done.

He let himself out into the night, pausing to appreciate the smell of damp earth and pine sap. It was the smell of home. Grabbing a shovel from beside the house, Mason headed down the dirt path into the woods. The clearing that was home to the Jerah family"s earthly remains was small and well hidden.

His mother was buried there, her stone small and carved by his father"s own hand. Her father and a brother Mason had never known lay there as well. His great grandparents both were buried in the center of the plot, the only formal headstone adorning their grave in the tiny cemetery. Mason paused in respect, closing his eyes and feeling inside him for the lingering presence of those who were buried there.

His Nana would want to be buried with her husband. Mason turned to his grave, marked simply with a small cairn and set his shovel to the earth.

It was hard work, the earth heavy with recent rains, but Mason found it comforting to lose himself in the physical labor, and he dug his way down to the linen shroud wound around his grandfather"s remains.

Mason had loved spending time with the old man when he was small, following him around as he worked in the garden and, later, learning to fish and hunt at his side. Like his mother and father, his grandfather had died far too early. Mason cleared the dirt from what was left of his body and climbed out of the hole.

He trudged back to the house, feeling a little guilty for tracking mud onto the gleaming floors, and into the bedroom where his Nana lay. She was beautiful, looking peaceful, as though she had only fallen asleep. He knelt beside the bed, reaching up for the talisman she wore around her neck. It was a dark stone, barely the size of a half dollar and carved with a symbol that represented the Jerah family. His grandfather had carved it before they were wed, the stone taken from the family hearth in the old country.

Mason removed it carefully, kissing the stone before lifting the leather cord and sliding it over his head. The stone sat heavily against his chest as he stood and prepared his Nana to join her husband.

When he had wrapped her securely in a sheet, Mason carried her out to the graveyard and gently lowered her in to lie atop his grandfather"s remains. For a long moment, he knelt beside the grave. Memories spilled through him of other graves, other losses, back through time.

The sun would be rising soon. Gathering himself, Mason stood and covered the bodies with dirt. He was weary as he returned to the small house, his heart heavy with loneliness. He showered and crawled into his bed, closing his eyes against the pain.

“You are not alone.”

You are not alone.Mason sat up, half certain the voice had been spoken, but he was alone in the room. Slowly he lay back down, reaching inside him for the voice. In the dark he could see others, Shades. They were scattered, each line had taken its own path centuries before, but they weren"t all broken.

“You must find your Book of Line. You must carry the line forward.” The voices inside whispered to him, carrying him off to sleep, to dream of times when whole families came together to learn and teach, when the gifts a Shade can bring were welcomed into the world and not feared.

You must find your Book of Line. You must carry the line forward.Mason woke shortly before the sun went down, filled with an urgency to find his grandmother"s book. She had kept it hidden from him, afraid he would learn from it and somehow expose them. He dressed quickly and went into her bedroom. It still smelled of her as he turned on the lights. There wasn"t much in the room that he wasn"t familiar with – her bed and nightstand, her antique dresser and mirror. All had stood in their place since she had been a girl.

Mason crossed to her closet and opened the door. There was a small stool against the back wall. He pulled it toward him and stepped up so that he could see the shelves on either side. There was a dusty photo album and an old pair of dress shoes that had been his mother"s. Behind the photo album was a beat up cardboard box.

He pulled the box to him and stepped off the stool. The lid was loose and came off easily, revealing something wrapped in an old quilt. Mason set the box down on the bed and unfolded the fragile fabric.

He had seen the book once before, when the mourning time for his father had passed and his Nana had pulled it out to record his death.

It seemed smaller somehow than he remembered it. The leather that covered the book was hand tooled, the same symbol that adorned the talisman around his neck etched into the cover, and the name Jerah was stamped underneath. He ran his hand reverently over the cover before opening it.

Inside it was a history of his line, his family. It was incomplete, of course. In part it was because his Nana had refused to update it after his father"s death, and in part because the ancestor who had copied it from the original had been rushed so it wasn"t fully transcribed.

He sat and slowly paged through the book, marveling at how much there was to learn. The first pages were filled with the family tree and marked where the branches expanded onto other pages. There were stories of lives lived in other times and other places as well as remedies and recipes in the writing of varied hands.

Now that he was alone, it was his duty to copy the book into one of his own. It was meant to help him learn his history and fill in the gaps of his knowledge of Shade work and lore.

Near the last half of the book, he could see his Nana"s handwriting. She had made notes on various pages, changing measurements on a remedy to ease mouth pain and breaking down the ingredients in a family blend of herbs. Later pages she wrote herself, a recipe for honey wine flavored with honeysuckle and infused with Shade healing to be given as a wedding gift.

Mason stood and took the book out into the kitchen. He would need to go into town to get a book of his own. He could take care of the business of his Nana"s accounts and the like while he was there. They didn"t have much, but there was a small bank account and he would have to record her death with the county.

If he left early enough, he could get to town before sunrise, and only his walk home would include daring the sun. Mason left the Book of Line on the table and began making a list of things he would need.

Near to four in the morning, Mason pulled an empty backpack onto his shoulders and headed out. In the dark, he could take the fastest route, down the dirt road. Shortly before he reached the town of Naft, the road would become gravel and at the town limits, it became paved. The maps told him that the paved road would lead down to a two-lane blacktop highway that would take him out into the world.

Mason reached the start of the gravel and stopped to check the lightening skies. Sunrise wasn"t far off. He pulled down the sleeves of his flannel shirt, covering his arms and adjusted his old floppy hat to make sure his face was shaded before he set out again.

The town of Naft had been growing in recent years. Since he was fourteen, he"d made the trek into town once a month to pick up what they needed, the things they couldn"t hunt for or grow. His first memory of it was of single building that housed the post office, town hall and a dry goods store. Now it had a bank, a coffee shop that opened at four in the morning and stayed open until nine at night, a grocery store, and a gas station in addition to that one building.