Shadow Girl

by Kate Ristau

  Then his voice blasted into her ears, “You have broken the law of the Crossing. You are not supposed to be here.”

  Áine recoiled from his icy stare and covered her ears, trying to stop the pain, and was knocked off balance as Hennessy somehow pushed open the flesh of the beast.

  “Sorry—it sticks sometimes. Get in.”

  The man reached inside his cloak and, without another thought, Áine took a deep breath and dove into the beast. Hennessy reached over and pulled the beast’s arm, sealing its flesh. The pain in Áine’s ears immediately ceased. The beast roared beneath Áine’s feet and suddenly lurched backward. Heart pounding, Áine clutched her legs and tried to catch her breath.

  Through the beast’s clear skin, she could see the man running toward them. He held his hand above his head, and it pulsed with a deep blue flame.

  “He’s coming!” Áine yelled.

  “Hold on!”

  The beast squealed and suddenly swerved, and Áine watched as a ball of fire blasted by them. With a squeal, the beast jerked out of the way and crashed through a bush, and then they were on the road, light beaming before them, flying through the dark night.

  Looking behind her, Áine saw the man standing near a huge silver beast, the crows swirling around him. A dark smile clouded his face as he raised a hand in farewell.

  Three

  “What the hell was that?” Hennessy asked. “Those crows were trying to tear you apart! And then that man! Do you know him? God, I hope not. He was so freaky looking. And am I crazy or was his hand on fire? I swear it was.”

  Hennessy looked at Áine for an answer. Áine mumbled, “I don’t think—”

  “Oh, go on with you,” she said. “It totally was. And the fire was like blue or something. Blue! That’s not right. And then those crows—Jesus, it’s almost like they were listening to him. Who is he? What does he want from you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But that wasn’t true. She did know. He was a fire fairy and the real Guardian of the Crossing. He had tried to block her passage into the Shadowlands, but she had escaped. And now she was sitting inside some strange beast next to a powerful Shadow named Hennessy who could hold fire in her hands and even brought the beast—the car—under her control. The car didn’t care if Áine rode in it, and Hennessy seemed to be turning a wheel attached to it.

  Áine suddenly burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Hennessy asked.

  “It’s not a beast!” Áine reached up and touched the car tentatively. “It’s like a cart, only with no horses.”

  “Girl, I think you’re losing it. Of course it’s not a beast. It’s a Hyundai. Terribly frightening, isn’t it?” Hennessy turned and stared at her, shaking her head. “Seriously, where are you really from? You don’t know what a car is, you wear that old school cloak and dress and no shoes and some weird headband, and your skin almost glows.” Hennessy laughed nervously, then suddenly gasped. “And you’re bleeding!”

  A pool of blood had gathered in Áine’s lap. Áine pulled back her sleeve and revealed a long gash in her arm. Blood ran from her elbow down to her wrist. Blood. Her vision blurred and she held onto her seat, trying to focus.

  “I know I have some tissues around here somewhere. I’m pulling over—”

  “No!” Áine yelled. “We have to keep going! Those crows...that man...they could still be following us. We can’t stop now.” With the edge of her cloak, she wiped the blood from the cut. Pain sliced through her, and her fingers started to shake.

  “Stop pushing at it. You’ll make it bleed even more.”

  “It’s fine,” Áine said, taking a very deep breath. “I got it. It just looks worse than it is.” She didn’t think it could look any worse. She wasn’t supposed to bleed. Ciaran was going to freak out when she told him.

  “You better be right. The only first aid I know is to call 112 and wait for some hot guy to come save us. That’s about all I can do for you.” Hennessy stared at the blood, then rubbed her neck with one hand as she stared out at the road. “But we can find you some big Band-Aids at my house.”

  “Hennessy, I can’t—”

  “Girl, it’s two in the morning. As my Nana always said, ‘Blah, blah, blah, some Irish crap about time.’“ Hennessy laughed and reached under her seat, searching for the tissues. She pushed her hand far under the seat and the car swerved across the road.

  “Hennessy!” Áine yelled, holding tight.

  Hennessey glanced back up at the road and straightened out. “It’s fine,” she said, and then dug her hand back down under the seat. “And stop changing the subject. The ferry doesn’t leave till morning, and we have to get that cleaned up. You’re coming home with me.”

  Áine opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and stared at the girl for a long moment, considering everything she knew about her.

  The list was short. She talked fast, yelled strange phrases, and knew all sorts of impossible magic. Plus, she was a Shadow.

  But at the same time, Áine had to get away from that fire fairy. His dark smile. His voice. His eyes. The flames. And she had to stop the bleeding.

  “Got it!” Hennessy tossed a box at Áine.

  A piece of paper stuck out of the top, and Áine pulled it out; it was deliciously soft and slippery between her fingers. She pulled back her sleeve and stopped cold, her stomach seizing again.

  She had never seen so much blood. She had never seen any blood. When Ciaran had jumped from the top of the elder tree and landed on the fencepost, they had just pulled him off and gone swimming. He hadn’t been hurt. He couldn’t be hurt. Except by fire. But this was—

  “Come on, Tom!” Hennessy stared at her phone, pushing it with her fingers. “I’m sorry, Áine, I have to get this. He will not stop calling.”

  Áine swallowed forcefully and wadded up the tissues, carefully wiping the blood from her arm. She stared down at the tissues, stained scarlet and crimson. “Blood,” she whispered. “My blood.”

  “What was that, Áine? Seriously, Tom! Can’t you take a hint? I’m busy!” She kept screaming at her phone and calling it Tom.

  Áine dropped the tissues in her lap and looked over at Hennessy. What was wrong with her? Áine tried to ignore her and concentrated on soothing the Eta, calling them back to her. “Animisté Eta,” she whispered. “Animisté.”

  She focused in and the air shifted around her, but she saw nothing. Felt nothing. Of course. They would not listen to her.

  She sighed and started to clean the cut. So much blood covered her arm. But when she wiped away the last of it, she realized the wound no longer bled. The skin beneath the tissues sparkled as the light hit it, and she smiled. The Eta were here. She had called them, and they had come. They had healed her.

  “Stop it,” Hennessy said. “If you had just come to El’s, like you said, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, would we? God, you need to grow up!”

  Áine realized that Hennessy still wasn’t talking to her, so she quickly bunched up a few of the tissues and covered her sparkling skin. But she wasn’t fast enough.

  “Wait a second! What just happened? Tom, shut up! Show me, Áine.”

  Áine slowly removed the tissues, and Hennessy stared down at her arm.

  “The cut...where did it...but there’s not any...it’s gone!” Hennessy dropped her phone and swerved as she looked back at the road, and then back at Áine again.

  “What—?”

  “I heal quickly,” Áine said.

  “Heal quickly?” Hennessy repeated. “Are you kidding? Understatement of the century. It would take most people days to heal from a cut like that. Maybe weeks! Took you less than ten minutes. Ten. That’s not right. Something’s freaky, almost unreal about—”

  Hennessy paused and pushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. She exhaled loudly, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

  Áine tried to figure out what to say next, but the words didn’t come. After anot
her long moment, Hennessy nodded her head and pressed on. “Nana would say you’re one of the fey. That the simplest answer is usually the right one. Are you?”

  Áine almost choked on her own spit. As she coughed, her mind spun in circles. Shadows weren’t supposed to know about the fey. Shadows were weak — they didn’t remember the past — so how did this one know?

  Hennessy was waiting for her response, so she mumbled, “Um...what?”

  “The good people. The fairfolk. The fairies. The wee folk. The Otherlanders. The fey.” Before Áine could say anything, Hennessy’s eyes widened and she whispered, “I can’t believe it. You really are.”

  Áine took a deep breath and gave in. “I am.”

  “That’s so bloody awesome!” Hennessy said, smacking the wheel with the palm of her hand. “I knew it! All those stories Nana used to tell me when I was a kid. God, I wanted to believe her so much. I stood in the field every Midsummer’s Eve. I left milk on the stoop. I washed my eyelids with marigolds. I wore a stupid, sticky oak leaf in my shoe for a whole damned month. But I never saw anything magical, like from her old stories, until I saw you in that cloak.” Hennessy pointed her finger toward Áine. “You looked gorgeous—like Megan Fox or Olivia Wilde or Katy Perry or something—but almost to the point of unreal. I mean those eyes. And your skin! And then those birds—and your cut—and that freaky man—” Hennessy shook her head and smiled. “Nana would freak out! What are you even doing here?”

  “It’s where I was born,” Áine said. “I’m going back home.”

  “Wait—home? What are you talking about? You just said you’re fey.”

  “I am.” As she said the words, she wished that was the whole story. But the words felt wrong. “No. That’s not exactly true. I was taken when I was just a small baby. Probably way before you were born.”

  “Shut up. You’re not that old.”

  “Time works different there. It moves so much slower. I was brought over into the Aetherlands...a long time ago.”

  “What did you call it? The Aetherlands? That’s cool. Nana used to call it the Otherlands. She called the fey ‘Otherlanders’ sometimes. But...I don’t get it. You’re not an Otherlander? You were born here?”

  “Yeah, I just recently found out that I’m not—” Áine swallowed hard. “One of the fey.”

  Changeling, Ratrael had screamed at her. Monster.

  “Whatever,” Hennessy said. “You can say you’re not, but you obviously have some fey in you. Look at the shape of your eyes, and the color. And your skin! God, I wish I looked like that. Like the cover of Cosmo. It doesn’t matter where you were born. You got some magic, girl. I can see it in the way you healed too. And the way things just feel different around you...the way they feel better.”

  “I was worried there for a moment. I mean, with the blood. The fey...we don’t bleed. We’re not—” Áine stopped short. She had already said too much. There were some things Shadows shouldn’t know.

  Hennessy didn’t seem to notice her hesitation. “How’d you stop the bleeding?”

  “It’s just the magic...”

  “Can you use the magic to get rid of all that blood? Your dress is seriously covered in it.”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Of course. That would be too easy. Doesn’t matter, though. We can get you something else to wear. You’re gonna need some shoes anyway. I can’t believe you’re even walking after all that blood.”

  “Neither can I,” Áine said.

  She looked out the window at the ground flying by, staring at the words carved into signs until she started to feel queasy. Then she trained her eyes on the road ahead and watched as they left the woods behind and turned onto a wider highway.

  Oberon’s eye was wide open; his light spread down across the highway and the stars circled around his head, illuminating the dark night. When they rounded the hill, she gasped. The ocean collided with the beach in the distance and even the shadows sparkled beneath the rock walls. “It’s so beautiful,” Áine whispered. “Like the hills of Roan and the Sansana Valley, only darker and more amazing.” She watched the ocean shift and move in the darkness. “You know, when I first crossed, I didn’t see it. I didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to cross into the Shadowlands.”

  “That’s what you call it?”

  “Yeah. The shadows aren’t what I thought they would be, though. They’re so dark and grey. I didn’t understand. But now...seeing the way they almost shimmer in the night...” Áine couldn’t find the words to describe what she was seeing. She just watched the ocean pound against the shore.

  “What’s it like on the other side?” Hennessy asked.

  “Different,” Áine said, pushing her hair back behind her ear. “Less dark. So much more life. You have these shadows here that weigh everything down. We don’t have shadows. Everything—every rock, every tree, every animal—shines, reflecting the beauty within.” Áine held back from telling her about how the Eta shimmered and danced and whispered her name. They brought everything to life. But they didn’t shine in the Shadowlands—Hennessy had never seen them.

  But she was amazed all the same. “It sounds so awesome. Was it so hard to go? You know, to leave Rivendell and come here?” Hennessy laughed at her own joke.

  Áine didn’t get it, but she did feel a flash of longing. “It was,” she said.

  She thought of the bright summer sun warming her face as she laid in the lavender meadow, kicking at the pixies biting her toes. She thought of Ciaran holding her hand and the Barrows children laughing while Aunt Eri yelled for them to come inside. With each memory, more of the tension released from her shoulders as her mind slipped away. “I’ll be home soon.”

  “Why’d you come here in the first place?”

  Hennessy’s question brought her back again. “I want to talk to some of the old folk, if I can find any of them who were around before. And I want to find the cottage where I was born. I’m hoping, if I see it, I’ll remember what happened.” Áine thought of her dreams. The sky on fire and her heart pounding. She pushed the memory away. “Even if I find nothing, I just need to go. I need to see it for myself.”

  “I know what you mean,” Hennessy said, scratching her arm slowly. “I ran away last year. Went to Dublin. Stayed with some friends. Tried to find my da. He left when I was seven. You know, my ma is so ridiculously vague about it. ‘Honey, he just had to go. We weren’t right for each other.’ What does that even mean? She’s so stupid. I just want to know what happened. Why he left.”

  “Did you find out?”

  “I never found him,” she said. “I never got to hear his side of the story.”

  Áine thought of how she had lived so many years with Aunt Eri and her lies. “I ran away too,” she said. “My aunt—she raised me—never told me anything about my parents or where I came from.”

  “That’s so frustrating—”

  “I know!” Áine said, running her hand through her hair. Her fingers stuck as she remembered the fire tearing through the night. “But I started having these dreams. Oberon, they’re so real! I dream that I’m back at the cottage where I was born, standing at a window, looking outside. I know right away that I’m in the Shadowlands. The light is so different. And the people look so strange – they’re gathered around a pile of wood, and they’re angry. I can hear their voices from behind the windowpane. Suddenly, this scream splits the night and the sky burst into flames. And then the fire is everywhere—”

  “God, that’s so brutal!”

  “And then it’s over.” Áine said. “Nothing more. I’ve had that same dream like a hundred times.”

  “It has to mean something, right?” Hennessy asked, tapping her hand on the wheel. “I mean, subconsciously or whatever?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it means, that dream has changed everything. I can’t stay in the Aetherlands anymore.” The Eta had shook the ground beneath Kern’s feet. Ratrael had cried out her name as the blackthorns burned. She foug
ht back the feeling. The loss of control. “When I told Aunt Eri about my dreams, she said it was time that I knew—that she should have told me long ago. She said my dreams were more than dark fantasies—she said they revealed my past.”

  “Did she tell you what the dreams meant? Or did she still act like she didn’t know what was going on?”

  “She wouldn’t say anything.”

  “That’s so parental.”

  “Exactly!” Áine said. “I mean, the only thing she ever told me was where I was born in the Shadowlands. And I don’t think she even did that on purpose. She wouldn’t tell me how I got to the Aetherlands, who I really am, or what happened to my family. She just said that some things should be left in the past. Some memories shouldn’t see the light of day. Oberon! It’s not that simple!” Áine remembered how the dreams entered her waking hours, how fire flashed through the forest, how the trees screamed—

  “Why does she have to be like that?” Hennessy asked. “Why can’t she just tell you? God, she’s just like my mam. They always need to be in control. Always have to have the upper hand.” Hennessy caught Áine’s eye and smiled. “Whatever. You’re here now. You can find out for yourself.”

  Áine nodded slowly, staring out into the dark night. “I will find out. I have to.”

  Four

  They pulled up to Hennessy’s cottage and the car quieted down. Áine gazed out at the cottage, which was connected to several other cottages, all in a row, towering over them. It was unlike anything Áine had ever seen. Most of the buildings in the Aetherlands were small cottages and barns, except for the castle in Aetheria. Aunt Eri told her that the white walls of Aetheria sparkled with glittering Eta and the spires climbed into the clouds and reached toward the sun. Áine couldn’t see the Eta here, but Hennessy’s house did climb up into the dark night, disappearing into the stars.

  Áine reached for the door, but before she could get out, Hennessy grabbed her arm. “Do me a favor, okay? Don’t tell my mam or my brother about any of this. They’re not...they won’t get it.”