Eight Rivers of Shadow

by Leo Hunt

  They’re watching TV: Holiday, Mr. and Mrs. Simmon, and Ash, her vivid white form occupying a beanbag to the right of Holiday’s chair. She’s wearing white pajamas. There’s a game show on. Ash laughs. I wonder why she’s putting up this amount of pretense. She doesn’t know anybody is watching her, does she? Who is she pretending to be normal for? Maybe it’s for herself?

  I stay hidden inside the ceiling, with only my face breaking through the plaster. If Ash looks directly upward then she’ll see me, but that seems unlikely. Assuming she even has second sight, of course. I watch them for half an hour, and then at midnight the TV goes off.

  “Time for bed,” Mr. Simmon says, stretching, and then, in a different tone, “Who are you?”

  “I’m sorry, dear?” Mrs. Simmon says.

  “Who is this person?”

  “Dad —”

  “No, no! Who is this? I’ve never . . .”

  Ash says nothing, just looks at them all with her gray eyes. Holiday’s dad gestures at her helplessly as his wife and daughter look on with slight frowns. Nobody gets up from their seat. He clutches at his head and puts the remote down on the coffee table.

  “I . . .” Mr. Simmon sounds like he’s having trouble breathing. “I don’t . . . I think I’ll lie down. I must apologize, Ashley. You’re a lovely girl. We’re glad to have you.”

  “Sorry about my dad,” Holiday groans as he leaves the room. “He gets really stressed out.”

  “It’s fine,” Ash says with a wide smile.

  There’s no way I’m going to leave after that little episode. I keep inside the walls, staying out of Ash’s sight, hiding in the insulation foam, lurking beneath the floorboards in the company of spider husks and dust. Holiday and Ash sit on Holiday’s bed, talking about the fashion-show rehearsal. Ash does a pretty good impression of Alice Waltham, which would make me laugh if I didn’t find Ash the most sinister person on the planet right now.

  It’s way past midnight by the time Holiday switches the light off and they finally stop talking. They’ve already tidied the room up from my and Elza’s invasion. All of Ash’s clothes are folded back into her suitcase. She lies motionless in her foldout bed while Holiday turns over in her bedclothes, snuffling and adjusting pillows. Then there’s silence. Holiday’s phone is charging under her bed, pulsing orange like the beat of a strange luminous heart. After half an hour, I’m starting to feel like a serious creep. Do I just watch them sleep all night?

  Without warning, Ash sits upright.

  I dart underneath Holiday’s chest of drawers, only the top of my head sticking up through her cream carpet. I see Ash’s feet and shadow moving on the floor. She’s getting dressed. Silently, she crosses Holiday’s room and closes the door behind her.

  The chase is on.

  I drift out onto the landing, but she’s already downstairs. I hear the front door close. I shoot up through the attic and hide behind one of the chimney stacks, peering around it at the moonlit street. Ash is wearing a white overcoat, white leggings, a white wool hat. She’s not particularly well hidden, although she moves with an easy silence that I can’t help but admire. She makes her way down Wight Hill, seeming unhurried, not bothering to check if she’s being followed. I trail her at a cruise, keeping myself behind houses and trees, trying to make sure I’m not crossing any open patches of sky.

  Ash strolls down a side street, rustling in her inside pocket for something, then unlocks an old car (surprisingly, it’s navy blue) and gets in. How old is she? I know they let you drive earlier in America, but still . . . The car roars to life, coughing exhaust, the headlights illuminating a plastic bag blowing in the road. Ash sits still at the wheel for a few moments, thinking about who-knows-what. Then she pulls out into the road and drives.

  She’s a good driver, has clearly been doing it awhile, and I have no doubt that if the police pull her over, she’s got some plausible-looking license in the glove compartment. This isn’t a joyride. Ash does this regularly. She’s heading out to the southern side of town, near the motorway, up past the school and out through Kirk’s estate, and then farther out, the only car on the road, easily tracked by watching her headlights cut through the trees. There’s nothing out here. Where on earth is Ash going? The only thing this far out is the new Pilgrim Grove development, and it’s still under construction.

  Ash does pull into the development. She drives slowly through the half-built houses, a whole fresh outgrowth of Dunbarrow, two hundred new homes, each with an angled roof and buttery stone walls and geometrically precise garden plots, all half-constructed, windows without glass staring at me like blind eyes. There are yellow construction machines parked here and there, sleeping dinosaurs, monstrous diggers with wheels that look like they should be exploring the surface of the moon. Crates and trucks and barrows and enormous revolving drums of cement. What is she looking for? Her headlights illuminate a mound of gravel, and then a house with half its walls missing, the skeleton of a house, just the idea of a home . . . and then another house that’s something more. One of the Pilgrim Grove houses is already finished.

  It looks like all the others: sloped orange roof, smooth stone walls, a garage that Ash pulls her car into, a garden that’s just churned mud surrounded by a fence, a swinging gate . . . except there’s glass in all the windows, a front door, an electric light burning inside; everything but milk bottles on the front step. Ash gets out of her car and fishes for another set of keys, opens the front door, and vanishes inside. I stay where I am, hidden in the shell of the house opposite. Clouds drift in front of the moon. The silvered fields around Pilgrim Grove darken. I hear an owl again, whooping somewhere in the trees. Another light turns on, in the upstairs of the house. Then Ash pulls a curtain across the window.

  When I’m certain she’s not coming out again, twenty minutes later, I float down to ground level and make my way up to the fence. There’s none of the supernatural defenses I’ve seen in the past: no hazel charms chiming, no undead animals screaming at me from the undergrowth. There doesn’t seem to be anything stopping me from gliding right in.

  I melt into the house through the wall. I’m in what presumably is meant to be a living room, although it’s difficult to tell because there’s no furniture. The walls are white; the floor is nondescript polished wood. I can hear Ash moving upstairs. I float into the hallway, which is also empty of anything except a pair of white Converse sneakers by the front door. I move through into another blank room, possibly intended as a dining room. The large bay windows afford a view of a cement mixer, a hollowed-out house, and the moonlit sky. If I had a body, I’d probably have goose bumps right now. I move into the kitchen, which looks slightly more normal. There’s a stove, a fridge, a microwave. Someone — Ash, I imagine — has left a package of dried fruit on the counter. At least we’ve got some proof she eats something. The kitchen loops back around to the front room again. There’s a large dark-framed mirror hanging on the far wall, which I didn’t notice before.

  Being in spirit form isn’t making me feel much safer in this place. Is this even the same living room I was in before? I definitely didn’t see the mirror last time. I feel like the view from the window may have changed a little as well. Like the moon is in a different place or something. I turn back toward the kitchen and come face-to-face with the one-armed girl ghost.

  She’s smiling at me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She replies in gibberish. She is the spitting image of Ash, right down to their voices. She’s got the same mouth, same sharp cheeks, same everything. They have to be twins. Her hair is lank and unhealthy-looking, and there’s no ring in her nose, but other than that, there are barely any differences at all. Now that I’m looking closer, I realize that this ghost’s eyes are a far deeper blue than Ash’s colorless eyes.

  “Are you Ashley Smith?” I ask her. “What’s going on?”

  The ghost twin, the one-armed girl, reaches out toward me. I move backward, into the blank living room. I’m extra nervous now,
because I’m sure the black-eyed woman can’t be too far away. And what’s Ash — Ash’s body — doing upstairs?

  The one-armed girl is pointing behind me. I turn. She seems to be gesturing at the mirror. It’s enormous, taking up most of the far wall. I notice we’re both reflected in it, which is pretty weird, actually, because mirrors don’t normally show reflections of ghosts. . . .

  There’s a high ringing noise in my ears, and I realize, as the one-armed girl laughs with delight, that I’ve made a mistake.

  When I come back into consciousness, I’m trapped in a strange room. I remember looking myself in the eye, and then suddenly there was no reflection, and everything was chiming like a bell — the sound, I’ve started to learn, of magic that means business. I’m confined inside a room with black walls, maybe a little larger than your average coffin. There’s no space to move, although luckily I don’t have muscles that can cramp. The far wall is made of glass, and through it I can see the blank living room in Ash’s house. It’s empty. The one-armed girl is nowhere to be seen.

  The first thing I do is try to fly out, of course, but there’s no way. Whatever these walls are made of, it’s not stone or wood or metal, and I can’t pass through them. I’m trapped here. I don’t even know where here is.

  After a long time, I hear footsteps approaching, and Ash walks through the living room beyond the glass, with her back to me. She doesn’t glance in my direction. Is this a window? What am I watching her through?

  I must be inside the mirror. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it’s the only view of this room that makes sense.

  She clatters about in the kitchen for a few moments, then reemerges carrying a plate of rice cakes, celery, dried fruit. Diet food. She looks me right in the eye, gives a little squeak, and drops the food all over the floor. A rice cake rolls across the blond wood, coming to rest up against the far wall. Ash composes herself.

  “How long have you been in there?” she asks, as if we’d just met by accident in the park or something. There doesn’t seem much point in lying to her.

  “A while,” I say.

  “Spirit walking . . .” she says to herself. “I should’ve thought of that.” No sign of her permanent questioning lilt. I suppose this is her real voice.

  Ash runs a hand through her cropped white hair. She bends down, picks up her plate, puts as much of the food back onto it as she can reach. She leaves the farthest rice cake where it is. I wait silently, still not sure what’s going on. Should I be scared?

  Ash takes the plate into the kitchen, then comes back without it and walks right up to the mirror. She puts one finger against the glass, frowning. Her nose ring glints in the reflected lamplight. Her eyebrows are as pale as her hair, which is unsettling. I thought she bleached her hair to get it so white, but it seems to grow like that on its own. Ash bites her lip.

  “I guess,” she says softly, “we have some stuff to talk about.”

  Without saying another word, Ash takes a step back and starts fumbling for something with her left hand in the air, one eye closed, like she’s trying to thread an invisible needle. I feel a nasty tug in my chest, and even though I’m outside my body and don’t have a stomach, I suddenly want to throw up. I look down, and I see the lifeline that joins my body to my spirit glowing in Ash’s hand, as insubstantial as dust lit by a sunbeam. How can she take hold of it?

  “I’m sure you know what’ll happen if I break this,” she says, “but don’t worry. I need you alive.”

  Her American accent seems to be real at least — she hasn’t dropped it — but there’s a glittering sharpness to her that she’s been hiding.

  Ash gives my lifeline another sharp tug, like she’s trying to reel something in.

  “That ought to do it,” she says. “Wait here.”

  “Do I have a choice?” I ask.

  Ash smiles, then turns and walks back into the kitchen. I think of shouting after her, but again there doesn’t seem much point. She’s the one running the show here, for now at least. She comes out with another plate of food, walks back through the living room, ignoring me completely, and disappears upstairs. After maybe half an hour — it’s hard to judge time without a clock, with only artificial light — she comes back carrying a white plastic patio chair. She places the chair lightly in the middle of the empty room, facing the mirror, and then, finally spotting the rice cake she dropped, she picks it up and goes back into the kitchen. I’m left looking at white walls, a polished floor, a single white chair. It’s like the conceptual-art exhibit Elza dragged me to last month.

  After a long while of this, I hear a heavy knock at the front door. So she called someone? I’m going to meet whoever is behind all of this? I knew there had to be someone else pulling the strings. Another necromancer? Ash walks past me again. I hear her open the front door, but no word of greeting, just the sound of a heavy tread in the hallway. Definitely another person. I’m wound tight with fear and anticipation. Who could it be?

  Ash comes back into the room holding my hand.

  What?

  It’s my body. No question about it: definitely me. Brown hair, navy polo shirt, familiar face. My jeans and Lacoste shoes are splattered with fresh mud — I must have trekked through the fields to get here. My lifeline pulses between us, thicker and brighter now that the distance between my body and spirit is so much shorter. I had no idea this was possible. My eyes (my body’s eyes) are closed. Ash guides me across the room and gently encourages my body to sit down in the patio chair. She runs a hand over my face.

  “So really,” Ash says, “I can do whatever I like to you. Clear?”

  “Perfectly,” I say, trying not to show any fear.

  “Try anything cute,” she says, “anything at all, and you’ll wish you hadn’t. And whatever I ask you, I want the truth.”

  Her gray eyes glitter in the harsh light. I’m starting to wonder what exactly happened to Mark Ellsmith.

  “Whatever you want to know,” I say.

  “Great. Let’s keep that attitude,” she says. She slides one white-socked foot over the smooth wood of the floor. She looks strange and childish as she does it. I’m still finding it hard to match Ash’s appearance and mannerisms with the threat she actually poses to me. It’s like that picture of the two faces that are also a vase. Picture One: Petite exchange student. Picture Two: Necromancer, possible murderer.

  “So,” she continues. “Luke Manchett. You’re Horatio Manchett’s son and heir.”

  “Yes.”

  “Horatio died last October,” she says.

  “He choked on a piece of steak.” I confirm.

  “So you inherited his Host?”

  “I did. There were eight ghosts —”

  “I understand how necromancy works, Luke. You inherited his copy of the Book, his sigil, his binding rings, and eight spirits. Where are they now?”

  “I got rid of them,” I say.

  “How?”

  “The Manchett Host is broken. They’re gone. I sent them back to Deadside.”

  Ash yanks my body’s head back by the hair. “Really?” she yells.

  “Yes! Ash! Seriously! Believe me!”

  She lets my head roll back into position.

  “Don’t lie to me,” she says.

  “Why would I come here myself if I had a Host to do it for me? They’re gone!”

  “Yes,” she says after a pause. “That’s what I’ve been told. I just didn’t quite believe it. So you broke your own family’s Host. Banished them. Why?”

  “I never wanted them. . . . Necromancy . . . I didn’t know . . . I had no idea. They nearly killed me. I had to get rid of them.”

  “He never told you? Horatio?”

  “Never.”

  “Well.” Ash bursts out laughing. I think I preferred it when she was shouting. “That must’ve been a surprise.”

  “Yes,” I say, unsmiling. “It was.”

  “Had you ever seen a ghost before?”

  “It was kind of a �
��deep-end’ situation. I had to learn on the job.”

  “I’m actually impressed,” she says. “I know all about Horatio’s Host. My father said he was insane to trust Octavius as much as he did. Everyone thought that Host was a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “Your father . . . ?”

  “I don’t remember saying this was a conversation,” Ash snaps.

  “Who are you, really?” I ask.

  “I’m Ashley Smith from Marin County, California,” she says, but there’s this mocking tone to her voice.

  “Who’s that meant to fool? That’s the fakest fake name. It’s like saying you’re called John Brown.”

  “There’s plenty of people named Ashley Smith. But no, you’re right. That’s not my name.”

  “Who are you?” I ask again.

  “I’m nobody,” she says. “I’m nobody, and I’m asking the questions.”

  “So ask.”

  “When did you last see him?” Ash says.

  “Dad?” I don’t see much use in lying — she might already know the answer, as she seems to know all about me — but I don’t want to tell her what happened with him and the Devil last Halloween. “I was six. He was leaving us. He was wearing a red tie with polka dots. He . . . Are you all right?”

  Ash is giving me the strangest look.

  “It’s just very odd,” she says. “I’ve wondered about you for years. What his family was like. Who he loved. Finally meeting you . . .”

  I’m seized with sudden inspiration. “He did something bad to you,” I say. “Horatio.”

  “Huh,” Ash snorts. “That’s hardly a wild guess. He did bad shit to everyone he met, as far as I can tell.”

  “Me and my mum, too,” I say.

  Ash doesn’t reply. Maybe this is how I get out of here. Play to her sympathy. Show her we’re in the same boat. I hope she’s not another version of the Shepherd, seeing me and Dad as the same person, hungry for the revenge she can’t take on him. . . .

  “It sounds like he messed us both up,” I say.

  “Don’t say that!” she screams. “Don’t ever say that! Don’t compare yourself to me! You don’t know! Don’t you dare tell me that!” She’s right up close to the mirror’s surface, yelling so loud the glass vibrates.