The Year of Shadows

by Claire Legrand

  “You’ll see.” Frederick shuddered; it felt like drizzling ice against my skin. “It won’t be pleasant, and it’s actually quite dangerous for us ghosts. But not with you close by.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but I was too afraid to ask. The darkness had swallowed up my voice. We waited in the doorway for what felt like hours, Henry’s hand crushing mine. Then the red exit sign at the back of the Hall flickered.

  “There,” Frederick whispered, pointing at the ceiling.

  In the moonlight streaming through the high terrace windows, I saw shadows. Solid, twisting, vaguely human-shaped shadows like the ones Henry and I had seen that day in the lobby.

  The burn on my arm stung with sudden coldness.

  “We’ve seen these before,” I said. “That day in the lobby, the first day we saw you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said that was part of some test,” Henry whispered furiously. “Were you lying?”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry for that. But I didn’t want to frighten you away before we could even explain ourselves.”

  I followed the shadows’ flickering movement across the ceiling. It was mesmerizing. “What are they?”

  Frederick exhaled, sending goosebumps down my back. “They are shades. Ghosts who could never find their anchors, who were never able to move on. Ghosts who were tempted into Limbo. We used you to drive them away, that day in the lobby. I apologize, but . . . they are much stronger than we are, and they wouldn’t leave us alone.”

  I rubbed my burn. “They hit us. They left marks behind.”

  “They hate humans. They are terribly jealous of you, and yet they love you too,” Frederick said quietly. “You have what they have forever lost: life. Mostly they stay away from you. The pain of remembering is too great. But sometimes they cannot help themselves.”

  I inched my head a bit farther out the door. The shades scampered across the ceiling, darting in and out of the moonlight like spiders. Darkness trailed off of their bodies like black fog. When the light hit them, they glittered. Like my burn.

  “You said something about Limbo,” Henry whispered. “What’s Limbo?”

  “There is the world of Death, where the Dead go,” said Frederick. “There is the world of the Living, which holds the Living and the ghosts. Then there is Limbo, which is between the two. Once a ghost enters Limbo, it becomes a shade. It can travel back and forth between the world of the Living and Limbo. It can even touch things in the world of the Living, if it wants to. You see?”

  One of the shades careened into a chandelier. The diamonds clinked and shuddered. Soft shrieks drifted down afterward.

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “You can’t touch anything.”

  “No, but at least I can perhaps move on someday. Sooner rather than later, if we have your help.” He smiled shyly. “Shades, on the other hand, can never move on. Or at least, I’ve never heard of it happening. They’re not the best conversationalists, shades. I only know of them what we have managed to piece together through watching them. You see, in Limbo, their minds are clear. They remember that they have anchors, somewhere in the world of the Living. They remember that they would like to move on. But once in the world of the Living, they forget all of that. They become hardly more than mindless beasts, confused and vicious. Thus, they can never remember, and they can never move on. They can touch things, oh yes, but they can never find peace.”

  “How do you know all this?” Henry demanded.

  “We told him,” Tillie said, jutting out her chin. “And Mr. Worthington told us. And other ghosts told him. You have to study your enemy. We know shades.”

  “So shades are shades for eternity?”

  Frederick nodded, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  Eternity: forever, and ever, and ever; an endless amount of time.

  I tried to wrap my brain around the idea. I’d heard that the universe was eternal too, spreading out in all directions, and if you tried to find the edge, you never would. You’d just keep on flying through space, forever.

  I grabbed onto the door frame, suddenly dizzy.

  “What do the shades want?” Henry said beside me. “Why are they here?”

  “Shades exist wherever ghosts do,” Frederick said. “They hate us because we have what they can never have: a chance to move on. So they haunt us, try to lure us into Limbo.”

  At the word Limbo, the other ghosts shivered. Tillie and Jax had to hold Mr. Worthington together so he didn’t fly apart.

  “It is tempting, to go to Limbo with them,” Frederick said softly. “It would be easier than resisting them. If I were a shade, I could touch things. I could feel a little of what it is to be alive again.”

  “Yeah, and then you’d be stuck that way forever,” I snapped. “You’d be stuck as ‘a little of’ something.”

  At the sound of my voice, the shades on the ceiling scattered, fleeing into the corners of the Hall like roaches. One of them seeped into a crack in the wall and disappeared. Another snaked its way down one of the terrace columns and vanished into the floor.

  Once they’d gone, Tillie exhaled, and it frosted my cheek. Jax, who had hidden himself behind Mr. Worthington, blinked up at me through Mr. Worthington’s chest.

  “I thought you deserved to know,” Frederick said quietly. “Even if you aren’t going to help us. These creatures live in your music hall, and they won’t go away unless we do.”

  I pulled out of Henry’s grip and started to pace. “And you think maybe they made the Maestro see things? Showed him things that weren’t there?”

  “It’s possible. I’ve seen shades pull all sorts of nasty tricks on humans. It’s the only revenge they can get, I suppose.”

  “Revenge?” Henry said. “We didn’t do anything to them.”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?” Frederick shrugged. “That’s enough.”

  “Do you hate us?”

  “No. And even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t.” Frederick smiled tiredly. “Hate takes too much effort, and we’re hardly here as it is.”

  When I realized they were all watching me, waiting for my answer, I stopped pacing and made myself face them, looking deep into those freaky ghost eyes.

  “I’ll do it,” I said at last. “I don’t want those things, those shades, in here. I don’t want them distracting the Maestro. I don’t want them hurting Nonnie. And if helping you move on is the best way to do that, then . . .” I put out my hand. “. . . consider me your partner in crime. Or moving-on . . . ness. Whatever.”

  The ghosts stared at my hand like it was a heap of treasure.

  “You’re quite certain, Olivia?” Frederick whispered.

  “Yes. Now let’s shake on it before I change my mind.”

  Four ghost hands piled on top of mine—four clumps of ice-cold air, swirling through my fingers.

  I glanced at Henry. He had this steely, quiet look on his face. Then he put his hand on top of all of ours.

  “If Olivia’s in,” he said, “then so am I.”

  “To moving-on-ness,” Frederick said. His grin was so big, his face literally split into pieces, cracking every which way like a giant spider.

  “To moving-on-ness,” we said, except for Mr. Worthington, who grunted something that sounded like “Mmmgrmph.”

  This was going to be interesting.

  THE NEXT NIGHT, once again at midnight, Henry and I waited on the stage for the ghosts to show up. I couldn’t sit still; I was too nervous.

  We were going to try sharing for the first time.

  Possession.

  “Don’t your parents care that you’re here?” I sat on the edge of the stage, tapping my feet together. “How do you keep sneaking out?”

  He shrugged. “I’m responsible. They trust me. They don’t bother me too much.”

  I tried to get a good look at him, but he was turned away, hiding his face. Something about the way he talked about his parents seemed funny.

  “How’d you get here tonight?”


  “I walked.”

  “You walked? Out by yourself in the middle of the night?”

  He grinned. “Concerned for my safety, huh?”

  “Ha-ha.” I paused, scuffing the floor with my shoe. I felt suddenly very nervous. “Henry, what’s in your jar? The one you brought for the séance?”

  Henry glared at me. “It’s none of your business.”

  I tried to hide how much that hurt me, deep in my gut. He was right; it wasn’t any of my business. But he knew private things about me, things lots of other people didn’t know—about where I lived, for example. It was only fair that I get to know something too.

  I walked it off, pacing back and forth across the stage until the only thing left was nervousness. My skin turned hot, and then cold, and then hot again. I wiped my hands on my jeans.

  Sharing, not possession, I reminded myself, over and over. Sharing was good. Everyone teaches you that.

  Out of nowhere, Igor bounded up the stage-left staircase, which led up from the floor seats.

  Henry jumped. I think he might have even said a bad word.

  I tried not to laugh. “It’s only Igor.”

  Igor pressed his head against my palm. Only Igor? There’s nothing “only” about me, pet.

  “I wonder if cats can share with ghosts.”

  Igor nipped my thumb. You couldn’t feed me enough fresh tuna to share with a ghost.

  “No way,” Henry said. “We’re not bringing a cat with us. Animals are unpredictable. You never know what they might do.”

  Suddenly, four grayish shapes popped out of the empty space in front of us.

  “Boo,” Tillie said, grinning.

  Henry jumped back. “Oh my God.”

  “Oh,” Frederick said, tilting his head. “Have we startled you?”

  “No,” Henry mumbled.

  “Yes,” I said. “Ground Rule #1: You can’t just appear out of nowhere and freak us out like that. Capisce?”

  “We can’t help it,” said Jax.

  “We are ghosts, you know,” Tillie said.

  Henry had recovered himself. “Yeah, well, you aren’t the ones getting possessed tonight. So just calm down with the ghost stuff, all right?”

  Tillie turned upside down to gaze at Henry. “Henry? What’s in your bag?”

  “Oh.” Henry flushed a little. “I brought an emergency kit. You know, in case something goes wrong.”

  “Oh?” The ghosts looked at each other, smiling.

  “Yes.” Henry emptied the contents of his bag for us to see: “A first-aid kit. A Bible. Some books about exorcism I checked out from the library. And one of those pay-as-you-go cell phones. You know. In case we need to call 9-1-1. Or a priest.”

  Frederick looked amazed. “A priest? Which priest?”

  “All of them,” Henry said grimly. “I’ve got the numbers of every church in the area.”

  The dark line of Jax’s mouth rippled like a wriggling black worm. “So responsible, Henry.”

  “Wow, Henry, you thought of everything,” said Tillie, smirking.

  Henry flushed even redder. “I like to be prepared.”

  “I assure you, Henry,” said Frederick, “you won’t need any of that.”

  “But you said you’ve never done this before!”

  “Well, you most likely won’t need any of that.”

  “Most likely?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me.” Frederick cleared his throat, a rumbly, echoing sound like a storm. “Now, if you’ll please put those things aside and sit down.”

  The ghosts surrounded us, on four sides like the points of a compass. It suddenly felt very real that we were about to share with them. Even if it was only for a few seconds, and even if it wasn’t real, we were about to die.

  What would it be like? What would it feel like? Part of me was, well, dying to know.

  Another part of me was shaking, screaming, panicked.

  Henry held out his hand, and I took it. If there was ever a time to hold someone’s hand, this was it. Together, we looked up at Frederick, who loomed driftily over us. His smile dripped down his face.

  “I’ll be going first, since I’m the youngest,” he explained. “That is, I’ve been a ghost for the least amount of time. It will be easiest for you. The older the ghost, the more difficult the sharing.”

  I chanced a look at Mr. Worthington. In the darkness, I couldn’t pick out the details of his face.

  Igor sat next to him, watching us. Don’t be afraid. That’s what he would say, if he could, to make me feel better. His tail was twitching, though; he was on high alert.

  Wisps of Frederick came to rest on our legs, our arms, our hair, sinking into us. A cold curl snaked into my ear.

  “I shall try my utmost to bring us back to a useful moment, near the end of my life,” he said. “I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ll be right here.”

  I squeezed Henry’s hand tighter.

  “Henry,” I whispered.

  He squeezed my hand back. “Right here, partner.”

  “We won’t let anything happen to you,” Tillie and Jax said, but their voices were muffled. There was too much Frederick smoke in my ears. My skin was tingling like crazy. I was sinking into black water, cold as ice.

  “I’m sorry,” Frederick whispered, just before it happened. His voice was everywhere—in my blood, in the hairs standing straight up on my arms, in the breaths I couldn’t quite take. “I hope it doesn’t hurt.”

  IT DID HURT. A lot.

  At first everything was quiet, like right before a storm when all the wind is sucked out of the world.

  I couldn’t move; I couldn’t swallow or breathe or open my eyes. The only thing I could feel was Henry’s hand gripping mine.

  And cold.

  Cold, everywhere. Cold rushing into me, through my mouth and nose, even seeping beneath my eyelids. Cold sliding under my fingernails. Cold freezing every hair on my body into silver needles.

  I tried to scream. A harsh ringing sound drummed against my ears. Was it the sound of dying? It yawned, groaned, scratched my insides like ragged fingernails. I wanted to slam my hands against my ears and block it out. But I didn’t move; I couldn’t lose my hold of Henry’s hand. If I did, I would drown in the cold; we both would.

  Worse than the cold, though, was the feeling that I wasn’t quite myself anymore. I was Olivia, yes, but I wasn’t alone.

  There was another person inside me, made of ice and smoke and a dark, heavy feeling, like my insides had been crammed too full.

  Are you there? A faint voice, miles away. Olivia? Henry? It’s me.

  Frederick’s voice. I struggled to listen more closely, but cold fog plugged my ears. Cautiously, I tried to shake out the muffled feeling.

  Yes, that’s good, whispered Frederick’s voice. Roll your head around. Stretch out your fingers.

  I did, with my free hand. I couldn’t see yet, but I could still feel Henry’s fingers; he wasn’t going anywhere. At each new movement, fresh cold hit me, like when you creep out of bed on winter mornings.

  Don’t open your eyes yet. Can you speak?

  I tried opening my mouth, which hurt. Beyond my eyelids shone a whiteness.

  Don’t speak with your lips, Frederick said. His voice was louder now; in fact, it sounded like it was coming from inside me. Just try thinking things to me. It takes some getting used to, but it’s much less confusing. Say something. It’s all right.

  I concentrated as hard as I could, breathing in and out slowly. Frederick? My head felt full of splinters. Where are we?

  Frederick sighed happily. Oh, wonderful. You’re coming around. Now you, Henry.

  That hurt, I heard Henry gasp out, from the corner of my mind.

  If it makes you feel any better, the sharing was uncomfortable for me, too.

  Actually, that did make me feel better.

  Keep moving, keep speaking.

  A few minutes later, I could feel my toes and fingers, my fluttering insides.
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  Henry? I whispered.

  I’m here. His fingers squeezed mine.

  Can we open our eyes, Frederick?

  Almost, Frederick said, and I nearly screamed. He was too close. He was in my head; his voice was mine. I felt my lips move as he spoke. He was speaking through me, and in a strange way, I was speaking through him, too.

  Henry, say something, I said, and I felt lips that weren’t mine move too. And when Henry said, Something, Olivia, my lips also formed the words Something, Olivia. My voice echoed over his. So did Frederick’s.

  Ah, you’re beginning to understand, said Frederick. When we share, we share everything. I am your voice, and your voices are mine. My mouth is yours, my mind, my breath, and your mouths, minds, breaths, are mine, too. We are all one being, at the moment. He paused. Have you ever participated in a three-legged race?

  Very funny, Frederick, Henry said—and Frederick’s voice and my voice said it along with him.

  Well, I thought it was a good analogy. We must learn to think, speak, and do together, just like if our legs were tied together.

  Can we at least try to concentrate enough to use our own voices? I said, squeezing my eyes shut again. I can’t stand this; we’re all echoing over each other.

  Very well. Frederick sighed. Focus on your voice, but not too hard. We’ll need all the focus we can manage to put my memories back together.

  Eyes still closed, I imagined my voice as a bright spot in my brain, vibrating with sound. I imagined grabbing onto that spot and tucking it away, somewhere safe. After imagining that five times in a row, I tried speaking.

  Hello, this is a test, I said. I heard only myself.

  Splendid! Frederick crowed. Now you, Henry.

  My name is Henry, and I don’t like sharing.

  Well, that’s rather childish. Try opening your eyes. It might be disorienting.

  Why? I wanted so badly to open my eyes. But what would I see when I opened them?

  You will no longer be in Emerson Hall. Or rather, you will be, but not as you remember it. It will be as I remember it.

  As he spoke, a feeling like fingers poked through the folds of my mind. Frederick was sewing our minds together into one giant, three-legged-race brain. Sounds began drifting toward us—voices, talking and laughing; rustling of clothes and feet; glasses tinkling together. I smelled people and musty fabric.