Shades of Darkness

by A. R. Kahler

  But that was the problem with boarding school. There wasn’t anywhere else to go.

  • • •

  “Promise me,” Elisa said in the darkness. “Promise me you’ll never leave me. Not like that.”

  “I promise,” I whispered back.

  Elisa mumbled something else. It sounded like a prayer to Jane, her words begging forgiveness for not being there. I turned over and buried my head under the comforter. I didn’t like listening in.

  The tea from Mom warmed me, slipping me in and out of my heavy consciousness. Mugwort and chamomile, peppermint and rose hips. To calm and strengthen the dreaming mind, to promote deep sleep. I prayed to the gods it would work.

  I squeezed the crystal in my hand. I didn’t want to talk to him. Not tonight. Not yet.

  I’m not ready to go back. I’m not ready for you to take me.

  When sleep finally came, it wasn’t the lull of the tide or slipping under into dream. It was the flap of raven wings and the scent of burnt ash.

  I woke up the next morning to a blessed lack of dreams and a few texts from Ethan. I hope you’re okay, this shit’s getting cray and I can’t believe I just rhymed okay and cray. I’m gayer than I thought—don’t tell Oliver. And finally, We need to get out of here.

  A grin broke across my face in spite of myself. Leave it to Ethan to be able to cheer me up, even when things were about as shitty as they could be.

  If you ever say “cray” again I’ll de-friend you, I typed back. Also, yes please. I need out.

  T’Chai Nanni wouldn’t be open until later in the afternoon, and I couldn’t imagine spending any time in the studio or this room or wandering like a ghost through the paths of the woods. Islington was a prison today, and I needed freedom. Not that anything in town sounded idyllic. I just knew I couldn’t sit still. There was no way this day was going to be anything other than a wash.

  Elisa was already gone, which wasn’t surprising. I looked over to her side of the room, to the photos of her and Jane on vacation together, the road trips and smiles. Jane had slept in our room a few times for movie nights, and we’d stayed up way too late watching crappy horror movies and eating junk food and trying not to squeal with laughter at the bad special effects lest an RA come in and, well, sit down and watch with us. It felt like there was a hole in my gut, one punched out by Jane’s ghost. But the sadness wasn’t there. Instead, I just felt empty.

  The phone buzzed with Ethan’s response.

  I see you missed breakfast. I nearly did as well. Let’s get donuts and vanish.

  I typed back a quick yes please. Meet in thirty?

  I wanted to call my mom. I wanted her to tell me what was going on and how to make it better. But I didn’t want to worry her. The last thing she needed was to think there was some weird suicide pact thing going on around campus. Instead, I slid from bed and into the bathroom for a shower. I doubted the heat would melt the numbness inside, but it was a better course of action than staring at the wall until Ethan showed up to whisk me away.

  The water offered no solace. I hadn’t expected it to. I turned off the faucet and toweled off and stared into the mirror. It took all of my self-control to keep the images down, the empty bathroom and my blood on the tiles.

  I knew how it felt to stand on the edge and leap. I knew what came after the free fall.

  Jane’s and Mandy’s deaths brought it all back into focus.

  When I finally slipped into clean-ish clothes, I felt no better than when I woke up. Jane was gone. Jane was gone. Why did we remain?

  I hated to admit that this hurt worse than Mandy, just as I hated to admit that I was too numb to truly feel anything but distanced from it all. Maybe that was just how I coped.

  I needed Ethan to root me back down. I had my parents, sure, but he was the one who was here to show he cared, and that I mattered. I didn’t want to make this about me, but . . . two suicides was hitting too close to home.

  Especially since I still couldn’t figure out how or why Munin was involved.

  Before I could get too lost in my head, I walked down to the lobby to wait for Ethan.

  Maria was behind the counter again. She was clearly in distress—her usual fancy dress and wicked rockabilly hair was replaced by a sweater and track pants, her hair hanging in a limp frizz down her back.

  “How you doing?” she asked when she saw me.

  “Managing. You?”

  “Managing.” She gave me a weak smile. “They don’t really train you for this sort of thing, you know? You girls are my best friends and family here.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat in silence for a bit. Then I wandered over to my cubby, where a tiny strip of paper was waiting for me.

  Kaira,

  l’d like to speak with you soon. Saw your thesis and felt now would be a good time to reach out. l’ll be free all day. Take care.

  Jonathan A.

  Of course he saw my thesis—he would have seen it when searching out Helen. And of course he would be concerned.

  “Hey Winters,” Ethan said. I turned and stuffed the note in my pocket.

  I hugged him in response. He smelled of faded cologne and boy soap and black tea. Just the scent of him helped root me back down, pull me back into my body. Ethan was a constant. Ethan would always be a constant.

  “You doing okay?” he asked, still pressed tight against me. His voice was rough.

  “Not really.”

  “Me neither. Let’s go.”

  I signed out with Maria and followed Ethan into the dismal morning light. Gray sky, the ground covered in fresh snow. And on the streetlamp across from my dorm, a raven sat watching. Chills broke over me; I ignored them just as I ignored the bird.

  “How’s Oliver taking it?” I asked as we trudged away.

  “He’s okay. They weren’t as close as we were.”

  I nodded. No matter what, it was still a blow to everyone here. There was no way to live on a campus this small and not be affected by the death.

  “I still can’t believe she’s gone,” he said after a while. Only a handful of students were out right now, wandering between dorms and studios. No music came from the practice rooms, though, which made the place feel abandoned. Islington always had a soundtrack.

  “I can’t either,” I replied.We reached his car and he took out the keys. “How’s Elisa?”

  “Not good,” I replied. “I haven’t seen her at all today.”

  “She was at breakfast talking to Cassie and some others. I think they were going to do some sort of vigil for her.”

  I nodded. Even just being in his car felt strange. The scenery was the same, but the cast was different. He and I were no longer playing the right parts. So what were the right parts? When had our lives gotten so dark?

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “You mentioned donuts.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Donuts and coffee and wandering? I don’t really feel like sitting still.”

  “Perfect.”

  With the shudder of his engine, we rolled out of the parking lot and onto the street. I glanced out the window at the raven watching from the roof of the cafeteria. It watched us the entire way.

  • • •

  “This isn’t how I expected to spend my last few months of Islington,” Ethan muttered. We walked slowly through downtown. It was like the entire world had picked up on the mood from school—only a handful of people were out, and those that were huddled under heavy coats and hoods and didn’t bother to say hello or pause to window shop. Ethan and I clutched our donuts and mochas and did much the same.

  “I don’t think anyone expected it,” I said. “Especially since neither of them said anything.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again, there was a tentative note to his voice.

  “I saw your thesis,” he said.

  Fear rolled in my gut.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. This morning. After
breakfast. You never showed me the Ten of Swords before.”

  He stopped walking when he said it. We stood outside a yarn shop with a cheery display of a knit squid and I nearly laughed. Not exactly where I thought I’d tell him about my life before Islington.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. He sounded more than a little hurt.

  I looked down at my boots.

  “It didn’t seem necessary,” I said. “That was the old me.”

  “When?” he asked.

  “Sophomore year,” I said. “After . . . well, after homecoming.”

  The pieces clicked for him.

  “Jesus Kaira. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the past.”

  “But it’s still relevant. Especially with . . . you know.”

  I nodded.

  “I just wish you would have let me be there for you, is all.” He reached out and put a hand on my arm. Unlike when Chris did it, there wasn’t a hallucination. Just the warmth of his touch and the words that spilled from his lips in a slow stream.

  “Before I came out, I tried to kill myself,” he admitted. I jerked my gaze back to him. He continued before I could ask. “Never got very far, you know. But I was scared—I couldn’t tell anyone and all I saw at school were kids getting beaten up or called faggots even if they had girlfriends. This was in middle school. And one day I was home alone and I’d just watched some gay porn and I felt so shitty about myself. So trapped, because I was doing this thing and I didn’t want to do it or like it but I couldn’t stop. So I went to the kitchen and got a garbage bag and went back to my room. Wrote out a note and everything. But I couldn’t do it.” He laughed, which sounded more like a sob, and looked at the squid in the window. “I never told anyone that. Not even Oliver. After I started choking I ripped off the bag and threw it away and burned the note. The next day I applied to come here because it was the only escape I could manage. It felt like my only way out.” When he looked back at me, there were tears in his eyes. “The last two weeks I’ve woken up every morning feeling like I’m suffocating on that fucking bag. And I hate myself because I want to feel worse for Jane and Mandy, but all I can think of is how glad I am that I chickened out last minute.”

  He started to cry then, and I pulled him close and let my own tears fall unchecked.

  “I love you, Kaira,” he whispered. “You mean the world to me.”

  “I love you too, Ethan.”

  “No more secrets, okay?” he asked. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I promise,” I lied.

  Because even though I felt his pain, even though this only cemented our bond, there were parts of my life I couldn’t tell him. If I did, I’d lose him.

  He couldn’t know that I hadn’t chickened out at the last minute. That I died the night I cut myself.

  He couldn’t know that it was the raven that brought me back.

  We went back to campus a few hours later, a bag of art supplies and silly gifts from the dollar store in hand. Shopping therapy wasn’t my usual balm, but it worked as well as anything else. Especially because most of this was for other people.

  Ethan dropped me off in front of my dorm, leaned over in his seat to hug me good-bye and make me promise we’d have a pizza party in the Writers’ House later tonight. Of course I agreed, and he said he’d invite Oliver and I should invite Elisa and maybe Chris, which was the first time he’d said the C word all day. The look I gave him must have been answer enough.

  “Just Elisa then,” he replied, and I nodded and left.

  But Elisa wasn’t in when I got up to our room. Not in an ominous oh no, she’s missing sort of way, but in the usual she’s probably out with friends or rehearsing way. So I wrote her a note saying where and when the pizza would be and left it on her pillow, alongside a tiny pink stegosaurus and a chocolate bar (dark, of course).

  I sighed and sat down on my bed. As usual, there were a dozen things I could be doing right now, most of them involving homework. That was the one thing about this school I loved as much as I hated—the work never stopped. Ever. No rest for the wicked. And no time to mourn.

  That’s when I remembered Jonathan’s note in my pocket. Another sigh. I should probably go see him. I knew that if I waited too long, he’d send Helen after me. Not that I really wanted to defend my thesis to someone right now—especially someone not even in the arts department—but he was my adviser and had the final say in my career here. Hell, he could probably prevent me from graduating if he wanted to. Not that I thought he would do something like that, but it was a possibility. So I slipped back into my boots and rebuttoned my coat and headed back out into the cold.

  Dealing with this was not something I wanted to be doing. But I wanted to be dealing with my inner demons even less.

  Even though it was only three, the sky was darkening with storms. Seriously, was it ever going to stop snowing?

  I was halfway to the academics concourse when I saw him, bouncing his way down the path toward me. Chris.

  He caught sight of me and paused. Thankfully, he didn’t do the awkward thing of turning around. He halted for a second and then kept walking. So I did the same.

  “Hey,” he said with a lackluster wave.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “Where you off to?”

  “Jonathan’s office. He wants to talk. About my thesis.”

  “Ah.” He looked at his feet. “I saw your work. It’s impressive.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. I couldn’t think of any way this conversation could feel more awkward.

  “About yesterday.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  It wasn’t the question I expected.

  “Sort of. Went off campus with Ethan for a bit. It helped.”

  “Good. I was worried about you. Never seen you that angry.”

  Well, you barely know me, I wanted to say.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” I said instead. “I didn’t mean to direct that at you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He gave me a sad grin. “Can we still be friends?”

  I nodded. He held out his hand. I hesitated for a second, then took it. No vision, but I did hear a crow caw in the background.

  “Still friends,” I said. “Anyway, better be off. Don’t want Jonathan to think I’m avoiding him.” Which I had been doing, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Sure. See you at dinner?”

  Damnit.

  “Actually, doing pizza with the boys. You can join if you want. Five p.m., Writers’ House.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really?”

  “Yeah, of course. C’ya then.”

  And it was then I realized we were still holding hands. I let go quickly and hurried the rest of the way to the concourse—just slow enough to not look like I was running—and didn’t look back.

  • • •

  “Kaira, come in,” Jonathan said.

  I hovered in the door for a second, glancing around his office. I’d been in here many times, and in many ways it was the office I’d like to have if I ever had a job that, you know, actually required me to have an office. The walls were covered in posters of old woodcut paintings from mythic texts—the Bhagavad Gita, Beowulf, the Norse Eddas, even Tolkien. Books were piled in the corners against concrete statues of fauns and gods, the tiny space brimming with history and strangeness.

  “Hey Jonathan,” I said. I stepped in and settled myself on the chair across from his desk. The offices weren’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination—the chair and desk looked like they were from some fifties Ikea—but he’d made the place a little more homey. “You wanted to see me?”

  “I did, yeah.” He was even more casual than I was used to seeing him—jeans and a T-shirt—which meant his tattoos were all bared. I couldn’t take my eyes off his sleeve—gods and mortals battled it out, all surrounded by a great, twining serpent. “I thought you might want to talk abou
t your thesis.”

  “I’m not depressed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, no.” He held up his hands. “Not that at all. The arts were developed to help mortals peer into the shadows. I don’t think there’s anything wrong or unsettling with your project.”

  “So why did you want to see me? I just kind of thought it had to do with Jane’s . . .” I couldn’t say the word “death” or “suicide.” It lodged in my throat, and all I could picture was Ethan suffocating himself with tears in his eyes. I shook the image away.

  He sighed and seemed to choose his next words carefully.

  “I suppose it has to do with that, somewhat. I am your adviser, and that means I’m also here if you need any emotional support. I wanted you to drop by today so we could talk. If you need or want to, that is.”

  “I think I’m okay,” I said. “I’m kind of talked out about the whole thing.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “It’s been . . . a very rough few weeks.”

  We sat there in silence for a few moments, and I couldn’t tell if it was comfortable or uncomfortable. When he spoke again, it felt like a small release of pressure.

  “So tell me about your project,” he said. “I read your thesis statement but I want it from your own lips. Why the Tarot?”

  I shrugged.

  “My mom gave me a deck my freshman year and I’ve been pretty into it ever since. It helps put my life into a bigger pattern, you know?”

  He nodded. It wasn’t one of those dismissive nods, either; he looked like he understood. More importantly, he looked like he was interested in learning more.

  “Is that why you took my class?”

  “I guess, yeah. I’ve always liked fairytales and folklore.”

  “But to you it’s not just fairytales and folklore,” he said with a grin. “I mean, the Tarot draws upon all these old myths. In order to truly believe in the cards, you have to believe there’s something manipulating them.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t like talking faith to anyone, not even my mom. I definitely wasn’t about to discuss it with a teacher. “I guess,” I admitted.