Ascending Shadow

by Church K Calvert

  She held the plate up in my direction and I took it from her hands.

  “Do do you want to come in?” I asked.

  She looked hesitant for a moment, then said, “If you would like company, I’d be happy to join you.”

  She watched me intently, surveying me with nonjudgmental eyes as I sat at the table and devoured the food she’d brought. I wondered if she was tempted to judge me. I tried not to look like a wild animal as I ate her food, but it had been so long since I had a home-cooked meal, I couldn’t help myself.

  “My, my, you were quite hungry,” she said, adjusting her thick glasses.

  “Starving.”

  “Well, I’m always here. If you are ever hungry, feel free to come by for a bite. It’s just me and Miles, and he doesn’t eat much,” she said with a smile, “Miles is my cat.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t get many home cooked meals, do you?”

  “No, not often.”

  “Do you live here alone,” she said, looking around my apartment for the first time. I felt slightly embarrassed at the state of my apartment. I attempted to recapture her attention to distract her.

  “Yes — well, I’ve only lived here a year or so.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I see you talk to Jonathan sometimes. He’s a nice boy, but I think he might be a weed smoker.”

  “A weed smoker?” I said with false shock.

  “Yes, perhaps. He just always behaves so unusually,” she said. I attempted not to laugh at her innocent judgment.

  “Jonathan is a jackass,” I said, immediately regretting my language, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s quite all right,” she said, putting a hand out, “I’m just glad to see you eating. You look like you’re withering away.”

  “Thank you. By the way, this food is very good, like fuckin’ amazing,” I said.

  “You’re very welcome. It’s nice to have someone enjoy my cooking for a change,” she said.

  “You’re not married?”

  “I was, but my husband passed away many years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I know it’s awful to lose someone.”

  “Have you lost someone close to you?” she asked.

  “My mother,” I replied, and took another bite of my food.

  “Oh, goodness. I’m sorry. You’re so young.”

  “Yes, well, it was several years ago.”

  “Oh, but the pain lingers, doesn’t it?”

  “It really does.”

  We sat and talked for almost an hour-and-a-half. We went back and forth, telling each other stories about our families and our pasts. I found myself entranced by her history and conversation just flowed so naturally between the two of us, as if we had known each other for years.

  “Well, I should get going. I know a young lady like you probably has much more important things to do with your day than talk to an old lady like me.”

  “I do have some things I should do, but it was actually great talking to you. I don’t have a lot of people I enjoy talking to.”

  “Well, that’s good. Remember, if you’re ever hungry, just knock on my door and say, ‘Joanne, I’m hungry’,” she said with a smile.

  “Believe me, I will definitely be taking you up on that offer.

  Joanne left a short while later, and I found myself trying to fix the appearance of my home. I began straightening some things up and looking for cleaning supplies to scrubbing the kitchen from top to bottom. As I was wiping down the counter by the — now broken — microwave, a piece of sharp plastic sliced at my thumb. I winced and pulled the plastic out, then tossed it into the trash bag in the kitchen and continued without another thought. However, as I continued cleaning, tiny blood droplets appeared. I pulled my hand to my face and observed the minor cut.

  Sure enough, it had not healed. Again? I thought. Was it already time for another Mortal Night? I tried to remember back to the last time I had one, date wise, to see if there was any correlation. It was much like tracking the last menstrual cycle. After a few moments, you think, who cares, either way it’s here now. I rinsed my cut and continued cleaning. Every twenty minutes or so I found a new microscopic cut to examine, ensuring that it was truly a Mortal Night. How odd though, it wasn’t nighttime, it was daytime. Perhaps Mortal Night was a figure of speech. I wondered if they lasted a whole day or just a few hours, until midnight, or several days. I stood in the kitchen tapping the counter, when Caro’s advice began to echo in my mind. She had been right. I did have resources that could potentially answer all of my questions. Resources I had neglected for a very long time. I sighed and made my way across my apartment to the box near my bed. I pulled the book with the red binding out, that was the one with the rules, she had told me.

  I flipped through several pages. All of it was handwritten; however, it was less of a journal and more of a guide which cited abilities, rules, and examples with some small illustrations to help. She had clearly intended this to help her and to help someone in the future. That person was me, and I had barely looked at it after all these years, although I had gone through so much trouble to get them.

  I scanned through the book and found several sections that piqued my interest, one on calming your shadow, another on different facets of the healing place with tips on transforming it, and warnings about inviting people’s essences into the healing place. It said if you invited someone’s essence into a place without proper healing that in order to resume healing, you would have to extract everything about that person from your mind. Apparently, my great grandmother had done this twice, but intentionally, to rid herself of the memories of people. Before she did, however, she left herself important notes in her journal to never go looking for the specifically named people. She mentioned once she regretted it because there was something she wanted to remember but had no way of recovering. The idea sent a little chill through me. Creepy. Toward the back I found a section of advanced concepts that spoke of things like using other gifted people as catalysts. I remembered the palm reader telling me that was what had happened with the young boy in the hospital, however, that was completely unintentional. She said that there were ways to combine gifts and use them, but that it was extremely difficult and exceptionally dangerous.

  I found the section titled: ‘Mortal Nights’. The first things she mentioned confirmed my suspicions that Mortal Nights didn’t necessarily occur at night or a twenty-four-hour time frame. I laughed to myself as she, too, compared it to predicting a menstrual cycle. She said that if your Mortal Night occurred on the tenth of October, the following month it would occur on the ninth of November. Scheduled Mortal Nights were always thirty days apart. They would always begin at some point during that day, as early as first thing in the morning until the last minute of the day. If they began near the last minute of the day, it was likely it would run several hours into the following day. However, she mentions, at times of increased shadow distress, Mortal Nights will manifest randomly, but not more than once a month. She goes on to explain how an unexpected Mortal Night could be exceptionally dangerous and to be self-aware at the duress your shadow might be enduring.

  This made me think that, because of what had occurred the night before, it had somehow caused my Mortal Night that day. I checked a calendar on my phone to see when we had been bailed out of jail: October 20th. Today was November 17th, two days before I was scheduled to have my Mortal Night. That would mean, if my great-grandmother was right, I would have one today, then the day after tomorrow. I continued reading to see if there were more contingencies and what exactly Mortal Nights entailed.

  As I had known from my brief scanning before, Mortal Nights were practically self-explanatory. It was the only times in our lives that we were like normal people. Her Mortal Nights started when she was twenty and ended when she was twenty-seven. Seven years. At that rate, mine would likely end sometime when I was twenty-nine or thirty.

  She then made a list of suggestions
of what she did or wished she would have done on her Mortal Nights:

  Ride a roller coaster (Never did)

  Sky dive (Never did)

  Swim in the ocean (check)

  Get in a bar fight (check)

  Make Love (Sex not love)

  Get a tattoo (Never did – Note: Impossible without Mortal Night)

  Gone drag racing (Check)

  Go see all of Family (Most of Family)

  Hold a baby (Never had opportunity)

  Skiing (Check)

  I smiled, as I continued reading her suggestions and taking note of some I would like to try. It seemed as though she wanted to try the most terrifying things on her Mortal Nights. Something about the ability to be vulnerable to the dangers that surrounded these activities was exhilarating. As I came to the close of the list, the last suggestion she had included a disclaimer.

  “End your life (Never did) – Your life will likely be an assortment of disasters, chaos, and pain. At times I wish I would have had the discipline to do so. I did not. There are only three opportunities for passing for a dual soul: during Mortal Nights, Soul Obliteration, and the Awakening and life draining of another dual soul.”

  Well, my great-grandmother always did have a dark, twisted perspective of the world. Something she generously passed on to me. It made more sense now why my great-grandmother needed me there when she died. She wasn’t in bad health at all. She planned it the entire time. Now I understood, with her desire to die, why I was her favorite.

  I surveyed her list of Mortal Night suggestions and knew which one I desired to experience first. I rolled out of bed and flipped open my phone to text Caro: Meet me at 4th and Main in an hour.

  Two hours later, Caro showed up. I was relieved I had her meet at that location because I got to sit inside Roots for a while, expecting her tardiness. If Caro was told to be somewhere unexpectedly, it always took a long time for her to show up. She had to take the time to piece together every part of her outfit and makeup, so, of course, she showed up looking stunning. She hustled toward me.

  “Don’t walk up here, all out of breath, like you’ve been rushing the whole time,” I said with a laugh.

  “I was rushing,” she said, in an offended tone. She whipped her hair across her face, “It just takes time to look this good. I see you put in minimal effort.”

  “That’s what I do,” I said, arms out, displaying my half-assed attempt to be presentable.

  “So, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Wrong?” I asked. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Oh, okay, good,” she said with true relief on her face.

  “Everything all right with you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. I just knew you had the meeting last night, and went out with Franklin after that. I didn’t know if something had gone wrong.”

  “No, nothing went wrong. It was exhausting, that’s for sure, but I don’t know, in a way, I feel better after whatever they did to me. Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, we’re on a mission.”

  “Like a job? Franklin didn’t tell me anything about a job,” Caro said.

  “Franklin? Why do you keep bringing work up? This isn’t work related in any way, shape, or form.”

  “All right,” Caro said with a smile, “Then tell me, Danielle Blake, what are we doing?”

  “We’re going to get tattoos,” I said, grinning.

  “Shut the fuck up! You’re screwing with me.”

  “Would I lie to you?” I said.

  “No. Oh, my God, finally! I didn’t think you would ever get one. I’ve had one I’ve been meaning to get. This is so perfect,” Caro said, bouncing around in a giddy, childish fashion, which was undeniably adorable.

  We walked along the city block to our destination a few blocks away, a small tattoo shop, wedged between a smoothie shop and a bar. It was tiny and obscure, but the artist did the most astonishing things with ink. I knew this was where Caro had come to get several of her tattoos. As we entered the glass door, a man stood at the front counter, only paying attention to the magazine in front of him. There were two other people in the back, one college age student, and a female tattoo artist working on him.

  “You need an appointment,” the man at the counter said, without looking up. I hadn’t even thought to make an appointment, only then remembering people travel from all around the country to get tattoos here.

  “Well, I want a tattoo right fuckin’ now,” Caro said. I jerked my head toward Caro, wondering how she could be so rude. She winked at me.

  “Excuse me!” the man said, slamming his magazine closed, and looking up for the first time, “Carolina! God dammit, you got me. How have you been, girl?”

  “Hey, Emmitt, how are you,” Caro said, as he came around the counter to hug her. When he stood, I noticed how massive this guy was. He was over six feet tall, in his late forties, tattooed everywhere, with a long graying beard.

  “I’m good. It’s so good to see you. How are Law and the others doing?”

  “They’re good,” Caro lied.

  “That’s great. Hi, I’m Emmitt,” he said turning toward me and shaking my hand. I shook his back. He had a firm, almost painful, grip.

  “Hi,” I said, shaking my hand, out of view. Caro let out a small laugh.

  “Well, little lady, are you here to get a tattoo?” asked Emmitt.

  “Yeah — well, I was actually hoping we could both get one,” Caro said.

  “Sure, of course. One second,” Emmitt said, walking to the door and flipping the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’. He then locked the door. “This way we’re not disturbed.”

  “Awesome,” Caro said.

  “Did you ladies have something in mind?” Emmitt asked.

  “I know what I want. I was thinking of, like, a falcon, coming down my shoulder over here,” she said, moving her hand across her shoulder and down to her chest, “But I want colors like purple, oranges, greens in the background, and like bleeding into the wings, and go up the neck.”

  “Yes!” Emmitt said, excited, “Now that’s something I can work with. Most people come in here and pay thousands of dollars for a tattoo with no artistic content. They just want some stupid quote, saying, or symbol that a million other people have. What about you? What would you like?”

  “Who, me?” I asked, “I want a stupid quote or saying.”

  Emmitt appeared slightly embarrassed, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay. It’s her first tattoo,” Caro said.

  “Well, Lona can do hers. She’s really good with fonts. She should be finishing up with the frat boy in a minute,” he said, “I’ll go run through some pictures and ideas for yours, Caro, and you can tell me what you think.”

  “I trust you. Besides, I like to be surprised,” Caro said.

  Emmitt walked away, and just as he did, the young man seemed to have his tattoo finished. He flexed in the mirror as he gazed at his back.

  “That’s perfect,” He said, pleased with the letters of his fraternity engraved on his back.

  “Great, let’s get you out of here,” Lona said to him, escorting him to the door. He placed his hand on the door to open it, but smashed face first into the glass.

  “Here, let me get that,” Lona said, unlocking the door and letting him out, “Have a good night.”

  She waved to him and relocked the door. As she turned around, she sighed in relief, “Oh my God. He was so drunk.”

  “Can’t you just deny service?” Caro inquired.

  “He just paid almost a thousand dollars for two fancy letters on his back. Ha ha, I’m never going to say no to that,” said Lona.

  “Touché,” said Caro.

  “So what about you, what are we doing for you today?” Lona asked, glancing over at me.

  I was able to get a good look at her for the first time. She seemed to be
in her early thirties with blond hair tied back from her face and hints of purple highlighting various parts of her hair. She spoke in a voice slightly deeper than most women I had encountered in my life. She had sleeves of tattoos, a piercing through her nostrils like a bull, and wide rings in her ear lobes that you could fit a marble through. My curiosity was piqued.

  “I, uh, want words going down my back that say ‘Broken Beyond Repair’ in some sort of twisted font,” I replied.

  “I can do that. Just let me know the size and type of font you want and I’ll draw it up,” Lona replied, “We have some examples in the book over there, if you would like to go through them.”

  “All right, sounds good,” I said.

  Caro helped me go through the fonts and offered suggestions to expand upon the idea. I had no experience with tattoos, and all of Caro’s tattoos were extraordinary and beautiful, so I just told her to suggest whatever she thought would be coolest. She grinned and went to talk to Lona about the details. Emmitt was ready for Caro, so she went away to start her tattoo with him. Lona prepped the tattoo chair that was much like a massage chair. I sat down in it with my back facing her and pulled my shirt over my head, to give her the first look at her canvass.

  “From the looks of it, I’m guessing this is your first tattoo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, I’ll be honest with you. This is going to hurt.”

  “I’m counting on it,” I said with a grin, glancing back at her.

  “Excellent,” she said, returning a grin, “Just let me know if you need a break.”

  “Okay.”

  Lona readied her ink and tattoo gun. I crossed my hands and rested my face on my arms, almost ready to take a nap. Then I heard the tattoo gun turn on. The noise startled me. It sounded like some sort of electric drill. My muscles tensed and I glanced back to Lona with dread.

  “It sounds scarier than it is,” she said, laughing.

  “Okay,” I said, facing forward again.

  “All right. Here we go,” she said, as the needle touched my skin for the first time. To my relief, it was as she had described. Did it hurt? Hell yes. However, not as much as I expected. I found the pain to be reasonable and, after a short while, it was quite relaxing. My muscles decompressed and my body melted into the chair.