Ascending Shadow

by Church K Calvert

  “Okay, give me your arm,” Law said with his hand out. Caleb obliged. Law reached to his left side and produced a knife. He flipped it open as he drew it close to Caleb. Caleb didn’t flinch. Grabbing Caleb’s wrist, he turned his arm over so the inside of his wrist was facing downward. He drug the knife slowly, and gently over Caleb’s arm. producing a two inch long, barely skin deep cut. Blood did not even drip from it. “We’ll start slow. Danielle, do you feel anything?”

  “Do I feel anything?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No am I supposed to?”

  “Search your emotions. Think about how you feel for Caleb, try to establish an emotional connection with him in your mind. How you wouldn’t like anything bad to happen to him. Let that thought and emotion fill you.”

  I tried to focus on what Law was saying but the words were not registering to the effect they were intended to have.

  “Okay,” I said, focusing on Caleb’s arm intently as if telekinesis might heal him.

  “Okay, try using your hands, touch him if need be, to transfer that emotion. Use it to extract his pain,” Law continued.

  I placed a hand over Caleb’s arm, inches away. I felt nothing. I focused harder on the cut. I put my hand on his shoulder. Still nothing.

  Law waved his hand over Caleb’s arm, and the wound was immediately gone. Just like that. He did not seem to exhaust any resource or effort to do so. He then grabbed Caleb’s other arm and cut him in the same area, slightly deeper this time.

  “Again,” Law said.

  I attempted to use all my brain power to make something happen. I focused, I imagined it healing, I think I made a million blood vessels in my brain explode with all the thinking and concentrating I was attempting.

  “It’s not working,” I said, sitting back.

  “Keep trying,” Law replied.

  We practiced for hours. He gave a thousand suggestions, attempted to enlighten and educate me. As time went on with no progress, I became frustrated. We stopped after three hours. Law seemed almost as frustrated as me. Caleb remained encouraging and in good spirits about wasting three hours of his life getting sliced, poked, and prodded with Law’s knife. Every time I could not perform, Law healed Caleb with the wave of a hand or blink of an eye. He made it look so easy. These sessions went on every night for two weeks. Nothing changed.

  Every weekday I woke up at five thirty. I showered, and then joined the tail-end of breakfast with the remainder of the group, even though they avoided me. They were civilized and polite, but seemed to avoid me out of fear. I would do my chores around the house, which consisted of cleaning the dishes after breakfast and cleaning the outside windows. Why the windows needed to be cleaned every day, I had no idea. After my chores, when it was approaching 7:30, we would pile into the fifteen-passenger van to be dropped off at our work destinations. I would work till 5:00, go back to the house, then we would all eat dinner together. After dinner, it was my job to take out the trash. We would then have an hour of ‘our time’ to do what we pleased, then we would work on our training. Some people worked with each other in discussion groups, some read books, some meditated, some did research, some practiced on each other and had developed games to hone their gifts. Caleb either spent his time in the garage gym, reading his Bible, or helping me.

  “Do you think there’s a chance that maybe what Franklin did to me, maybe, doesn’t just contain my shadow, but also keeps me from being able to access my other gifts?” I asked, halfway through another long session.

  “That’s not it,” Law said, “That’s not how it works. There has to be an energy transfer, a sacrifice if you will . . .”

  “Like murder someone?” I said jokingly. Law cast a grave look at me, clearly not finding the humor. “Well, maybe I just don’t have the ability anymore? Maybe I grew out of it,” I suggested, throwing a hand up.

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think we need to try a different approach,” Law said, ending our session early.

  The following morning, I lay awake in bed, contemplating my presence in the house. I felt more like I was wasting my time, and everyone else’s, with each passing day. The thing I feared the most was starting to creep into my mind- the thought of being nothing more than a source of destruction. The thought made me angry at Joyce for attempting to give me hope that there was something good still left in me. I felt tears of frustration attempting to escape my eyes, but I dug my nails into my arm until they dissolved back into the black hole in my mind. I let out a sigh. I was beginning to feel so alone in the commotion. The world around me had begun to feel like a white noise, and the disconnect from other people gave reality a superficial nature. It was as if all of the people around me didn’t even exist, nothing more than soulless combinations of molecules that reacted to stimuli. The reality of what was the more likely truth swept through my being in cold realization. It wasn’t that the people around me were soulless. No, I was the one with no soul .

  My body felt heavy as I lifted myself from the bed, as if I could’ve stayed there all day and found no additional energy from sleep. I showered and made my way downstairs to determine my cleaning, work, and training assignments for the day. As my foot descended the last step, my heart descended to the floor with it. I saw a packed duffle bag on the couch, it had a Post-it with my name placed on it. I stepped toward the bag slowly. Just as I picked up the piece of paper with my name on it, Law entered the room.

  “I was wondering when you would make your way down,” He said.

  “You’re giving up on me,” I said.

  “Danielle, that’s not what this is,” Law said, knowing to take the defensive immediately with me.

  “Clearly. You know, I told you I didn’t want to stay here. I told you what I was and you insisted,” I said coldly.

  “And I stand by what I said. I believe —”

  “We ready to go?” Caleb said, walking into the room with a backpack slung over both shoulders and the straps tightened.

  “I think I can find my own way home,” I said, snatching the bag off the couch.

  “Crosswoods might be a little different from what you remember,” Law replied.

  “Crosswoods?” I asked in confusion.

  “Please sit down a minute,” Law said, gesturing toward the couch. I sat, my shoulder leaning on the bag. “I’ve spoken with Joyce about what I believe to be the underlying issue with your inability to use your gift. You’re guarded- and understandably so. You’ve put up walls and nothing good is allowed to get in. We need you to tap into your compassion, your love for other human beings. Although I have my beliefs on what will help, she seems to think the best approach is for you to return home, to visit your family. Your trigger is a result of someone hurting your brother and your mother, two people you love. Though your mother has passed on, your brother and your father are still alive. We think if you can allow yourself to be emotionally vulnerable with anyone, perhaps it will be them. Then- maybe-if we can make a hole in that wall you built up, we can slowly start to tear it down.”

  “I haven’t seen my dad or brother in over four years . . .” I said, immediately intimidated by the idea of seeing them. I missed them terribly, but I had stayed away for their own good.

  “They have been made aware that you are going to visit them. Nothing too demanding, just a lunch with the family. They miss you Danielle.”

  “A lunch? I can do a lunch,” I said, nodding my head rapidly, I tapped my chest with my index finger, “I’m worried about them not being safe around me, what if they say something about. . . my uncle?”

  “Joyce has spoken with them about your recovery and what topics to stay clear of. She’s expressed that they should avoid any triggers or talking about the past, the institution, anything that might be a potential for danger.”

  “So basically everything,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  “There will be plenty to discuss, I’m sure. As a precaution, Caleb will be join
ing you,” Law said, “He doesn’t have to join you for lunch; he can wait outside, if you prefer.”

  “I don’t know about this,” I said, beginning to shiver with angst.

  “You can do this, Danielle,” Law said.

  “Okay. . .” I said, trying not to slip through the hole in my mind, devouring my thumbnail and cuticle. “When are we supposed to leave?”

  “Whenever you’re ready to go,” Caleb said.

  We took one of Law’s trucks and began our drive to Crosswoods. Although it was only an hour-and-a-half away with traffic, every mile of the journey created additional buildup of distress inside me. My hands were unable to steady themselves. My nails were now down to nubs and my fingers had thin layers of redness around the outside, where layers of skin had been chewed off. I tried to put my hands down or in my lap, but every other moment returned to continue my nervous habit.

  “If you’re hungry, we can stop to get something to eat. You don’t have to resort to cannibalism,” Caleb said, looking over at me.

  I quickly folded my hands together and placed them between my knees.

  “Or we can pray, that works too,” Caleb said with a laugh.

  “Not funny,” I said, casting a glance at him.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to lighten the mood, get your mind off things. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”

  “Yes. Please distract me.”

  “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Anything, just make something up. Tell me a story. Hell, tell me about you.”

  “About me?” Caleb repeated, rendering his expression contemplative. “Okay. Well, when I was an only child to my parents — I lived in Lamen at that time. When I was seven, my dad killed my mother, then shot himself.”

  I immediately threw every ounce of my attention to Caleb. Did I just hear that right?

  “Wait, what?” I asked, “Is this a real story or are you just trying to distract me?”

  “This is true,” Caleb said, keeping his eyes on the road and signaling to change lanes.

  “Oh, shit. Were you there?”

  “I was. I went into my parents’ room, because they had been so loud, then- after two loud bangs- were suddenly so quiet. I saw them lying on the bed, hoping they had gone to sleep, but everything was wrong. My mom’s leg, was dangling off the bed, and her shoes were still on. I remember thinking how unusual that was. My father was on his knees next to the bed, as if he was praying, his face in the mattress. I remember walking up to my dad to shake him awake and finding a hole on the side of his head and his face in a pool of blood. When I saw this, I didn’t even check my mother. I was so scared, I just ran to the neighbor’s house.”

  “What happened to you after that?” I asked.

  “I was in foster custody for a few years. When I was about eleven, a man took me in. He was kind and generous and loving and he just wanted to help me. When I was thirteen, he adopted me, became my legal parent. However, when I entered my teenage years, my anger and rage caught up to me. I took it out on him, this man who sacrificed his time, energy, love, and money to raise me when no one else wanted to. I would sneak out, vandalize things, break into people’s houses, do drugs, sell drugs. I would steal money from him when he was asleep, I never went to school, I would get in fights with random people. I was always in trouble with the law and he still just loved me and took care of me.”

  “Do you guys still keep in touch?” I asked, hopeful.

  “No,” Caleb said, casting his eyes away from me, “When I was seventeen, I wanted to go meet up with some friends and he put his foot down and told me I wasn’t leaving. I told him that he couldn’t stop me and he stood in my way and pleaded for me to just stay in that night, to just spend time with him and not go out. I tried to push him out of the way and he grabbed me and hugged me, so I hit him. I hit him multiple times, but he just kept trying to stop me. He would throw himself in front of the door and beg me to stop, and then I grabbed him with both hands by the front of his shirt and threw him towards the living room. He fell back,” Caleb continued with a small crack in his composure, “and hit his back on his granite coffee table. I left and went out and enjoyed my night. When I returned in the middle of the night, the cops were waiting for me. When he hit the table, it broke some of the vertebra in his back and damaged his spinal cord. He wound up being paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “Is that why you went to prison?”

  “Yeah. Elias- that was his name- begged for leniency for me, and told them it was an accident, so I received a reduced sentence.”

  “So, is that what changed you? Like, is that how you found God?”

  “No, I was in prison for a long time before that happened. I would read the Bible because I was bored and being involved with religion had its advantages in that place. I would mock the words in it because I just didn’t understand. I would read how God is love and God loves everyone, but found it impossible to believe.”

  “So what changed your mind?”

  “He showed me a glimpse. I remember those ten or twelve seconds so vividly. I was sitting in the cafeteria. There had to be about thirty other people in there at the time. I had just picked up a piece of bread to eat, when suddenly He opened my eyes and let me see the world and people as He saw them.

  “I wish I could properly put into words what I felt in that moment. It felt like when you hear someone you love has been in a terrible accident. That desire for their well-being. In that moment where you would trade anything to ensure they were okay, where you just want to drop everything and rush to their side. I felt a love for every single person in that room. I wanted to embrace them; I wanted to tell them I love them and tell them everything was okay. It was as if I knew every single one of them intimately and understood their struggle and wanted to show them compassion. Those ten seconds completely changed my life.

  “ When the feeling passed, the idea remained. When I felt that, I finally understood how Elias felt for me, how the good and love in this world exist, that you just have to uncover it. I met Law there, and he understood the feeling I spoke of. He has compassion for everyone and all things. That’s why his gift comes so naturally to him, that’s why it appears so easy. He can find something to love in everyone, he loves all of humanity. He can empathize with every person and every situation.”

  I had so many questions to ask Caleb. I was literally in shock from his story and felt guilty for never being receptive enough to hear it before. I was so distracted by it that when I was able to string together my first question, I felt the car slow and come to a halt.

  “Well, we’re here,” Caleb said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Who Are You?

  My stomach did a somersault at the realization, that Caleb had sufficiently distracted me and now I was parked out front of my old home. It had been repainted. The trees in the yard had grown and stretched. Though bare in this season, they reached greater heights than before. My anxiety immediately returned as I attempted to locate the door handle on the truck. I stepped out into cold air, though the sun was shining. The smell in the air was familiar. It smelled like home, a fireplace burning off in the distance and dampened leaves from rain days before. I inhaled the scent deeply and found some comfort in its presence.

  As Caleb rounded the other side of the truck to meet me, I heard the front door open.

  “Do you want me to wait here?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, as a man and woman stepped out onto the front porch, “It would be safer if you joined me.”

  My father ascended the steps and rushed up to me, “Danielle,” he said as he opened his arms and wrapped them around me. I gripped him back just as tightly. His embrace was a blanket of safety and I wanted to remain in that moment. My arms would not let him go and I rested my head against his chest as I hugged him. “I missed you terribly.”

  “I missed you, too, dad,” I said, finally releasing and gazing up at him. H
e was as before, tall, same dad haircut, just not quite as thin as before and his hair had lost its vibrant light brown hue and now presented a dull brown with an assortment of gray hairs scattered throughout. As I surveyed him quickly, I could see he did the same for me, with possible concerns over my weight loss and pale complexion.

  “Hi,” came a voice from behind my dad. A woman with red hair and red lipstick, a light complexion, and a warm smile, “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m—”

  “Olivia,’ I finished, inserting my hands in my pockets and nodding my head, “We’ve met before.” I retrieved my hand from my pocket and held it out in front of Olivia, “Danielle, nice to meet you again.”

  “This is my wife, Danielle,” my dad said, putting an arm around Olivia.

  “I had pieced that together. Where’s Nathan?” I asked.

  “Oh, he’s inside, playing one of his games,” Olivia said, “Come inside. Let’s eat; I’ve just finished the spaghetti.”

  They exchanged greetings with Caleb as all of us headed toward the front door. As we entered, a chill ran through me. The house was decorated quite differently, but I was mildly grateful it didn’t resemble the place I’d once called home. It made the experience bearable.

  “Well, you guys can wash your hands. Caleb, there’s a bathroom there, and Danielle, I’m sure you know where the upstairs bathroom is,” Olivia said, pointing upstairs.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking up the steps. Caleb glanced at me looking for the ‘ok’. I nodded and proceeded upstairs. As I reached the top, I heard explosions, gunshots, and music coming from Nathan’s room. I walked up to the door and knocked.

  “Yeah?” he yelled from the other side, his voice a much more mature adolescent tone than I remembered. I opened the door. He sat there in a gaming chair on the floor, controller in hand, enthralled, as he always had been, with his video games. His golden brown hair was growing down over his forehead and pushed to the side. He was thin and much taller than before. I was sure he was already as tall as me, if not taller. So much time had passed from the last time I had seen him, I couldn’t have begun to imagine what he would look like as a young man. He was just a child the last time I saw him.