The Watcher in the Shadows

by Chris Moriarty

  And then at last the meal was done, and people were patting their very full stomachs and pushing their chairs back from the table, and it was time to pour the fourth cup of wine.

  Sacha’s mother began to pour. But then she gasped. “We forgot!” she said. “How could we have?”

  Sacha knew immediately what she meant—and he could see by the tears shimmering in Bekah’s eyes that she remembered too. And indeed, his father was already going to the dresser and carefully opening the bottom drawer and unwrapping the silver cup that had traveled so far with the Kessler family and survived so many dangers.

  Lily and Inquisitor Wolf didn’t know all that the cup meant to the other people in the room, of course, but they could see the reverent way Sacha’s father brought it to the table and the effect that it had on even the irrepressible Mordechai.

  They drank the fourth cup. And then Mrs. Kessler handed Sacha the old Kiddush cup, and he carried it around the table so they could all pour the last sip of their own wine into it to make the fifth and final glass.

  As he carried the cup to the door, he heard his father explaining to the guests that this was Elijah’s cup and that they opened the door on Passover to invite the prophet Elijah in to the feast.

  Sacha opened the door and stood with the cup in his hand looking out into the dark hallway. The night seemed to have crept into the stairwell, and he could smell the earthy bite of green leaves and budding trees on the air. As he turned back into the bright room, a gust of wind blew through the open door to flutter the curtains and the tablecloth and set the flames dancing atop the candles.

  Suddenly Sacha felt tears stinging behind his eyes. He set the cup back on the table. Then, instead of sitting down himself, he stepped out onto the fire escape for some fresh air. After a moment, the window opened and Wolf climbed out after him. They stood for a moment, side by side, saying nothing.

  “It’s just how easily Morgaunt got away with it that bothers me,” Sacha said savagely.

  This time it had been even worse than after the fire at the Elephant Hotel. Morgaunt’s cover-up had been as perfect as it was effortless. He controlled the police force and the newspapers too completely for the deadly confrontation at his mansion to ever become anything more than one of those vague unfounded rumors that blew clean out of people’s minds at the first hint of a newer and juicier scandal.

  And as for Rabbi Kessler, he never made it into the papers at all, except as an anonymous victim of an unfortunate accident.

  The dybbuk, meanwhile, had vanished yet again. This time Sacha knew better than to fool himself that it was gone for good. His shadow would be back. And it would be stronger, much stronger. But it wouldn’t be under Morgaunt’s control—or anyone else’s. Sacha didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t think it could mean anything good.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he blurted out to Wolf. “I do want to learn magic.”

  Wolf didn’t answer. He just gazed north at the glittering skyline.

  Finally Sacha couldn’t bear it anymore. “Aren’t you happy?” he snapped. “Isn’t that what you’ve been pestering me to do? I thought you’d be dancing for joy.”

  “I guess I don’t have to ask why you changed your mind.”

  “Morgaunt killed my grandfather right in front of me. And I couldn’t do a thing to stop him.”

  Wolf turned to look at him. He seemed to be frowning, but his face was lost in shadows, like everything else on the deserted street.

  “Your grandfather sacrificed himself to save you. Do you think he would have wanted you to throw your life away on a pointless act of revenge?”

  “Then what about Morgaunt? We just let him get away with it?”

  “He’s going to get away with it whether you ‘let’ him or not. At the moment, I’m more worried about keeping you alive.”

  “Why bother?” Sacha asked bitterly. He gestured at the rundown tenement building, the sagging fire escape, the garbage-strewn street below them. “Look around. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m nobody. Who the hell’s even going to notice if Morgaunt kills me? What difference will it ever make to anyone?”

  “Your grandfather thought it made a difference,” Wolf said simply.

  Sacha buried his head in his hands.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” Wolf began. “I’m not even sure what I’m trying to tell you, or if it’s a good idea for you to think about it too much. But when I said your grandfather sacrificed himself for you . . . well, that isn’t the whole story, is it? Everyone else the dybbuk has killed has gone unwillingly, because it fed on the darkness and fear and emptiness inside them. But your grandfather gave the best of himself to it. Including his love for you. In a way, I suppose, he gave the dybbuk the very things it thinks you stole from it.”

  Sacha spoke haltingly about what his grandfather had told him. “Do you think part of his soul is in the dybbuk now?”

  “How should I know? I don’t even know what a soul is!”

  “My grandfather knew. And he tried to tell me. But I barely listened to him—I thought he’d always be here to tell me again.”

  Wolf was silent, waiting. Something in his silence made Sacha remember that Wolf’s own fate might be wrapped up with the dybbuk’s. Morgaunt had once asked Sacha to betray Wolf and work for Pentacle. Wolf had charged to Sacha’s rescue just in time to keep him from having to answer Morgaunt. But how would he have answered if he’d had more time? And how could Sacha say whether the dybbuk was good or evil when—in the darkest reaches of his own soul—he couldn’t even answer that question about himself?

  “What do we do now?” he asked, hardly knowing whether he was asking about the dybbuk or about Morgaunt.

  “We do the best we can,” Wolf said simply. “That’s all we can do.”

  Suddenly there was a squeak and a thump as the window opened. Bekah leaned out onto the fire escape. “How long are you two going to sit out here, anyway?” she said. “Dessert’s on the table, and you better get inside if you want any. Mordechai’s already asking for seconds!”

  Sacha and Wolf stared at each other for another moment. Then Wolf smiled. “Your mother’s a really good cook. I was sort of looking forward to that cake.”

  “Yeah, me too. So . . .”

  “So nothing. Just eat your cake. And go to your lesson with Shen tomorrow. You don’t have to decide the rest of your life right now, Sacha. In fact, I’d much rather you didn’t.”

  Wolf turned away, fumbled for a moment with the unfamiliar window, and then opened it and stepped inside. Sacha began to follow him, but turned back for a last glance at the city.

  Night was coming on, the sky darkening to a regal blue above New York’s dazzling skyline. Morgaunt was out there somewhere. He hadn’t been seen in public since the dybbuk attacked him, and Sacha had no idea how badly he’d been injured. But he couldn’t have died—even he couldn’t have covered that up. The dybbuk was out there somewhere too. Perhaps slipping down some shadowy side street. Perhaps deep in the warm, echoing darkness of the subway tunnels. And there were millions of other people out there, busy with their own lives, for whom one old man’s death wasn’t worth noticing. Suddenly he felt confused and overwhelmed and unable to even begin to understand his life.

  “Sacha!” Lily said, poking her head out the window. “What are you doing? It’s freezing out here. You’re shivering.”

  She was right, he realized. He was shivering.

  He let her take his hand and lead him through the window into the warm kitchen. There was still one piece of cake on the table, and someone had set it in front of his place, where Bekah was now ably defending it against the encroachments of Uncle Mordechai.

  “If you want it,” Bekah warned him, “you’d better eat it now.”

  “It’s really good,” Lily echoed. “You should have a piece.”

  Sacha sat down on the foot of the feather bed and looked at the cake in front of him. Then he looked around at the faces of his friends and family.


  “Actually,” Uncle Mordechai said, “it’s terrible. You should have a bite—just a little one—to make your mother feel better. But then you should give the rest to me.”

  “Mmmmph,” Sacha said. But his mouth was too full of cake to say more.

  About the Author

  CHRIS MORIARTY grew up in New York surrounded by a loud and zany family much like Sacha Kessler’s. Chris has published several science fiction novels, including Spin Control, which won the Philip K. Dick Award. She wrote The Inquisitor’s Apprentice for her children so that they would be able to read a fantasy that celebrates their New York Jewish heritage. Chris lives in upstate New York. www.inquisitorsapprentice.com

  About the Illustrator

  MARK GEYER is best known as the illustrator of two Stephen King novels: Rose Madder and The Green Mile. Mark has worked in a variety of illustration genres, including corporate advertising, editorial, and architectural. He comes from a long line of artists.