Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  But now he was back and still trying to be part of what she was part of, and she liked it even less now.

  “Come here,” Sierra said, beckoning with her chin.

  “Huh?”

  “Come here, I said.” Sierra was leaning her back against the step, her arms using it as a rest on either side, her legs crossed in front of her. She looked perfectly relaxed, unimpressed.

  “Um … Are you gonna —”

  “Ricky, either come here or buzz off, man. We got stuff we dealing with today.”

  He bobbled his head a few times, weighing the situation, then stepped forward and leaned in, his head within reach of Sierra’s grasp. “Hold him,” she said, and in a flash, Big Jerome was up and behind Ricky, scooping him up under his flailing arms in some kind of overcomplicated double-suplex-type move and holding him fast.

  “Hey!” Ricky yelled. “Get offa me!”

  Sierra got up in his face. “Hush!” She put a hand to his forehead, closed her eyes. Dove.

  It didn’t take long. Where Shadow and Light powers showed up as bright or dark splotches amidst someone’s inner soulworks — pretty much as one might imagine — Iron Housers just appeared like a hardened sheen over everything, a kind of spiritual calcification. Sierra had first noticed it when she’d peeked in on Anthony the night before in his bedroom.

  Ricky was the House of Iron’s spy. And he had been since at least last month, when they’d sent him to infiltrate Shadowhouse. He’d done a piss-poor job of it.

  Sierrra shook her head. “This is just sad.”

  “They said, they said …”

  “They said what? You know what? Never mind. I’m so unimpressed it’s giving me a headache. You can put him down.”

  “You’re not gonna do the whoosh, whoosh thing and delete his powers?” Jerome asked.

  Sierra shrugged. “Why? So they can find another spy to come bother us? At least this way they’re stuck with an incompetent one.”

  Jerome considered, then put Ricky down. “Good point.”

  “I’m right here, you know. I can hear you.”

  “Okay,” Sierra said. “Run along, Ricky. You with a bad crowd right now, and you’re gonna get hurt.”

  He shook his head, turned, ran off.

  “That life advice was more than he deserved, if we’re being honest,” Jerome said. “But good call on not taking his powers.”

  Sierra stood, scowled. “And to think he tried to date me.”

  Jerome shook his head and they headed inside together.

  “Um,” Jerome said as he walked into the fourth-floor apartment. “Guys?”

  Sierra came in behind him and ran to the bed. “What’s happening?”

  Tee and Izzy sat across from each other, their legs crossed in front of them, their hands barely touching. Their eyes were open, but it was clear they weren’t seeing anything at all. They were barely breathing.

  ¿El trance de las Hierofantas, hm? Septima’s scraggly voice whispered from behind Sierra and Jerome.

  “Did you do something to them?” Sierra demanded.

  ¡Ay qué ridiculez! Absolutely not, Lucera. I merely am reporting to you what is happening, since you asked.

  “The trance of the Hierophants? What is that?”

  Very self-explanatory, no? It is what it sounds like.

  Sierra pushed away the bristle of irritation with her great-great-aunt and leaned closer to her friends. Their breaths were shallow but steady. “They’re going to be okay?”

  Sí, Septima said. ¿Cómo no?

  “What are they doing, though?” Jerome asked. “What’s happening?”

  No se sabe, Septima declared with a shrug. Only they know.

  “And I bet we don’t know how long it’ll last either,” Sierra said, plopping down on the bed next to them, exasperated. “This is great.”

  “So we just … leave them alone?” Jerome asked.

  Sierra made a face and leaned in close to Tee. “I guess?”

  ¿Café? Septima asked. Juan brought me up the cafetera before he left, which was very thoughtful of him, you know.

  “We got some at the bodega,” Sierra said, taking up her position in front of the drawing-covered wall. “Thanks.”

  Five Hierophants. Sierra’s eyes traveled over her own drawings. Fortress. The River. La Contessa Araña — her own great-great-great-grandmother — now properly positioned at the center of the mysterious and deceitful web she herself had created. The Reaper, the only Hierophant who remained a complete unknown factor so far. And Tee and Izzy.

  Mort had gone from selling his services to the Sorrows like some supernatural mercenary to giving up all his powers. And giving them to two members of the very house he’d tried to take out the head of when working for the Sorrows. All in the span of a few months! Sierra wished she could ask him about what had happened since she’d beaten him senseless that night in Park Slope, but Mort remained as stubbornly unreachable as Tee and Izzy. He might never wake up, Sierra realized, with a twinge of regret. He’d been a creep, sure, but she had questions. And he’d come around, somewhat at least. And probably saved Tee’s life, from what the others had said.

  And there was the tangled web of spies and deceit spanning the three active houses. Dake, the Bloodhaüs spy, embedded with Iron House. And — Sierra drew Little Ricky’s awkward, bewildered face, eyebrows raised, next to Old Crane’s — now they knew who Iron House’s spy was.

  She sketched Juan next to her own face and wrote Hound beneath it. Then stood back. That sequence of lines running from herself to the foul creature at the center of this mess … it filled Sierra with equal parts pride and disgust. She was Lucera: bearer of the sacred lineage of powerful spirit workers. Rebel women who had defied those that would hold them back. But those that would hold them back were also part of Sierra’s lineage.

  She scowled. These were ugly truths she was just going to have to accept moving forward. Grandpa Lázaro was another complicated one — she drew his wrinkled old face beside Mama Carmen’s. He’d brought shadowshaping to New York when he emigrated, along with Mama Carmen, and then jacked it up by trying to make it into an all boys’ club and excluding Sierra, which damn near got everyone wiped out. He’d been a loving husband and father, by all accounts, and a halfway decent abuelo for about half of Sierra’s life. He was so many different things, and Sierra was positive she barely knew a fraction of it.

  But what had happened to all these legendary women? Sierra wondered. Even Mama Carmen, the closest Lucera to her, the only one she’d actually met. Of course, she’d had no idea what shadowshaping was when Mama Carmen had been alive, thanks to Lázaro’s insistence on patriarchal shenanigans.

  And then she’d barely had a full conversation with Mama Carmen when the elder spirit vanished out over the ocean, leaving Sierra with the confusing honor of being the new Lucera, whatever that meant, and a hundred thousand questions.

  But Cantara Cebilín? María Cantara? Mama Carmen had mentioned them in passing, and Mami had those few pictures of Cantara Cebilín, but that was it. Who were these other Luceras and what had happened to them? When had they passed on the mantle to the next generation? What were their teachings and fears and loves and hates? What were they like in the quiet moments? On rainy days? What did they smell like? Do for fun?

  The most infuriating part was that, besides those snippets from her mom and grandma, the only other info Sierra had on her ancestors was from a woman who had hated them, fought tooth and nail to destroy them and their legacy — Septima. And her versions of the family lore always smelled like American history textbooks: as self-serving as they were false.

  But how would María Cantara or her daughter describe their own lives? How would they have told their own stories? The absence of those voices had become a gaping hole in the world Sierra was trying desperately to understand. It was starting to feel like a gaping hole within Sierra too. She was Lucera, and they had been too. But their teachings, their experiences, all they’d learned and
wondered about: Gone. Just gone.

  Sierra grabbed the Almanac off Lázaro’s coffee table and flipped it open. This was where her great-great-grandma’s stories should’ve been. Instead, there were pages and pages of cryptic, Eurocentric creepiness describing Doña Teresa’s sick attempt at shoving the world around her into neat little easily manipulated boxes. Sierra resisted the urge to hock a loogie right into the ancient pages as she flipped through them.

  Then, very suddenly, she stopped. Something was different. “Ah …” she said out loud to no one in particular.

  “What’s up?” Jerome asked, getting up from the couch, where he’d been playing games on his phone and humming to himself.

  “Something … happening.” There were cards where once there hadn’t been. Across the yellowing paper, new images emerged like a slow-spreading stain. But Sierra couldn’t make them out, not yet.

  “What is that?” Jerome asked, peering over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Sierra said. “A … a new house, I guess. Come on.” She crossed the room at a bound, shoved the Almanac into her shoulder bag, and grabbed her jacket.

  “Where we going?”

  “To find out what’s happening,” Sierra said, already out the door. “And stop it.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is” — past the Jamaican spot, past the bodega, pull, pull, that unstoppable pull — “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never even had a boyfriend, let alone, like, you know … fallen for my best friend’s big brother.” Fallen for. Big. Past the gas station, now left, left! LEFT! And around the corner and all the way to the end of the block, and then right! Right! When you get there, until then, it’s past the high-rises, past the row houses.

  “And, you know, I’m not even saying … I don’t totally know how I feel, to be honest, but then again, maybe that’s not true. Hold up.” Past the high-rises! Past the row houses! Pull! “I just … I’m afraid? So it’s not that I don’t know. I do. I do, Juan Santiago. I know how I feel.”

  Pull. Pull. Pull!

  “You do?”

  Pull.

  “I do, and it feels like the first time I’ve really known. Sorry, we can keep walking.”

  Pastthehighrisespasttherowhouses!Pasttheparkedcarsthe smalldogwalkingpark!Pasttheemptybuilding!

  “Juan! Slow down, man! I’m coming!”

  Corner. Right around the corner. Right around the corner. Right around the corner.

  “Hey, I know, I know you’re trying to hold the thread. It’s cool. And I know this isn’t the time to really do all this? But, like — whoa, okay, I guess we’re taking a right, cool. But yeah, when will be the time? Ya know? Like, when is shit not going to be exploding or flooding or attacking all around us? That’s what it feels like … like, ever since this summer, practically, even though it really hasn’t been that bad. But still.”

  Up, up, up the hill, past the bodega, past the coffee shop, past the dollar store toward the parkway, toward the parkway, pull!

  “Still, I just want to say, in this moment, when we’re alone. Or kinda alone? Out in the middle of Brooklyn but still, more alone than when we’re with the crew, you know? I think what you did was amazing, and if I hadn’t already fallen for you before, which, honestly, I totally had, well, I would’ve fallen for you then, for that, because that … I mean, who does that?”

  Up the hill up the hill up the hill past the fire station past the library past the bodega up the hill toward the parkway pull!

  “Thank you,” Juan panted, and it felt insufficient. Like Bennie had just made a huge sandcastle, and Juan had turned one of those buckets upside down and made a little lump next to it.

  “You’re welcome,” Bennie said, all the thrill washed out of her voice now.

  Pull! Up the hill across the parkway veer to the right.

  He’d blown it. Thank you was not what you say when someone tells you they fell for you. Especially not this someone. No. That was not right. Pull! Up the hill, across the parkway. “Wait!” Juan called at Bennie’s back.

  She stopped.

  “Wait, wait. Let me … hold on.”

  Up the hill up the hill past the —

  “Wait!” Juan yelled, and Bennie stepped back, startled.

  “That wasn’t for you. I’m still trying to … manage.”

  “No.” Bennie made a show of looking sweet, not mad. “It’s fine. I know you’re in the middle of a lot.”

  Up the hill, across the parkway.

  “But like you said: When are we ever supposed to, you know, stop? When do we ever get to be alone? I just … I just got out yesterday.”

  Pull! Up the hill, across the parkway.

  “Right.” Bennie shook her head, put a mittened hand on his face. “It’s too quick. I’m moving too quick. I’m overwhelming you. I’m sorry.”

  “No!” Too loud, Juan, too loud. “Sorry, I mean: no. You’re not overwhelming, B. You’re, like, the only thing not overwhelming me.”

  Pull. Up the hill. Pull.

  “This annoying Hound situation is definitely annoying me! Anthony lying to me but not my sister was annoying me. Waking up sure that I’m back in prison is overwhelming me. The whole world trying to destroy us yet again is overwhelming me.”

  Pull. Up the hill. Pull.

  “But you, Bennaldra Matilda Jackson.” Slow. Slow. Slow. “You are the reason that even with all that, I am not overwhelmed.”

  Pull.

  “Just deeply annoyed!”

  “Juan?”

  “Sorry. Let me try again.” Deep breath. The pull fell back, vanished completely, and Juan looked at Bennie and knew peace. “Bennaldra. I know that it seems corny or superficial, but when I saw you all decked out for the parade, it felt like I was suddenly waking up, like someone had wiped the crap out of my eyes and for the first time ever I could see. It felt like music, the way music feels when a song takes me over and there’s no wrong answer, only chords and notes and rhythm. In fact, the music did take me over, and you are a song to me, and that’s the song we played that night at the Red Edge, it was for you, Bennie, all for you and no one else, and you’re the only song I know, really, the best song I know, and you’re nerdy and brilliant and beautiful, and you know the ins and outs of me and see me for all the things I am and I —”

  Pull.

  “And I want you, I choose you, I am with you, through and through, whatever happens next.”

  Bennie blinked, mouth hanging slightly open. Juan stepped in closer, so their frosty noses were right up against each other. “Can I?” he whispered, all smooth like.

  She blinked and, instead of answering, closed the last little dots of space left between them and put her lips against his, and Juan felt her puffy jacket against his, and he pulled her closer and tilted her to get that angle just right, and then they stopped kissing but just stayed that way, face-to-face, close as could be, and smiled into each other’s smiles.

  “Thank you,” Bennie said in a rough approximation of Juan’s voice.

  Juan laughed, squeezed her closer. “Look! You know what I got going on, okay! I’m sorry!”

  “Best response ever, honestly.”

  “Uh-huh, almost as good as It’s fine.”

  “Well …”

  Pull. Pull. Pull. Pull.

  Juan shook his head. “Oh boy …”

  “Starting up again?”

  “Mm.”

  Up the hill, across the parkway, pull!

  “It’s okay. We gotta make moves. I know.”

  Juan nodded. Didn’t let go.

  Up the hill. Across the parkway.

  He closed his eyes. Kissed Bennie once more. Wondered why he hadn’t been kissing Bennie his whole life, how had she been there all along, how had he not seen … but then, he hadn’t been ready for her before. Hell, he was barely ready for her now. And maybe not seeing her in all her glory was his own quieter, wiser, subconscious self quietly protecting him from jacking up something really, really good. And the past two years
of being on tour, hooking up with random, usually white, girls that he barely knew and couldn’t care less about, well … he hadn’t been ready for Bennie.

  And now … he either was or he’d make himself be, whatever it took.

  “Juan?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Up the hill they went, past a bodega, past a dollar store, past a bakery, across Eastern Parkway, and back down a hill, and all the while that pull, that taut, insistent yank that let him know which way, and Bennie tapping away on her phone, updating Sierra probably, and then they rounded a corner and stopped short.

  “Oh God,” Juan said, feeling all the grace and glory of the past few moments shatter and get whisked away in the chilly December breeze.

  “Wasn’t Izzy just —”

  “Yeah.”

  Across a small park and another street, the detention center loomed.

  Slowly, molecule by molecule, their bodies fell away.

  The point where the skin of their thumbs grazed up against each other became a touchstone, a homing beacon, the light they knew would lead them back to the physical.

  Heh — the physical. Already, the notion of a body seemed so five minutes ago; that lumbering sheath: useless, a prison. Why inhabit flesh when the air itself beckoned, offered unlimited views, possibilities? Why stumble through the world inhibited by skin, confined by bone, when infinity awaited?

  The answer was simple.

  They dispersed — shed those bodies like old suits — released damn near everything except themselves and, though the difference was increasingly irrelevant, each other.

  And then, after a beat and a breath, they rose.

  They rose, and below them their bodies sat face-to-face on the bed, thumbs touching, and awaited their return. They rose, and below the room widened and revealed what could not be seen from the floor level: the coffee table, Almanac open on top of it, the Sorrow, her golden hue lighting the far corner she cowered in, the boxes of Lázaro’s stuff, still waiting to be sorted through. Then came the prickly tingle of plaster, piping, that fuzzy thrill as darkness momentarily overtook them and then suddenly the sky opened up and the whole city with it.