“Sakari is a professional storyteller,” Geoff told Anna, as if he hadn’t already informed her when he set the appointment and again on the way over. “As you know, we’re investigating the Tarriaksuit. What can you tell us about the Shadow People?”
Sakari raised her face to the sky and leaned back in her folding lawn chair. The world of the North was so quiet Anna felt unnerved by her surroundings. It was a relief when Sakari asked, “Have you ever heard the story of how Crow brought the daylight?”
“I think I read that in High School,” Anna said. “No, wait, that was Raven Steals the Light.”
“Brings, steals—it’s all a matter of perspective,” Sakari replied. “A very long time ago, when the world was still new, the Inuit people lived all in darkness. They had never heard of this thing called daylight, until Crow came along and explained it to them.”
“Yes, this does sound familiar.”
“At first, nobody believed Crow. The elders knew him to be a trickster, but the younger people were fascinated by his stories. ‘If we had daylight here, we could wander far from home to hunt. We could see the polar bear before it attacks.’ The young people begged Crow to bring daylight to the North. Crow agreed and started off on the long, dark journey south. When he began to see a glimmer on the horizon, he knew he was heading in the right direction.”
Geoff yawned in an exaggerated manner, and Sakari gazed directly at him, saying nothing.
“Sorry,” he told her. “Go on.”
She waited for a moment, like she was expecting him to yawn again. When he didn’t, she raised her arms in the air. “Suddenly, daylight burst upon him with its endless shades and shapes. As he perched on a tree branch, he imagined how happy the young people of the North would be when they caught their first sight of a clear blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Crow then looked down to see a beautiful woman fetching water from the river. The trickster turned himself into a seed and drifted down to settle into the woman’s cloak. When she returned home, he found how lucky he was. This girl was the daughter of the village chief.”
“What village?” Anna asked, but Geoff set a hand on her knee as if to stifle her. His touch sent a giddy blaze through her body, and she hugged her notebook tight to her chest.
The storyteller ignored her question, at any rate, and went on with the legend. “Inside the chief’s lodge, Crow spotted a box that glowed around the edges. Daylight! On the floor, the woman’s little son played with the prized box. In the form of a seed, Crow drifted into the little boy’s ear. The child cried and cried, but his mother couldn’t comfort him. The boy called out for his kindly grandfather.
“‘Why are you crying?’ the chief asked the little one.
“From within the boy's ear, Crow whispered: ‘I want to play with the ball of daylight.’ The child rubbed his ear and repeated Crow's words.
“The chief removed the ball of light from its casing without a second thought. But again the boy cried and when the chief asked why, he spoke Crow’s words: ‘I want to play outside.’ And so the chief lifted up the small child and carried him to the river.
“As soon as they reached the clearing, Crow swooped out of the child's ear and regained his true form. He grabbed the ball of light and flew across the sky, trailing daylight behind him.
“Through the darkness, the Northern people saw a spark of light coming toward them. It grew brighter and brighter, until Crow dropped the ball. It shattered on the ground and daylight exploded, illuminating every dark place and chasing away every shadow. The sky became bright and blue. Dark mountains took on colour and form. Snow and ice sparkled so brightly our people had to shade their eyes.
“But Crow warned them daylight would not last forever. He only brought one ball of daylight, and it would need to rest for six months every year to regain its strength. During that six-month period, the darkness would return. To this day, the people of the North live for half a year in darkness and half a year in daylight. They are always kind to Crow, for it was he who brought the light.”
As Anna scribbled madly in her notebook, Geoff let out a huff. “Do you have any stories about the Shadow People?”
Sakari pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “The chill is setting in early tonight.” Rising from her lawn chair, she said, “I think I’ll be heading in now. Very nice to make your acquaintance. Safe journey to you both.”
Geoff shot out of his seat, knocking it over in the process, then kicked the storyteller’s abandoned chair. “Well that just tears it!”
Anna thanked her lucky stars Sakari had gone inside, but she felt positively stupefied by his behaviour. “What the hell, Geoff? What is wrong with you?”
“I could have spent the summer in Greece.”
“You said…”
“And instead I’m stuck here in the land of the midnight sun on a failed investigation with little miss sunshine herself.”
His words hit Anna’s chest like a brick, but she didn’t want him to see how badly he’d hurt her. Painting on a smile, she tried to brighten his mood. “We won’t have failed until we’ve totally given up.”
“No wonder we can’t track Shadow People.” Geoff stomped over to their borrowed truck. “Your sunny disposition is driving them all away!”
Anna didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever characterised her as an optimist before. Why did it feel like such an insult?
She tried not to look at her boss on the drive back. His squirrelly face sparked a rage made more intense by the memory of attraction.
“I don’t understand why you’re being like this,” she said, staring straight ahead.
“Like what?” he challenged, his tone icy cold.
“You know what I used to call you? Gentle Geoff. That was you: always kind to everybody, whether they’d been at the Institute for a thousand years or they were just interning for a couple months. You always showed everyone respect, so why are you treating me like shit?”
“Get a grip.” He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Look, tonight I’m taking the tracking equipment up to that lake by the old lady’s lodge. She’s hiding something—I can feel it.”
Three months ago, the idea of another all-nighter with Geoff would have set her heart palpitating. Now she wished she could call in sick. “Fine. Can we at least grab a bite first? I’m starving.”
“You’re not coming with me. Stay at the lodge and pull those blackout blinds. You need your sleep.”
Rage boiled beneath Anna’s skin, making her brusque. Channelling her teenaged self, she growled, “Whatever,” and left it at that.
Chapter Three
The lodge made a delicious moose meat burger, and Anna gave in to it, and fries and a bottle of red, in her room. She couldn’t stand the idea of interacting with people.
Leaving her destroyed plate of dinner outside the door, she switched off the lamp and joined her wine glass on the reading chair by the window. The view was truly extraordinary.
The evening sun shone like a comet in the sky, resisting the pressure of dusk as Anna resisted the call of sleep. Her eyelids tumbled, bouncing apart each time they met, until finally they closed and rested together. She envisioned Crow coursing through the darkness, trailing daylight behind him like a banner for new beginnings. She saw the young people cheering him on and their parents clucking about the old ways. Fearful of the radiance Crow brought, they hid in the…
“My God,” Anna cried, bolting upright in her chair. “We’ve been so stupid! The elders have been answering our questions all along—we just weren’t listening.”
As soon as the words crossed her lips, the blackout blinds on her window snapped shut and the barely-visible nightlight in the bathroom flickered off. Sheer blackness enveloped the room, and she knew the answer even before she asked, “Who’s there?”
Her voice sounded small in the darkness. It echoed all alone in a cavernous realm. A bottomless sense of grief overtook her and she wept uncontrollably into her wine glass. It was the only thing s
till connecting her to the material world, and she grasped its stem with all her strength.
There was so much pain in life. Just look at Geoff: she put her hopes in him and he treated her like crap. That’s what happens when we have hopes: they’re inevitably stomped on by so-called benevolent forces.
The blinds sprung open and a dazzling light caressed Anna from outside. In fact, for a moment, there was only light and nothing else. It filled her heart with such warmth she was sure her chest would explode.
This must be death. What else could it be?
And then the light subsided. She now realized she was outside the lodge. She looked in the window to see herself passed out in the reading chair, still grasping her wine glass. In the window’s reflection, she watched as rays of light flickered from the sky and manifested a form. The form was a man, and the man was spectacular.
She had every reason to be afraid, but she wasn’t. Her heart and mind were utterly at ease as she watched him approach her like a spectre in the window’s reflection. His round face would have been haunting were it not for the smile on his lips. In the window’s reflection, the contrast between his skin and his black hair appeared stark, but when she turned to look at him straight on it seemed less obvious.
“Oh my god!” Erupting with laughter, Anna covered her mouth. “I’m sorry! I have no idea who you are and I know I shouldn’t say this, but what the hell are you wearing?”
His pants, cut just below the knee, seemed to be some kind of eccentric twist on traditional Inuit dress.
Placing his hands on his hips, the hot phantom snapped, “Shut your mouth, girl. Have you ever hand-sewn rhinestones into caribou skin?”
“Can’t say as I have,” she snickered.
“I figured. Took me half a year to make these dance pants.”
“Okay, dude…”
Sucking his teeth, he said, “My pants kick your dress’ ass.”
“Dress?” Anna glanced down. Where were her flannel pyjamas? Why was she wearing this shapeless hide shift? “This isn’t mine. I don’t know…”
The man whipped around to strut down the lake path. “Follow me, girlfriend.”
“Oh, so we’re friends now, are we?”
“Yes, Illivat.”
Her heart leapt with inexplicable affinity for the ghost. Her pulse quickened. This all felt unreal, like she was floating above the situation and participating at the same time.
“We’re going to be good friends soon, you and me and Kattituyok.”
“If you say so.” She grinned, hopping to keep up. “Who is Katti…?”
“Kattituyok: he who has a deep voice.”
“Who are you?” Anna asked as they headed toward a lake that sparkled in the late-night sun.
“Pikatti,” he said simply.
She felt like one of those kids who would keep asking questions until you shoved a lollipop in her mouth. “Are you Tarriaksuit, you and Katti…?” She mumbled the end of his name because she couldn’t remember it.
Pikatti turned to face her with the lake glistening behind him. “Kattituyok.”
That obviously didn’t answer her question.
“What is Tarriaksuit?” asked a booming voice over Anna’s shoulder.
She spun on her heels to see who was there.
A man slightly older than Pikatti stood before her. He wore caribou pants with a fringe, but sadly lacking rhinestones. His presence made Anna uneasy, but not because she was afraid; he just seemed so illustrious she felt she didn’t deserve to occupy the same space as him. His greatness drove her to Pikatti’s side. An Inuit ghost wearing rhinestones seemed pretty safe, in comparison.
“Shadow People,” Anna replied in a voice smaller than her own. “I’m a parapsychologist… kind of… well, I will be once I’ve chosen a thesis topic. Anyway, you don’t care about that. Basically, I’m in the North looking for Tarriaksuit.”
The man with the big strong chest smirked like he had a secret. “You’re not alone.”
Just to their right, he indicated the Institute’s camera equipment perched on a boulder. Behind it, a man sat very still, his eyes glued to an EMF reader.
She smiled so hard her jaw hurt. “Oh my god! Geoff!”
He didn’t react. He didn’t seem to hear her, or even pick up her body heat on the thermo-cam.
“Looking for Tarriaksuit?” Pikatti taunted. “Girl, you are Tarriaksuit. And that guy can’t see you any more than he can see me or Kattituyok.”
Shadow People! She almost couldn’t believe it, even though she knew it was true. After all the cloak and dagger from the elders, she’d found them. Anna felt like royalty. She was in the Shadow World.
With a child’s buoyancy, she looked Pikatti up and down and chuckled. “The stories say you’re shy.”
“Yes, terribly,” Pikatti sighed, throwing a melodramatic arm around her shoulder.
Kattituyok huffed. “Anyone who steps into this world of ours realizes at once they wouldn’t dream of leaving.”
“Your world accepts voyagers from ours, then?” Anna asked, wishing she had her notebook.
“From yours or any other. We wish to preserve the integrity of our world, but not to the exclusion of any interested party.”
“I’m interested,” Anna said, auspiciously.
“We know, Illivat. That is why we’ve appeared to you.”
“But Goeff…” She glanced in his direction. He was looking straight through her. “He’s interested too. Why can’t you bring him here?”
“Your colleague comes to judge us.”
“No, Geoff wants to understand you. He’s a knowledge-seeker.”
“But he would reveal us to your world,” Pikatti interjected.
“So would I. That’s what I came up here to do: find you guys and write a report on you. Why won’t you let Geoff into your world? He wants to find it so badly. He’ll go home in shreds if I get to meet you and he doesn’t.”
“I can’t comprehend why you would care so much about a man who denigrates you,” Kattituyok said, shaking his head.
“He doesn’t,” she argued, reflecting, and not quite believing herself. “I think he’s just stressed. He doesn’t deal well with failure.”
“Somebody’s making excuses,” Pikatti replied, tickling her sides. As she gave in and giggled, he whispered, “Our little Illivat deserves better.”
Anna stopped laughing and looked up almost in despair at the solemn but kind warrior before her. “Kattituyok…please tell me who you are. We’ve asked so many elders and they had nothing to say.”
“Of course not,” Kattituyok replied. “Our world is quite insular.”
“It’s not as dark as I pictured it,” she admitted, gazing up at the sun. It wasn’t quite beaming—not this late at night—more like hovering in space. “Why is it called the shadow world?”
“You think this is the shadow world? No, no, no.” Pikatti chuckled. “That’s our name for where you live. If you saw your world from where we stand, you’d think you were living in the shadows too.”
An idea dawned on her like a two-by-four to the back of the head. I’ve been living in the shadow all this time. Dizzied, she swerved until she was somehow on her knees. Even her head was too heavy to support, and she let it fall to the gravel beach. The ground was cold, but her body was steaming-hot as she rested in the giddy bliss of a drunken stupor.
“Why do I feel like this?” she asked, feeling flighty and faint.
“You are coming to an important realization,” Kattituyok replied.
She nodded against the damp, gritty sand. “Geoff doesn’t like me.”
Pikatti knelt beside her, petting her back. “That’s not the important bit. What else have you got?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought back tears. “He’s treating me like shit and I deserve so, so, so much better.”
“Yes, Illivat,” the sage one said. “And?”
“I’m always getting in my own way. I get attached to these jerks, and then
when I realize how bad they are for me I can’t get rid of him. Like stupid Sully—I was crazy for him in University. Even now that I see how bad he is for me, I’m still sharing an office with the bastard. I can’t get these assholes out of my life!”
Pikatti rubbed her back until her soft dress fell forward, fell down her back and covered her head. She pulled out of it, sitting it under her head to keep her face off the beach. Pikatti’s warm touch felt so much better against her bare flesh. His hand felt like seal pelt as it brushed her ass, which she held high in the air. It moved down her thighs to tickle her feet.
“Do you get it now?” Pikatti asked.
Kittituyok didn’t give her an opportunity to answer. “Anna is the shadow. Illivat walks in the sun.”
“Illivat,” she repeated. “We were the Shadow People. Goeff and I couldn’t find the shadow world because we were already in it.”
“Now we start you on your new path.” Pikatti traced his fingers across her inner thigh. “In our world, only fear is condemned. Whatever is not love is fear.”
Anna caught him looking at Kattituyok with a combination of desire and reverence. The sage responded with a deep-voiced chuckle and a smirk. Pikatti’s smile grew wider as his fingers peeked inside the waist of Kattituyok’s fringed caribou pants.
Kattituyok declared, “In your world, people see only difference.”
“With us, anything goes.” Pikatti pulled down the caribou hide.
Kattituyok gasped at the younger man’s touch and then said to Anna, “You revile each other for your diversity.”
Pikatti grasped Kattituyok’s cock and pumped it slowly. He slipped his soft-as-pelt hand between Anna’s thighs. When he squeezed mound, she exploded like a juiced orange, melting into the beach. What could she do but surrender to their wisdom and their world? She was theirs now. She belonged to this place.
“In this world, we are as one,” Pikatti continued, stroking her wet pussy. She rocked for him, moving back and forth to increase the sensation of his touch against her throbbing clit. The more she moaned, the more Kattituyok moaned, and his derivative pleasure increased her own. Pikatti pleased them both.
Monsters and Shifters and Men, Oh My! Paranormal Menage and Multiple Partner Romance Stories Page 2