Shadowshift

by Peter Giglio

  “Can I please have a Coke?”

  Her mom had already returned to her notebook. Without looking up, she said, “Didn’t bring any money, Han. Besides, you shouldn’t be drinking all that sugar right now. Go use the water fountain. That’s what it’s there for.”

  Hannah pressed her palms into her sides and sighed. “I thought Daddy said we didn’t need to worry about money anymore.”

  Her mom dropped the notebook on her stomach and glowered, her eyes narrowing to pinpricks of anger. “Let’s get something straight, your precious daddy’s a piece of shit. Do you understand that?”

  Hannah felt tears pricking her eyes, but she fought them back as she swallowed the dry lump in her throat. Again, she didn’t fully comprehend what her mom was saying; only that she was in pain.

  Her mom heaved a sigh of disapproval and went back to writing, her pen flying faster, more desperately than ever, and Hannah meandered in the general direction of the dreaded water fountain.

  It angered her mom when she talked about Dad; that much was clear. She promised herself she wouldn’t do it again. She didn’t want to make trouble.

  Approaching the fountain, Hannah looked up. The same boy who’d collided with her earlier pressed his face into the spigot and sucked greedily.

  She hated him. Hated all kids. The way they piled into the back of their family SUVs and minivans. Their stupid, carefree expressions. Did these children wake to the sounds of their parents shouting at each other? She doubted it. She also doubted they ever worried about money or wore clothes from garage sales or slept on sheets that hadn’t been washed for weeks. Why were these brats all so defiant when they clearly had it so good? Spoiled rotten. All of them.

  She stopped and glared at the boy, and that’s when it happened.

  Her attention, as if directed by a force beyond her control, became the water fountain. The YMCA pool area vanished, replaced by deep black nothingness. In this dark place, only she and the fountain remained, and she could see inside it. In that moment, terrified and hopeless, she lost control of her emotions and fell to her knees, aware of the unforgiving concrete upon impact, even though she couldn’t see it. She sobbed. But even in her anguish, she couldn’t look away from the rusty pipes that normally hid beneath the fountain’s gray shell.

  Hot, she thought. Burn! Burn burn burn burn…

  Pipes rattled and she heard a high-pitched whine. Bowing her head, now able to look away, she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt her mom’s hand on her back a moment after she heard the boy scream. She looked up and saw others rushing to the child’s aid. His face had turned a horrible red, his lips blistered and bleeding. He wailed in evident agony.

  “Oh my God,” her mom said. “What happened?” She helped Hannah up, but her attention remained on the boy. The pool had grown silent. Onlookers gasped. The boy’s screaming intensified.

  “Someone call 911,” the previously listless lifeguard shouted, dropping from her perch and running toward the injured child.

  Hannah felt herself lifted into her mom’s arms, then she was turned away from the unfolding spectacle.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that, sweetie,” her mom whispered.

  “That’s okay, Mommy.”

  “And I’m sorry I said those things about your daddy. That was wrong of me.”

  “That’s okay, Mommy.”

  “Come on, let’s go home and get some Band-Aids on your knees, then we’ll get you a Coke, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  That evening, her dad still at work, Hannah sat on the edge of her bed and played Tetris on an old Game Boy (one of her many garage sale finds) while her mom took a nap in the living room. The video game was a poor diversion from the shame that plagued her. The boy’s blistered lips, his tortured wailing, flashed through her mind as she apathetically guided shapes into empty spaces on the screen. But amidst her dark reverie, a larger question loomed.

  How did I do that?

  No doubt lingered; she had been the cause of the boy’s injuries.

  A long rectangle appeared at the top of the Nintendo’s screen, but she didn’t push buttons to move the shape. Instead, she was struck by an idea that she wasted no time testing.

  The pixelated rectangle hung in limbo. And again, she found the dark place. Soon, the game snapped back into play, and the piece fell. Using her mind, she concentrated on the proper moves, and the machine responded. Closing her eyes, she felt as if her body was lifted from the bed. Then she blinked and was back in her room.

  She’d long sensed she was different from other kids, but she hadn’t expected anything so amazing. With a growing desire to explore her abilities, she walked to the window and peered through the Venetian blinds. The parking lot outside her room was routinely trafficked by people and stray cats, and tonight was no different. She concentrated on a thin man getting out of his car. But she didn’t find the dark place. The man started toward his apartment, and Hannah concentrated harder on him. Still, she couldn’t find her dark place.

  Then, just like before with the water fountain, her attention was forced to the man’s car, and everything else disappeared from view. Her mind’s eye tunneled through the hatchback, and her focus was pulled to the shifter on the floorboard. Although she didn’t understand the mechanics of manual transmission, instinct told her to move the stick.

  With a faint pop—how did I hear that?—the shifter moved.

  She blinked, fast returning to reality, then watched the Honda roll backward.

  “What the fuck?” she heard the man shout.

  But the incline wasn’t steep, and the car didn’t roll far. Just enough to scare the man, who scrambled back to the driver’s seat to right the wrong.

  Objects, she realized. She controlled objects, not people…at least not directly.

  Hannah plunked down on the bed and curled up. With her head hanging over the mattress’s edge, she stared at a red stain in the carpet. She recalled the night she’d knocked a glass of Kool-Aid from the nightstand, and how mad her dad had been.

  “For fuck’s sake, you little piggy, how many times do I have to tell you not to eat or drink in your fucking bedroom!?”

  For a moment, she considered removing the stain with her talent. Maybe she could also erase the memory of her father’s cruel words. But that didn’t seem likely, and she quickly dismissed the notion. How would she explain removing a stain her mom had spent hours scrubbing? She couldn’t. She needed to be careful.

  Although only six, she was acutely aware of how much darkness existed in the world. Curiosity had led her to watch a lot of cable news during many of her mom’s long naps. The evil she found on so many of the reports defied explanation in her young mind.

  Maybe, she thought, her newfound powers weren’t that strange. Perhaps everyone wielded similar magic, something they never revealed to others. While that idea helped rationalize tsunamis and hurricanes and other “Acts of God,” it only made the shivers running up and down Hannah’s spine worsen.

  Or maybe it wasn’t so bad. After all, her mom and dad had secrets. Secrets seemed a way of life in the grown-up world. Now she had one, too.

  A secret she planned to keep.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sunday morning. Two days have passed since Tina and Hannah moved into Kevin’s house. He sits across from her at a small table in the sunroom library. Bathed in slats of light, they smile at each other and sip coffee. The shared silence speaks louder than any conversation Kevin can remember. He loves Tina’s expressive eyes. Her smile. She’s still glowing from their lovemaking the night before.

  From upstairs comes the clatter of Hannah unpacking boxes and organizing her new room. Kevin should be helping Tina do the same with her possessions, but he can’t bring himself to cloud such a pristine moment with work that can wait. This is why he took time off from his job, so they wouldn’t have to rush, so he could be there to ease Tina and Hannah into their new home.

  “Do you think Hannah likes it here?” he asks.<
br />
  Tina nods. “Of course she does. This is a beautiful home.”

  “Now that I have special people to share it with, yes, it is.”

  This is what it’s like when they talk. They say nice things, never linger on any subject for too long. He validates her. She validates him. Sip of coffee. Repeat.

  But how long will it last? he wonders. He hopes forever, but it didn’t last with Meredith or Stephanie—each found happiness in the arms of other men. So what’s different now? Why will Tina stay when others haven’t? These are the questions he wants to ask, but he senses they would ruin the moment faster than chores. Maybe he doesn’t need to ask. Her eyes say she’ll stay.

  He knows he’s romanticizing everything. Big deal. He also knows he’s never felt more certain about anything. He loves Tina, and he wants—needs—her to stay.

  “Are you happy?” he asks.

  “Yes…very.” Tina leans across the table and kisses him. She doesn’t even seem to mind he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet. Then she pulls her e-cigarette from the table and takes a long drag.

  “I’m proud of you,” he says.

  “Oh, why’s that?”

  “You quit smoking. That’s not easy. A lot of my colleagues have spent years trying to quit. Can you imagine what it’s like for a pharmaceutical rep to walk into a doctor’s office smelling like cigarette smoke? Doesn’t exactly convey a message of health. Hell, it can be a real deal-breaker.”

  “Oh, come on, Kev, you know as well as I do those deals are all about big money, for the pharmaceutical rep and the doctor. The patient is generally the sucker, and they don’t get any say in the deal. How could a little cigarette smoke possibly get in the way with prescription drugs killing millions?”

  He can’t argue with that, because what she just said is truer than he cares to admit. He hates his job and wishes he could do what she does. He wishes he could create. But creation isn’t an easy thing. It requires a creative mind he doesn’t have. Still, he can worship her mind, and he does.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that you quit,” he says.

  She chuckles, taking another drag. “Yeah,” she says, a vapor trail billowing around her head, “but I still have my pacifier.”

  “Hey, progress is progress.” Truth is, he hates her pacifier. To him, never a smoker, it still looks like she’s smoking, and now she’s got an excuse to do the dirty deed indoors. But her habit’s a small price for happiness, and he’s relieved her cough is gone. The deep, wet hacks in the early days of their courtship, particularly in bed, was terrifying. So she’s not perfect, he tells himself. So what.

  “Sure you don’t want any breakfast?” he asks.

  “No, sweetheart. I never eat in the morning. Just coffee, but don’t let me stop you.”

  He gazes at his gut. He knows she hates his physique as much as he hates her nicotine needs. Like her, he’s far from perfect. He hopes she can’t hear his stomach grumbling in protest. “No,” he says, “I’m not hungry, either.”

  She looks through the windows, into the well-manicured lawn he pays landscapers handsomely to maintain. “Beautiful day,” she says.

  “It sure is. Anything special you’d like to do?”

  “I don’t know. How about you? There must be something you like to do when you don’t have to work, or do you spend a lot of time at the go-cart track?”

  He laughs. “No, that was for Hannah.”

  “Thank you for that. She had a great time.”

  “My pleasure.”

  They press their purple and yellow BFF rings together, and, in unison, say, “Wonder Twin powers, activate.”

  “Form of…an indecisive sloth,” he says, chuckling. “Sorry, hon, I don’t know what I want to do today. I just want to spend it with you.”

  “Form of…Lou Reed,” she says, then starts singing “Perfect Day,” and he joins in. Each have tragic voices, but they finish the song with terrific laughs.

  For the next few minutes, they return to a state of calm. However, Kevin feels less happy than before. He questions himself. Why am I holding back? Why can’t I tell her what I like and don’t? Why can’t I admit I am starving right now? On one level, the whole thing’s easy to rationalize. All relationships work this way.

  No, he tells himself. This isn’t what he and Tina are supposed to be about. Hell, they both farted in bed the first night they slept together. They promised never to control each other or play petty games or hide behind bourgeois pretentions of any kind.

  Fond memories of their first rendezvous in Chattanooga flutter though his mind, bringing a smile to his face.

  He’s forty-two. She’s thirty-nine. Game time should be over. Or maybe his doubts are the real game, part of the age-old pageantry of courtship he needs to jettison.

  Kevin sips his coffee and joins Tina in gazing through the sunroom windows. For a long while, he watches a robin build a nest in a tree. The bird’s meticulous nature amazes him—the way she carries each carefully selected piece back to her work in progress, then burrows into the shell she has built, pushing new material into place to strengthen the structure. Much the same way he envies Tina, he envies the creative nature of this bird. But unlike her, the bird doesn’t have a creative mind; rather, it’s driven by instinct.

  When he turns to share this observation, he finds Tina scrolling through her FriendSpace newsfeed. This causes Kevin’s doubts to return, and a sharp protest hangs on the tip of his tongue. He stows his agitation, telling himself not to fall to jealousy. But that’s a tall order.

  He and Tina met on FriendSpace, and she still spends a lot of time there. He doesn’t. As he sees it, he got what he wanted from social networking—he got her. He can’t help thinking she’s still out there looking for something, maybe an upgrade. A ridiculous notion, his rational side shouts, considering Tina didn’t date for five years after her husband disappeared.

  Kevin was a fan of Tina’s books. He’d dabbled in writing himself, but never had the patience to finish anything. He’d always been a voracious reader of dark fiction, though, and when he’d discovered a new mass-market paperback while browsing Amazon—Midnight Mourning by Tina Mitchell—he’d immediately been hooked. A new voice on New York paper, particularly given the current decline of print media, was impossible for Kevin to resist. He finished her sharp-witted, beautifully rendered Southern Gothic in one sitting. Love at first read.

  Now, he stares at her and can’t believe she’s here. More than that, she’s his. He also can’t believe he’s courting jealousy when he should be kissing her and carrying her back to bed. Of course, that will have to wait. Hannah’s awake.

  He asks, “What made you start writing?”

  She puts down her phone and hoists her eyebrows. “You know, I can’t believe you’ve never asked that question before.”

  He hopes he hasn’t said the wrong thing. “If the question is too personal, I’m sorry.”

  “Kevin, I get the feeling you sometimes hold back with me.”

  “I’m not keeping any secrets, I—”

  “No, no, dear, it’s not that. I sometimes think you’re scared of…well, of breaking me.”

  He nods. It’s true. He’s a nice man, and he knows it, but he can’t deny that he considers all women fragile. And that’s not fair, particularly when he considers how fragile he is.

  “Well, don’t do that,” she says. “I’m not made of glass.”

  “Okay, then answer my question. What made you start writing?”

  She puts a thoughtful hand on her chin, narrows her eyes, and seems to consider his question. Finally, she says, “Anger.”

  “Anger made you write?”

  “Yes,” she says flatly. “That’s the perfect way to put it. It made me write. There was nothing else I could do. It was either write or do something horrible.”

  He gives her a moment to explain, but she doesn’t. And, although she’s given him license to push, he can’t. Not yet.

  “Why me?” he asks.
r />   “I don’t understand,” she says.

  “I mean, why did you pick me? Of all the people you could have been with. It’s just…well, you’re a beautiful woman, and you’re talented, and—”

  “Because you’re nice. You’re real. You didn’t want anything from me.” She picks up her phone and pops open her personal messages on FriendSpace, then hands him the phone. “Look, everyone wants something—a blurb, a free copy, free beta-reading services—and worse, some send naked selfies.”

  He groans. “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “Count yourself lucky that I’m not showing them to you. They mostly come from other writers who think our professional bond as artists gives them license to bare a hell of a lot more than their soul.”

  “I’m…I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Now look, I’m hardly a celebrity. I’ve never earned more than fifteen thousand a year as a writer.”

  He’s shocked, and more than a little ashamed of how routinely he complains about his six-figure salary. “That’s fucked up.”

  “Woe is me, but that’s hardly the point. Look, I’m no one, and yet I get more than a dozen messages from strangers every day, acting like they’re my best friend and asking me to give them my time for free. Can you imagine how that would make you feel?”

  “Yeah, I get pissed when my boss dumps work on me…and, shit, he pays me well for it.”

  “So when you reached out to me, telling me how much you loved my work, intelligently articulating your thoughts, asking for nothing in return, not even a reply, I was…well, I was thrilled. I never get messages like that, Kevin. Never.”

  “So you jumped into bed with me because I validated you?” He laughs at this, but she doesn’t appear amused.

  “No, I replied and you answered, and we kept chatting, and soon we were talking on the phone, and…there was nothing calculated about it. It just happened.”