by Amir Lane
They’d called it paediatric schizophrenia when it first started, and regular schizophrenia as he got older. It was the easiest explanation for the Shadows and the Voices that no-one else saw or heard. Medication didn’t help much, but he could tune them out most of the time now. Key word being ‘most’.
Dieter tried to turn his attention back to the lecture. Easier said than done when all he could hear was nails scraping against wood. It was as if the Shadows were trying to claw their way through the dark panelling on the walls. He ignored it as much as he could, but the scraping just wouldn’t stop. It was all around him, practically inside his skull. His stomach twisted into an anxious knot. It rose up his throat and threatened to choke him. If he had to listen to it for another minute, he was going to scream.
He stuffed his array of coloured pens and highlighters into his pencil case and dropped it into the bottom of his backpack. The zipper was impossibly loud to Dieter’s ears. Everyone must have heard it. He took a moment to convince himself that none of the other students in his Advanced Calculus I lecture were looking at him before he squeezed through the row of people to get to the back door.
The cool, early October air hit Dieter’s skin the second he stepped outside, drying the sweat that had begun to form on the back of his neck. First snow hadn’t fallen yet. He gave it another week, maybe three at most. Southern Ontario winters weren’t that cold or that snowy. It was the flash freezes that were the real problem. But that was more of a February problem. Dieter would enjoy the ice-less sidewalks while he could.
Shadows followed him as he walked across campus, hissing his name.
“Just leave me alone,” he mumbled, covering his ears with his hands, “just leave me alone.”
The Shadows didn’t listen. Dieter wasn’t sure if they could even hear. They weren’t supposed to be real, he reminded himself. They weren’t real. They were just his stupid brain seeing and hearing things that weren’t actually there. As usual. He wasn’t crazy — his father always assured him — just wired wrong. Nobody ever said that Lindy was wired wrong. Not that they didn’t say plenty of other things about her. But Dietlinde Lindemann was a Seer. It was different. Seers were real, and Sensitives usually weren’t. Unless they were. In which case, he had a whole other set of issues.
Dieter fished a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. As much as he hated smelling like smoke, it was the easiest way to keep from getting lost in the hisses and whispers. It gave him something to focus on as he found somewhere to breathe until his next class.
The campus soccer field was behind the Science Complex. Dieter usually went there to run the 400-meter track that surrounded it, but not today. Today, he sat on one of the bleachers to watch the varsity men’s soccer team practise. The wooden seat was cold. It was uncomfortable, even through his jeans, but not unbearable. It was almost a better grounding than the cigarette. But he just lit the damn thing. It would be a waste to put it out now when he’d just started it. Besides, this was going to be his last pack. For real this time. Maybe. Depending on how midterms went. Either way, he wanted to take his time and enjoy the crap filling his lungs. He wasn’t in any rush to finish. He didn’t have anywhere else to be for the next hour and a half.
He watched a couple of Shadows flitting across the soccer field, weaving between the players as if they weren’t even there. He didn’t know much about soccer. ‘Actual sports’ had always been more of Lindy’s thing. He just liked the way the players moved. The fluidity of it was beautiful even to him. But even with the team running drills and the cold of the seat and the warmth of the smoke, his eyes kept drifting to the Shadows.
He’d described them a thousand times to doctors and therapists and friends who didn’t understand why he was always jumping at nothing, but words could never do them justice. In the simplest terms, they just looked like regular shadows, the kind that were usually attached to people, in varying shades of grey. Most of them were bent or distorted at impossible angles that always made his skin feel tight, and their hands – for those that actually had them – ended in sharp claws that looked more like knives than fingers. They didn’t have any faces, but he knew exactly what they would look like if they did: twisted and disfigured, black, empty holes where the eyes should have been, too-big mouths filled with jagged teeth like broken glass. And then there was the shrieking and wailing that never seemed to stop. Even on the rare occasions where they were quiet, it still left his ears ringing.
* * *
Dieter tried to wait around until the practice ended. Sitting out here in the fresh air was much more appealing than sitting in a cramped lecture hall with tiny chair-desks that barely held his notebook. But 3:20 rolled around, and he couldn't justify skipping class, not when he'd already ducked out of one early.
With a heavy sigh, Dieter stood, the sudden change in temperature making his skin tingle, and slung his bag over his shoulder. He gave a last lingering glance toward the field before heading to his mechanics lecture.
Focusing was all but impossible, even without the Shadows distracting him. His mind was everywhere but here. His notes, which were normally nothing short of pristine, were abysmal at best today. He'd written down maybe half of what the professor said and less than half of what was projected onto the overhead screen. Every word travelled through water before reaching his ears. There were meaningless scribbles and ink spots all along the margins. He finally had to tuck his pen behind his ear to keep from constantly tapping it against the page. The convenience of typing his notes didn't quite outweigh the comforting weight of a pen for him. The pen was real. Something that left a mark on his skin when he wrote. Something tangible.
He should have cared a lot more than he did right then. He was here to learn. How the hell could he do that with Shadows screaming in his ear? But if he couldn’t focus because of them, then he couldn’t focus. It wasn’t his fault. Even if it felt like it was. He would just have to make up for it later. There was an overpriced textbook sitting on his bookshelf, and he could get the notes off someone later. For now, listening to every third or fourth word had to be enough.
* * *
Between walking home and taking the bus, walking was always Dieter’s preferred option. He wanted to take the opportunity to stretch his legs before it got too cold. And the busses were all so cramped at this hour. He wasn’t big on crowds, and the house was only half an hour away from campus.
His backpack was light enough not to bother him by the time the wooden ‘Morrighan House’ sign on the front lawn came into view. The house was older than it looked, built by three Morrighan sisters in the mid-19th Century. It had been a tourist attraction for years before the last of the Morrighan family sold it some five, six years back. The old brochures used to claim that old Celtic writing could still be seen in the wood panels along the walls. Dieter had never seen any. The new owner had practically rebuilt it from scratch when she’d bought it, though the original structure remained. The house was so out of the way that she’d figured she could get more out of renting the three bedrooms out. Dieter wasn’t sure that anything besides the sign remained from the original house.
Light as it was, it was still a relief to set his bag down inside next to the front door. He hung his jacket on the coat rack and slipped his boots off, tucking them next to Lenna’s size fourteen heels that he’d had only seen her wear once. It wasn’t like she needed the height. How she didn’t break her ankles in them regularly was beyond him.
He turned to find a large, black jaguar staring at him. He almost jumped.
“For fuck's sake… Lenna!” he called, “Aldo's doing that staring thing again.”
“Little busy here,” Lenna grunted. “Tell him to stop if it bothers you.”
“I'm not telling him. You tell him.”
Aldo licked his paw, his yellow eyes still fixed on Dieter. It sent a shiver down his spine. While he’d never had any issue with the giant, man-eating wildcat, Aldo had a way of making Dieter feel like dinner. Moving
slowly, half-convinced that Aldo would pounce if he made any sudden movements, he made his way to the kitchen. A wall separated it from the living room where Lindy and Lenna were lifting weights. He watched Lenna pull some weights off the bar for Lindy.
At 6'2" and 200-some pounds, Lenna Alvarez was nothing if not built like a tank. She and Lindy were of the school of thought that anyone who suggested that muscles didn't belong on women deserved a punch in the face. Dieter didn't disagree, especially not to women who could and would follow through on that philosophy.
“Spot me?” Lindy asked, settling beneath the bar.
“I ain't going anywhere.”
Lenna’s white tank top clung to her skin, giving Dieter a nice glimpse of her pecs and six pack abs.
“Lenna, has anyone told you that you're a total babe today?” he asked with a grin, leaning against the wall with a glass of water.
“Told me today, or I'm a babe today?”
“Both. You're always a babe.”
Lenna rolled her eyes, though Dieter suspected she didn't mind it half as much as she pretended to. He didn’t miss the start of a smile on her lips.
“Keep flattering and I just might blow you,” she said dryly.
“A little help here!”
Lenna made an ‘Oh shit’ face and grabbed the bar from Lindy with a quick apology.
Lindy huffed, sitting up and stretching her arms. Her shirt was as drenched with sweat as Lenna's.
“Please tell me that was five reps,” she groaned. “I’m literally dying here.”
“Yup, five.”
Lenna pulled her arms over her head, her shoulders cracking. Aldo stalked over to her, his tail brushing Dieter's leg as he walked past. Dieter watched as he melted into black ink as he touched his head to Lenna's hand and snaked up her arm. It was something he never got tired of watching. Witches were awesome.
Dieter tossed Lindy her water bottle from the counter. She caught it with a pained sound, making Dieter glad he stuck to track. He was a sprinter and while it was hell on his knees, it had always kept his weight regular with his shifting medication dosage. And it never made him feel like he was dying.
“How was class?” Lindy asked, adjusting her nose ring.
Despite being twins, they weren't much alike. Lindy, Dietlinde only to their father, had never outgrown her goth-punk-metal phase. Dieter had never had one. Even now, he could see the hole in her eyebrow where a silver hoop usually was. Dieter only had his ears pierced once compared to the half dozen holes Lindy had in each ear. The blond roots were starting to show in her artificially black hair, pulled back into a messy, sweaty bun. She was shorter, broader, and her face wasn't as angular as Dieter’s. But she was just as pretty as her brother, in a different way.
“It was good, I think. I don’t know. It was kind of hard to focus today.”
Lindy bit her thumbnail and spat out the black nail polish that flaked off in her mouth.
“The Shadows giving you a hard time?”
“They’ve been keeping their distance. They’re mostly just loud.”
“Hey, didn’t you tell your dad you weren’t seeing them anymore?” she asked.
Dieter had long since stopped reminding her that he was their dad, not just his. As far as Lindy was concerned, he'd stopped being her dad the day he told them to go to school or to get out. Not that they’d ever gotten along to begin with. While Dieter had dove into the stack of university brochures, Lindy had started packing.
“I lied. Sue me.”
Lindy's lip twitched. They both knew she was in no position to judge. Hadn't she been lying to him about everything from parent-teacher nights to sneaking out since puberty? Dieter was sure that a few of her lies outweighed this one.
“You should tell him,” she said. “You can’t just pretend they aren’t a problem. Schizophrenia is treatable, you just have to do it right. Which you clearly aren’t.”
“Am I ever going to stop seeing them?”
There was a brief pause. She fixed him with the same hard, determined stare she had when she tried to see the Shadows. She’d always had horrible vision, but she was one of the most powerful Seers out there. The irony was not lost on her. It wasn’t even just that she wasn’t limited to one method of precognition the way most Seers were, she could see things that other people couldn’t, things that were just beyond natural perception. They called it a Second Sight. Dieter didn’t know how else to describe it. But she couldn’t see the Shadows. In fact, her powers were completely blind to Dieter. It made keeping things from her much easier, but it also made him wonder if there was something wrong with him beyond just bad mental wiring.
Lindy let out a defeated sigh.
“I have no fucking clue.”
* * *
Dieter’s story continues in Shadow Maker: Morrighan House Witches Book 1
If you enjoyed reading Rise much as I enjoyed writing it, consider rating and/or leaving a review.
* * *
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Also by Amir Lane
Morrighan House Witches
Rise
Shadow Maker
Bad Omen
Panthera Onca (Coming Soon)
Short Stories
Wolf Kin
About the Author
Amir Lane is an LGBT+ supernatural and urban fantasy writer from Sudbury, Ontario. Engineer by trade, they spend most of their writing time in a small home office or in front of the TV watching every cop procedural on Netflix. They live in a world where magic is an every day occurrence, and they strive to bring that world to paper.
When not trying to figure out what kind of day job an incubus would have or what a necromancer would go to school for, Amir enjoys visiting the nearest Dairy Queen, getting killed in video games, absorbing the contents of comic books, and freaking out over how fluffy the neighbour's dog is.
Amir loves to connect with readers online. They can be found on their Facebook page, and at their website where you can find out more about their work.
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Acknowledgments
Surprising thank you to my brother who provided some valuable insight into the mind of a science with no experience with magic, and never complains about getting research questions.
To Rebecca, who gave me the motivation to churn this out, and the people who helped me learn to write faster than I ever thought I could, I can’t say enough. Not to mention everyone who gave me feedback.
Thank you to my production team. My fantastic beta readers and their endless awesome suggestions.
And last but not least, to you for deciding to pick this book up, literally or figuratively, and reading to the end. This book is for you and I'm glad we both stuck it out to the end.