Secondhand Shadow

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Jewel shrieked. She had tumbled off the beanbag, and lay in a ball with her arms shielding her head. “I’m sorry, I was just poking fun — it was an awful thing to say, I don’t know why I said it, I’m sorry!”

  “I know why you said it,” Galatea said, but her voice had dropped from a roar to a growl, her anger tinged with embarrassment when she glanced at me, huddled on the couch with my eyes as big as cannonballs.

  “I know what you think of me, and you’re right.” Jewel’s voice had dropped nearly to a whisper. “But please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me.”

  Galatea dropped her tensed arms with an exasperated noise. “I’m not going to hit you, Jewel.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if fighting off a headache. “Get up already. Let’s finish the game.”

  We gathered up the spilled marbles — well, they did; Wonder Tummies do tend to restrict movement — and started the game over, in awkward silence at first, then awkward chitchat that grew more relaxed as the game wore on. Galatea’s pieces were soon strung across the board in an orderly march, nearly every turn bringing a marble into the endzone, despite my best attempts to block or disrupt her path with my own. Jewel, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to hold a strategy together long enough to establish a path at all. Her marbles hopped in a haphazard meander, clinging to each other in twos and threes.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Jewel said, as I executed a particularly well-planned move that took one of my marbles nearly all the way across the board, “how does Damon feel about the baby? Is he okay with it?”

  “It doesn’t really concern him one way or the other,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, “since he intends to breach as soon as it’s practical.”

  Jewel and Galatea glanced at each other.

  “It’s a funny thing,” Galatea said. “I’ve seen Shadows who couldn’t get up the gumption to leave Lumii who beat them unconscious every night, and you don’t seem that bad. It’s a rare Shadow who could leave you.”

  “Thanks,” I said wryly, “but Damon’s rare enough. If there’s one thing he doesn’t seem to lack, it’s gumption.”

  “How does your boyfriend feel about all this? About Damon, I mean,” Jewel said.

  “Boyfriend? Oh, this.” I smacked the side of the Wonder Tummy affectionately, as one might a beloved but exasperating cow. “Not boyfriend. Ex-husband. He doesn’t get a vote.” Guilt prickled. There were some things he ought to have a vote in.

  Jewel and Galatea looked at each other again.

  “You’re divorced?” Galatea said.

  “That’s what ‘ex-husband’ generally means, yes.”

  “But you didn’t love him, did you?”

  I frowned. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, it’s unusual,” Jewel said. “A divorced Lumi, I mean. Audrey’s Martin is the only other case I’ve encountered personally, and she says he never loved her, they only got married because she was pregnant. I’ve never heard of a Lumi who was ever in love before befasting a Shadow. Though it’s been known to happen afterward.” She glanced at Galatea, whose face seemed to get heavier somehow.

  “Well, as it happens, I loved Tyler quite a bit.” Too much, even. Or maybe just from the wrong angle.

  “You’re just all about breaking the rules, aren’t you?” Galatea said thoughtfully. “Secondhand Lumi. Secondhand Shadow.”

  A crash sounded from the kitchen, the unmistakable yelp of breaking glass. Galatea leaped to her feet. “I better go check on that. You two keep playing.”

  “Galatea’s a little hypocritical about breaking the rules,” Jewel said, once Galatea was out of earshot. “She’s done it herself. Leaving a Lumi who never even hit her, for instance. But she doesn’t like it when other people do it.”

  I crossed my arms, tired of whatever game we were playing besides Chinese checkers. “Why did you two call me in here?”

  “To ask nosy, personal questions and try to provoke you,” she said serenely. “You’ve held up rather well.”

  “Why? What’s your problem with me?”

  “It was one thing when he covanted. You didn’t choose that. But you chose to befast him.”

  I made a conscious effort not to bang my head against the wall. How many times, to how many people, was I going to have to defend this? “Isn’t that between me and Damon?”

  “Damon is special. Unique, even. A new breed. And you have no right to keep him in captivity.” She began moving a piece. “Besides, if it weren’t for this freak accident of metaphysics, he wouldn’t want anything to do with you. You know that, right? It’s not like you’re anything special. Oh, I’m sure you’re a nice person and all, but you’re not Claire, and that’s all that matters to him.” Her sky-blue marble — her last remaining piece, when had that happened? — had made it onto the ladder I had built to carry my own pieces across the board. Hop. Hop. Hop. “It doesn’t even matter what she was like. Jason broke both my arms, and my collarbone twice. I still miss him every day. You’re kidding yourself if you think you can ever dislodge Claire from his mind.” Hop. Hop. She sat back and cocked her head. “Look at that. I win.”

  I stood, clenched fists shaking, and walked out the front door, slamming it behind me.

  I stomped across the dark yard to the bench swing, and sat with a force that set it to a nauseating, uneven rocking. It doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter.

  It matters.

  Why? Why did it matter to me whether I mattered to Damon? I had enough problems in my life without these complications. I ought to be wishing I’d never seen him. Could this Shadow-Lumi thing go both ways? Was that where this was coming from?

  I stopped rocking.

  Last Christmas, when my parents told me they didn’t want me to see Tyler anymore, a sickening panic had swallowed me at the very idea. I couldn’t imagine life without him. I tried to tell them that. I tried to tell them about my first day at Ilium U and how terrifyingly different it was from my two years at the community college, where I had a sizable chunk of my same old friends and classmates and went home every day to my same old bedroom at home — how, after a cold and miserable night in a dorm room with a stranger, the end of my first class found me still looking for the classroom, in the wrong building, and Tyler was the one who asked me if I was okay and bought me chocolate milk from the food court and told me everything was going to be fine.

  All my parents saw was the redneck son of a construction worker, a wannabe cowboy with torn jeans and a horsey laugh, not good enough for their little girl. They didn’t understand that Tyler was the only thing that made my life bearable. At home I was accustomed to being Naomi Winters, artist, star student, sister of a bright and popular boy, daughter of wealthy and respectable parents. I had my circle of friends, my pet teachers, my cat, all the ideas and persons and things that formed the constellation Naomi. At Ilium I had nothing, was nothing. Except Tyler Price’s girlfriend.

  Damon thought I didn’t understand what it was like to be a Shadow. I thought I had an inkling.

  “Don’t let Jewel get to you,” Galatea said, sitting down in the swing beside me. “She’s unbearable, but she means well, in her own bizarre way.”

  “I suppose it’s only fair for a vampire to have a rather biting personality.”

  She gave that the breath of a laugh it deserved. Her hands moved busily in her lap, knotting a length of white yarn. Once, twice… seven times. She set it aside and began knotting another. Her movements, I noticed, were stronger and bolder than most of the other orphans’, and though she still had their predator’s grace, she had not once tried to touch me, or looked at me with hungry awe. Perhaps she had had longer to get used to this lifestyle?

  “So,” I said at last, “if you weren’t enjoying Jewel’s provoke-the-Lumi game, what was your hidden agenda?”

  “Ah, that. At the risk of sounding like the father of a bride, I wanted to warn you that if you break Damon’s heart — agai
n — I’ll break your legs. And arms. And anything else I can get my hands on.”

  Seven times, no doubt. “I take it you and he are… close?” Down, green-eyed monster!

  “Not—” she chuckled “ — not that way. Not with Damon. He is a long way from my type, I assure you. Damon is more like a little brother. He and Westley are blood brothers, you know,” she added, looking amused.

  “Blood brothers? Is that a Shadow thing?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just the good old cowboys-and-Indians thing. Come to think of it, there are instances in Shadow mythology… but I’m pretty sure they got the idea from a spaghetti Western.” The pace of her knotting slowed. “I found Westley by accident, drunk in a confessional booth. First anniversary of his Lumi’s death… He needed me. That was… I needed that. And when Damon came looking for him a couple years later, well, I wasn’t too interested in having him around. Shadows get jealous, you know. With Westley I was half of a pair again, and we didn’t need anyone else.”

  “So what changed your mind?”

  “Damon saved my life. After I had been as awful to him as I could be, done everything I could to chase him off and deprive him of his only friend, he saved my life. Very nearly cost him his own, I might add. Some Formyndari had ganged up against us, things had gotten pretty hairy… He stepped between me and a blade that would have sent me on to glory. When I asked him why he did it, he just shrugged and said we were family. So from then on, at least, we were.” She finished another string of knots. “I thought I was the leader of our trio for a while, but Damon can’t help attracting followers. One day I realized I was one of them. An unexpected relief, that. Shadows aren’t designed to lead, for the most part. All that responsibility… He can have it. But, as he’s better at looking after others than himself, I still have a desire to look out for his welfare.” She cut a glance at me. “I think this whole second-Lumi idea is sick and wrong. And since I’m already of the opinion that my little brother is better off without you, it wouldn’t disturb my sleep one bit if something awful happened to you.”

  “Understood,” I said, and tried not to gulp.

  “Good,” she said. She gave me a sharp-toothed smile as she turned to walk away.

  I was still thinking about all those teeth when I heard Damon’s voice behind me.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, too quickly. “Just thinking.”

  “A dangerous pastime.”

  “I know.” We exchanged strangely comfortable grins, and he sat down beside me. I felt so much better with him here, an edgy restlessness that I hadn’t been fully aware of fading away. What’s wrong with you? You’re supposed to wear the pants in this relationship, remember?

  Speaking of which. “I’m told you knit. Badly.”

  He groaned. “Kill them. I will kill them all.” He went abruptly silent, his gaze on the bandaged knee poking out from under my skirt. “What happened?”

  “Skinned my knee, that’s all.” I pulled the skirt down over it. “Caused an awkward moment for poor Darling, nothing worse. Umm… just so I don’t stick my foot in anything… are she and Dove, um… together?”

  “Not in the way you mean, no. It doesn’t work that way for Shadows. They’re drawn to their opposite — submissive to dominant, Tenebri to human — male to female. But we do have a deep need to be half of a pair, and Dove and Darling have found that with each other. So in a sense you might as well consider them together.”

  Galatea, too, had mentioned that half-of-a-whole issue. Even in my own thoroughly human life, I had noticed how nice it was having Carmen around, even when she was irritating. To be in some sense a “we” and not merely an “I.”

  But Damon had no roommate, no hunting partner. In a house full of pairs, he slept on the couch.

  “How’d it go with your parents?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “They’re worried. Dad tends to bluster when he’s worried, while Mother gets very quiet, so it was kind of a one-sided conversation. They both send their regards to you, by the way. Said to call them if you need anything.”

  “Regards. That sounds like your mom, all right.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Does she intimidate you?”

  “I think she could intimidate Queen Elizabeth. Not that she’s mean or anything. That’s the worst part. She’s so totally perfectly nice.”

  “My mother chooses to live in a world where appearances and proprieties are important. I’m still not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing.”

  “It doesn’t have to be good or bad, does it? I like bunnies, she likes caviar. Whatever moves your furniture.” I paused. “Although I imagine we like bunnies and caviar for very different reasons…”

  “I was just trying to suppress the image of you chowing down on your stuffed rabbit,” Damon admitted.

  “Or your mother snuggling fish eggs.”

  He snorted, and the happy sparkles lit up in my chest again.

  “I think everything’s under control here, if you want to head on home,” Damon said.

  Home. Where me and Damon would be alone. Together. “Sure,” I said faintly.

  A floodlight behind the house draped much of the yard in deep shadow; we stepped into the darkness, and flattened together.

  In the bare second it took us to rematerialize inside the apartment, my spine got to experience a white bolt of terror that Carmen might be home. It was Sunday night, after all, and she had class in the morning. But the apartment was as dim and silent as I had left it, the card table still in the middle of the living room, dyed eggs in the carton — apparently Paris had cleaned up the dye cups, at least, bless his heart. No sign of Carmen’s presence, and she wasn’t generally subtle.

  Damon stumbled just a bit as he stepped back from me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m just tired. You might say I’ve had a big day.” He rubbed his face, looking thoughtful. “I actually feel like I could sleep. That’s unusual. Orphans are funny, we always seem to be tired, and yet sleeping is so hard…”

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s only nine o’clock, but I could use some shut-eye myself. I guess we could go on to bed.”

  The word ‘bed’ seemed to hang shimmering in the air for a moment.

  “I’m, um, I’m accustomed to the couch,” I said. You are forbidden to blush. Forbidden. “So you can have the, um, you can sleep in the other room.”

  “Don’t be silly. Pregnant girl gets the bed. No arguments.” He began spreading a blanket across the couch.

  “But, um… well… Don’t you need pajamas or something?”

  “I’ll be fine.” He folded his jacket over the back of a chair and kicked off his shoes.

  “Do Shadows brush their teeth?”

  He chuckled. “We don’t get tooth decay.”

  “Do you get bad breath?”

  He gave me a tilted smile. “I have mints somewhere. But I’ll brush my teeth in the morning if it means that much to you.” He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed my forehead. “Go on to bed.” He pushed me gently toward the bedroom doorway. Too stunned to argue, I drifted through it, and closed the door behind me.

  DAMON

  I could not sleep. For a while it was enough to be drowsy, to enjoy feeling soft and limp and vague. But as minutes stacked up into hours, the separation from Naomi grew from a niggling unease into a crawling, clawing, clenching terror. I knew she was sound asleep and perfectly fine, on the other side of two hollow inches of composite-board and plaster. I knew that. But deep down I didn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it until I saw it for myself.

  I would not do it. I would not open that door.

  I turned onto my stomach, dug my fingers into the couch cushions, and clung to my shredding drowsiness. Sleep. Sleep already.

  When I did, I dreamed of Naomi falling, falling, with great blades of broken glass waiting to catch her, and I could have saved her if only my arms would move.

  I bolted straight from the couch
into the bedroom, and laid a hand against her neck to feel for a pulse.

  “Nngh? What?”

  I snatched my hand back. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

  She blinked and squinted in the darkness; my Shadow eyes had the advantage there. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  I dredged up a self-deprecating laugh. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Oh, no.” She reached out a blind hand, found my arm. “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Come on.” She tugged my arm. “Come lay down.”

  “No, I — I don’t think—”

  “Your virtue is in no danger from me, I promise. Come on.”

  I swallowed. Carmen had a big four-poster bed; we could probably both sleep in it without touching each other. I walked to the other side and lay down atop the covers.

  Naomi turned onto her side, as elegantly as her passenger would allow, and burrowed into my chest.

  “My brother always used to come to my room when he had a nightmare,” she said sleepily. “Too old for it, but what was I supposed to do, send him away?”

  “No,” I murmured, “I can’t imagine you sending him away.” Every breath brought her scent, something clean and sweet, vanilla and sunflowers. I put my arms around her, and realized I’d stopped shaking.

  “Wow, you’re comfy,” Naomi murmured, and yawned. “Are we married?”

  “What?”

  “Well, Shadows and Lumii have — have kids and all. Is befasted the same as married?”

  “Depends on who you ask.” I could feel myself channeling my father’s professorial manner, soothing in its distant formality. “The Chinese consider it valid, but lesser, like a concubine, while the French call it higher and holier than marriage. The U.S. mostly follows the Vatican’s acceptance — yes, the Vatican knows — of a befasting as a valid moral marriage, without precluding the possibility of a legal marriage to someone else. Thus resulting in some of the more screwed-up Shadow-Lumi relationships of my acquaintance.”

  It would not be wise or in any way beneficial to point out, just in case she had missed it, the clear indication that anything we chose to do tonight, right now, in this bed, would be just fine in the eyes of God. This was something that didn’t matter.