Secondhand Shadow

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  “I’d like to say a prayer, if you don’t mind,” Naomi said hesitantly, glancing around. When no one replied, she bowed her head, clasping her hands together like a little girl. Jonathan followed suit, and after some hesitation, so did I.

  “Father in Heaven, we come before you today with grief for our lost friend. He gave his life trying to make right the bad things he did. He saved my life, my baby’s, my brother’s, and Damon’s, possibly Paris and Darling’s as well. We pray that you may forgive him his sins, and grant him the peace he sought for so long. He tried his best to be a true friend and brother to us all.” She took a deep breath. “Please, Father, help those who loved him to find comfort in our grief. Amen.”

  I could hear at least one person — Darling? — sobbing quietly. A hot weight of tears waited behind my own eyelids; I did not open them.

  Have mercy upon us, O Lord, for we are weak. Mercy for Westley, mercy even for poor crazy Jewel, if you can manage it. Mercy for me, guilty of the same sin as they, and with less excuse. I couldn’t hold the tears forever; one escaped the corner of my eye. I felt Naomi’s hand curl into the crook of my arm, concerned, patient, her touch almost more than my composure could bear. Eyes still closed, I pulled her into my arms, breathed deeply of vanilla and sunflowers — squeezing too hard, but she didn’t pull away. I knew she never would.

  NAOMI

  Tyler met his son for the first time in the Orphanage kitchen. He stared at him in open-mouthed silence for so long that I began to fear we’d broken him. Maybe it was mean to ambush him with the baby — all I’d told him was that we needed to talk — but it hadn’t seemed like the kind of news you could break over the phone.

  “This is Charlie,” I said gently, and when he glanced questioningly at Damon, added, “Yes, he’s definitely yours.”

  Damon, who had let Tyler in, now brushed past him to stand beside me, sliding an arm around my waist. Cued by the near-subliminal tremor in his skin, I leaned closer to him and hoped he wasn’t glaring too blackly at poor Ty.

  Keeping Damon calm was a nice distraction from my own shakiness. It was a little unreal being in the same room as Tyler Price again. He looked exactly the same — freckles and cowlicked sandy hair, big awkward hands shoved in his pockets, I even recognized the shirt he was wearing. One of his best; he’d dressed up.

  This boy had been the center of my world for so long, the sight of him couldn’t help triggering a thousand memories — laughter and warm skin, tears and shattering glass, lazy mornings and grocery shopping and popcorn and plans for a dream house we would never have. And, of course, the image of him sucking face with another woman.

  But that didn’t hurt so much anymore. I was far enough away from it now to see what a fevered headlong Bad Idea the two of us had been from the start, a cute little crush that got out of control. Plus, and maybe this was shallow, but it felt really good to be able to face Tyler with a hunk of man-candy like Damon at my back.

  “This is my fiancé, Damon DiNovi,” I said belatedly. “He’ll be helping raise Charlie, so you two will need to get along.”

  Tyler blinked at ‘fiancé,’ as well he might, since we’d been divorced less than a year. I was starting to get used to that reaction. “Nice to meet you, Damon,” he murmured, with a valiant attempt at his usual aw-shucks courtesy, barely glancing away from the baby.

  Charlie squirmed in my arms, brow puckering in one of the exaggerated baby-expressions I found endlessly hilarious. He’d finally left the hospital only three days past his original due date, no more the frail birdling but a full-blown fuzzy-headed Human, Junior Version, with little rolls of baby-fat in his knees and elbows. He was wrapped now in the sea-green blanket the orphans had knitted him; he had about a dozen other colors to choose from.

  “Can I hold him?” Tyler asked.

  “Of course.” I handed him carefully into Tyler’s stiff, uncertain arms, and couldn’t help hovering as Charlie squirmed fretfully in the unfamiliar embrace. Tyler’s expression melted with wonder as he bounced the baby gently in his arms.

  “Hey there, Charlie,” he murmured, eyes growing wet, and I tried to blink away tears of my own because yes, isn’t he awesome, isn’t he the best baby ever, me and you might have been a mistake but it had really good results!

  Tyler was still just standing in the doorway, so I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and hovered some more while he carefully sat down.

  “So, like, you live here now?” Tyler looked around the kitchen with its usual stunning array of cookies, fancy breads, fruit bowls, and whatever else might soothe a hungry orphan.

  “Yeah, us and a small horde of roommates. It’s kind of a zoo, but it’s rent-free and there’s a half-dozen doting babysitters on hand at any given moment. Not right now, we asked everyone to vamoose for the occasion.”

  We’d lost two of the aforementioned baby-sitters only days before, Dove and Darling moving out as Charlie moved in; apparently Dove’s Lumi was happy enough to get her back that he didn’t mind if she brought a roommate, a pony or the Spanish Inquisition. I wasn’t sure what kind of relationship a breached Shadow and her former Lumi could have or even wanted, but I wished them the best with it. They were under strict orders to visit a lot. It wasn’t like transportation would be a problem.

  I kept waiting for Tyler to ask why he was only now finding out about his son, but he seemed too overwhelmed by Charlie’s existence to question it. He’d have plenty of questions in a little while, I was sure — we had a lot to work out concerning Tyler’s various contributions to Charlie’s upbringing. But all that could wait a bit.

  I could feel, now, the first traces of Tyler shifting in my mind from Traitorous Ex, Harbinger of Tumultuous Emotions, to Old Friend, Charlie’s Father. Even Damon was relaxing, the tiniest bit, watching Tyler’s blooming love for his son — or perhaps more importantly, his complete shift of interest from me to Charlie.

  Charlie began to whine, working himself up to a squall, and Damon leaned over Tyler’s shoulder to stroke his face. “Calm down, little man, you’re fine,” he said indulgently, and when Charlie perked up at the sound of Damon’s voice, Damon looked so ridiculously, adorably happy that I thought I might cry. “Here, rock him like this, he likes that,” Damon said, and Tyler did as directed, clumsy at first but getting the hang of it.

  We could do this, I realized, and finally lost the battle against tearing up. We could all be friends for Charlie’s sake. Maybe even a family.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Black and White

  NAOMI

  For the most part, we went traditional with the befasting arrangements — red ribbons and ankle-length kimono-esque gowns, shindig hosted by Damon’s parents, flowers and food and all that jazz. Our situation had raised enough eyebrows; we didn’t want to give more excuses for people to consider us “not really befasted.” But we really had to tweak the vows a little. The ones I’d heard at Damon’s cousin’s befasting were just not going to do for us.

  So when everyone gathered on the lawn for the Big Event, after the requisite dinner-and-mingling, there was quite the ripple of surprise as Damon, not his father, spoke the First Vow. Or our version of the First Vow.

  “I surrender to you my hand, Naomi Winters, daughter of Eve, in the expectation of my care and keeping, and ask the same in return.”

  I had been a nervous wreck all day, eating everything in sight and avoiding eye contact with Damon, lest he make it worse by asking if I was all right. Now my eyes were drawn upward by the sound of his voice — breathless yet overwhelmingly firm.

  He kept a light hold of my hands, an anchor against the distracting sea of observers, and the burning green of his eyes, now that I dared look at them, chased every tremor of nerves away with steadying heat.

  “I accept your hand, Shadow Damon,” I said, clear and steady, “and do vow your care and keeping, surrendering the same in return.”

  We knelt on the circle of white cloth spread on the grass, and now it was time for
Frank to do his thing; he pulled out the double-edged knife. I’d had to spend a half hour hanging out with it last night, fully resigning myself to the idea of getting cut, so I wouldn’t freak out when the moment came. I could still feel my heartrate jump, and Damon squeezed my fingers; I gave him a tiny eyeroll, a silent yes, I’m silly, and no, I’m not going to run away.

  “Synhaema,” Frank declared, blood together, holding the knife up for the audience.

  “Synzoe,” I replied, life together, and watched my hand lift itself, offering my wrist to the knife.

  I’d had papercuts hurt worse. Well, okay, I’d had papercuts that hurt worse than childbirth, but this was seriously the wimpiest cut ever, just like everyone had promised, and already Damon was holding up his wrist for “Synthana,” death together.

  When I had watched this before, it had been wrenching and lonely, with mine the only empty hands in the room. Now I had Damon’s fingers interlaced with mine on one side, and Frank pressing our bleeding wrists together on the other, and I thought I might bubble over with a sweet, sunshiney kind of happiness that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Frank tied our wrists together, and Damon pulled me to my feet and then into his arms, a tight hug with his face buried in my neck; I could tell he was fighting tears. I hugged him back just as fiercely, pressing a kiss into his hair, while our blood buzzed together — not establishing our link, in this case, but certainly emphasizing it, a dizzying shadow of the world-changing experience of three months ago.

  Over Damon’s shoulder I could see our cheering guests, and some of them were DiNovi friends and family that I didn’t know beans about, but there were an awful lot, I realized, that were so dear to me now, it was weird to think I hadn’t known they existed a semester ago.

  Helen, grinning broadly and holding up Charlie to wave his little hand at us.

  Paris kissing Carmen’s hand while she blushed and batted him away; they’d had their very small and quiet befasting months ago, with Damon as Father of the Shadow and me as the only human guest.

  Audrey and Adonis keeping to a back wall, strained and aching but making the effort to be here, clasping each other’s hands with white knuckles. I prayed God would grant them better luck than our last Shadow-Shadow couple.

  Even Galatea, standing awkwardly with Jonathan, two halves of what I feared was becoming the weirdest love triangle ever — but that was a worry for another time.

  “You ready to go?” Damon asked, stepping back just far enough to look at me.

  “So ready,” I said, and a bevy of guests stepped forward, holding the heavily-embroidered circle of red cloth, passed down through Helen’s family, that would provide the shadow for Damon to take us away.

  I threw my arms around his shoulders, as the cloth fell around us, and pressed our lips together. A month’s wheedling had failed to draw our honeymoon’s location from him; I didn’t know where we were going.

  But I couldn’t wait to get there.

  EPILOGUE

  NAOMI

  The first thing I saw waking up was my befasting gown, puddled on the floor across the room amid a scattering of red ribbons, at least one torn off with teeth. I had to bury my face in the pillow for a bit, giggling and kicking a bit in pure joy that this was my life.

  Damon wasn’t in the bed, which was disappointing, but my Compass tugged toward the kitchen, where I could hear pots clanging and water running. In the absence of morning cuddles, breakfast was acceptable. But I saw no reason we couldn’t combine the two.

  I fought my way free of the tangled mess we’d made of the bedcovers and discovered the cold, cruel stone floors of the cabin Frank’s friend had lent us. Outside the window, endless marches of pine reflected in the lake, and Rocky Mountain peaks peered down at us from all sides. I waved at them and pulled the befasting gown over my head.

  The gown was white, I realized belatedly, making it Damon’s, not mine. My brain kept wanting to put the Shadow in the black gown, Lumi in the white, but the colors were reversed for befasting. “As a symbol of mutual ownership, you might say,” Frank had explained. “Like a knight wearing his lady’s colors. It’s traditional in some areas to emerge from your chamber in the morning having switched gowns. Possibly to provoke snickers and bawdy jokes.”

  With a snicker of my own, I fastened the gown and padded toward the kitchen.

  Damon looked up from scraping a wet, carbon-black mess out of a pan into the trash can, his face falling.

  “I didn’t mean to be away when you woke, I’m sorry—”

  “No, no, this is much more entertaining.” I leaned against the doorjamb, biting my lip through a smile as he continued scraping the pan. Wearing nothing but my befasting gown. Tied around his waist. “What were you trying to cook?”

  “Omelettes. The next ones will be good, I can do this, I just got… distracted.”

  “Really? By what?”

  Damon set the pan aside and slid his hands onto my hips, grinning wickedly. “Oh, you know. Just… lost in thought.” He kissed me, once, twice, coming up breathless from the third to say, “That’s a really good color on you.”

  “Mmm. Back atcha. C’mere.” I pulled his head down to whisper in his ear. “I see a bag of marshmallows. If you can find chocolate bars and graham crackers, I have a better idea for breakfast.”

  We ended up sitting in front of the bedroom fireplace, Damon’s body bracketing mine while I leaned back against his chest.

  “I already got a text from my mother. Charlie’s doing fine. Tyler’s coming by for a playdate this evening. We are not to check in again until lunchtime at least.”

  I pouted.

  “Your marshmallow’s smoking,” he added.

  “Silly marshmallow, don’t you know smoking is bad for you?” I shook the stick — we’d found long roasting sticks in a closet; whoever lived here knew how to party — until the marshmallow went out, then started wrestling it onto a graham cracker.

  By the time my s’more was ready, I realized Damon had gotten way too quiet — quiet and very tactile, the way he did when he was thinking about Westley.

  The smoking comment, probably. Jonathan did a lot of chewing on pen caps these days, trying to resist the nicotine urge he’d inherited from Westley. I’d overheard him and Damon talking about it, the night before the befasting. Among more serious things.

  “I remember killing people,” Jonathan had said. “How am I supposed to deal with that?”

  “He saved people, too,” Damon answered. “He saved you. And he knew what he was doing, what he was giving you… he still didn’t hesitate. Even if he saw you get hit in the head, he had to know there was a good chance you’d blow the whistle on him as soon as you woke.”

  “I think he wanted that, in a way,” Jonathan said. “Wanted it to be over and not his fault… Almost disappointed that the memories were scrambled and he still had hope, had to keep trying…” He shuddered. “Jewel really did a number on him.”

  “I know.”

  “But he wouldn’t let her touch you. You were off-limits,” Jonathan said. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Emily and Jewel were all tangled together in his head. And he still chose you over her.”

  “I hadn’t… quite thought of it that way.”

  “You should.”

  Well, melancholy thoughts were not welcome on my honeymoon. I stuck another marshmallow in the fire, stick clenched between my knees, then turned in Damon’s arms to poke the s’more against his lips until he quirked them upward and opened up to receive it.

  “Can I confess something? It is such a relief to have the befasting over with,” I said. “Planning it was so much more complicated than I expected. Where, when, clothes, food, flowers, guest list… I don’t even want to think about the wedding.”

  He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and I leaned into the touch. “If it was stressing you out, we didn’t have to do it.”

  “No, I wanted to. I really did. Maybe we shouldn’t have had it be such a bi
g to-do but… it’s like your dad said. No one wants their baby to have a shabby befasting.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Baby?”

  I grinned. “Sweetheart? Sugar? Honey? Darling?”

  “‘Damon’ will do fine, thank you.”

  “Whatever you say, snookums.” I leaned in and kissed his nose.

  He growled and kissed me back. Not on the nose.

  “Mmmfgh! Flaming marshmallow!” I said, and pulled away to blow out the charred lump. “Here, get that into a s’more. There’s something I want to show you.” I handed him the roaster with the marshmallow and crossed the room to our suitcases.

  After several minutes of rifling around, I found the thing I’d wanted, and turned around to find Damon frowning fiercely at the obstinate marshmallow — now strung between the stick, a graham cracker, and both his hands. The fire buttered his skin and hair with warm light that I ached to touch all over. Again. Cheeks heating, I looked down at the thick sheaf of paper in my hand. You can make it long enough to show him this.

  Maybe.

  I cleared my throat and joined him at the fireplace, gratified when his gaze locked heatedly on my movements from under his lashes. “I’m going to have to repeat your dad’s class, of course, along with almost everything else. But I wanted to finish the paper anyway.” I held it out. He didn’t take it, as his hands were strung with sticky goo, but he peered closely at it, eyes scanning the title.

  “ ‘Last But Not Least,’” he read aloud. “Second Chances at Love in Rebecca and Sense & Sensibility.”

  “Marianne Dashwood and Maxim DeWinter,” I explained. “Both picked real losers the first time, but were lucky enough to get another shot.”