Shadow Days

by Andrea Cremer

  I peered over Sam’s shoulder. “fine. But how am I supposed to even use these? You made up the password. I don’t know it.”

  Ally grinned. “Sure you do.”

  She waited a beat, watching me.

  I began to laugh. “Nutclubber.”

  “What else?” She hugged me, and I made a mental note to change it as soon as I had a minute alone. I didn’t want to imagine all the things Mike and Sam would post if I left the sites open to them.

  Ally’s phone buzzed. She looked at it and began texting with the speed and precision of a cyborg.

  “Your first send-off is at Lisbeth’s house tonight,” she said.

  “My first send-off?” I asked.

  “Sure.” She smiled at me. “You have two nights left in Portland, right?”

  God, I’d miss this place.

  10

  two

  F

  After two nigHts of going-AwAy parties I was

  not of a mind, body, or spirit to climb into a car with a driver who looked like at any moment his muscles were going to rip right through his dark suit. Why my uncle’s drivers always looked like they could double as pro wrestlers never failed to perplex me. I tried to stay hidden behind my sunglasses as I was driven to a private airstrip and herded to my uncle’s Gulfstream G650.

  Like with the moving argument, I’d learned that trying to convince Bosque I’d be happier flying on a commercial airline like normal people rather than taking these trips featuring only me, the pilot, and a flight attendant was completely pointless. As usual the latter member of that party looked twenty-something with piles of midnight curls rolling over her shoulders and enough buttons on her blouse undone to leave more than a teasing glimpse of her abundant cleavage. I knew that would be a bonus for any normal warm-blooded teenage male or something, but considering it was my uncle’s plane, I was slightly creeped out. After my second going-away party, I was more in a state to cuddle with a toilet than a hot girl, so it only left me more pissed off.

  The trip from Portland to Vail was mercifully short. And with the flight attendant serving me ginger ale after ginger ale, I almost felt normal by the time I exited the plane. I stopped in surprise, not at 12

  the sight of another hulking driver waiting for me, but because my uncle stood next to him. I knew he said he’d be there when we spoke on the phone, but part of me didn’t believe it would actually happen.

  Never in all the moves I’d made, and those numbered more than I cared to count, had Bosque been around to welcome me to my new

  “home”—this was like the director of the fBI showing up to usher an informant into witness protection.

  He lifted his hand in greeting as I approached, a brief smile touching his lips. “Seamus.”

  “Hey, Uncle Bosque,” I said. I’d never been able to get a fix on Bosque’s age. His attitude led me to believe he was my mother’s older brother, but his hair was impossibly free of gray. Considering he made a zillion dollars or something every year, he could afford a decent haircut, but instead his dark hair was slicked backed so it clung to his scalp tighter than a helmet. He didn’t quite manage up-to-date fashion either. His suits looked like they’d been tailored in the 1920s, though they were obviously brand new.

  He patted my shoulder. Bosque wasn’t big on hugs, and that was okay by me. The driver opened the door to the car, and Bosque gestured for me to get in. He slid into the seat beside me. The car rolled away from the plane and onto the airport’s service road. My instinct was to peer out the tinted windows so I could gaze at the mountains, but I figured if Bosque was here, he wanted to talk to me.

  “I trust you’re well,” he said.

  “Well enough.” My headache was gone. But I’d been planning on using the rest of the day for a nap. I hoped my uncle didn’t have big plans for us.

  Bosque slid his dark suit jacket off his shoulders, folding it in his lap. “I thought it best that I join you here for a few days. It’s only proper, given that this house holds so much of the family legacy within its walls.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t following his line of thought.

  13

  “I also need to make a few visits to the school,” he said. “Their admissions process is more rigorous than that of any institution you’ve attended. There will be a slight delay before you can begin classes.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Is there a problem?” It couldn’t be my grades, because those were always good. Besides, even if I’d been an academic disaster, Bosque was the sort of man who snapped his fingers and changed the world. I couldn’t imagine what the holdup could be.

  Bosque shook his head. “Simply administrative obstacles that you’ve no need to concern yourself with. I’m sure you can find ways to distract yourself until the matter is settled.”

  “How long?” I asked. Having my summer vacation extended wasn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, school was the only place I was likely to meet people.

  “A few weeks,” Bosque said.

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. I’d been ready to argue that I should have just stayed in Portland, finishing my senior year there like I’d wanted to. But arguing with my uncle never got me anywhere.

  “I guess I’ll hit the trails, get some good hikes in,” I said, slump-ing down in the seat.

  “That’s the spirit.” His phone buzzed and I looked away as my uncle fell into quiet conversation with whomever had called.

  My gaze wandered to the window, finding snow-covered peaks and mountain slopes painted in greens that ranged from jade to ebony. Portland had been a great place to live because I’d spent so much time outdoors. Adventurous, sure, but it was also soft. The air had been perpetually damp in Oregon, giving the rivers and forests a mellow quality. Colorado felt wild. The air that slipped in when I cracked the window was dry, sharp, and biting. I shivered reflexively.

  “Stunning, isn’t it?” Bosque was looking at me.

  14

  “Yeah,” I said. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a text from Ally.

  Are you there yet? Why haven’t you updated your status?

  I sighed, punching in a response. Landed, not home yet. Uncle’s here.

  Really???

  Affirmative. Gotta go.

  “friends missing you already?” Bosque asked.

  “Yep.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket, trying to ignore the knot in my gut. Trying to pretend I didn’t wish I was back in Portland.

  “You’ll make new friends,” he said. “I assure you. You’ll be well taken care of.”

  “By the school that won’t let me in?” I asked.

  Bosque gave me a measured look, not blinking until I said,

  “Sorry.”

  We spent the rest of the trip in silence. My headache had revived itself and Uncle Bosque was reading The Economist. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, an hour maybe, in which I’d nodded off, when he cleared his throat.

  I rubbed the grogginess out of my eyes. When my vision cleared, I didn’t have the sense to catch myself before I swore, starting at the behemoth that stood outside my window.

  My uncle laughed. “It is impressive, is it not?”

  Impressive wasn’t the word I would have picked. It was enormous.

  The car had stopped at the end of a long drive lined with expertly manicured trees. The house, if you could call it that, had four stories.

  The first three were lined with immense, mullioned windows while sharp eaves of the fourth cloaked what I guessed were the attic’s rooms.

  In a place this big is it still called an attic?

  In the crooks and shadows lining the top of the mansion were 15

  dozens of stone creatures. Some innocuous: deer, owls, and horses; others, sinister beasts that inhabited only myth. Twisting winged serpents, gargoyles, and chimeras leered at me as I climbed out of the car. The stone exterior was a somber gray and its facade looked out of place against the backdrop of mountains. A house like this
belonged amid lonely English moors.

  I’m moving into evil Hogwarts, I texted Ally.

  She answered a few seconds later. Nice. Too bad you’re a Muggle.

  Obviously she’d found that funny, but I was still freaked out by the place. It wasn’t just the way the mansion looked. With each step I took toward the front doors, my skin crawled. It was a warm Sep-tember day, but I couldn’t help shuddering.

  Uncle Bosque appeared entirely at ease as he took long strides to the doors. They swung open as if in welcome.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” a tall, thin man greeted him. “Everything is in order, per your instructions.”

  “Excellent,” Bosque said. My uncle beckoned me toward the open doors. My feet had rooted themselves to the ground, making each step I took cumbersome. I was even more uncomfortable when the thin man bowed as I walked past him into the house.

  Waiting in the front entryway were a dozen or so more people, men and women all dressed in crisp black and white uniforms, heads bowed in respect. I wanted to scream and jump around them like a maniac just to see if they’d keep up the deference act or clobber me like any sensible person would. As unnerving as the silent staff was, the entryway itself was even more intimidating. The room was broad and round. A chandelier hung suspended in the air above us, the darkness of the wrought iron offset by the sparkle of crystal. On the wall opposite the front doors two staircases rose to meet the balcony ringing the second floor.

  My contemplation was broken by the solid thud of the front doors closing.

  16

  “Shay,” my uncle said. “This is Rowan Estate’s staff. They’ve done me the courtesy of gathering to meet you. You’ll rarely see them assembled like this. I prefer they do their work out of sight.”

  I slid a critical gaze at my uncle. Did he really talk about people like this?

  None of the staff flinched. Their heads remained bowed. Not only was I moving into a small castle, apparently I had also been transported through time back to the nineteenth century.

  “Should my nephew require anything, I trust you’ll see to it.”

  Bosque spoke to the thin man. “Thomas is the head of the house staff. I’ll leave his number with you, Shay. Don’t hesitate to contact him in my absence.”

  I nodded.

  Thomas bowed deeply in my direction. “It will be a pleasure to serve you, Master Shay.”

  A strangling sound bubbled forth from my throat.

  “Perhaps dropping the formalities with my nephew would be best,” Bosque said, smiling. “These young people have different sen-sibilities about the world.”

  “Of course, sir,” Thomas said. “Dinner will be served at seven thirty.”

  “And our guests?”

  “They are expected at seven, sir.”

  “Very good.” Bosque put his hand on my shoulder, steering toward the staircase on the right side of the circular foyer. “Let me show you your room. Your things will be sent up shortly, if they haven’t already arrived.”

  “Guests?” I asked as we climbed the staircase.

  “Two dear friends are joining us for dinner,” my uncle said. “A close business associate of mine and his son, who will be one of your classmates. I’m sure you’ll become fast friends.”

  Great. Uncle Bosque was making playdates for me.

  17

  My eyes wandered to tall double doors at the center of the balcony, but Bosque led me away from them toward a long hallway.

  I pulled back, pointing at the closed doors. “What’s in there?”

  His eyes shifted onto me, then away. “The library.”

  “There’s a library?” Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  “I’m afraid the library is one place I’ll ask you to stay away from,”

  he said.

  I started to protest, but Bosque shook his head. “It’s not a tradi-tional library, Shay. It houses valuable books. Collector’s items and personal records. I have to ensure its contents remain in pristine condition. Only a trained archivist can use its collections.”

  “Can’t I at least see it?” I asked.

  “You have plenty of books, Seamus,” he said. “Any you need you can order and have them sent here. There’s nothing of interest to you in my library. Please respect my privacy.”

  His words had a note of finality that quelled my instinct to push the issue further, but it was like a bur under my skin. Bosque knew I’m a reader, and he knew I liked old stuff. Antiquity rated as interesting bordering on cool in my book. Plus, I hated the way he was treating me—like a kid who might mess up his fancy house. I was a senior, not a preschooler.

  Anger had stoked up in my gut enough that I was about to argue with him again when the art lining the hall he strode down caught my eye. The burning outrage in my stomach went ice cold, quickly becoming nausea. I tripped over my own feet and stopped to stare at one of the dozens of floor-to-ceiling paintings. A naked man, almost life size, was bent backward in the portrait. Shadows swirled around him, snaking along his pale skin as if they were alive . . . and slowly twisting him apart. Though no physical implements of torture were present in the painting, the man’s torment was clear. I forced my eyes off the picture and turned around to examine the painting on the opposite wall. This portrait held a woman, her clothing no more than 18

  rags dangling from her body. She was on her knees, head bowed in defeat. Gashes covered her shoulders, stomach, and calves. Crimson pooled beneath her, darkening until it bled into the swirling void that filled the rest of the canvas.

  “Are you coming, Shay?” Bosque had reached the end of the hall and was turning a corner.

  I nodded, worried I’d gag if I tried to speak. What the hell kind of art is this?

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that art was full of violence. I was pretty sure I’d seen a hundred depictions of the martyring of Saint Sebastian alone in museums throughout Europe. But something about these paintings made me sick. They weren’t tragic at all—they failed to evoke the grief of death, loss, and sacrifice that martyr portraits aimed for. The paintings that filled this mansion seemed to depict torment with a life of its own and torture that was still occurring. Why would my uncle want to collect images like that? Why would anyone?

  I didn’t want to give it too much thought and decided I’d just look straight ahead when I walked down this hall. My eyes flicked over a marble statue at the corner where my uncle had turned. Its beautiful, gleaming shape resembled the work of classic masters of sculpture. The man looked like any rendition of Greek or Roman heroes of myth with one exception. He had wings. Not pleasant, silky-feathered angel wings. The long, folded appendages sprouting from the sculpture’s shoulders looked like they’d been stolen from a giant bat, or possibly a small dragon.

  “Weird,” I muttered under my breath as I passed it, liking it better than the paintings but not that much better. “Too weird.”

  I found Uncle Bosque waiting for me at the end of another hall.

  He opened the last door on the left.

  “Your abode.”

  I stepped into the room and was kind of relieved that unlike the 19

  rest of the house, it wasn’t as big as an airplane hangar. The bedroom had dark wood accents and a lot more of a bed than I’d had in a while, but otherwise it felt like a place I could make my own. My trunk was already sitting at the foot of the bed, and several shipping boxes were stacked near the closet. A brown-wrapped package rested amid the bed linens.

  “This is great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “The bathroom is two doors down across the hallway,” Bosque said. “The cleaning staff is here every Tuesday. If you set out your laundry, they’ll wash and press your things for you. They will also keep your room and the bathroom in pristine condition.”

  “Uh . . . can they not do that?” I asked, shoving my hands in my jeans’ pockets.

  “Excuse me?” He eyed me curiously.

  “The bathroom is fine,” I said. “Yes, pristine. All
good there. But my room is my room. I’d rather not have strangers scouring every inch of it on a weekly basis. I’ll keep it clean. I swear.”

  He laughed. “If you’re worried about their discretion, you needn’t be. I’m certain they would understand if you have gentlemen’s literature among your other books.”

  I coughed, feeling a blush scramble up my neck and into my face.

  I didn’t know what was worse, that my uncle had just referred to porn as “gentlemen’s literature” or that he assumed I had some.

  “That’s not it. Seriously.” I didn’t look at him while I spoke. “I haven’t ever had a personal cleaning staff. I don’t need one now.

  What I need to know is that I have some real privacy in this mega-mansion.”

  Bosque smiled, his gaze telling me that he didn’t believe I was anything other than a teenage porn hoarder, which made me even more uneasy about the wacko paintings in the hall and what kind of

  “gentlemen’s literature” he might have stashed in that library.

  Yuck.

  20

  “As you wish. I’ll instruct your staff to treat your bedroom as sacrosanct.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Bosque.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “Is this house usually empty? I mean am I the only one living here? Because it’s pretty huge.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said. “The art collection is rare, and I do allow the local historical society to schedule tours when I’m not in residence.

  I’m sure they’ll be disappointed that the premises are being returned to private occupancy only.”

  “History, huh?” I said. “When was it built? I didn’t think they had places like this out west.”

  “One of the reasons the tours were in demand,” Bosque said. “In terms of architecture it’s one of a kind. Built in the late nineteenth century by one of our ancestors who did quite well in the Colorado gold rush.”

  “Pikes Peak or bust?” I ask. “That one?”

  “Glad you to hear you’ve taken in some history at those schools I’ve sent you to,” he said, stepping toward the door. “I’ll leave you to get settled. Dinner is in a few hours.”