by Raven Snow
Lady fidgeted on the sofa. She had a feeling Conners wouldn’t want to answer her next question. “So… I hate to ask the obvious here, but what is your dream about?”
“It’s just a nightmare,” Conners said dismissively, putting the peas back over his eye.
Lady had expected as much from him. “I get that. It’s about something though, right? You remember what happens in it too. You said it was a recurring nightmare.”
“It’s not important.”
Lady snorted at that. She couldn’t help it. “Oh, come on. It wouldn’t be a recurring nightmare if it wasn’t important. And now you have a spooky shadow man attached to your dream so it’s, like, doubly important.”
Conners muttered something unkind under his breath. The eye that was uncovered looked away, staring off at nothing in particular. “It’s just something that happened a long time ago,” he said finally.
“How long?” prompted Lady. “Come on. Tell me. I’m cheaper than a shrink.” When he didn’t say anything, she pressed on. “Here. I’ll go first. Sometimes I have a recurring nightmare about this one time in middle school. My foster parents at the time were real religious. They made me wear these hideous khaki skirts. Well, this one day in algebra I got called on to get up and pass out tests. Except it just so happened it was that time of the month, and—”
“I get it,” Conners interrupted.
“I got a nickname that day.”
“I don’t think I want to hear it.”
“It didn’t stick, thank goodness. I wasn’t with those particular foster parents long.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you.” Conners wasn’t much for stories about the horrors of becoming a woman, it seemed. His face had colored a little red and he still couldn’t look her in the eye. “You remember when I said I got hurt at work?”
“Ah.” That made sense. Lady nodded and collected her expression into something she hoped was open yet sympathetic. She leaned forward, placing her empty glass of water by her feet. “You didn’t tell me how you were hurt or anything.”
“It’s… a long story.” Conners said that like he was hoping Lady would lose interest.
“Hey, I’ve got time. It’s not like I’m falling asleep again any time soon.” Lady would be lucky if she ever slept again. Never mind recurring nightmares about middle school humiliation. She wouldn’t be able to get visions of that shadow man out of her head for a while.
Conners sat there in silence for several long seconds. Lady didn’t rush him. It looked like he was collecting his thoughts. Finally, he sighed and set down the bag of peas. “It was four years ago.”
“That isn’t all that long,” Lady pointed out.
“Yeah, well, it feels like a lifetime ago.” Conners rubbed the sleep from his eyes before continuing. “Anyway, I was doing all right for myself. I was moving up in the world of law enforcement. I was out at dinner with some of the guys, celebrating this case we’d just cracked open. It wasn’t anything major. Not a lot goes on in Dark Lake, you know.”
Lady couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “I beg to differ, but continue.”
“The mayor was there. We weren’t at the fanciest restaurant, but there are a limited number of decent places to eat in this town, I guess.”
Lady considered what Conners had just said. “That’s Shannon’s husband, right?”
Conners nodded. Shannon worked at the station as a receptionist. Not that she needed the job. Her family was loaded. By all accounts, she just worked there to give herself something to do. “She was there too, actually. I think their daughters were off at college at the time. Anyway, I guess he’d heard some news about the arrest. He invited us over to join him. I did since, well, I had promotion on the brain.”
“Which clearly paid off.”
Conners inclined his head with an indecisive hum. “Not quite in the way I was planning. He was kind of a jerk… Well, is a jerk, I guess. He hasn’t changed any. His steak came out wrong and he berated the server for it, demanding to talk to her manager.”
“Seriously?” Lady knew she was slowing down his story, but she couldn’t help it. “You’d think he’d be super fake-nice to people. I figured all politicians were. They have to run for re-election, right?”
“You’d think. I don’t know. He initially comes off as a nice guy. The cracks only start to show if you spend a lot of time around him, I guess. That and I figure he’s got enough important people in his pocket that it doesn’t matter come election time.”
“Ain’t that just the way?”
“Can I continue?”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, I guess the manager didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, and he decided to leave early. That’s about the time my friends decided to leave too. I would have left with them, but it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. He invited us back to his place for a drink, and I accepted. I followed them back to their place, and well, you know what it’s like. You’ve been there.”
“It’s huge,” Lady said with a nod. It was an old house that Shannon had inherited. A lot of the rooms were boarded off it was so big. It was too much for just one family.
“Yeah, well, I guess you probably remember the way you have to drive up to the house. There’s one road that goes that way, and then there’s the drive that goes into the woods.”
“Right.”
“I saw a car parked on the road a little ways before the house. I should have pulled over and checked it out, but I was following the mayor. I didn’t want to slow him down. I just made a mental note to see if it was still there on the way back.” Conners paused, gaze distant again, like he was reflecting. “We got to the house, and there was a light on in a downstairs window. Shannon started panicking. She swore up and down that she hadn’t left any lights on.”
“Her mother lived there though, right?” Shannon’s mother had only died recently. Before that she had lived in the house as well. Apparently, she had spent most of her time at the house. She was something of a shut-in. “Shannon didn’t assume maybe it was her?”
Conners shook his head. “Apparently, she was out with a family member. It wasn’t her, at any rate. I offered to go in ahead of everyone and check things out. I had my gun and my badge on me. Not that I thought I’d need to use either. Honestly, I thought Shannon was overreacting. People leave lights on all the time.”
“I take it Shannon didn’t, though,” Lady said, spurring the conversation on when Conners lapsed into silence again.
“No,” said Conners with a sigh. “Someone was robbing the place. It was his car on the road. There wasn’t a better place to park it, I guess. Looking back, I can only assume that he got past the gate and planned on only stealing things he could carry back to his car. He was an A/C repairman. He’d been working on their system a couple of weeks before this happened. I figure that’s when he cased the place. He knew where all the small valuables were. When I found him, he was in the living room shoving electronics in a duffel bag. He’d already gotten his hands on a ton of jewelry. At least, that’s what I was told after the fact. I didn’t get to search him myself.”
Lady didn’t like where this was going. She didn’t force Conners to continue. She waited patiently, idly scratching Lion between his ears.
“Everything that happened next was a blur.” Conners took the bag of peas and put it to his eye again, like he was looking for something to distract himself with while he talked. “Anyway, he had a gun. I don’t know why he pulled it. I mean… I guess that’s not true. I just… It was just a robbery. I’d never had to fire my weapon in the line of duty before, but he didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“He shot first?” Lady couldn’t imagine he hadn’t. She couldn’t picture Conners as a killer—or maybe she just didn’t want to.
Conners nodded. “The first shot missed. I shot back and, well, didn’t miss. I’m not sure if the next shot he fired was on purpose. I know he wasn’t aiming with a clear head. He got me in the leg.” Conne
rs rubbed his right thigh absently. “I fired a second time. After that I disarmed him. Not that it mattered at that point. I’m not even sure how I got over there. Adrenaline, I guess. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was much too late for that.”
Lady wasn’t sure what to say. This was heavy. “Were you okay?” she asked before realizing that was a pretty stupid question.
“A man died and I got shot in the leg, so no. Not really.”
“It wasn’t your fault, though.” Lady felt a pressing need to say that much. It was obvious Conners was deeply troubled about what had happened. Even if she didn’t know about the nightmares, she would be able to glean that much.
“I shot him.”
“Well, yeah… But, I mean, he shot at you first.”
“If I had that night to do over again, there were things I would have done differently. It took me too long to identify myself. He might not have drawn on me if he knew I was armed, knew I was a cop. He couldn’t even aim the thing. The gun was meant to be insurance. I don’t think he planned on using it. He panicked.”
“He still shot at you,” Lady reiterated.
“I know,” Conners snapped, his tone harsher than Lady would have expected. He sighed and composed himself afterward. “He was a small time nobody. It didn’t have to go down like it did.”
Lady still didn’t think that made it Conners’ fault, but he didn’t seem to want to hear that. This was obviously something he had gone over in his head many times in the past. He wasn’t going to change his mind about it any time soon. Lady decided to change the subject. “It scared your mom pretty bad, I guess.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Lady found her gaze drifting to Conners’ legs. His loose-fitting pajama bottoms covered them. There wasn’t a lot to look at. “At least it didn’t do any lasting damage. I mean, you don’t walk with a limp or anything. Obviously, I don’t know if it hurts or whatever… Don’t mean to be insensitive if it does.”
Conners laughed, genuinely laughed like she had just told a joke. Lady didn’t get it, but she was thankful that things were suddenly a little less tense. “No, it doesn’t hurt.”
“That’s good.” It still felt like there was a joke that she wasn’t in on. “What is it? What’s funny?”
Conners shook his head. “It’s nothing.” He seemed to think better of those words almost as soon as they had left his mouth. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. You’d probably understand easier than most.”
“What?” Lady asked again. Now she had to know.
“I don’t—” Conners began. He frowned and cut himself off, like he wasn’t happy with how he’d started his explanation. “Has my mother ever made you one of those…” He trailed off and made a vague hand motion. “She calls them bandages, but they’re more like a second skin. Literally.”
“Huh?” Lady stared at Conners until it hit her suddenly. “Oh! Yeah.” Lady flexed her fingers. “I got my hands hurt pretty bad once. When I woke up, she had put something on them that was… creepy.”
“Oh, good. Then you’ll find this terrifying.” Conners leaned down and began to roll up his pant leg. Lady stared, not sure where he could be going with this. He touched his calf, frowned, then ran his hand around to the other side. “It’s around here somewhere.”
“What?”
“An end I can grab.”
“An end of what?”
“Just give me a second— Ah, there it is.” Conners grabbed onto something and gave it a tug.
Lady wasn’t sure what she was looking at first. Her brain wouldn’t compute. He’d pulled… part of his leg off? “Um.” She stared, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. “That’s… What? I don’t… What?” She started to reach out, but realized just grabbing someone’s leg without their permission was probably uncool. She leaned forward instead, squinting. “That’s one of her bandage thingies? But what’s it covering?”
“Nothing.” Conners replaced the bandage, smoothing down its edges so that they became flush with his skin. “The bullet did too much damage higher up. I lost my leg.”
“What?” Lady tried to get a better look, but Conners was already lowering his pant leg. “Hang on, that doesn’t make sense. You mean there’s nothing under there? How can there be nothing under there?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s not completely accurate to say that there’s nothing.” Conners sat back upright. “There’s a… I dunno. A phantom limb, I guess?”
“Hang on… Hang on.” Lady held up a hand, needing him to end his explanation there for a minute. Her mind was still trying to catch up. “So you’re telling me you’re walking around on a ghost leg all the time?”
Conners laughed. “I guess.”
“That doesn’t— How?” Lady knew that Al had put one of those bandages on her once, but she had still had a hand beneath it.
Conners shrugged. “Magic. Honestly, I figured you’d get it. Being a witch and all.”
“I’m still super new to this,” Lady reminded him. “This is all new to me. This is… insane. She can do something like this? She’s that powerful?”
“I guess. It’s not even the most impressive thing she’s ever done. How do you think Otsuya keeps her physical form?”
“Jesus, did everyone know she was a ghost but me?” Then Lady’s mind switched gears as she realized what Conners was implying. “I thought it was Doyle that kept her, er, solid.”
“Doyle?” Conners shook his head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t exactly know how it works with Otsuya’s… condition either. All I know is that she used to drop by my mom’s house a lot. I think she’s kind of made it her own since then. I don’t see her drop by as often anymore. Either way, yeah. Before my mom she was just kinda… floating around, bothering people.”
“And that works?” Lady pointed at Conners’ leg. “It’s like a normal limb? I guess it’s better than having a prosthesis, huh?”
Conners shrugged. “It’s not quite the same as having a flesh and blood leg. There was a learning curve to it, but you adjust. I rarely have to take it off, so that’s certainly a plus. I do have a proper prosthesis in a closet somewhere. When the magic gives out, I suppose I’ll have to learn how to actually use one.”
“When the magic gives out?”
“I’m not like Otsuya. I never really made her magic my own. Not that I claim to know how it works for Otsuya, but… Well, spells you sustain take up some of your energy.”
“So, what? I have MP? Like in an RPG? I have to reserve a percentage of it for spells I want to maintain?”
“I don’t… What? I don’t know. Look, if she’s super under the weather, her magic doesn’t work all that great. That’s what I’m getting at.”
“So if she has a cold, your leg falls off.”
“It would have to be more serious than that. Not too serious, but— More like a real bad bout with the flu,” Conners corrected. “And my leg doesn’t ‘fall off.’ Not all at once anyway. It gradually gets weaker. I have some warning. I used to switch to the prosthesis then, but I haven’t had the thing fitted in forever and it’s such a weird transition. Easier to switch to crutches and do paperwork from home for a few days.”
“That’s good, I guess. I imagine it’d be inconvenient if you were chasing criminals.”
“Not a whole lot of criminals to get in a foot chase with in Dark Lake. Especially not when you’re police chief. But yeah. It’d be inconvenient.” Conners had been candid and relatively cheerful while discussing his “condition.” His posture sagged a bit as he continued. “Of course, mother’s not getting any younger. She’s about Ms. Poole’s age, I guess. I don’t like to think about it, but some day she’ll die or get too infirm to do magic like she has before…” He trailed off. It wasn’t a subject he was fond of. It wasn’t hard to see why. For all the complaining he did about his mother, he really did love her. “It worries her. She tried to teach me how to do it myself, but I’ve never had the knack.” H
e sighed. “I try to tell her it’s fine. I figure I’m luckier than most, having everything solved for me with magic for this long. I’m not sure how it’ll work out with me being on the force. I’m sure I’d learn to adjust again, but… she worries.”
“She’s your mom.” Lady didn’t know what it was like to have a mom that fussed and fretted over you, but Al’s love for her son was cute. “You’re her precious baby boy.” She reached out to pinch his cheek, but Conners slapped her hand away before she even got close. “So is this something else everyone but me knows about?”
Conners had to consider that question. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “When I said the whole thing was kind of a blur, that includes a lot more than just the night itself. I’m sure some people know. I guess they just look the other way, like a lot of people do when it comes to magic in this town. I know Shannon knows.”
“Is that why she works for you?” The question occurred to Lady suddenly. “Because of how you got hurt, I mean. Do you think she feels guilty or like she owes you or something?”
“She visited a lot while I was recovering, not that my mother ever approved. She wasn’t a fan of her mother to start with, and then the way I got hurt… It’s not fair, but it’s just how she is. I like to think she applied for the job because she needed something to do, and we were kind of friends. I don’t know, though. I wonder about that myself sometimes. It’s not like it was her fault.”
“No,” Lady agreed, but she could still see how Shannon might feel like it was.
“You know, we should both try to get some sleep.” Conners stood before Lady could come up with a new question. “We’ve been talking for too long. If we both hit the hay now we can get, what? Maybe two more hours of sleep?”
Lady snorted and leaned back on the sofa, still petting Lion. “I’ll be lucky if I ever sleep again. I definitely don’t think I could fall asleep here again.” She watched as Conners walked back into the kitchen to replace the peas in the fridge. “You sure you don’t want to stay up with me? Movie marathon. I’ll pop popcorn.”