The Girl Who Lost Her Shadow

by Emily Ilett

  Steadying herself on a stalactite, Mhirran caught Gail’s eye and tried to wink but failed. She walked over and offered a hand to help Gail up.

  “That’s your brother?” Gail whispered to her, making a face.

  Mhirran’s gaze shifted to where the boy crouched next to the machine. An expression Gail didn’t understand flitted across her face, then was gone. She shrugged. “I told you to go the other way.”

  Gail stepped closer to Mhirran, her voice low and urgent. “But I had to ask you something. You said you saw the manta ray, the drawing, near Oyster Ca…” Her words trickled away as she felt the prickle of the boy watching her from where he crouched by the chest. He wasn’t looking at her face. His eyes were fixed on her feet and his mouth twitched as if something pulled at it. He picked up her torch from where it had rolled and flickered the beam across the cave floor towards her. Before it reached her feet, Gail stepped back behind a stalagmite thicker than her waist.

  Mhirran peered at her around the stalagmite, her hand curled around the gnarls and rings of its growth.

  “Are you looking for Femi?” she asked.

  Gail frowned. “Who? No. I’m looking for—”

  She broke off. Something cold hovered at her side.

  “She’s looking for her shadow. Aren’t you?” The torch beam swung pointedly at her feet where her shadow should have been. The boy leaned over her.

  Gail swallowed.

  “I’m sorry about our… misunderstanding.” He waved his hand towards where Gail had fallen, his eyes still hard. “Let’s start again. I’m Francis,” he said. “And you are?”

  For a minute, Gail thought furiously of other names she could be called. She didn’t want this goblin shark knowing her name. But her mind remained unhelpfully blank. “Gail,” she muttered.

  “Gail,” Francis repeated, with a smirk. “A strange name for a girl without a shadow.”

  Gail turned to Mhirran, who was looking at the place where Gail’s shadow wasn’t with a mixture of horror and pity. Her eyes were huge with it.

  “What’s wrong with my name?” Gail demanded, but Francis just raised his eyebrows, his smile sharp with teeth. “And I’m not looking for my shadow,” she said. “You don’t know anything about me!”

  Francis’s reply slunk across the space between them.

  “Do you?” he asked.

  Chapter Five

  Gail thought up mean insults about Francis’s nose, turned her back on him and kicked her shoe against the ground, wincing when she bruised a toe. Of course she knew who she was. She was Gail. She had big feet, a scar on her knee, too many freckles, and lived with her mum and sister on a stormy Scottish island far away from where all the really cool fish were. The ones with the warts and the colours and the weird mouths.

  Gail grimaced. She had no friends, no shadow, cold feet, and she was very lost in a cave deep inside Ben Fiadhaich. She was scared of things she’d never been scared of before and she hadn’t swum for weeks. Since Kay had started sinking, Gail had changed too. Did she know who she was any more?

  Gail scrunched up her face and stormed towards the tunnels at the far side of the cavern, her hands on her hips.

  Mhirran hurried after her.

  “Wait, where are you going?” she whispered. “Gail, I can he—”

  “Do you know how many tunnels lead off these three, Gail?” Francis called out behind her, his voice cold and precise. “Seventeen. Seventeen tunnels. One goes back into the hill for miles, another curls around itself into a spiral, getting tighter and tighter and tighter, until it suddenly stops. And then there’s the one that doesn’t end. No one has got far enough in to know how long it is.”

  Gail shivered, the hairs on her arms crackling. “I’ll find my way,” she retorted.

  “I knew someone who got lost in here for a month.” Francis paused. “She must have been about your age.”

  Gail spun around to face him. Francis’s hands twitched as his gaze fell towards her feet and lingered. Gail started at the glint of greed in his eye.

  “But that won’t happen to you, Gail, will it? Because you found us.” Francis bent to pick a piece of rope off the ground, tightening it around his wrist over and over. “Lucky for you, really.”

  Gail screwed up her face but her heart sank. Seventeen tunnels? She didn’t have enough food. She’d starve if she got lost. She couldn’t get lost ‒ she had to find Kay’s shadow.

  “I think you should come with us, Gail.” Francis’s voice drew closer, each syllable sharp as the spine of a lionfish. “We’ve almost finished collecting for the day.” He smiled.

  Gail shivered. Collecting? Turning to Mhirran, she whispered under her breath. “I’m looking for my sister’s shadow, Mhirran, not mine. It was right ahead of me in the tunnel. Did you see it?”

  Mhirran’s face paled. Her freckles stood out against her skin and she lifted her finger to her lips involuntarily before gesturing to Francis. He was staring at them both ‒ Gail to Mhirran and back to Gail, his finger tapping a slow, slow rhythm on the wooden chest.

  “Mhirran,” Francis said at last, his eyes unreadable in the dim light. “Why don’t you go ahead down the far tunnel and check everything is in order. It seems a shame not to finish what we started. And check them properly this time; someone’s been tampering with them. Gail and I will take this tunnel to our uncle’s and we’ll meet you there. Gail doesn’t want to wait around for us, do you, Gail? It’ll give us a chance to learn more about each other. And your missing shadow,” he added, an edge to his voice.

  His lips hovered into what Gail supposed was meant to be a smile. It made her own mouth wince. This plan was all wrong. Gail could feel the wrongness of it wash through her.

  Orange hair itched against her cheek as Mhirran moved to stand beside her. The young girl’s fingers wound around each other as she lifted her chin to face her brother.

  “Gail will come with me. This way’s the quickest way out and we’re hungry.” Mhirran smiled nervously. “And you’ve still got work to do here. I’ll check the tunnel, like you said, and we’ll meet you at home.”

  Francis half-stepped forward, his mouth a thin tightrope.

  “And you’ll move quicker, by yourself,” Mhirran murmured softly. “You’re bound to catch up with it that way.”

  Gail frowned. Catch up with what? Her head swam with questions.

  But Mhirran was already pulling her to the far passage, leading her away from Francis, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “If you get lost, you’ll never find the shadow, Gail. It’s true what he said about the tunnels. And I can help you.”

  Gail hesitated.

  “And you wanted to know about the drawing?” Mhirran added, her grip tightening on Gail’s arm, pulling her away from the cavern.

  ***

  Thick wet darkness enveloped them. Mhirran had taken Gail’s torch from Francis’s hand. Now she passed it to Gail, turning on her own as she jogged in an awkward hop-lurch-stride along the tunnel. Once they’d left the cavern behind them, the relief of getting away from Francis swept through Gail. She loosened, wobbling her arms like tentacles.

  Gail didn’t understand Francis and Mhirran’s cryptic conversation. She didn’t know what the strange funnel machine was, or what the siblings were doing in the caves, but she was glad of Mhirran’s company. This tunnel was not like the last. The air tasted sour. It stuck between her teeth like strings of old nectarine. The walls were pitted with alcoves, and when sudden forks appeared, Mhirran steered them left or right without stopping to think. Her hair shone in the gloom like a flame, and Gail clung onto it with the hope that she was following the path of Kay’s shadow. It couldn’t have gone too far ahead. And Mhirran had said she would help.

  Beside her, Mhirran chattered as if there was nothing to explain at all. Her voice darted from one thing to another.

  “I never get lost down here.” Mhirran patted the rock affectionately, as she led them to the left of a wide fork. “I always find my way
out. I’m like a limpet, you know, they always find their way home, back to their bit of the rock. This one needs a bit of help, though.” Mhirran pointed to her toe and Gail discovered that what she’d thought was a clump of mud stuck to the girl’s boot was, in fact, a small limpet, holding on tightly to her blue wellington. “I discovered it there this morning. I don’t know how it got there, or why it chose my boot. I guess it got lost. But I think I know where it came from so I’m going to take it back.” She reached down and patted the top of its shell thoughtfully. “Leo, I’ve called it. Leo the Limpet. The homes the limpets make on the rocks are called home scars. Do you have any scars? I got one on my shoulder when I was talking to a kittiwake one morning and walked straight into a hawthorn.”

  Without catching her breath or waiting for Gail to reply, Mhirran whistled a low note which echoed along the rock, dipping and diving through the darkness.

  “Did you know that some languages have whistling sounds and people can talk through their whistles even when they’re miles and miles and miles apart? Imagine that. We could whistle to my uncle to make us a sandwich already…” Mhirran whistled again, an odd tune that sounded as if it had sprained an ankle. She grinned at Gail. “My uncle taught me. And lots of other things. I can do semaphore too. Watch.”

  Mhirran raised her left arm so it was straight out from her side, and her right arm hovered lower, sticking out at an angle. “See this is an M. M for… Marmite, Mouse, Manatee…”

  “Manta ray,” Gail said quietly and her heart squeezed against her ribs. “Mhirran. Back in the cavern, before I fell inside, did you see a shadow? My sister’s shadow? It must have gone right by you.”

  Mhirran stumbled and Gail grabbed her arm to steady her. She coughed as dirt cascaded from the wall Mhirran had fallen into. “Bleurgh. Thanks.” Mhirran rubbed her nose, pushed up her glasses and peered forward. When she spoke next, her voice was watery, like there was too much movement behind the words. “All the paths on this side of the cavern lead out to Grimloch Woods. We’ll be there soon, this tunnel is only a mile long…”

  Impatience rose in Gail’s throat. “But did you see it, Mhirran? You must have. I have to know. I have to get it back.” Gail’s torchlight caught the corner of a small wooden chest at the side of the tunnel. Her stomach turned as she stepped closer. “What’s this? It looks like a… trap. What is your brother doing? He’s not like you. He’s—”

  As the torchlight caught the edge of Mhirran’s face, Gail wished she could bite back her words. Mhirran’s eyes were pressed shut behind her glasses and her mouth trembled like something caught in a net. Gail had forgotten how young she was.

  “He told you,” Mhirran muttered at last. “He’s a collector. That’s normal. People collect lots of different things. Stamps. Rocks.” Her voice slowly brightened. “Shells. Starfish. Watch where you’re walking; I need to check this chest and two more further up. It won’t take long but I’ll run ahead.” She grinned. “Whistle if you need me.”

  Gail stared as Mhirran hurried forward, clutching the torch. That wasn’t an answer, Mhirran. And who collects starfish?

  As Mhirran passed the contraption on the floor, Gail noticed that she stumbled a little and her left foot crunched onto something hard.

  “Whoops,” Mhirran murmured.

  Gail glanced over her shoulder. If Francis had seen that… No wonder he was annoyed at his sister, Gail thought. Mhirran was the clumsiest girl she’d ever met.

  As she followed behind, Gail strained to see what Mhirran was doing. The second chest also looked like a miniature version of the one in the cavern. It had a funnel made of thick canvas attached to one end, like it was going to suck something inside it. Like a vampire squid, Gail thought. As Mhirran kneeled by the chest, Gail was sure she saw a dark flicker move across the funnel, flitting out over the stone. She stood chewing her lip as Mhirran disappeared around a curve in the rock. What would anyone go underground to collect?

  Far ahead of her, Gail could hear the steady stream of Mhirran’s chatter. “Can you hear the bats? They make me think of slippers but I don’t know why…”

  “Mhirran,” she called. “Wait up.” But Mhirran didn’t hear her.

  Gail groaned, readying to run after her. But she couldn’t. Something had happened to her feet. They felt huge and heavy at the end of her legs, as if they were stuck to the ground. Gail gritted her teeth and grabbed at the wall, trying to pull herself forward, but it felt like she was swimming against a deep-sea current. And the current was getting stronger.

  Gail looked down in horror at her shoes.

  “Move,” she ordered. She tried to tug her feet from the floor but they wouldn’t budge. She tried to squeeze her fingers between her shoe and the rock but they wouldn’t fit. “Move,” she said again, her voice rising in her throat. “Move.”

  There was nothing beneath her feet but a shadow.

  Gail swallowed hard. The shadow wasn’t hers. It was longer than Gail, and fatter, though from her shoes it narrowed lumpily into a flat tip. Darkness pulsed within it. The shadow stuck to Gail’s feet and held on tightly. It was a stalagmite’s shadow. She could feel the rockiness of it spreading through her toes; they felt crumbly and solemn. Her shins began to harden and her kneecaps felt volcanic.

  “Get off me!” Gail wrenched at her legs. She thought she heard an answering cry ahead of her. A little way behind, a scattering of grit fell to the ground and Gail froze. Francis’s too-sharp face bloomed in her mind, and sweat dripped from her nose.

  “I am not a rock,” she stammered. “I’m just Gail. Just stupid, cold, wet, lost Gail. I am not a rock.” Her hands shook as she strained against the shadow.

  The tunnel puzzled out her name, shaking it around like a toy.

  A L I G, it repeated.

  Gail gritted her teeth. “It’s Gail,” she repeated. “Gail.”

  L I A G, the cave echoed.

  There was a spatter of grit behind her.

  Gail bit down hard on her lip. What should she do? What would Kay do? Then she knew.

  “ILAG,” she shouted. “GILA. GIAL. LAIG.”

  And, in return, the tunnel whispered, G…A…I…L.

  With the gigantic relief that comes from someone recognising who you are, Gail broke free of the rock shadow and hurtled on towards Mhirran.

  Chapter Six

  Gail’s nose arrived in Mhirran’s armpit at the same time her knee arrived in her shoe and both of them collapsed in a heap on the ground. Gail spat out a soggy mulch of jumper.

  “I think you’ve broken my armpit,” Mhirran said, rubbing at it mournfully.

  Gail’s breath beat like waves in her throat. “I got stuck inside a shadow,” she gasped, her eyes wide and gleaming.

  Mhirran blinked. “What?”

  “I couldn’t move my feet, they were stuck. And I felt all…” The memory pulled Gail’s face into a wince. She shivered it away. “It felt all wrong.”

  Mhirran was oddly silent, chewing at her lip.

  “Like it was glue or a swamp or something, or like a magnet. But it was just a shadow.” Gail leaned back against the side of the tunnel, her eyes chasing shadows on the ground around her. Everywhere darkness shifted and danced, swaying in the torchlight like seaweed underwater. Gail squeezed her eyes shut and turned her cheek against the cold rock. Her hands curled around the bottom of her feet protectively. “It got inside me, Mhirran. The shadow got inside me and I could feel what it was. I was becoming a rock.” Gail shuddered. Nausea rolled around her stomach and she spat on the ground beside her.

  When Gail finally opened her eyes, Mhirran was staring hard at a spider that was investigating her knee. “You know spiders can communicate through their webs, like playing guitar strings.”

  “Mhirran, listen! A rock shadow stuck to my feet! You said you know these tunnels, has that ever happened before?”

  Mhirran’s glasses slipped down her nose and when she pushed them up, she left a long trail of dirt down her face. Her eyes flick
ered between Gail’s elbow and her chin. “Well, I don’t know… I’ve heard some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, if you lose your shadow, other shadows ‒ shadows that have got lost or confused or have run away ‒ they can, kind of, grab onto you, because…” Mhirran’s voice trailed away. She rubbed her nose. “I don’t remember why,” she muttered.

  Gail fell back against the rock. How could she find Kay’s shadow when she could be grabbed by other shadows at any moment? She watched the spider scuttle from Mhirran’s hand across the ground. Could she get caught by an insect’s shadow? Or a bat’s? For a second, Gail allowed herself to miss her own shadow. Her stomach twisted and a lump grew in her throat. She was sure Mhirran knew more than she was telling. The space between them felt soupy with secrets.

  Gail’s hand traced a faint bump on the side of her ankle where a thin scar was hidden behind her sock. She’d got it one late afternoon when she’d been with Kay, both of them hopping around the beach to warm up after a swim. Gail had twisted her foot on the sharp ridges of a shell and sliced open the skin of her ankle. Blood dribbled from the wound and Gail had avoided Kay’s eyes, pretending it was nothing, while she bit back tears. Kay would make her wash it in the sea; the cut was already gritty with sand. But to Gail’s surprise, Kay had picked up the shell and spun it around to look inside the hole.

  “I’ll bet a hermit crab once lived in this,” she’d said. “You know they pass on shells when they get too big for them. All the hermit crabs on the beach line up biggest to smallest and pass the shells down the line.”

  Gail’s cheeks were sodden with tears, but Kay had ignored them, staring at her seriously and placing the shell carefully on her head. “I reckon this one fits you, Mistress Hermit,” she’d said.

  Despite herself, Gail had giggled, straightening to keep the shell balanced.

  Kay had found her own shell, balanced it on her head and made her hands into pincers. They flapped around Gail’s face, prodding and pinching at her nose and cheeks until she’d felt her hands become pincers too. The sisters stumbled around the beach, pinching each other’s noses, trying to grab each other’s shells, until, with a cry that stung everything out of her, Gail found she was standing in the sea, the ocean licking at her wound.