Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

Tayel inhaled so sharply it hurt. Her face flushed, and her knuckles turned white from how hard she gripped her baton.

Both teams reset on the starting line. The Sinosian started as center offense again. She didn’t snatch the ball as the start whistle blew, but she put pressure on the green player who did. Her body moved in tandem with his, her baton held ready to check — not defend. Tayel squinted. The man pivoted on his left foot. He came around fast, but the woman’s baton smacked his and the ball clattered to the grass. Tayel shook her head.

Pivot body first, not baton first, you cob.

Play went back and forth for a few anxious minutes. Tayel hissed through her teeth as every charge went left. A teammate managed to get the ball and drive it toward the opponent’s goal, but an orange defender attempted a check that went too high and Tayel’s teammate dropped the ball. The ref called the play a foul and started up a faceoff. The Sinosian was up against Fehn, and at the whistle she moved in and scooped up the ball in an instant. Orange team cheered. Tayel huffed. If she could just swap to the left side, she’d wipe the smirk off that woman’s face.

The play went for no more than thirty seconds before another foul occurred on the left line. The sideline ref called it, but then he tapped his watch at his co-ref. Tayel frowned. That could have meant anything. Ten minutes. Five minutes. One minute. Playing magball had a peculiar way of erasing her sense of time. Her teeth clenched. The game might be over soon, and she’d hardly done anything.

The Sinosian stood in as orange team’s player for the faceoff, and Tayel drew her hand to her mouth and whistled. She waved down her team’s left defense — the man who was about to go against the Sinosian — and twirled her finger in the air. Switch?

The man looked as relieved as Tayel felt. He nodded and jogged to her line. She sprinted past him and stopped at the ball an appropriate few feet away.

“Hey,” the Sinosian woman muttered. “Maybe you’ll be a challenge.”

“Yeah,” Tayel said. “And then you’ll start driving right.”

When the whistle blew, Tayel let her opponent snatch the ball, stepping right to cover the goal instead of attacking. She kept the Sinosian pinned to the line, cutting off any forward pass. The woman attempted to pivot back. Tayel stepped in. Another pivot, and Tayel pressed further down the line. The woman’s expression turned sour. She attempted a third time to pass back, and Tayel checked the outstretched baton. The ball toppled into the grass.

She ducked and ran between it and the woman, scooping it off the ground and passing it in one half-circle of precision motion. It snapped into a friendly player’s baton. Perfect, but the ref blew his whistle. Once, twice, three times. Tayel groaned. Game over.

“Hmph. Good try, I guess,” the Sinosian said, walking past.

Tayel scoffed. “Can’t play for the whole team, banshee.”

The woman stopped. She turned, her long braided hair sliding off her shoulder. Both teams moved around them, talking, arguing, and putting their borrowed gear away in wooden crates.

“What did you call me?” she asked, dark eyes narrowed into slits.

Tayel stood her ground. “I called you a banshee, because you are one. What’s your deal with me, anyway? Why have you been following us around camp? Why the snide remarks during the game?” She kept her voice low, not wanting to attract anyone else’s attention.

The woman crossed her arms.

Jace appeared beside Tayel, beaming at first, but then his head swung between her and the Sinosian. “Tayel, come on.”

“Wait,” she said.

He had to know she wasn’t going anywhere. The stalking around camp, the heated game… this woman clearly had a problem, and Tayel was going to find out what it was. Fehn came up to her side and exchanged an obvious look of concern with Jace.

“No answer, then?” Tayel chided.

The other woman closed some distance between them. Jace stepped back, but Tayel kept her feet planted, raising her chin an inch to look into the Sinosian’s gaze.

“Alright,” the woman said. “I was hoping to have more time to think about it, but , I think we can help each other.” She spoke every word like it was its own line. “Name’s Shy.”

“You going to ask Red here to be on your intramural magball team or something?” Fehn asked.

Shy glared at him. “Funny. My offer would extend to you, too, you know.”

“What offer?” Tayel asked. “You know what? Why should I even care? Come on, Jace, let’s—”

“Because you’re looking for family when you go to the docks every morning.”

Tayel stiffened. “Yeah? Who isn’t?”

“I’m looking for someone, too, but the people we’re both looking for aren’t here. They’re off world.”

A guard came by to collect their batons and vests. Tayel handed hers over. Implications swam in her head. The woman — Shy — was suggesting that they go off world, then. That maybe Jace’s family wouldn’t be coming at all. The implications turned dark, and she hummed.

“So what exactly are you proposing?” Tayel asked.

Jace gawked. “Tayel!”

“Hang on—”

“Actually, your friend is right,” Shy said. She glared as the guard-turned-referee passed by. “This isn’t the most optimal place to speak. If you’re interested in what I have to say, we should discuss it in private. Tomorrow, how about? Or do you need time to think about it, Tayel ?” She said the last bit in a teasing tone that put Tayel on edge.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Tch. Nice meeting you, then.”

Shy walked off without a second glance, disappearing into the swarm of people using the magball field as a throughway before the next match started.

“When you said you thought she was following us, I didn’t think it could be true,” Jace said.

“Me either,” Fehn said.

Tayel picked at a peeling sunburn on her arm. “Yeah, well, I told you so.”

“Are you actually going to talk with her?” Fehn asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see how she looked at that guard?” Jace’s question lilted with the edge of reprimand.

“Yeah, but she was talking about going off world, right? Maybe she can get us out of here so we can find your parents,” Tayel said.

“And maybe get me off this rock,” Fehn added.

“You’re considering it?”

“There wasn’t an ‘it’ to consider, Red, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to learn more.”

Jace squeezed his head feathers like he was going to pluck them out. “What? Why would you want to leave camp? Fehn, I can sort of understand, but Tayel — there’s a war out there. And besides, Otto will be here soon. I know you don’t believe it, and I don’t know why, but he is coming.”

She closed her eyes. “Don’t worry, Jace. I’m not going to do anything crazy. Let’s just go back to camp. It’s too hot to even think out here.”

She stayed quiet during the walk back. Fehn and Jace only mimicked her for so long before talking magball, then trading cards, then some movie Fehn had seen once with a monster that evolved from a trading card. It was strangely comforting to listen to them. Their laughter helped get the Sinosian’s words out of her head.

Hopefully Otto would come soon, for Jace’s sake. If his parents came to Elsha, they’d be one happy family again. An uncomfortable twinge of jealousy nagged her as they passed the giant eir crystal. Where would that leave her?

Tayel rarely felt as in touch with her younger self as she did when she and Jace hiked up to the docks every day. One of the first memories she could recall involved climbing up a golden sand dune. She’d carried a bucket and pail in tow, but abandoned them halfway up the hike. More than anything, she wanted to see what existed on the other side of that impossibly high mountain of itchy, grainy stuff two-year-old Tayel didn’t have a name for. At some point she had to figure she knew what rested beyond the tip of the dune, but it didn’t dull the excitement, or the ache of exploration.