Anne Ursu - The Shadow Thieves

Zee coughed a little. Charlotte rang the doorbell. Mrs. Ruby answered the door, looking even more tired than before. "Charlotte? Hello. Come on in."

"Hi, Mrs. Ruby," Charlotte said. "I wanted to give Maddy today's homework. Oh, this is my cousin Zee." Zee stiffened and stuck out his arm. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Mrs. Ruby blinked and shook his hand formally. "And you, Zee."

"He's from England," Charlotte explained. "How's Maddy?"

"Oh, well… I'm sure she'll be better soon." Mrs. Ruby smiled thinly. Mrs. Ruby was not a very good liar. Charlotte's stomach turned.

Maddy's room was the same dark, cold place it had been when Charlotte last saw it, and Maddy looked just as lifeless as she had before. She smiled at Charlotte, but she didn't even lift her head, and for a moment Charlotte forgot why they had come.

"Hi, Maddy," Charlotte said softly, sitting down next to her friend. "Are you okay?" It was so dark in the room she could barely see her face.

Maddy shrugged.

Charlotte leaned in. "What's wrong?"

Maddy's eyes grew into small, round moons. "I'm just so tired," she said weakly.

"It's okay, Maddy," she said softly, grabbing her friend's hand. "You'll get better."

"I don't know" Her eyes traveled to Zee, who was standing in the back of the room. "Oh!… Hi…"

In the sickbed moment Charlotte had almost forgotten the reason for their trip, but at the reminder of Zee's presence in the room everything came flooding back to her. She stiffened, then said, too brightly, "Zee's here… he wanted to say hi."

"Oh!" Maddy said, casting a you should have warned me look at Charlotte. She moved, as if to sit up.

"No, it's all right." Zee stepped forward anxiously. "Don't… don't. I just wanted to say… I hope you feel better."

"So," Charlotte interjected breezily, "I've got your homework. Mr. Metos said you don't have to worry about the rest of the unit, isn't that nice? And do you know there's no school all week? So you won't be missing anything. Cool, huh? With the long weekend, that makes a whole week off. You'll be back in school with the rest of us on Wednesday. Then you can get back to helping me with my math." Charlotte smiled limply, while Zee stepped back into the shadows. Meanwhile, Maddy had faded into her pillows.

"Hey, um, Maddy?" Charlotte said tentatively. "Can we ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

"When you were walking home on Monday, you know, when you got sick? Did anything, um, happen?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, you know… did you see anything… weird? Or… anyone?" Charlotte eyed her friend carefully. Maddy shook her head. "No. No," she whispered. "I was just walking, and I don't know. I must have fainted or something. I was fine, and then I woke up on the ground. I could barely get home."

"And that's all?"

"Well… just about…"

"What else?" Charlotte leaned in. Zee, too, stepped forward.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's crazy. I just had this weird feeling. Like…" She didn't have to continue. Charlotte knew exactly what she was going to say, and her brain formed the words just as Maddy said them- Like I was being watched.

There was a knock on the door, and then Mrs. Ruby opened it slightly. A beam of light invaded the room, and Maddy visibly winced. "Charlotte? Honey, I think we should let Maddy rest now"

"Okay, Mrs. Ruby," Charlotte said. "I just need to show her something in the math homework."

"Well…" She entered the room, and Zee stepped back farther. "Charlotte, maybe now isn't the best time."

"It's really important," Charlotte said. "We'll just be another minute."

"It's okay, Mom," said Maddy quietly.

Mrs. Ruby sighed. "Okay, Charlotte. I'll be back up in one minute." She shook her head and then left. Charlotte and Zee exchanged a look. Charlotte was beginning to feel very sweaty. Maddy murmured, "Anyway, Char, we can wait on the math…"

"No, no," Charlotte said, reaching into her pocket. "It's not math. I just wanted to give you some pictures of Bartholomew… I thought they might make you feel better."

"Oh!" Maddy said. "Yeah! Let me see…" Charlotte held the pictures up to her friend, heart in her throat. "Zee, would you mind bringing over that lamp?" She motioned to the bedside table. "It should reach."

Zee moved quickly over to the table. Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the sound of her cousin clicking on the lamp and then moving it toward them. She felt the beam of the light on her. Maddy started cooing over the pictures, and Charlotte slowly opened her eyes. She knew exactly what she would see; she had known all along. There were shadows from the photos, from Zee, and from Charlotte, but Maddy cast no shadow at all.

On the way home Charlotte and Zee walked close together through the dusk, talking in whispers. Zee seemed strangely relaxed; Charlotte supposed it helped that someone believed him finally. Charlotte was not relaxed at all, not one bit. Her mouth tasted sour, her stomach was burning, and her heart had expanded to six times its normal size. She shook her head.

"I don't understand," Charlotte said.

"Neither do I, really," said Zee.

"Why would someone take kids' shadows?"

"I don't know," said Zee.

"And why would it make everyone so sick? I mean, it's just… a shadow. It's not real. Is it?"

"I don't know," said Zee.

"Maybe they are real. I mean, how can you take them if they're not real?"

"I don't know," said Zee.

"But that's really weird," said Charlotte. "I mean, even if they are real, why would you want them?"

"I don't know," said Zee.

"I mean, it's obviously something evil. It has to be."

"I don't know," said Zee.

"And why are they following you? I mean, they clearly are."

"I don't know," said Zee.

"And what would they want with shadows, anyway?"

Zee stopped. He turned and looked at Charlotte.

"Look," he said. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. A long time. Constantly. And I just don't know. It doesn't make any sense. I can't figure it out, and I don't see any way to figure it out. But"-he stepped closer and looked her in the eyes-"that doesn't matter. There's only one thing that matters."

"What's that?" Charlotte asked.

"How are we going to save everyone?"

Charlotte blinked. She had nothing to say to that.

"We're the only ones who know what's going on," Zee continued. "And no one will believe us. Something really bad is happening, and we need to stop it and we need to save everyone. Or"- he shrugged -"at least I do." He appraised her.

Charlotte still didn't speak. She felt distinctly like vomiting.

"Anyway" Zee started walking again. "This has got something to do with me. It's my responsibility. And I might be immune. For some reason they're not attacking me. I don't know why. I was the only one who didn't get sick in Exeter and in London, wasn't I? Of course, that doesn't mean…"

"What?" Charlotte said.

"Well…" He looked at her frankly. "I don't know whether or not they would attack you."

"Oh." Charlotte contemplated this for a moment. It sounded quite unpleasant. She bit her lip.

"Hey," Zee said suddenly. "Did you hear something?"

She hadn't. Something else had occurred to her. "You know," she said slowly, "those guys. The men. I think I've dreamed about them."

"What?" Zee exclaimed. He stopped and stared at her.

"I swear. When you mentioned them before. It sounded so familiar. And I've just figured it out. I've dreamed about them."

"Like, how?"

"I think… they were sucking me into the earth." She shuddered. "Like Persephone."

"Sorry?"

"Oh. English. Greek myths. We were doing the underworld before you got here. We were talking about how Hades kidnaps Persephone and makes her his queen, and I guess I dreamed about that."