Christopher Golden - The Shadow Men

Trix could still taste Anne’s lips on her own. She had kissed Jenny before, of course, countless friendly pecks on the cheek, and they never meant anything more than that. The real kisses happened only in her mind.

But now, what if I could stay? she thought. This is Boston, and this is Jenny. She opened her eyes again and stared at the prone woman, seeing the slight differences but welcoming them. Each difference-the longer hair, the leaner physique-made her love Jenny more. I can help Jim find Jenny and Holly, see them home, and then…

Sally stopped singing and stood up. She groaned like an old lady, and Trix went to help, thinking that perhaps she’d tired herself out. But when the Oracle turned, Trix was shocked to see tears on her cheeks, her face squeezed as she tried to hold them back.

“Hey,” Trix said, opening her arms.

Sally came to her and held her tight, sobbing into her chest. She pulled back and looked up. “Another room,” she said. “If she hears… me crying… the spell might break.”

Spell, Trix thought, unsettled. But she nodded, holding Sally and walking her through to where she knew the kitchen would be. When she entered, the room felt so familiar that Trix paused for a moment. But already something in her mind was preparing her for such sights, and she was looking for differences instead of similarities. The wall was a deep ocher color that she would have never chosen, the crockery on a plate rack bore a gaudy pattern, and there were several smoked sausages hanging from a rack above the fridge. Trix hated smoked sausage. Anne must have made this place her own after Trix died, and that planted in her not shock, but an unbearable sadness that threatened tears.

“Anne said she ran,” Sally said, voice breaking. “After the collision, when they were both suddenly here. When my city changed. The other woman ran.”

“I can hardly blame her.” Trix nudged the kitchen door closed with her foot, and then Sally started sobbing for real. It was a shocking sight, because since first meeting her Trix had difficulty viewing the girl as a girl. She’d been an oddity, a child older than her years, wise beyond her age, performing feats that were not possible but were real, and her build and apparent age had meant little. Now she was an upset girl with tears in her eyes and Trix’s jacket clenched in her fists.

“Hey,” Trix said uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. She’d held Holly like this sometimes when the girl needed someone she regarded as a friend more than a parent-because of issues with friends in school, or sadness over the death of a pet hamster. Now things were different.

“I’m just a kid,” Sally said, her tone of voice denying the truth of that. There was no “just” about it. “A kid, and I have to do this all the time, and I can, I can, because that’s what the Oracle does. I’m still learning. Always learning. But I started… started off knowing more than anyone.” She leaned back and looked up at Trix with red-rimmed, wet eyes. “Much more than you.”

“I know,” Trix said.

“But sometimes it’s just not fair,” she said. “Sometimes I wish it had never happened…”

“What did happen?” Trix asked, but Sally was saying her own thing. Though she clung to Trix and rested her head against her, she seemed to be talking to herself.

“If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now, and there’s so much responsibility. I can do it, normally. You know? Normally, when there’s only magic to make and people to find, and the soul of the city to keep safe. Normally. But not now. The collision, the damage, those Shadow Men, and the things, the terrible things I had to bring across to fight them…” She sniffed, then exhaled another heavy sob. “It’s all too much!”

“You’re doing fine,” Trix said, smoothing her hair.

“I’m just getting by,” Sally said. She pulled away from Trix and sat back on the small kitchen table, looking around the room as if she could learn something from that place. “But the soul of the city is bruised, and I’m making mistakes.” She looked directly at Trix then, and Trix knew what she meant.

“Maybe finding her wasn’t a mistake,” she said.

“No,” Sally said, shaking her head. “She’s not Jenny.”

“No, but-”

“I know all about adult stuff,” the Oracle said. “I’m too young to know, but I do. I have to. And I can see into you, Trix. See into your heart.” She wiped her eyes and seemed to gather herself, shrugging strength back into her shoulders. Perhaps having something else to talk about-someone else’s problem-was shielding her from her own.

“I’m not really thinking anything,” Trix said. It was a cruel denial to herself, a stale-tasting lie.

“You’ve had your time in this world,” Sally said. “Do I really have to show you your own grave?”

“I want you to find my friends,” Trix said.

Sally nodded, wiped at her eyes again, and then offered a tentative smile. “And if I don’t find them, you’ll still go back through?”

“No,” Trix said. “I won’t. I’ll stay here until they’re found.” I’m her safety net, she thought. If she doesn’t find them, at least I can go back to Veronica bearing her mark. She might not have believed a little girl like Sally could scheme like that… but she was not really a little girl. The last few minutes had shown that.

“I’ve promised to find them,” Sally said.

“And I thank you for that.”

The Oracle sat heavily in a kitchen chair and rested her forehead on her hand, a very adult gesture. She rubbed her head gently, as if to ease away a headache.

“The city is in such pain,” Sally whispered. “I feel its pain. Every fallen building is an ache in my bones and a fire beneath my skin.”

“That’s a big burden for such a little girl,” Trix said, and the Oracle looked up at her with such gratitude that Trix felt the burn of tears. She wondered when Sally had last been called a little girl, and how she would grow up, never having experienced a childhood. “What happened to you?”

“I was eight,” Sally said. “My momma and dadda were killed in a house fire. A black man came and pulled me from the basement window, and carried me away. I wasn’t scared, not for a minute. The man was ill. He was my friend.”

“Was he…?”

“The last Oracle. I never even knew his name. He took me to the house where you found me, his house.”

“And no one missed you? No family, no friends?”

“I think they did,” she said, frowning as if confused at a nebulous memory. “But the man kept me safe, and I never once feared for myself. Something was happening to me, something wonderful, and it kept everything at bay. The grief over my parents, the weirdness of what was happening. One night I went to sleep with the man singing me songs, and the next morning I woke up as I am now. He was dead, and I buried him in the basement. And that afternoon, the first person came.”

“He made you the Oracle?”

“The man? No.” She smiled and shook her head. “He just helped me along.” She sighed heavily, then sat back in her chair.

Trix blinked at the sudden, shocking change. The tears were gone, Sally’s eyes dry as though they had never been wet, and her face was stern once again. Hard, grim, an expression that only an adult should ever wear.

“We should go,” Sally said. “I’ve been wrong once; I won’t be again. I’ll be precise this time.”

“Go where?”

“Just outside, down to the road. I’ll find Holly and Jenny, and take you to them.”

“What about…?” Trix walked to the kitchen door and looked through the gap into the room beyond. Anne lay where Sally had sung her down, one hand waving slowly at the air before her face, orchestrating her dreams.