Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“There’s something on your right hand.”

I glanced down quickly and in amusement said, “That, Henry, is called a shadow.” I was remarkably glad to see that familiar look of worry etched upon his pale brow. He was not yet so transformed by the spirit world.

“No,” he said, moving closer. “Where your fingers used to be.”

I looked and gave a rueful grunt, for, by some trick of the light, it did indeed look as if I had a fourth and fifth finger, gripping the tiller.

“It’s just shadow, Henry. Look.” And I moved my hand along the tiller. The two phantom fingers elongated and then seeped back beneath my hand with a fluid speed that was not at all shadowlike.

I jerked my hand off the tiller.

“It’s still there!” Elizabeth cried, pointing.

I turned my hand over and saw something dark and slick against my flesh.

“What is it?” gasped Henry.

“Some kind of beetle!” Elizabeth said.

I gave my hand a violent shake, but it clung. I swiped it off with my left hand. “Where’d it go?” I said, looking about the cockpit floor.

“It’s on your other hand now!” shouted Henry.

I saw it slyly squeezed into the fold between my thumb and palm. In growing alarm I stood, striking at it.

“I can’t get it off!” I cried. “I can’t even feel it!”

Unmanned, the boat strayed into the wind, and as the sail luffed, direct sunlight washed over my hand, and instantly the shadowy insect seeped up my shirt sleeve.

Horrified, I tore off my jacket, threw it to the deck, and desperately began ripping open my shirt, popping buttons.

The boat swayed, and the swinging boom nearly brained me.

“There it is!” cried Elizabeth, and I caught just a glimpse of something scuttling into my armpit.

“Gah!” I lifted my arm high, staggering off balance, and turned to the sun so I could see better. The thing oozed from the tangle of my underarm hair around to my back so that I lost sight of it.

“Where’s it gone?” I demanded, lurching about so Henry and Elizabeth might spot it.

“It doesn’t like the light!” Henry said. “It rushes to hide.”

“Just get it off me!” I cried.

“It’s too quick!” Henry protested, hands slapping at my skin. “It flows like mercury!”

I was in a near frenzy to rid myself of this pest, and whirled about, looking back over my shoulder.

“Victor,” Elizabeth said with frightening solemnity, “it has gone into your pants.”

I tore my waistband loose even as I kicked off my shoes. I yanked one leg free and saw the shadow crawler dart down my second pant leg. When I finally rid myself of the pants, the diabolical little creature stretched toward my underpants and disappeared.

I hesitated only half a second before dragging my underpants off. I was stark naked now and didn’t care one bit, so frenzied was I.

“Get a jar from the picnic hamper,” I shouted, “and catch it!”

Elizabeth’s eyes traveled all over me, tracking it. I didn’t care. All I could think was, Would it get inside me somehow? I clenched my buttocks tightly together.

As the boat swayed and turned, sun and shadow played across my body, and the shadow creature now bolted from my privates to the back of my thigh.

“On my right leg!” I cried.

Henry dumped out two jars of water and tossed one to Elizabeth. I turned my front to the sun to keep the thing behind me.

“Can you see it?” I bellowed.

“Yes, it’s on your back now. Try to stand still, Victor!” Elizabeth said, drawing closer.

I felt their jars buffeting me as they tried to catch the thing.

“I’ve got it!” cried Elizabeth as she drove the jar into the small of my back with such force that I yowled in pain. “It’s caught! Henry, where’s the lid!”

“Here, here!” he said.

I watched over my shoulder as Elizabeth very swiftly tipped the jar away from my skin, slipped the lid over the top, and screwed furiously.

“There!” she cried triumphantly.

My relief was immense, and yet immediately, bizarrely, I also thought:

I want it back. Now.

I felt a stab of pain return to my hand. Forgetting my nakedness, I turned to look at the thing, battering itself against the glass in vain.

Henry cleared his throat. “Victor, you need clothes.”

Elizabeth, I noticed, seemed to have no trouble with my nakedness and merely smiled, her gaze level with mine, holding out my underpants.

After I’d hurriedly dressed, I grabbed the jar and held it to the sunlight to better get a look at the little fiend. With no shadow to offer it refuge, the thing hurled itself hysterically about the jar, and I feared the glass would shatter.

“This is no normal animal,” I said. “Where is its head, its limbs? It changes shape every second!”

As if exhausted, it retreated into a corner and made itself as small as possible, a dense black ink splotch.

“It’s getting fainter!” said Elizabeth.

“I think you’re right,” Henry agreed.

The thing was fraying at the edges, unraveling into smoky tendrils.

“The sunlight harms it,” I murmured.

“Let it die!” Henry said.

As it continued to diffuse, it became butterfly-shaped, and I caught, just for a moment, a glimpse of miraculous colors on its wings.

“Wait!” Immediately I sheltered the glass jar with my body, and then wrapped a napkin around it.

“What’re you doing?” said Henry.

“It’s one of the butterflies! From the spirit world!”

“But how?” Elizabeth demanded.

“The one that was helping me in the caves. It must’ve come out with me. It came out with me!”

Very slowly Henry said, “How could something from the world of the dead come into ours?”

I looked into the jar. Protected from the sun, the creature had composed itself and regained some of its intense blackness. It poured itself around the inside of the glass. I inhaled sharply. It was unmistakable.

“Do you know what this is?” I said, grinning up at the other two. “This is the last ingredient we need to grow Konrad.”

I touched the handle of Konrad’s bedchamber, leaned my forehead against the wood. A deep breath, and then I entered and shut the door soundlessly behind me. It was almost completely dark, for the curtains were drawn tight, with only a faint penumbra of light around them.

For a moment I imagined the other world beyond this one, the one in which Konrad resided. Briefly the room seemed to shimmer, about to reveal itself to me in all its guises through history, but then it solidified into the undeniable truth of here and now.

We hadn’t changed anything in his bedchamber. No one could face it, not yet, that final resignation. And if this endeavor of mine was successful, there’d be no need of it.

I needed some part of Konrad. Neither Elizabeth, nor Henry, nor I had been able to contemplate venturing to his crypt and desecrating his body. But then I’d realized we wouldn’t have to. The cave writings had told me that all that was required was some part of him that had once been living. Surely it wouldn’t matter how large or small.

On his chest of drawers I found his brush, and from the bristles I began to pull as many of his hairs as I could.

I heard the bedchamber door slowly opening, and I whirled, the brush still clutched guiltily in my hands.

On the threshold stood my mother, a hand lifted to stifle a scream.

“Konrad?” she gasped.

“Mother, it’s me, Victor. I’m so sorry to startle you.”

I rushed over to her, pocketing the brush, and helped her to the nearest chair. She was still in her night robe, even though it was near noon.

“I mistook you…” It took her a moment to regain her breath.