Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) (5 page)

The clothes weren’t currently being used, so I couldn’t see fault in taking them back to my room to try on. After tonight, I definitely wouldn’t be wearing anything of Sable’s outside of the house.

There were only two boxes filled with books. The flaps weren’t sealed when I was a child and they remained unsealed now. There was a light film of dust that caked the top books and aged the decorative paper covers. I dug further in with little regard to the bugs I might unearth. Luckily, there were no spiders as I pulled title after title out.

When we had first found these books, I didn’t know what the titles meant or what the content inside was talking about. Back then, I regarded them as nightmares someone recorded. After two years of reading the Daily Dark, I understood the meaning of the supernatural, but that wasn’t a part of our society.

These weren’t stories that circulated among the people. These creatures were not in any of the literature I’ve read or the movies I’ve seen. They were only in the Daily Dark and that magazine was hard to find. There was a reason these books were marked family photos and hidden away.

The one thing I learned from psychologists was that this was a taboo subject. No one liked hearing about it. No one believed it, but the drugs weren’t enough to make me stop seeing things. It didn’t stop the emotional imprint people thrust on me, but it did stop my ability to emotionally sway them with my empathy.

I flipped through an Encyclopedia of Creatures, not sure what I was looking for. I just wanted an explanation for what I saw in the bathroom. I vaguely remembered reading something about the subject in the Daily Dark. It had something to do with twins, or reflections. It was on the tip of my tongue, but just wouldn’t come until I came across it.

Doppelganger: a ghostly counterpart, a double of a person. It’s an omen of death if one see’s their reflection. It is bad luck to see someone else’s reflection.

Bad luck was an understatement. The night was a disaster and it didn’t say how long this curse was going to last.

A shadow darted at the edge of my vision and I snatched the closest flashlight to trace along the room. Nothing was there, though the mere thought didn’t stop the frantic beating of my heart. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Starr’s doppelganger or the captain’s frozen hands.

It was time to call it a night. I put the boxes back how I found them, then took the clothes and the encyclopedia upstairs.

M
y high pitched alarm clock jolted me from sleep. Pain and stiffness made it difficult reaching across the bed and turning it off. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t ache. I got in a fight with a bat wielding girl once and the pain was similar.

I took a quick assessment of my injuries. From this angle, I couldn’t tell if there were any new swollen body parts besides my face. A hot bath with comfrey root tea in the water would help with the bruising and the stiffness. I learned that remedy from Sable who used it the first couple times I came home from having my ass handed to me on a platter.

I wasn’t feeling confident about how to approach Ms. Sable. I rolled out of bed feeling dutifully punished for last night’s transgressions. The worst of it wasn’t watching the Raver walk away with the bracelet. The absolute worst part of the night was having the captain’s hands slide from my grasp. I played it over and over in my head.

Pain shot up my left wrist when I grabbed my robe. Foul, brackish liquid drenched the bandage. I had the gauze halfway unraveled by the time I made it to the bathroom, mindful of the filmy slime coating. It was sea green like algae, but thin and watery like the mucus on a frog’s skin. The cuts on my chest, thighs and wrist were a plum purple hue. My knuckles were bruised where I nicked the skin on the doppelganger’s teeth, but they weren’t infected.

I discarded all of the bandages into the trash and thrust my arm under the cold tap while using a rag to lightly clean the wound on my chest. The skin around the cut was black and thin like the burnt edge of paper. The cut itself had separated enough to expose the pink of muscle and the first glinting signs of bone. My knees went weak underneath me.

I’m good at stitching myself back together, but the cuts in the past were minor compared to this. I was going to be sick, but I didn’t trust myself to move. The counter was the only thing keeping me on my feet. For all the pink muscle laid bare and the white glint of bone, I was surprised there wasn’t blood mixed in the swampy gunk.

It was impossible not to watch myself in the mirror. My nose was swollen, making the skin under my eyes bruised and puffy. There was a bruise on my neck where the Raver slammed me against the wall with his arm. I didn’t want to lift my night shirt to see how bad the bruising was on my tailbone, but I felt it when I moved. All this paled in comparison to my open wounds. Maybe Starr was right about going to school. I couldn’t show up like this.

When the water ran clear, I turned the tap off and patted the skin around the wound dry with toilet paper. I learned in a health class that paper was better than fabric towels. At this moment, I didn’t want to take the chance of making the infection worse. I was about to bend down and get the medicine out of the hidey-hole when a knock on the door stopped me.

“We need to talk,” Sable said.

I was wrong thinking I couldn’t feel any worse. My stomach bottomed out. I could barely keep my inner turmoil down. I grab a towel to cover my wrist right as she pushed the door open. She’s never been this impatient. I tried to read her face, but it was blank. Apparently my physical condition didn’t surprise her.

“You need to get out of this house right now,” she said. There was a note of importance in that statement. She knew what I did.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken your bracelet without permission,” I said.

No amount of apologizing would cover how horrible I felt about this, but I was even more scared about getting kicked out of her house. There was nowhere to go and I didn’t make enough money at my part time job to live on my own. My metaphysical shields were down, which made it easy to read her. I expected extreme anger, but was confused by her fear. She was terrified.

“You need to leave. You need to get out right now,” she said.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“Go to school or your friend’s house, I don’t care. Just get out of here,” she said.

When I stood dumbfounded, she moved behind me and started shoving me out the bathroom door, stopping long enough to grab the package of bandages I left on the sink counter.

Her disappointment killed me. “I tried to protect you, but you’re getting too old for that.”

No, I wasn’t too old at all. I wanted to stay at the house. I really screwed up, and there was no way I could make it up to her.

She abandoned me at my bedroom when the doorbell rang. Her fear escalated. I bandaged my wounds the best I could with shaking hands as I replayed what Sable said. Why wasn’t she angrier about the bracelet? Her fear was genuine. The Raver knew my name. He said he watched our house. She must have known about this for a while.

The first thing my hand touched in the closest, I pulled out. Today, I was going to wear a red skirt with white fringe trim. I pulled out a white button-up top with long sleeves. Dress codes were a little more lax in high school. No more uniforms once you made it through junior high. I pulled on knee high stockings and my best black boots with a half inch heel. That was the highest heel a student was allowed to wear. Since I loomed over most girls my age, I didn’t wear pants because it made me feel less feminine.

The urgency in Sable’s tone kept me from dabbling with the finer things like makeup and a brush. I would have forgone the knee-highs, but my kneecaps were bruised and swollen from falling the other night and I didn’t own a longer skirt. Plus, I wanted to keep the other scars hidden.

I grabbed my packed duffle bag from under the bed. It was filled with necessities. Being in the system, one never knew when the government was going to yank them from their current residence and I didn’t want to leave anything important behind. The bag’s been ready for the last eight years, but I updated the stuff every summer. I unzipped the bag and shoved the creature encyclopedia and the clothes I took from the basement into it.

I was very aware that I was once again stealing from the lady who sheltered me, but I didn’t want the clothes to be the next box thrown away. The bag was barely zipped when the walls rattled from the front door slamming shut. I was out in the hallway before I could think better of it. Sable wasn’t helping me by keeping me in the dark.

There were three men in the entryway with their guns drawn. Since they weren’t wearing blue of any shade, it was safe to bet they weren’t working with World Congress. Those guns were illegal.

One of the men had Sable backed against the wall. “Sonya thinks you’re a traitor and wants the girl sent to her right away. She thinks you’re incapable of controlling her.”

Crouching made my body parts ache, but I didn’t dare stand upright and peep around the corner, least I catch someone’s attention. The right thing to do would be to call the patrollers, but if they raided the house, they’d find the illegal stuff in the basement and the guitar I was hiding in my closet. Sable and I would both end up in the asylum or Xyla. I wasn’t sure which part of that notion was worse.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve advised her for over thirty years. Why would I be a traitor this late in the game? Of course the girl’s uncontrollable, she’s a teenager. If she’s the one, then do you expect anything different?”

“That two-bit Free-String Walker, Draken has your bracelet. Sonya’s men saw him on Xyla with your ward,” the man said.

“It’s Sonya’s problem that her spies couldn’t intercept the situation, but we still have the girl. She’s safe in her classes,” Sable said.

This conversation felt unreal, like I was still in bed getting ready to wake up at any minute. I shifted, putting more weight on my injured arm then I intended and pain shot through me. I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming. Nope, not asleep. Why was she lying for me? That made her a traitor to Sonya.

Given the distance, I had to really focus on the people at the bottom of the stairs in order to read them. The walls helped contain the array of feelings that floated towards me, but I had to sort them out. My custodian was terrified and angry. I could taste the men’s bloodlust. Their aura carried a coppery scent that strangely enough, I tasted more than smelt.

“Go check upstairs,” the leader ordered.

I closed my bedroom door as quietly as possible, which cost me a few precious seconds. Sable’s voice rose over the arguing as she stalled for time. I pushed the window open and dropped my duffle and my backpack out into the yard.

The walls shook and a moment later, Sable screamed. I paused with my legs out the window. I couldn’t save her from men with guns and she wanted me out of the house. My options were looking bleak.

I grabbed the tree branch and used it to climb out the window. Adrenaline and pain made it more of a feat than it should be. My hurt wrist didn’t help and my heart was trying to pound out of my chest. I lowered myself and dared to jump releasing the branch.

The ground rose fast, catching me in a soggy mess as the sprinklers sprayed. I snatched my bags off the lawn and dashed towards the front of the yard, keeping close to the wall. I could picture those men in my room, tearing it up. Why would a Berserker want me? I kept my nose clean. I had no ties with the government beyond the foster system. I went to a few raves, but that didn’t mean I believed in anarchy.

I jerked the fence gate open and didn’t bother to latch it shut. No one waited out front except Starr sitting in her pink golf cart.

“Hey,
Belen
, what are you doing in the back yard?” She yelled in greeting.

The black was washed from her hair, but it was still the choice of color for her clothing. Her blond locks were held back with black clips. She wore tight black jeans and a black tank top. Starr’s personality didn’t match the black she wore, but she did it to piss her politician father off.

I expected someone to dart from the house as I rushed across the lawn and flung myself into the passenger seat.

“Go. Drive. Now.”

I was out of breath. Adrenaline wasn’t the first thing I wanted for breakfast. I readjusted myself in the seat, but nothing was going to make the hard plastic comfortable on my bruised back.

“You look terrible. Did you even try to put makeup on?” Starr commented.

My spine protested, but I sank lower into the seat. It bothered me that I had a hairline scar that ran from the tip of my eye up into my hair. The other scar that I wasn’t responsible for was the puckered flesh over my chest like something wanted to rip my heart out. The thinner scars were my doing.

I needed to buy more razors. It was the only way to keep people’s emotions from overpowering me, when my shields were weak. Now that I was heading towards school, I really needed to get the rings of light back into place. It was a little easier to focus on with the fresh, cold air clearing my thoughts.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Starr asked.

“Question?”

Starr gave a miffed sigh. “Are you sure you want to go to school today? You look terrible.”

I brushed at the grass that clung to my tights and was again aware how badly my wrist ached. The clothes hid some of the bruising, but my face was an obvious eyesore. The teachers were going to be suspicious.

Starr seemed perfectly together, as if last night didn’t happen. A man died right in front of us and the same thing nearly happened to us when we were thrown overboard. I couldn’t even bring the subject up, so I focused on another necessity.

“Do you have anything to eat?” I asked.

She raised an eyebrow and that answered my question.

We made it to the main street, crowded as usual with tourists. It was like this every morning, including the weekends. Tourists came from the mainland to the island for a bit of exotic fun, and Ardent residences tried their best to appear exotic. Ardent was another manmade island, like Xyla and the Ardent Asylum.