Shadowshaper (2 page)

Grandpa Lázaro sat up in bed when Sierra walked into his apartment on the top floor of their brownstone. He regarded her with a concerned shake of his head, the jowly folds under his chin waving back and forth, his clawlike hands clutching the sheets. The old man had barely said anything since his stroke, but occasionally he’d blurt out random boleros from back in the day. Today he seemed different, though: his gaze was sharper and his lopsided mouth curved into a frown. “Lo siento lo siento lo siento,” he muttered.

“What, Abuelo?” Sierra said. “What are you sorry for?”

Lázaro looked away, scowling. Ceiling-high windows around her grandfather’s bed made the room feel like the crow’s nest on some urban pirate ship. Outside, streetlights blinked to life along the streets of Bed-Stuy as the swirling orange clouds gave way to dark blue. All over Brooklyn, folks were heading out to their stoops and strolling the avenues to take in another warm New York night.

Sierra’s phone buzzed again. Bennie was probably trying to rush her along so they could get to the party at Sully’s. Sierra double-checked that Lázaro’s meds were all in order, his glass of water filled, his slippers by the bed.

“Lo siento lo siento lo siento,” Grandpa Lázaro muttered again.

Another buzz. Sierra growled and looked at her phone.

She rolled her eyes and pocketed the phone. “You good, Abuelo?”

The old man looked up suddenly. His dark brown eyes locked with Sierra’s. “Ven acá, m’ija. I have to speak with you.”

Sierra stepped back in shock. His eyes were clear and serious. Lázaro’s stroke had left him with full movement of his body — he could take care of himself for the most part — but this was the first time he’d made any sense in a year.

Grandpa Lázaro lifted a skin-and-bones arm and waved Sierra closer. “Ven acá, Sierra. Quickly. We don’t have much time.”

She crossed the room. His warm brown hand wrapped around her wrist. Sierra almost yelped. “Listen to me, m’ija. They are coming. For us.” Tears appeared in Lázaro’s foggy eyes. “For the shadowshapers.”

“The who? Abuelo, what are you talking about?”

“I’m so sorry, Sierra. I tried … to do right. ¿Entiendes?”

“No, Abuelo, I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

“¡Oye!” María, Sierra’s mom, called from downstairs. “Sierra, you coming? Bennie’s here and she says you’re late!”

“Finish the mural, Sierra. Finish the mural quickly. The paintings are fading …” His voice trailed off and those old eyes blinked a few times. “Soon we’ll all be lost.”

“Abuelo! What do you mean? The mural in the Junklot?” Manny had just said the same thing to her. But it wasn’t anywhere near done. “That’s gonna take me all summer. I can’t finish anytime so —”

Lázaro’s eyes sprung open again. “¡No! ¡No puede! You must finish it, Sierra. Finish it now! As soon as possible! They are …” He squeezed her wrist tighter. She felt his hot breath on the side of her face. “They are coming for us. Coming for the shadowshapers.” He released her and slumped back against his pillows.

“Who’s coming, Abuelo? What are the shadowshapers?”

“Sierra?” María called again from the first floor. “You hear me? Bennie says …”

“I’m coming, Mami!” Sierra yelled.

Lázaro shook his head. “The boy Robbie will help you. Ask him for help, Sierra. You need help. I can’t … It’s too late.” He nodded his head, eyes closing again. “No puedo, m’ija. No puedo.”

“Robbie from school?” Sierra said. “Abuelo, how do you even know him?” Robbie was a tall Haitian kid with long locks who had shown up midyear with a goofy grin and wild drawings covering every surface of his clothes, his backpack, his desk. If Sierra had been the kind of girl who gave a damn about boys and their cuteness, Robbie the Walking Mural would find himself somewhere on her top-ten list.

“He will help you,” Lázaro whispered, his head drooping. “You need help, Sierra. They are coming for us all. We don’t have long. I’m … I’m sorry.”

“Sierra!” María called.

Lázaro closed his eyes and let out a loud snore. Sierra backed toward the door. Her phone buzzed again. She turned around and ran down the stairs.

“And so I looked at the headmaster,” María Carmen Corona Santiago said to Bennie as Sierra walked into the kitchen, “and I said, ‘Yes, my students will be reading that book today.’ ” She slapped the kitchen table. “And they did!”

“Wow,” Bennie said. María turned to face Sierra, and Bennie made a “help me” face.

“So you finally decided to show up!” María said. “I was just telling Bennie about the time they tried to ban those books.”

Sierra bent down and kissed her mom on the cheek. María was still in her crisp blue pantsuit. Her graying black hair was pulled back into a sharp bun and her makeup was immaculate, even at the end of a long day. “I’m sure she was thrilled to hear that story again,” Sierra said.

María swatted her away. “Who taught you to be so sarcastic?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“And why aren’t you changed yet? I thought you said you were ready.”

Sierra looked down. She was still wearing the same T-shirt with torn-off sleeves, pleated skirt, and combat boots she’d been painting in, and her fro stretched magnificently around her in a fabulous, unbothered halo. She’d stopped by her room just long enough to throw some extra bangles around her wrists and beaded necklaces over her head, and that was that. “I mean …”

Bennie stood. “I think you look great, Sierra!”

That was definitely not true: Bennie and Sierra had almost opposite styles, and they never got tired of letting each other know their opinions. Tonight, Bennie had on creased gray slacks and a button-down maroon top that matched her tortoiseshell glasses. “Well, it’s been lovely, Mrs. Santiago. C’mon, Sierra,” she said, smiling a little too hard. She took Sierra’s arm and led her toward the door. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Bennaldra! Since when you have taken Sierra’s side on a fashion issue?” María demanded. “You know what? Never mind. Have fun, girls. Be safe, okay?”

Sierra stopped at the doorway. “Hey, Mami, have you checked on Abuelo in the past day or two?”

“What’s that, m’ija?”

“He seemed upset just now. He was … talking. Whole sentences that made sense. Have you ever heard of the shadowshapers?”

Something happened in María’s face — the slightest clenching of her cheek muscles, maybe, or perhaps her eyes narrowing the tiniest bit. Whatever it was, Sierra had seen it happen again and again throughout her life: Ask the wrong question, mention some untouchable topic, just catch her mother at the wrong moment, and it was like some invisible barrier sprang into place.

“I don’t know what that is, Sierra.” María smiled, just a little, but her voice was ice. She turned quickly back to the dishes.

“That’s weird,” Sierra said, “cuz you look an awful lot like you know what I’m talking about.”

“Sierra. I said I don’t know. I’ll check on your grandfather later.”

It would’ve been so much better if she’d just yell and scream like a normal mom. Instead, she didn’t even raise her voice. Sierra knew that was that — the conversation was over, the battle lost.

“Fine.” Sierra turned. “C’mon, Bennie.”

“Sierra, come back,” María called, but her voice sounded empty.

“What was that all about?” Bennie asked. They were fast-walking down Lafayette toward downtown Brooklyn. Some little kids zipped past on scooters. A group of middle-aged women sat in lawn chairs outside a brownstone, sipping beers and laughing.

Sierra shrugged. “Nothin’.”

“Right, cuz that wasn’t awkward at all.”

“C’mon, B! I thought you didn’t wanna be late.”

The Bradwicks’ elaborate Park Slope brownstone was bursting with teenagers when Sierra and Bennie got there. Just about every ninth, tenth, and eleventh grader from Octavia Butler High was running around the backyard or exploring the winding passageways of the house. The sound system alternately blared hip-hop and grungy emo rock as various DJs took turns pushing one another out of the way. Some kids stood in a little circle out back, beatboxing and freestyling, inventing brand-new ways of putting one another down and sending up wild cheers when a dig found its mark.

Sierra’s eyes jumped from face to face, but Robbie’s drawing-covered clothes and slender locks were nowhere to be seen. She watched Big Jerome pick up Little Jerome by the scruff of the neck like he was a puppy and toss him into the pool, upsetting the Marco Polo players. Over at the freestyle circle, her friend Izzy delivered a crushing sixteen-bar denouncement of another kid’s mama. Tee cheered her girlfriend from the crowd. Bennie joined the circle, laughing along with each line. Izzy wrapped up with a triumphant and brutal verse rhyming
spastic, sarcastic
, and
less than fantastic
, and the crowd erupted in thunderous applause. The other kid, an extra-short and elegantly dressed tenth grader named Pitkin, recognized defeat and stepped back into the crowd with a gentlemanly bow.

“Sierra! Bennie!” Tee shouted, running over. “Y’all seen my baby shred that tiny dapper kid?”

“Hey!” Pitkin yelled.

Tee cringed and then rolled her eyes beneath her perfectly coifed pompadour. “ ’S’all love, bro!”

“I did what I do.” Izzy grinned and walked over, making a little curtsy. She had been entertaining everyone with her perverse rhymes since the fourth grade. “King Impervious on the mic!” she yelled. “Waddup, Brooklyn!”

“Who’s King Impervious?” Bennie asked.

“That’s my MC name, you ain’t know?”

“How she gonna know, Iz?” Tee chided. “You came up with that this morning!”

“But I’m already a global phenomenon!”

Everyone groaned. Izzy was a wisp of a girl, both skinny and short, but she sported a meticulously groomed mane of black hair that added a couple of inches in all directions. She sighed and rested her head on the shoulder of Tee’s designer polo shirt.

“Hey, c’mon now,” Tee yelled, stepping away. “This polo brand-new. Lean on Sierra, her T-shirt been around since the seventies.”

Izzy made a pouty face.

“I’m all set,” Sierra said. “Y’all seen Robbie?”

“You mean Weirdo McPainting Dude?” Tee said.

“You mean the Cartoon-Covered Haitian Sensation?” Izzy suggested.

“You mean the Human Walking Stick?” Bennie offered.

Sierra shook her head. “I hate you one and all. And Bennie, he’s not even
that
tall and skinny.”

Izzy scoffed. “He’s eight feet tall and two inches wide, Sierra.”

“When he walks down my block,” Tee said, “all the telephone poles be like ‘Ay bruh, what it do?’ ”

Izzy spat her drink back into the red plastic cup and dapped her girlfriend. “Good one, babe.”

Behind them, someone screamed. Sierra whirled around, but it was just Big Jerome, finally succumbing to the team of ninth graders that Little Jerome had rallied. Big Jerome hollered and tumbled headfirst into the pool, taking at least three younger kids with him. The whole party burst into jeers and laughter.

When Sierra turned back to her friends, both Bennie’s eyebrows were arched. “You shook up, girl. Talk to me.”

Sierra rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go help your boy?”

“Don’t even start,” Bennie said. Big Jerome had harbored a gigantoid crush on her for as long as anyone could remember.

“Y’all seen Robbie or not?”

Bennie snickered. “Why you wanna know?”

“I gotta ask him some stuff.”

“Sierra!” Izzy yelled. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a crush! We woulda gone easier on the guy.”

“What? No!” Sierra rolled her eyes again. “First of all: No, you wouldn’ta. And secondly, a girl can’t ask a guy stuff without everyone launching interrogations? I’m not tryna … no!”

“It’s cuz you both draw?” Tee suggested. “Because a lotta people draw. If you go to art school, you will find a whole teeming buttload of drawing dudes.”

“Please,” Izzy said. “Never say ‘teeming buttload’ ever again.”

“You guys are literally useless,” Sierra said.

“He’s right over there,” Tee said, “by the mango tree or whatever that is, in that little dark garden area. Being creepy like always. Hey, where you going?”

Sierra made her way up a narrow path surrounded by an herb garden and some scrawny trees. The light was dim deeper into the shrubbery, and Robbie’s slender form blended so well with the curling vines and branches it took Sierra a few seconds of squinting to find him. Robbie sat with his back against a tree and a sketchbook propped on his bent knees.

Sierra’s policy on cute boys, and really, boys in general, was this:
ignore, ignore, ignore
. They usually ruined all their cute as soon as they opened their mouths and said something stupid, and she had more fun hanging out with Bennie and the crew anyway. Robbie had always seemed a little different, though. He was mostly quiet and didn’t have that insistent hunger for attention about him. In school, he just sat there sketching and smiling like he was in on some joke no one else got. Which would normally be annoying, but Sierra found it endearing.

All that only made her more dedicated to sticking to the triple-
I
policy. Inevitably, Robbie would open his mouth and end up an idiot like the rest of them. Why bother? But here she was standing at the edge of this weird garden in Park Slope, a house full of partying teenagers behind her, and a bizarre mandate from her normally incoherent abuelo to recruit Robbie to finish a mural. She sighed.

“You just gonna stand there sighing,” Robbie said, “or you gonna come say hi?”

Sierra cringed. “I … Hi!”

“Hi! I’m Robbie.” His hand poked out of the bush.

She laughed and shook it. “I know who you are, man. We were in Aldridge’s American History AP class together, aka naptime.”

“I knew that!” Robbie said. “And I knew who you are, Sierra Santiago. I just don’t really expect people to, you know … notice me? I don’t really say much.”

“You really don’t.” Sierra parted some branches and entered the shadowy grove. “But you draw and I draw … er, paint, mostly, so I noticed you.” She found a spot beside him.

Robbie gasped through a mischievous smile. “How ever did you know I like to draw?”

“Sir,” Sierra said.

“But seriously, I didn’t know you did too. What you paint?”

“Actually, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.” But how to explain? She peered at Robbie’s picture. “What you makin’ there?”

“Just sketchin’.” He held up his drawing pad. Thick graffiti letters sprang from a swirly garden not unlike the one that surrounded them. The letters
B U Z Z
wound and looped with exaggerated grace; here they were brick, there balloony with globs of shine. “You like it?”

“I do.”

Robbie smiled and went back to his drawing.

“Listen, Robbie.” Words failed Sierra. Drawing was so much easier. She waved her hands a few times in the air. “I’m working on this mural.”

Robbie looked up briefly and nodded, still drawing. “That’s cool. I do murals too.”

A shout rang out from the party. Both Jeromes were in the pool now, each with a tenth-grade girl on his shoulders. Everyone was yelling. Some stupidity was surely about to commence.

“The thing is, my grandpa actually told me I gotta finish this mural like … quickly. Right? Which is weird, cuz he —”

“Who’s your grandpa?” He shaded a thick loop of the letter
Z
with slanting lines.

“His name’s Lázaro. Lázaro Corona.”

Robbie looked directly at Sierra. She caught her breath. He had big brown eyes, kind eyes, but something else danced behind them now. Was it fear?

“You’re Lázaro Corona’s granddaughter?” he said.

Sierra scrunched up her face. “Yes. That mean something to you?”

Robbie just nodded. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

She decided to ignore his stare. “Well, he’s been pretty much out of it since last year when he had this stroke, but tonight he told me to … He told me to find you, and to get you to help me finish the Junklot mural, and to do it fast. He said the murals were fading and that someone was coming for us, and something about shadowshapers …”

And the painting was crying, Robbie. It was fading and crying.
The words lingered at the edge of her tongue, made her mouth feel heavy. No. He’d think she was crazy. Or maybe they’d just sit there for ages and stare at each other and not say anything.

And as she looked again into his brown eyes, in a weird, quiet way, that was what Sierra wanted.

Finally, Robbie looked back at his sketch, his brows creased in concentration. “Lázaro told you about the shadowshapers, huh?”

“He just mentioned them,” Sierra said. “Didn’t explain. You know about ’em?”

“A thing or two.”

“Well, that’s gratingly vague. You gonna help me with this mural or not?”

“If Grandpa Lázaro said I gotta, then I guess I gotta.” He looked up and smiled.

“Oh, great, don’t do it for me or nothin’. I see how it is.” She took his notepad from him and scribbled her number on the cardboard backing. “There. You got the digits and you didn’t even ask for ’em.”

Robbie laughed. “Look, the shadowshapers … It’s a lot to explain. I’m not really sure where to start …”

A hubbub was rising from the party, some yelling and cursing — a fight perhaps. Robbie was staring through the tangle of vines around them. He stood up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Sierra said.

“It’s begun.”

Sierra got up too. “What has, man? Talk to me.”

“We have to go,” Robbie said. “Right now.”