The Year of Shadows (40 page)

Black and crisped, shimmering like fairy dust. Without eyes, without nose, with a hole for a mouth.

“How long have you been here?” I whispered.

“Here?”

I closed my eyes, wrapping myself up in the sound of her voice, even though shadows scratched through it. “In Limbo.”

“Is that where this is?” She sighed, looked around. “You know, I’m not sure. I’m not sure of a lot of things, these days.”

“Mom, you do know . . . you know you’re dead, right?”

“Dead?” She tilted her head. “Is that what this is? It’s difficult to remember.”

I reached for Igor. He crawled into my lap.

“You left us.” I tried to sound casual about it. “The Christmas before last, you left me and . . . and the Maestro, and then about a year ago, you died.”

She stared at me in silence.

“There was a car crash, Mom. And a memorial at Pine Ridge Baptist. And the Maestro didn’t tell me. I
just
found out.”

“Car crash?”

“Why didn’t you say good-bye? Huh?” Suddenly I was mad. Boiling mad. Burning mad. I punched her arm. It was like punching stone, and I started to cry. “Why couldn’t you just have explained? You fell out of love with him. With us.”

“Never.” Mom leaned close to me. Her breath smelled of lightning and dark places. “
Never
you, Olivia.”

“Then why?”

“I was scared, and angry.”

I kicked the ground. Black snow flew everywhere. “Yeah, well, I’m scared and angry too. A lot. And I’m only a kid, you know?”

“I never said I had a good reason. But it’s a reason. And more time passed and more time passed, and then I was really scared. I couldn’t come back to you. You would hate me.”

I ground my fists into my eyes. “I never hated you.”

“But you hate your father.”

“He made you leave.”

“Nobody made me leave but me. I was unhappy. I left. I didn’t do it right. But I can’t change that now.” Mom looked out over the mountaintops. “So, Limbo, is it? It’s a strange sort of place. Isn’t it? Surely I was alive only yesterday. It can’t have been long.”

“You died, Mom,” I whispered, “and you never said goodbye. You were just . . .
gone
.”

“I know, baby.”

“We live at the Hall now. Me and the Maestro and Nonnie. He sold all our things.”

“Oh, honey.”

“I hate my clothes. They smell like smokers because I have to get them from the charity store.”

And I couldn’t stop talking. I told her everything, a whole year of everything. Counselor Davis and Principal Cooper and the notes from school. Green candy. The petition. The Economy. Richard Ashley and how he let me cry into his jacket on the way to the hospital. My sketches, and art school.

Henry.

That color flickered over Mom’s face again. For a second, I thought I saw her real eyes. “Henry. He sounds like a nice boy. Is he cute?”

“Mom.”

“Well. I’m supposed to ask these things.”

I squinted up at her. “You are?”

“I think so. Well? Is he?”

Suddenly, my crackling black shoelaces seemed very interesting. “I don’t know, he’s got freckles and whatever.”

Igor snorted.
Ahem.

“You’ve seen him, though, right?” I looked up carefully. “I mean, you and the shades have been all over the Hall.
You’ve been attacking everything—the ceiling, the ghosts, even me.”

Mom leaned back. “We have?”

“Don’t you remember? For months, you’ve been coming to the Hall. You . . .” I swallowed, hard. “You hurt the Maestro. You crashed the ceiling down on him. He’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, Olivia . . .”

“You
have
to remember that. Why’d you do it?”

“Oh, I don’t, though.” She started to wring her hands. “I remember . . . light and warmth. I remember searching. I remember . . . feeling angry and lost, and so alone. I remember finding others. I remember searching for . . . fresh blood.”

Fresh blood.
One of the shades that brought me here had said that to me. What if that shade had been Mom, confused?

Perhaps,
Igor suggested,
they are all confused.

“Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing?” I murmured.

Igor bent to smooth out his tail.
Like moths to flames.

“Instinct.”

Frederick had said shades didn’t know who or what or where they were, once in the world of the Living.
They become hardly more than mindless beasts, confused and vicious.

I scooted closer to Mom, took her hand in mine. My head ached, my heart ached. “Mom, are you telling me that you
weren’t
trying to eat the ghosts?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You weren’t trying to attack them, or us, or make the Hall come crashing down?”

Mom shook her head, shrinking into a black stump of shadow and snow. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Olivia. Please slow down.”

“All you saw was fog, you said? Light and warmth?”

“So warm.” She looked up at me. “Do you know where I can get more of that? It’s that other place, outside. That’s where the warmth is. We like it there. We want more of it.”

I lay back on the snow, staring at the inside-out sky. “You didn’t mean it. You were confused.”

Mom lay down beside me, shadowy tendrils tickling my wrist. “This is nice. I lie here a lot, but not with friends.”

Tears filled my eyes, turning the sky wobbly and black. “Mom. I’m not a friend. I’m your daughter, Olivia. Remember?”

She placed her hand in mine. “They can be the same thing.”

After a few minutes, Igor nudged my cheek.
Olivia? We need to go.

Yes, we did. But how? I had found her at last.

“I have so many questions,” I choked out.

“So do I,” Mom murmured, wonderingly. “Like why the sky is white here, and the stars black. I’m sure if anyone hurt you, Olivia, they didn’t mean to. We don’t mean to do a lot of things here.”

Igor was peering over the mountainside.
Olivia, we really should go.

I joined him. The other shades were inching toward us, pulling themselves up by their sharp, black fingernails.

“I thought they didn’t mean to hurt us,” I said.

Igor backed away, his fur standing straight up.
Remember what Frederick said. To them, you are warmth and light and blood, the very things they want and don’t have—and
can’t
have. Think about that. They might not mean it. But they want it.

“Mom, we need your help.”

“Anything, baby.”

“There’s a doll here, somewhere. A little girl’s doll. We need to take it back with us.” My throat tightened, but I shoved through it. “And we need to go back. Now.”

“Oh! That. Why, Olivia, it’s right here.”

Mom dug through the snow, and the next thing I knew, she handed me the doll. A tiny rag doll, covered in years of dust. I could barely see its smile.

“See? I found it for you. I found it before. I thought it was warm, but it turned out to be just a toy. A fake you.”

“We need to take it back. Do you understand? Back to the other place?”

“The warm place.” Mom nodded. “I can do that. And then we have to say good-bye?”

“I think so, yes.”

Mom smoothed my hair, sending tiny dark icicles flying. “Good-bye again. I don’t like that.”

“Me neither.”

“Promise me this, Olivia.” And Mom leaned close, and the
color flickered across her face, and it stayed. She was her old self, smiling down at me, pale hair in her eyes and shadows around the edges. “Try to forgive your father. He’s a good man. He showed me many beautiful things. But sometimes even beautiful things fade and change. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I tried to memorize her face. I wanted to draw this moment. “I’ll try.”

She flashed me a brilliant smile. “That’s fine. I know you try hard.”

Shadowed hands reached for us. Long, thin heads with drooping mouths slithered up over the edges of the cliffs surrounding us.

Igor hissed at them.
Olivia! Action, please!

“Mom, we have to go.”

“Very well. Hold this.”

She folded the doll into my arms. Then she scooped me and Igor up against her chest and leapt out into the wind.

I squeezed my eyes shut. We were going to fall to our deaths. “Mom? Mom!”

“Open your eyes, baby.”

I did.

We were flying.

Mom was still made of shadows, but they were beautiful and strong, streaming behind her like wings. The stars had turned into birds, like us, flapping and soaring beside us. We dipped and darted, we dove and danced, and they matched us. They were swans. Mom’s swans.

She folded the doll into my arms. Then she scooped me and Igor up against her chest and leapt out into the wind.

“Mom.” I laughed. “You taught me how to make these. You put them all over the house.”

“I remember. You liked making things. Hold on tight, now.”

She kissed my head, and I grabbed Igor tighter. My skin was melting away, becoming normal again.

“Is this it?” I whispered.

“Yes. You see?”

Following Mom’s eyes up to the very top of the sky, I saw the birds gathering there, a storm cloud of wings. And then they weren’t birds at all, but an opening. Warmth rushed toward me, flooding my mouth. I saw beautiful lights.

“Is that home?”

“Live.” That was her answer, whispered at my cheek. “Live, for me.”

Then, she threw me out of her arms and pushed me up, up, up . . .

I reached for the birds, for the tips of their wings, for the warmth. I would see Henry soon. I had kissed his cheek. And the Maestro. He needed to wake up.

Once, I turned back.

Mom was there, waiting in the middle of the white sky. She waved. I waved back. I took a deep breath and reached for the birds.

And right then, right before I pulled myself out, I saw Mom close her eyes. The shadows faded from her, and she
was a woman, all smiles and fingers and hair and warm arms, and she sighed, and was gone.

So was I, tumbling out.

I was home. I was in the Hall, on the stage. Tabby’s doll fell at Mr. Worthington’s feet. I couldn’t hold myself together anymore. My skin felt fresh and raw, tingling all over, and it
was
warm here, and so, so bright. I got sick, careful not to get it on the doll. I lay there on the ground and cried so hard that not much came out but gasps.

Mr. Worthington tried to hug me, his arms slipping right through me. “Okay? Yes?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Have you been waiting here for me?”

“Yes.”

I pushed myself up and tried to hug him. It didn’t work, and I screamed in frustration. “I wish . . . I’m going to miss you.”

He paused. “Yes.”

“Just do it, okay?” I stepped away from him, even though it hurt. “Do what you have to do.”

“Okay?”

“Is it okay? Yes, it’s okay. Do it.”

Mr. Worthington hesitated, staring at me with those drooping, shimmering eyes. He didn’t have much time left, I would bet.

“Do it!”

My shout still echoing in the Hall, Mr. Worthington
crouched by his daughter’s doll. His fingers hovered over her tiny hands.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s time.”

He looked back at me, his hat dripping down to his feet. “Friend?”

“Yes.” I nodded, squeezing Igor to my stomach. “Now, hurry up.”

With both hands, he picked up the doll, holding it like it was made of glass instead of rags and dirt. He kissed its head.

A tiny bright cloud shimmered around him. I saw the figure of a girl, smoky and soft like a ghost, but better. Something better than a ghost. Something happier.

Tabby threw her arms around Mr. Worthington’s neck.

“Tabby,” Mr. Worthington gasped. He picked her up, swinging her around till they were a blur of color and smoke. As they moved, he started to come apart. First his hat flew off. Then his tie.

He looked up at me, right at the end.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Then Tabby’s light swallowed them up. I had to look away, it was so bright.

For half a second, the doll hung in midair. Then it plopped to the floor. Its head slumped heavily onto its chest.

And that was it. He was gone.

All of them were gone.