Jasmine Grace                      

Shadows

The shadow of the basketball fell on the side of the brick building, arcing up before passing through the shadow net.

In reality, the ball had missed its target, falling to the side.

Funny how shadows can trick us, Kaluna mused. She stood watching the game from behind a tree on the other side of the park. The others called her names when she tried to join. So she didn't.

If she tried to force her way in, they either left to play somewhere else, or pushed her off the court.

So Kaluna had stopped trying to play with them. She watched from behind this tree, from the top of the playground, or around the corner of the brick building across the street. And she kept score for them, not that anyone knew.

But she had to be involved somehow. Basketball was Kaluna’s favorite. She loved the swishy sound the ball made when it fell through the net. And she liked to watch the players. It was fun to watch the games on TV with her dad, where all the players had their names sewn right onto their shirts. But even though Kaluna knew their names, Kaluna didn’t know those players.

The kids on the court out here were her classmates. Kaluna, silently, or in a whisper if she dared, cheered on her favorites: the ones who ran the fastest and never yelled at their teammates.

One of her favorites, freckled girl who sat next to her in math, initiated a series of passes right up the court. A clever play. The defense couldn't keep up.

Kaluna pulled a blade of grass from the ground, prepared to lay it on the exposed tree root. It would be their first score, their first tally.

But the curly-haired boy who took the shot couldn't quite get it in. Oh, well. If they kept playing like that, shots would start to fall.

Kaluna dropped her blade of grass, watching it twirl into the sea of green that surrounded the trees on this side of the park.

The freckled girl leapt to grab her rebound, but an opposing player beat her to it, and he launched it to the far end of the court, at his teammate already running toward the net.

The catch was perfect: right height, great timing for a layup.

That boy was one step, two steps from the net. He took his last dribble and then…     

Then Kaluna heard snickers behind her.

 She looked away from the game. She wouldn’t get to watch it now. Kaluna never got to do anything after they found her.

“The witch is a stalker now?”

The sky darkened as Kaluna turned around to see the tall, Red-Haired Boy standing over her. He had blue eyes like glaciers, and fair skin with freckles dotting his cheeks, crawling over his nose, even sprawling up his arms, disappearing beneath the sleeves of his blue T-shirt. Sweaty red hair flopped over his forehead.

Two or three other boys, and maybe one of the girls, stood behind the Red-Haired Boy. They were all mean. But Kaluna kept her eyes on the Red-Haired Boy.

He was the meanest of all.

He’d never been nice, not to anyone. He’d said mean things to Kaluna even before the day that left the scar on her hand.

Kaluna knew his name once, before she decided he wasn’t deserving of a name. It wasn’t as if he called her anything nice.

“Hey!” he shouted to the kids on the court. “I found the witch! She's stalking us!”

Some of the players ran over to join the Red-Haired Boy, interrupting a flawless shot by the curly-haired boy. He stayed behind, grabbed his rebound, and pretended he couldn't see anything behind the tree.

Kaluna turned away and stood, though she only came up to the boy’s shoulders.

“Don't let her get too close! She'll cast a spell on you!” joked one of the players.

“Ooh! Don't wanna get cursed!” Sneered the Red-Haired Boy, raising his hands in mock surrender. 

Kaluna only rolled her eyes. Best not to say too much.

“Why are you here?” asked the Red-Haired Boy.

“I like basketball.”

“So why are you behind a tree?”

“Are you stalking us?” said a girl from the grade below them.

Kaluna stared at her shoes, and how they cast an uneven shadow over the choppy grass. “I was watching basketball.”

“She admits it! She’s stalking us!”

“No! I was watching because you never let me play.”

What else was she supposed to do? This was the only park in town. And her dad didn’t have the time to drive over the gravel roads through the forest to other towns.

“She’s a stalker!” declared the Red-Haired Boy. “The witch is lying!”

Kaluna kept her head down, stared at her shoes. At her shadow, at the uneven blades of grass, at a little beetle crawling along the roots of the tree, where she would have counted their score if they’d left her alone.

She jumped as the Red-Haired Boy slammed his fist against the tree, just beside her head.

“So you’re a witch and a stalker and a liar?”

Kaluna was none of those things.

She could only wish she was a witch with magic powers, and she always told the truth. Her dad said lying was bad. And she wasn’t sure what a stalker was, but it seemed to be bad. Kaluna wasn’t doing anything bad.

“Look, the witch forgot how to talk.” The Red-Haired Boy leaned closer.

“Maybe she cursed herself,” wondered one of the players.

“I'm not a witch!” protested Kaluna. And she wasn’t a liar, and she wasn’t a stalker.

“Really? We all remember what happened with that fire,” said the Red-Haired Boy.

Kaluna was the only one who couldn't.

She remembered that they had gone hiking that day, on the mountain that loomed over the town. There were so many of them, they walked in a long line to fit on the narrow trail.

She remembered carrying a backpack full of water bottles for everyone. It was heavy, but everyone was so glad that she carried it for them. And Kaluna was strong, much stronger than anyone realized.

She didn’t know who had the idea for the prank, but she remembered telling the others that the it was a bad idea, that they weren’t supposed to play with matches. Her dad warned her matches were dangerous.

But even back then, people didn’t listen to Kaluna. Someone promised it was alright, that they had water in their water bottles just in case. Someone else told Kaluna she worried too much.

Then someone dropped a match, and soon the dry trees were alight, while flames licked the dry leaves off the ground.

Kaluna remembered the fire surrounding her, cutting her off from any escape. She remembered the skin on her hand being singed by a flaming branch that lashed out from the burning trees. She panicked, terror filling the pit in her stomach.

Then darkness had surrounded her, wrapping her up like a blanket, soothing the burn on her hand, smothering the flames.

She would never forget the soft touch of that darkness, how gently it had enveloped her. It was like lying back on a raft and being carried off by the river, trusting the water to take you where you wanted to go.

But she didn't know how what the darkness was, or where it had come from, or how it got there. 

No one else knew, either.

But after someone suggested that perhaps Kaluna was magical, the Red-Haired Boy declared that she must be a witch, and that because her magic looked like darkness, that she must be an evil witch. And no one talked to her after that.

“You’re a witch, Kaluna,” said the Red-Haired Boy.

“The only reason you didn't get burned was your magic,” chimed in another boy.

“We all saw it. It was black and slimy,” said the girl in the grade below them.

Kaluna stared back at the beetle on the root of the tree. The darkness hadn’t been slimy. And it certainly hadn’t been magic.

The Red-Haired Boy took a step forward. The beetle on the tree’s roots scrambled away from the incoming shadow of the boy’s sneaker, but it wasn’t fast enough.

Its shell cracked beneath the sole of his shoe.

“You're a witch, Kaluna. A filthy, disgusting–”

“Let's finish our game before it starts to rain!” called the curly haired boy from the basketball court. Clouds gathered overhead.

“I'm not done here,” the tall boy whispered, placing his other hand on the tree, trapping Kaluna.

He leaned toward her. A bead of sweat dripped down his nose, landing on her grey shirt.

“The witch needs to learn to stay away,” he said.

He was so close, Kaluna smelt the onions on his breath. She had never been this close to before, in such direct peril.

He’d hit her before. Left bruises on her shoulders, once on her cheek. Her dad had asked where they’d come from, but Kaluna had been embarrassed to tell him. So she lied (and it made her stomach turn; telling a lie to her dad). She said she fell from a tree. The next time she said she tripped on her way home from school. Then she fell out of bed in the morning.

Kaluna’s dad had come to believe that she was quite clumsy.

But those times when the Red-Haired Boy had hit her, Kaluna had been able to escape. Able to escape into the forest, or to one of the few places around here that were public enough to be safe.

Now she was hidden behind a tree, and cornered by the Red-Haired Boy. Trapped.

“We don't want you here, witch. Don't you ever come back here and bother us again.”

There was hatred in his eyes. But hiding behind it there was fear.

She put her hands on his sweat-soaked chest and pushed him away. He tripped and landed on the ground. Rain began to fall.

“I wasn't bothering you. You didn't even know I was here!”

Thunder cracked in the sky.

“Leave me alone!”

He sat up, but paused begore he stood. One of the other boys pointed, and Kaluna turned to see what they were looking at.

The leaves on Kaluna’s tree fluttered to the ground. Perfect, green, healthy leaves.

They weren’t supposed to do that. Kaluna’s dad told her they were deciduous trees, that they were supposed to lose their leaves each winter.

But it wasn’t winter. It was August. Almost the perfect opposite of winter.

Wind blew through the park, tearing off leaves of the trees.

“What's going on?” asked one of the kids, shouting to be heard over the crescendo of the storm.

Someone screamed.

Where the shadows of the trees had fallen in the sun, now they fell again, despite the clouds and rain.

The shadows took on a life of their own, stepping up off the grass. Trunks became bodies, roots became feet, and branches became waving arms. Two dimensions became three.

Parents grabbed small children from the sandbox and swings on the far side of the park, and jumped into cars or ran down the sidewalks.

But many of the kids had walked here. They were on their own.

The freckled girl was ushering the rest over, pointing toward an open door in the old brick building next to the basketball court.

They all ran toward it, shadows close behind them. The Red-Haired Boy pushed his way inside first, and Kaluna stumbled over the threshold last.

“Why are you letting the witch in here?” The Red-Haired Boy squealed as Kaluna closed the doors against the raging wind. “She's causing this; it's her magic! Get her out!”

“I'm not, I'm not a witch! Please! Let me stay!”

“Get her out!”

The little boy standing beside her gave a smile of pity. It was the curly-haired kid who had taken the last shot, who had stayed behind when so many of the others ran over to.

He pushed the door open wide enough for Kaluna to step back through.

She clenched her fists and ran out, into the eye of the shadow storm. The door clicked shut behind her. Kaluna’s fingernails tore into her palms. She hoped the monsters broke down the door and ate the Red-Haired Boy.

She ran, watching the shadows and the storm.

The ferocious wind tore shingles from roofs, made the telephone wires sway. It screamed through windows, spraying shattered glass across the streets. It followed the shadows as they surged through the streets.

But Kaluna's braid lay still on her shoulder. The wind barely touched her. She snatched a piece of paper from the ground as it skittered past. In her hands, it was still, barely shivering. But the moment she let go, the wind tore it away.

The paper flew across the playground, past an army of darkness. It caught on the chains of the swings, in the middle of their ranks. There were shadows on the swings, hanging from the bar on top, and sitting on the woodchips beneath.

Shadows were everywhere now; on the play structure, perched on the basketball hoop, sitting in the soccer goal.  

Kaluna backed away.

A small one, no bigger than an apple, jumped off the seesaw and crept closer to her. She looked for a place to hide from the monsters.

The door in the brick building was bolted tight, no doubt. The shops across the street had closed their doors, drawn the shutters.

No one else was left in the park. Everyone had gone home, found their own safe place to hide from the storm of darkness.

Kaluna could run home, but that was so far. And her dad would be at work at this time anyways.

She could run into the woods, but what good would that do her? She’d still be alone. She’d still be out in the storm.

The apple-monster stopped at her feet.

That creature was the only being willing to be near her. It stretched out it’s body to sniff her shoes, like a dog investigating a new friend.

So Kaluna knelt, extending her hand the same way she would to greet a dog.

Maybe the shadow-apple would lick her fingers in affection, or maybe it would open unseen jaws and devour her.

But she couldn’t be alone anymore. She needed the hollow feeling in her chest to go away.

She flinched as the apple-shadow poked her index finger.

The shadow flinched too, but Kaluna steeled her nerves, kept her hand still.

The shadow moved close again, put one little leg on her thumb. Kaluna kept still. The monster didn’t hurt her.

It settled in the center of her palm. Soft wisps of feathery darkness brushed against her skin as she brought the little creature to her chest. It had no teeth or claws.

Another shadow stepped forward. This one had six legs, a long snout, and was taller than Kaluna. His many knees bent, and he lowered himself into the grass.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but it looked an awful lot like he was bowing to her.

Maybe those kids were right. Maybe she was a witch.

Had that darkness in the fire been the same as these shadows?

That darkness had flowed like a river, formless like the wind.

These shadows were creatures, as solid as the neighbor’s cat.

But both were soft, both were gentle. Both were too impossible to exist.

Kaluna put the smaller shadow onto her shoulder, where it nestled next to her ear. She stepped toward the six-legged shadow. She reached out her hand, and the shadow raised his snout.

He sniffed her outstretched fingers, then nudged them, urging them to stroke his nose. This shadow wasn’t soft like the apple. He had coarse, ragged fur. But he was just as gentle.

Then he poked her knee with his nose.

And Kaluna understood his invitation, plainly as she understood that the Red-Haired Boy was full of hate.

She climbed onto the muscular back of shadow, riding him like a six-legged stallion of darkness.

He stood, and Kaluna faced an army of shadows. They looked at her as their leader.

Kaluna looked at the brick building.

She pointed and the shadows ran, clawing at the door, gnawing at the hinges, climbing the walls. 

Her classmates screamed as shadows found their way in. She should have felt sorry, if not for the tall boy and the bullies, at least for the ones who smiled at her in the hallways and sat next to her in class. For the curly-haired boy.

But those kids had only ever hoped that the bullies wouldn't hurt her.

So she would only hope for them.

Kaluna patted the six-legged shadow on the shoulder, and he took off at a trot. She held on to his fur, lowering herself against his shoulders to keep her balance.

Down Main Street they ran. More and more shadows pulled themselves off the ground as she passed. Each followed her. A march of darkness.

They passed the three stores and the restaurant that made all of downtown. People screamed from behind closed windows, pushed furniture against already-bolted doors.

Soon the parade of shadows reached the edge of town, where the pavement of the road was reduced to uneven gravel.

The parade took and turn to the right. In the winter, this was a snowmobile trail, but now it was over-grown with summer brush. The shadows knocked down saplings and low-hanging branches so she and her mount could make their way through.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

No answer.

The apple-shadow nuzzled its soft body against hers, and she stroked its head. Kaluna didn’t care where these creatures took her.

She hoped they brought her to the top of the mountain. Or maybe they would go the section that was blanketed in ash and charred stumps. The place this all began. As long their destination was far away, Kaluna didn’t care.

And she wouldn't mind if she never came back.

Jasmine Grace (she/her) has been writing stories since she learned to hold a pencil. Those days, she wrote of nothing but big green dragons. Today, Jasmine writes using pens and even the computer, and loves all genres, from tales of science fiction to the story about the ghost haunting the old house in the woods.