Chapter 4

(In which we explore grieving beneath a blind spot, and learn more about Grim's mission, and Silas, and Edge)

At breakfast, it took all of Elizabeth’s will not to openly gape at the details now evident around the kitchen: the crayon drawings yellowed with age but still tacked to the walls; the photographs with the extra face spliced in; the ceramic plate with a child's handprint in the center, sitting atop the cabinets. Just as she had first noticed with the picture in the bedroom upstairs, the whole house now seemed...clearer. Like she had been looking through a veil and it had just been lifted.

She ate in silence, afraid that she might say something that would give her away, instead spending the time staring at an open newspaper without reading it. Anything to avoid meeting her father's gaze. They had both had something stolen from them, but she was the only one who knew it. His continued ignorance made her feel complicit in the crime.

While her father finished eating, Elizabeth went outside and walked around to the backyard. Sure enough, the window to Silas's room was there; she could even see the stack of books that held it open, and the curtains through the panes. The paint on the sideboards went right up to the windowsill and the border. She must have been standing directly in front of the window while she painted the house. It seemed unbelievable that she would ignore something so obvious, but...well, it wasn't really a choice, was it? She had been made to ignore it.

She felt invaded. And betrayed. She felt...used. So much rage, and no place to direct it.

Summer roadwork had begun, the construction lengthening the morning's ride to the bookshop. Elizabeth stared out the window, her thoughts swirling with new ideas and muddled with exhaustion from lost sleep.

“Penny for your thoughts, ‘Lizbeth.” Her father had clearly noticed her distraction.

“I was wondering—,” she started. The timing of Silas’s disappearance, based on the oldest she had been in the pictures with him, had intrigued her. “—If you could tell me more about you and Mom.” She swallowed. “About what broke you up.”

His jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. “I assume you’ve asked her about this?”

She nodded. It was true, though not for years. Her mother had not wanted to answer these questions, nor to revisit the months immediately following the divorce. It had been a troubled time, to say the least; Helen Wilson had fallen deep into depression, culminating in a suicide attempt. Elizabeth had come home from school to find their apartment in a state of chaos, every book thrown from the shelves, every dish broken, the stuffing ripped out of the couch cushions, and her mother at the epicenter, unconscious with an empty bottle of pills beside her, a handwritten note on crumpled paper reading simply, “I don’t know.”

Things had gotten better since then, much better. Her mother had returned to her old self. She had changed jobs and was currently doing freelance work for several magazines, and had fallen in love with Graham--no substitute for Elizabeth’s father, but a solid man nonetheless. She was on medication and seeing a therapist, and there hadn’t been even a hint of her succumbing to the darkness of the months after the divorce.

“I don’t know what to say about it. One day we were in love, and the next we weren’t.  It was like--,” he rubbed at his jaw, searching for words. “One day I woke up and something was missing. I looked at your mother and, instead of feeling content and happy, I felt...hollow. Looking at her made me hopelessly sad. It made me feel torn-up inside. It was like I had been fluent in a language just the day before, but had somehow had it scrubbed from my brain.

"I carried this feeling around with me for weeks, trying to paste a strong face over it, hoping it would pass. But I couldn't keep it up. Faking emotions isn't easy; trying to re-create the way you kiss someone hello or the way the two of you banter is much more challenging than it would seem. So I found myself making excuses to avoid your mother...finding reasons to stay late at work, inventing a poker night or a movie out with the boys. I would spend nights driving until I couldn't see any lights, and then I'd park the car and walk for hours. One night I got lost on some trails and wandered around until almost sunup, making it home just before your mother woke up.

"Finally, one night after I had just said goodnight to you and closed your door, I walked downstairs and found your mother crying in the kitchen. She had a small dish in her hands, one of yours from when you were little. It had Sesame Street characters on it, dressed up as farmers. Do you remember it? It must have been five or six years since you'd used it...I honestly didn't know why we still had it, or why it wasn't boxed up in the basement instead of in the kitchen sink.

"Your mother was standing there crying, staring at this plastic dish. Just uncontrollably, unashamedly crying. She had been feeling it, too...despair that worsened whenever she was near me, or looked at me, or spoke with me. She couldn't explain why it had become unleashed when she had found that dish, or why she was having trouble sleeping, or why her appetite had dwindled so badly over the past few weeks. I hadn't noticed until then, but she looked as though she might have lost fifteen pounds, which was not a small amount to someone as thin as she was."

Jacob paused at this point, took a long drink from his coffee mug. "It helped to talk about it. A little, but not enough. We went to couples counseling, took time off from work so we could go during the day when you were at school, but it didn't help. We saw our doctors, started antidepressants, but those didn't help either. We toughed it out for another six months or so, then faced facts: it wasn't going to work anymore. We weren't going to work anymore.”

Elizabeth’s throat was dry. “Did you guys ever think about having any more kids?”

He seemed taken aback. “Well, I don’t think that would have solved anything.”

“No, I mean...before. Did you always just want one?”

Her father sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, ‘Lizbeth, but I am not a young man. It was all I could do to keep up with you when you were little. Of course, your mom and I talked about it. But it just wasn’t in the cards.”

As they plodded through the stop-and-go traffic, Elizabeth mulled this story over in the light of the things that Grim had said. The blind spot had affected her parents’ memories, but not their emotions; they had been grieving and had not known why. What a horrible thing. And Elizabeth herself...? She remembered feeling angry and hurt. She had started getting into trouble in school: ignoring her assignments, cutting classes, starting fights, all of which was new. It was mixed up in her mind, she couldn’t recall if it had started before or after her parents had announced their plans to split up.

Elizabeth spent the morning distracted; caffeine was not having its usual effect. She snapped at a customer without thinking, and her father had to pull her aside to speak with her. Seeing that she wasn’t herself, he gave her a list of errands to run, to get her out of the store and away from its patrons for the morning. He slipped her a five. “Get yourself a smoothie or something. Come back in a better mood.”

She stepped out into the cloudy morning, glancing down at the paper on which her father had written her morning’s tasks.

“I will walk with you.”

She screamed. A short, startled, seagull-cry of a scream. There was Grim, beside her. He was still wearing the same white shirt and tan pants and the same clothesline belt. But his feet, bare in the bedroom, were now sporting a pair of flip-flops, bright pink ones with plastic flowers on the thong, clearly salvaged from someone's porch or yard. He saw her alarm, and repeated himself, but with more of a questioning. “I will walk with you?”

"You surprised me. How did you get here?"

"I was in the back of your father's red. I wanted to see where you were going."

"Were you spying to see if I would tell my father about you?"

"No. It does not matter to me if you tell him. He will not see what you see. But it might hurt his mind to know such things. Or so I have been told. The removal of a blind spot is not always as painless as it was for you." He completed this short speech without moving, his feet seeming to have sent roots through the sidewalk.

"Have you been out here the whole time I was inside?"

"Yes. I have been waiting for you. I am sure you have much to ask. I also have questions. I would like for us to be able to speak. May I walk with you?"

Elizabeth hesitated. “I kind of assumed you were supposed to be here in secret.” As she said the words, she wondered where she had gotten that idea; she guessed from the fact that he hadn't made his presence known while trespassing in their house. But, of course, being seen on a public street was a far cry from breaking into and squatting in someone's unused bedroom.

He shook his head. “I do not think anyone will notice me. I am hard to see, even in the daylight. Harder still to remember by those who have seen me.”

She furrowed her brow in thought. “Is there one of those blind spots on you?”

His face briefly turned amused, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards in a momentary hint of a smile. “No. It is because of what I am. A Shade.” She had started walking, and she motioned for him to join her. His footsteps fell into time with hers. “We are difficult to see, as a rule. It is part of who we are.”

She knew he was solid; she remembered his push to her chest the night before. “So, are you a ghost, then? Or a person?”

“I am not a ghost. I have never died. But I have been in the places that ghosts have been. I have seen their tracks and the marks they leave on a place. But Shades are different." He paused, considering. "And similar. I see why you would ask such a thing. We both move easily in darkness.”

“So...a person, then? A human?”

He glanced upward, giving the impression that he had never been asked this particular question before. “This is not as important of a question in Edge as it might be here. The line between people and not-people is not as clear as it is here in Central. But I can do things most people cannot do.

 “Shades may be considered a type of person; that may be easiest for you to understand. But we live in dark places, away from other people. We can move in ways you cannot. We can slip from one dark area to another. Very hard to see. And we Panic.”

Just like when he said ‘slip’, the way he formed this last word was odd; something about it was oily, the consonants held for a fraction of a second too long. “Panic? Like, extreme fear? Shades get scared easily?”

Again he looked at her bemusedly. “No. I mean, we can get scared, yes, if there is danger. But this is not Panic. Panic is not something we experience. It is something we do to others.” He exhaled, an adult trying to patiently explain something intuitive to a child. “The ability to cause fear in others is something Shades do unintentionally all the time. We cannot turn it off. With concentration, we can intensify it, which is of great value when we Hunt.” Another word that wasn't quite right. “But it is difficult to turn off entirely, which is part of the reason we live apart from people. In people, fear turns to anger and violence so easily. Shades grew tired of the warring.”

“But, I'm not...I mean, you've made me uneasy because you were a stranger in my home, but nothing out of proportion to that. Am I immune to Panic?”

“I do not think so. I think this is more because—,” he looked away, slowing his pace. “—I am extremely poor at it. This has been a cause of shame for me. It has interfered with my Hunt.” He turned back to face her. “But it does make me a better ambassador for the Shades. This has proven useful more than once. And has hopefully made up for any shame my family has felt. Some of us are to be warriors, some are made to be peacemakers. To everything there is a season, as Priest says.”

They had reached the park in the center of town. A group of mothers, all dressed in exercise gear and standing near running strollers, chatted as their children played on the playground. Elizabeth found a picnic table away from the group, but still within sight. She didn’t think Grim was dangerous, but it was still better to be safe.

There were so many questions, she hardly knew where to begin. “Grim, can you tell me more about Edge and Central?”

“What is it that you want to know?”

“Are they different places? You said something about here being Central, and Edge sounds like somewhere else. But I don't understand more than that. How do you get from one to the other?”

“There is a saying among the Shades. It is said that if you walk far enough in Edge you will get to Central, and if you sleep deep enough in Central you will wake in Edge." He looked at her and, seeing the continued confusion on her face, said "This is not very helpful. In some places, the two are very close, and in some they are very far apart. But these places are not necessarily close to one another.” He sighed. “I cannot give it the explanation it deserves. There are others--poets, scientists--who might be of more help. Edge and Central are both two places and one place. They are both together and separate. There are those who know of both and those who will spend all of their lives wondering if the one they do not live in truly exists. Bah.” He made a dismissive motion with his hand.

“Are there any other places? Or just the two?”

He considered. “I have heard of other lands, legends of the Black Land, the In-Between, that of The Dead and of the Land of Sleep. I have met those who claim to have seen them or been touched by them, but these are considered by most to be part of Edge. This does not mean no other lands exist. Perhaps there are edges beyond Edge? A more central Central? This is not a bad question. But I will not be of help in answering it.”

Elizabeth felt as though she now knew exactly as much as she did before she had posed the question. “How did you get here, then? Did you 'walk far enough'?”

“Priest pushed me into this world.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Priest. The Priest. He knows of this world, he knows of Edge and Central. I was told that, if he was paid, one of the things he could do was push into Central, to cause one to migrate. This turns out to be a true thing.”

“He pushed you? Six weeks ago?”

Grim nodded. “I think so." He looked up at the sky. "Time is different here.”

His upward glance reminded her of another important question. “Grim, what do you know of the birds?”

His eyes widened and then, as though realizing he was giving something away, contracted back to their expressionless position. “Which birds?”

"Which birds?” she asked, incredulously.

He gazed up at the sky. A few hawks circled lazily in the atmosphere above, though they minded their own business. "You asked what I know of birds. I have known many birds in my time. Are there any birds in particular you wish to know about?"

She eyed him suspiciously; he was being purposely obtuse, she could tell. "The night I came here, our house was...attacked by birds. An odd variety of birds, ones that don't live around here. They broke windows and seemed to be hunting me, but I hid in our basement and was able to call for help. There were..." she searched her recollection for the species names, "...harlequin ducks, and chaffinches, and tiny hummingbirds. There may have been others. Birds don't attack houses like this. They may occasionally fly into windows, but they don't target people's homes.

"So, do you know anything about this?"

He looked nonplussed, as if he was asked this particular question every day. "Yes. I saw them. They may not have been hunting you. It is just as likely they were sent by your brother, searching for me." He let a beat go by. "I did not lead them to your house purposefully, if that is what you are wondering."

Elizabeth felt a momentary lurch in her gut, that maybe she was wrong to be as trusting of Grim as she had been. Maybe he was nothing that he claimed.

"When Priest pushed me through, the last thing I heard was a scratching and a gathering of wind. I thought these noises must be part of the going-through. But now I fear it must have been the first sounds of an attack. And that the birds might have been able to follow after me."

"When you...came through? Did you come right to our house?"

"No. I was not delivered so precisely. But it was close enough that I was able to circle until I found the scent of Silas and follow it until it grew stronger."

"Did you think you were being tracked? After you came through?"

"I did," he admitted. "But I thought I could evade them. I thought I had evaded them until they started attacking the house." He stared at her, then quickly looked down at his feet. "But it may have been that both I and the birds had the same destination all along."

She felt a chill out of proportion to the cool summer wind. "Our house?"

He nodded.

"Trying to get at me?"

"Maybe."

     "Grim," she began, carefully, "Where were you when the birds were attacking our house?"

"In the basement."

"In the small room?" She shuddered.

"Yes."

"Were you there when I was in there?"

"Yes."

She thought it was best that she hadn't known this man was sharing the room with her, watching her from the shadows. "Grim, have you been watching me?"

"Yes." He didn't hesitate.

"Why?"

"To see if you could help me."

"You said you were here to find something to stop Silas. Is that why you think the birds may have been searching for me, instead of you? Because they knew I could help you?"

"I do not know. It may be so."

"Stop him from what? I'm only fourteen. And isn't he only a kid? How hard could a kid be to stop?"

Grim’s eyebrows knitted together, as though evaluating several options of how to start his explanation. "Your brother," he finally said, "is not the same person you knew. He rules...he is not a kind ruler. Many have suffered under his sway. As they did under the Watchmaker before him."

Elizabeth was startled by Grim's stare. At that moment she realized how little time he spent looking directly at her; he would glance at her for a moment or two while they were talking, but there was an air of subtle embarrassment to those brief connections. But now he was scanning her face intensely, his vision darting from one of her eyes to the other. It was so penetrating it took a moment for her to register what he had just said.

"Watchmaker?"

"Yes." He blinked. "Does that mean something to you?"

“No.”

He looked as though he didn’t quite believe her. “The Watchmaker was Silas’s teacher, a weaver of magic who first freed Edge, then ruled over it with a cruelty never before seen. With Silas at his side, they destroyed whole lands, rooting out any opposition. They killed thousands upon thousands to strengthen their rule.

“Now, it is Silas alone who controls Edge, he and his armies. The smartest and strongest children of the land are stolen away from their parents to be trained to fight for him and are never seen by their families again. He has decimated whole lands, sucked their mines and fields dry, left their occupants to starve in his pursuit of power.

“I am sorry to tell you this, if you indeed are his sister. But the Silas you see in those pictures no longer exists. In his place is a monster. The worst that Edge has ever seen.”

Elizabeth did not know what to say. The boy in the photos had seemed so happy. So innocent. But, she supposed, so had most of history’s madmen when they were boys.

Grim continued. "I have to go now. There are many questions that need to be answered." He offered his hand to her; she took it and gave it an awkward half-shake. "I will not return to your brother's room tonight and maybe not tomorrow. Keep your eyes open, Eliza."

He turned and stepped into the shadow of a grove of trees. In the half-brightness of this grey afternoon, the depth of darkness was not what it would be later in the day. But as he entered it, what darkness it held was drawn to him, to intensify into a sort of anti-glow that enveloped him. And then he was gone.

Elizabeth was more stunned by the abruptness of his departure than by the means; she supposed she had just witnessed the 'slipping' he had spoken of. It took her a moment to register that he had again called her 'Eliza', and as she thought back, she realized he had never called her anything else.