Chapter 5

(In which we are treated to more action and less exposition, and a house is rudely shaken from its foundation)

      Grim did not return the next night, or the next, or the one after that. Elizabeth had taken to checking on the hidden room--what she was gradually thinking of as Silas's bedroom--daily to look for signs of Grim’s return. She became adept at stepping around the end table without moving it from its place or knocking anything off its top.

Initially, her visits were quick ones, just glances to see if the Shade was back. But as the days stretched on, she took to spending more time in the room, examining the clothes left in the drawers and the toys in the closet, trying to imagine what it had been like when she had been younger and the boy in the photograph had still lived there. Had he woken up early on Saturdays and run into her room to wake her? Had she read to him while they shared the rocking chair? She stripped and remade the bed, smelling the sheets to see if any trace of young Silas remained, but the years had bleached them free of odor.

Elizabeth tried to put Grim and Silas out of her mind; no matter how many times she looked through Silas' room, sifted through his clothes, or stared at the photographs, she couldn't dredge up any memories of him. She had thought of her memories as being locked away in some corner of her brain; she was coming to understand that they were more likely erased than sequestered.

What bothered her the most, she was ashamed to realize, what bothered her more than the thought of losing a brother she couldn't remember, was that she may have lost memories of being in Edge. Grim had never confirmed this, but she still hung onto one thing he had let slip: Your father still has the blind spot upon him; it is much stronger on him than it is on you. He has not been to Edge.

She had scoured her room, looking for evidence of any sort that might give her clues about this mysterious land...keepsakes whose origin she couldn’t explain, scribbled notes to herself in a younger hand. She even used a pair or mirrors to scrutinize her skin, looking for scars or other marks that might suggest some forgotten adventure.

Tucked in the basement, she found boxes filled with homework and art from her childhood, clearly labeled thanks to her mother’s need for organization. Elizabeth spent an afternoon poring over these old papers, looking for holes in the timeline, any suggestion that she was absent or altered for some amount of time. Tucked in among them she found work that was clearly Silas's, finger-paintings and collages with his name printed in shaky block letters. Evidence that had gone ignored by anyone who might have handled it since he was taken.

She wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for...some sort of quality that was present before and absent after the time Silas had likely disappeared. But the search was so vague as to be frustrating. It reminded her of an optical test she tried once: first you try to find a Q in a field of O's, which is easy...then you try to find an O in a field of Q's, which is nearly impossible. Your brain just doesn't work that way.

Internet searches were likewise useless: typing ‘Edge’ and ‘magical land’ turned up hundreds of links, but all were useless. There was nothing on Shades, nothing on the name Silas being anything special, nothing on the title of ‘Pretender’ that Grim had mentioned. More than once, Elizabeth wondered if she wasn’t slipping into some very specific type of psychosis.

*******

Elizabeth woke up to her bed shaking; she sat bolt upright, snatching for her glasses on her bedside table before realizing she had fallen asleep with them and all of her clothes on, on top of her bed covers, her book fanned out on the floor beside her where it had slipped from her hand. Her room was empty and dim, lit by the bedside lamp. The door was shut but not locked, her window open but the screen untouched. It was dark and silent outside.

What had woken her? She swore she had felt some sort of earth—

The house shuddered as though from a nearby clap of thunder, but the night was clear. Was something trying to get inside the house?

She jumped; Grim was in her room, in one of the dark corners. He had not been there a moment before, she was sure of it. He must have slipped inside, moving as he had in the park. He still wore the same clothes, but now they were ripped and dirty, and she could see a slowly bleeding gash on his neck. "Eliza. You need to get out of here. Now."

She remained still, hissing at him, "What's happening?!?"

"Your house is under attack. We need to get--" His words fell away as his gaze fell on her desk.

There sat the project she had been working on earlier that day, pinning supplies and a mounting board. She had found some butterflies in the backyard, large ones with intricately-patterned golden wings, that she had been unable to find in any of the books or websites she had searched. Her father had been showing her how to pin their bodies the Styrofoam, preparing them for display. Grim jabbed at the largest insect, then ripped it from its repose. "Where did this come from?"

"Our yard. There was a bunch of them on the side of our shed." Grim uttered something under his breath, a curse if she'd ever heard one. “Are they--"

He crushed the butterfly within his fist. "These are spies for the Pretender. He sends them out to gather information. And now there is a—-" The house shook again, and to Elizabeth it sounded like an impact at the rear of the house. "—-creature that is trying to get in."

"What does it want?"

"Me. Or you. Perhaps both." He grabbed her arm. "We cannot defeat it. Even in Central it is too strong for the two of us. We have to leave now."

"What about my father?" How could Jacob not be awake already?

"We can lead it away from here. It will want nothing with him."

Elizabeth grabbed at a knapsack she had kept packed for an emergency; the night she had spent under siege by birds had given her enough of a scare that she wanted to have anything she might need for a night hiding in the basement, kept all in one place. Grim led her down the stairs, stopping at the front door for her to slip her sneakers on, and after making sure the front way was clear, ran outside. They sprinted to the cover of the willow tree in the front yard, where Grim stopped her. They crouched down.

The thing that was circling her home was tall and thin, its height easily two-thirds that of the house. Its shape was vaguely man-like, with long, spindly limbs erupting and extending across the siding, its arms probing the sides of the house with slow, steady movements. It did not look solid; more like a concentrated shadow, as though the houselights had agreed not to illuminate a very specific area and shape. She watched as it gripped the corners of the house and pulled back, making the walls quiver and groan.

Elizabeth's heartbeat quickened. "Grim," she looked at him suspiciously, "Are you panicking me?"

His face was flat. "I do not need to make you afraid. If you are wise, you will already be terrified."

The shadow stopped abruptly, a sharp contrast to its lithe movements. The part of it that approximated a head tilted away from the house, as though listening to the night sounds. It turned toward them, held its position for a beat, and then began to skate towards the tree where they huddled.

Grim was off and running. Elizabeth jumped up, but as she put her foot down to spring after him, she felt it slide on the dew-slick grass, felt her stomach flip as her left foot sank into an unexpected soft spot hidden by the grass. She lurched to the side and tumbled to the ground.

There was no pain in her ankle or knee, but as she regained her footing, she was struck by a sudden force from behind, less a solid push than a concentrated gust of wind. Elizabeth squawked as she was knocked to the ground again. In her flailing, her backpack slid from her arm and glanced off the willow trunk. At some point the zipper of the pack's main compartment had slid open. Her emergency supplies rained onto the grass.

She leapt forward, snatching the kitchen knife that had fallen out of the backpack; her flashlight and a length of rope were a few feet away, but she ignored them, rolling to her feet and running as fast as she could away from the tree, praying she could lose the creature in the darkness. Her back started to throb from the creature's shove, but it was little more than a distraction; she had run through worse pain. Her legs and feet were fine, and that was what counted right now.

She could just see Grim in the distance, ascending the small rise between her father's house and a neighboring field. She had thought herself swift, but he was like a deer, bounding through the nighttime obstacles without hesitation. She gritted her teeth and found a gear she hadn't known she possessed, closing the gap between them, powered by sheer terror.

As they moved farther from the house, her eyes grew more used to the starlight. She hazarded a look back toward the shadow creature. It was more difficult to see without the contrast of the floodlights around the house; in these darkened fields, it was a moving shape she could identify only because the stars could be seen only dimly through its outline. It was keeping pace with them, moving smoothly without stopping to dodge trees or other obstacles.

"Grim," she called, gasping, still sprinting behind him, "How are we going to lose that thing?" He slowed down to allow her to catch up and run alongside him. "It's still following."

He glanced back. "Good. Your father will be safe." His words were unrushed, unaffected by the sprint. He started to slow, decelerating to a trot. Elizabeth turned her head, seeking out the creature, and saw that it too had reduced its speed. She thought she could see it moving its head from side to side, scanning the fallow field they had run into.

"It will continue until it finds us. We cannot outrun it forever," Grim began, speaking in a low voice, keeping his eyes trained on the shadow. "Not if we stay in Central."

"Can we fight it?" Elizabeth still clutched the handle of the knife. "I have this." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized how ridiculous she sounded. That thing was huge, and presumably magical. The kitchen blade would barely scratch it.

Grim stopped and crouched down beneath a scrubby bush, motioning for Elizabeth to join him. "You do not know what it is capable of. I do not think there is a weapon in Central that could hurt it." He started scratching shapes in the dark loam beneath the bush's branches. "I am afraid there is only one thing to do. We have to get to Edge." He looked up at her. "Both of us."

She swallowed. Some part of her had been expecting this, as much as someone could expect such a thing. But she had thought this would be something she would decide, not be forced into by their current circumstances. She thought this adventure would start with a valiant choice, not a cowardly one.

"Can we come back after we've lost it?"

Grim shook his head; a short, sharp movement started before she'd finished her sentence. "I am not sure. The rules governing movement are not well understood."

Elizabeth swallowed. She hadn't counted on this. "But, you may have been there and back before. There is much about what is possible that our poets and our scientists have yet to learn."

"What about my father?"

"We cannot go back for him. Not safely. There is no time."

"Will he--," she stopped, considering all of the traces of Silas that remained, unseen, within their home. "Will he remember me?"

Grim considered this. "There is no blind spot on you, so there is no reason for him to not remember you."

Elizabeth couldn't decide if this was good or bad...if she never came back, her father and mother would always wonder what happened to her. But would it be worse to have them never even know she existed?

Grim had begun tracing symbols in the dirt; these suddenly came alight, illuminating the hollows of his face. "This is Priest's response. The passage will be open momentarily."

Grim looked up from the small fire to lock eyes with Elizabeth; the flicker of the flames made a liquid shine in the dark of his irises. "I cannot force you to go, Eliza." One corner of his mouth jumped up in a transient half-smile as he corrected himself. "Elizabeth. The door will be open, and you may migrate through it. But if you stay..." He looked up across the bush. The shadow-creature seemed to be methodically searching through the field. "I cannot guarantee you will survive long."

She felt a sudden coldness on the front half of her; the temperature on her chest had dropped, as if she had stepped into the open doorway of a meat locker. A spicy, cinnamon-citrusy aroma swirled into her nostrils, and a low vibration started, humming in her pores and making her hairs stand at attention.

"That is the door. We will have to be quick if we wish to enter before the shadow gets here. Will you come to Edge?"

Elizabeth clutched the knife in one hand, and pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose with the other. Her heart danced into her throat. She nodded.

Grim stood and motioned for her to do the same. He closed his hand around her wrist, the one whose fingers did not hold the knife, and, holding his torso still, turned his head to face her. He spoke quickly, urgently. "Take your deepest breath. You will need your lungs filled."

Elizabeth flared her nostrils and tasted the seasoned air as it waved across her tongue. She tensed her muscles and had the sensation of electricity crackling in her fingertips. The knife in her left hand seemed to twitch and spasm like a feral creature.

The world started to shake and to shift; she felt a pulsing that seemed to originate within her, chattering her teeth and causing a visible tremor in her hands. She reached up with the back of her wrist to hold her glasses on her face, the cold metal of the broad side of the knife brushing her cheek.

Grim's shaking fingers slipped from her wrist. She saw his hand opening and closing, blindly grabbing to regain his grasp on her. She watched, helplessly, as a long tendril of darkness, the arm or leg of the shadow creature, wound itself around his wrist and pulled it away from her. His mouth opened, but the vibrations drowned out any scream that escaped him.

Their eyes finally locked, and she saw fear in the widening whites of his orbits.

A roar, the wave with the strength of all of the oceans of the world, filled her ears and overwhelmed her thoughts.

And then they were gone.