Finding the Shadow

Being a shadow isn’t as easy as people think, not if you hide in other shadows. Most people don’t even know that shadows can cast shadows of their own, but there are many things people don’t know and are often far safer for it. Part of being a magician is that one does not get the luxury of hiding, and another part is being aware in ways that other people never are. Once, a psychic informed me she could See the true shape of the cosmos if she dared. But psychics place too much on sight, and there are so many other senses that give information as well.

The world is full of secret and strange things. Sometimes terrible, sometimes wonderful. The instincts people have keep them alive far more often than they know. Which, again, is something denied to magicians. We go where people have the sense to never tread. It’s one reason there are few magicians, among all the others. It is why I am sitting up in bed in a cheap motel room with a piece of wood in one hand, string hanging from it, and fishing in my own shadow.

Because there is something in it that doesn’t belong there. And even knowing what and who it is, it takes almost three hours to get a yank and pull Jay out and back into the world. He thumps onto the bed, bounces a few times. Bounces a couple more because Jay is eleven and loves to bounce on beds. Never mind that until he hit the bed, the springs were shot and now aren’t. Jay is very good at bindings, and from far and far Outside the universe.

“Honcho!” He moves in a blur, wrapping arms about me in a huge hug.

I grin despite myself and return it, gently pushing them away. Jay grins in turn, and the power of his grin melts some of my annoyance away despite my every effort to retain it. “Jay. You mind explaining what you were doing in my shadow?”

“Oh! I was hiding from Charlie,” he explains.

Given that Charlie is is a god-eater, in her late teens and more importantly is Charlie, that much makes sense. I’m better at dealing with the weird of Jay than she is; Charlie is far better at helping him with normal human questions and concerns. I still have no idea what a feverfewm is even after Jay explains he grabbed some pancakes from them and left behind tea and then got really lost but in a good way because it was an adventure.

I find a gap between words, cough. Even Jay grinds to a halt at the meaning a magician can put into a cough. “And why were you hiding?” I press.

“Uhm!” Jay looks away. Looks back. “I maybe kind of tried to train Charlie,” he explains, “Because in movies you can train dragons and people train pets all the time,” he says, “and Charlie isn’t a pet at all but but but I figured she would be easier to train than a dragon.”

“Training her to do what?”

“Well, I have pokemon on my phone and I am a good pokemon traininer so I was going to train her to be a pokemon,” he says as if that made all the sense in the world. “But she got out of the pokeball and said some really rudey words Honcho, so I hid. And I hit really good,” he adds proudly.

“You got lost inside my shadow and couldn’t find a way out.” I point out dryly.

“It had to be a really good hiding or Charlie would find me,” he says. “And the god inside Charlie could find me if I hid in Charlie’s shadow but yours is really big and –.” Jay pauses. He doesn’t add another word, but slams into me with another hug as tight as he can give it.

“I know what’s in my shadow, Jay,” I say softly as he lets go.

He sniffs and just nods. There are shadow-creatures I once trapped in my shadow and, I realize now, forgot to let out. And given the things I have done, and the kind of person I have had to be over the years, there is far more as well. But none of it even dents Jay’s trust in me because he grins again a moment later. “I managed to train some of them though, but I stopped it because it wasn’t my shadow and it would be pretty rude-face to do.”

I blink. I never sensed that use of energy at all. I hope my face is as empty as I wish it is. “Ah. Well, thank you for realizing that at least. Charlie is in the small restaurant and I think you owe her an apology. Probably even two.”

“Oh!” Jay nods to that and gets off the bed, slouches to the door. “Wait, can I give just one is Charlie is mean to me?”

“No.”

He nods, and walks out the door at a normal pace. I don’t follow. I just listen, the door open, and am just relieved there are no screams or sounds of breaking plates a few minutes later. I eye my own shadow thoughtfully, but I don’t dare leave Jay on his own trying to apologize. Charlie often forgets Jay doesn’t get sarcasm and can be so very literal at times. I find clothing and throw it on since she hasn’t tried to kill him yet, the door of the room closing behind me without my needing to touch it.

Normally my magic does things like that; this time it was my shadow acting on its own. I sigh, knowing I have to set time aside later to deal with that but for now I just head to the dining room and hope Jay’s apology hasn’t broken too many laws of physics so far. Or other ones as well.