“Trees play tricks,” the shadowless said. His words were syrupy, struggling. “Willow tree, very tricky.” The trees shifted again around them, tossing the sound so then it seemed to come from the left. For an instant, Ory was almost sure he’d seen a face, but made of bark, not skin. The leaves rustled even though there was no wind in them, as if laughing.
“I don’t mean any harm,” Ory whispered, even though his shotgun was leveled at the man.
The shadowless snickered. Nothing copied him on the asphalt. “No harm,” he said, pointing at the gun. “But you have the thunderstorm.”
Ory winced, but it was too late. He thought of the deer outside his and Max’s shelter, his hunting knife. The Remington still looked the same in his hands, but there was no way now to be sure what would come out of the muzzle. What a memory of a “thunderstorm” might mean. “Okay,” he agreed. He lowered the gun and held up one empty palm in a signal of peace.
But the man wasn’t looking at Ory anymore. “Shadow,” he said softly.
It doesn’t come off, Ory almost said. There’s no way for me to give it to you. “I just want to keep going,” he smiled. “I have to keep going that way.”
“Way for trade,” the shadowless said.
“What?”
“Way for trade.” The willow trees rustled. He pointed at the road, then held out his hand. “Way for trade.”
He wanted something in exchange for letting him pass, Ory realized. “Uh—” He dug into his pockets frantically for everything he’d brought from the shelter, aside from the gun and the last of his dried jerky meat: a pouch with sewing tools, the sliver of his last bar of soap, a first-aid kit, and a few Elk Cliffs pens.
The shadowless watched him impassively as Ory held them out, unimpressed. “No. No good.”
“I don’t have anything else,” Ory answered. His legs tingled, ready to bolt.
“But shadow does. Shadow knows things.”
“No,” Ory started.
“Yes,” the shadowless insisted. The table leg came up, and he pointed it at both Ory and his dark twin. “Shadowless has questions, shadow has answers. Ask shadow who I am, then you pass.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Ory said helplessly. “It doesn’t know things about others. It only knows things about me.”
“Ask anyway,” the shadowless hissed. He pointed at the shadow again. “Ask it.”
Ory raised his hands, surrendering. Was there anything about the man he could glean from just looking at him? He seemed to be under thirty. Shorter than Ory, possibly Hispanic, possibly once in very good shape and not starving, when there had been stoves to cook better food on. There were scars across his forehead, and he wore a tarnished gold ring, but not on the correct finger to mean he’d been married.
The shadowless growled. Ory turned to face his shadow fully, tried to make eye contact with it on the asphalt as if he were having a real conversation with it. “Do you know anything about this man?” he asked the dark shape. He paused for a moment. Pretended to listen. He wanted to give the shadowless an answer and escape as quickly as possible, but he also wanted to ask him about Max. About where she had gone—what Ory was heading into. The woman and her crew on Broad Street had said “something bad” was growing in D.C., but no more than that. “I see.”
The shadowless nearly crumpled to his knees. His eyes gleamed. “What did it say?” he begged.
“It said that it cannot be sure, but it thinks that it might know something about you.” Ory held up his hand. “But first it needs to know one thing. Did you see a shadowless woman pass by here within the last few days?”
“No,” the man said.
It meant nothing. She easily could have come past when he was asleep or busy, or gone another way. “All right. One more thing.”
“No more,” he warned.
“It has to be sure it has the right person,” Ory said, gesturing to his shadow.
The shadowless raised the table leg threateningly. The message was clear.
Ory gritted his teeth and nodded. “Okay, no more.” He could feel the shape of the table leg through the air as it trembled in the man’s impatient grip. Every inch of his skin was attuned to it.
“What shadow say?” the shadowless asked again. He scooted closer, like a child trying to sneak his way onto Santa’s lap. The trees hissed excitedly. There was a face again, for a moment, like a woman carved into wood, with leaves for hair.
“My shadow said it’s certain now.” Ory smiled, trying to sound confident. There was no way he could know if the shadowless would remember the real answer to what he tried to make up—his only goal was to confuse the man long enough to make a run for it while he pondered the answer. “It said that your name was Jeff, and you taught the trees how to talk to you.”
They watched each other for a long second. Ory and his shadow both slid their feet an inch to the left, to bolt.
“Lie! Shadow lies!” the shadowless screamed. The trees shrieked with him, enraged.
“Wait—” Ory put his hand up.
“Lies! Wife taught the trees!”