But shadows were still tethered. They couldn’t speak, at least not on their own. Well, she’d thought they couldn’t.
Posey must have been wondering the same thing. “They can talk?”
Malhar hesitated, not like he was trying to decide to answer, but like he was trying to decide how to put what he was about to say. “I don’t know what you know about the mechanics of energy exchange that exists between gloamist and shadow.”
Posey frowned. She didn’t like to admit what she didn’t know, but Charlie figured this was one of the things she’d want some definitive answers about.
“Tell us,” Charlie said.
“The average human, at rest, produces enough energy to power a lightbulb. To charge a phone. And if we run, we produce enough to power an electric stove.” He shook his head. “I am being inexact. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So we don’t make the energy. We convert it from food and water.”
Posey nodded along with his explanation.
“That’s the energy that’s passed along to shadows. They’re a little like a parasite. The body produces excess energy anyway, and the magical parasite drains it off. The more energy it stores, the more powerful it becomes.”
“And that’s how you make it do things,” Posey said.
“I noticed that you had your tongue split,” Malhar said, “so I’m sure you’ve heard of the bifurcated consciousness. Gloamists train their brains to be able to control their shadows simultaneously with controlling their own bodies. Ambidextrous people have an advantage. If you see a gloamist without a split tongue, odds are that they’re ambidextrous.”
“Sure,” Posey said impatiently. To her, this was basic stuff.
“The problem is that a quickened shadow, on its own, doesn’t store much energy. So, say a gloamist wants to do something that requires more energy than their shadow has—they can open a tap to their shadow, letting it pull energy from the gloamist. But leave the tap open too long and the gloamist will die. That’s where the bifurcated soul comes in.
“If a gloamist puts some of themselves into their shadow, they can create a separate entity which holds energy. The shadow becomes a mirror self, reflected self, second self, upside-down self. But the more powerful your shadow grows, the more it controls you.”
“Blights,” Charlie said.
Malhar nodded. “When the gloamist dies, yes. But I believe they are conscious long before that.”
It occurred to Charlie that Malhar said he was studying the ethnography of shadows, and suddenly understood why his advisors might have thought he was in too deep. Was he hoping to interview one? Had he interviewed one?
“Uh, well, we should get to the testing part,” he said, perhaps seeing the expression on her face. “There are three things I’d like to try, but I am going to have to set up something first.”
“You’re filming video?” Charlie asked.
“It’s part of the test,” he said warily.
Charlie frowned as he got out a stand and plugged a cord from his laptop into his phone. “Don’t even think about showing our faces.”
He nodded distractedly as he got out the ring lights. Then he took out a finger-stick lancet in plastic packaging.
“Charlie, do you mind standing?” he asked, after he’d gotten his equipment where he wanted it to be.
She got up.
“Now, can either of you tell me what you observed that made you believe your shadow might have been affected by the experience?”
“It moved weirdly,” Posey said. “Not like she was controlling it or anything, but weird.”
He turned to Charlie. “Did you feed it blood?”
“I was cut up that night,” she said. “And then, in the bathroom today I picked off a scab. So I don’t know. Maybe.”
Posey looked betrayed to be hearing this for the first time, but considering that none of this would be happening if she hadn’t betrayed Charlie’s confidence, Charlie refused to feel bad about it.
“Would you be willing to prick your finger now?” Malhar asked. “In front of the camera.”
“Sure.” Charlie picked up the lancet and opened the package. She jabbed the tip into her finger and watched a sudden bead of red appear.
All of them watched in silence. Nothing happened. Finally Charlie licked her finger. “Okay, that didn’t work. Are we done?”
She wasn’t sure how to feel. She didn’t think she’d like to be a gloamist, but it still felt like failing a test.
“Can you try to make it move?” Malhar asked, although he must have known it was useless.
Charlie concentrated. She was at least a little bit ambidextrous, but her brain didn’t feel particularly bifurcated.
“Are you trying?” Posey asked.
Charlie gave her sister a look.
“Okay, last one,” Malhar said. He turned on the lights.
The first sent her shadow towering against the wall to her left.
Then the second came on. That ought to have doubled it, and yet it did nothing at all.
Charlie stared, unwilling to believe what she was seeing. “Is it…?”
Malhar nodded, and when he spoke, his voice was hushed. “You have a quickening shadow. It’s not fully there yet, but a day or two more of feeding it blood and it will be. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at this stage.”
Charlie stared at her own shadow towering over her, her heart speeding. It was a part of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help being a little afraid of it. “What do I do?”
“You could stop feeding it,” Malhar said. “It would settle.”
She nodded.
“But you wouldn’t do that,” said Posey, as though the option itself was an insult.
Charlie took the neglected third cup and drank some more lukewarm watery coffee.
“Or you could become a gloamist.” Malhar started breaking down the lights with a grin. “Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of quickened shadows. There are even fringe groups that believe we’re being deceived as to their nature.”
Posey snorted. “He’s talking about the people who think the shadows are demons.”
He nodded. “Or aliens. They think our minds are misinterpreting what our eyes are seeing, because the truth is too horrible for the human mind to comprehend.”
“But Charlie’s not crazy,” Posey said.
Charlie wasn’t too sure about that. “Okay, so what are quickened shadows?”
“Theoretically?” Malhar cautioned. “You’ve probably heard of dark matter: the stuff that’s keeping gravity from ripping our galaxy apart. It has to be there, or all the other mathematical calculations fall apart, but no one can prove it. And, well, dark energy is even more theoretical than that.
“Dark energy was used to explain ghosts, but is better suited to shadows. In some way, you could consider them ghosts of the living. And just like ghosts seem to be echoes of traumatic events, aphotic shadows are said to be formed out of trauma. Some professors here believe that aphotic shadows, like ghosts, reenact memories rather than have true life. Which is bullshit, by the way.”
“Aphotic?” Charlie said.
“Growing in the absence of light,” Malhar said apologetically. “The term caught on in academia.”
“So trauma is what quickens shadows?” Posey’s voice was a little breathless now that they’d come to the part of the conversation she was most interested in.
Malhar frowned. “It seems to be, but trauma is highly individual. There are some very disturbing videos of people doing extreme and irresponsible things to wake their shadows. But they’re unlikely to work because they don’t carry emotional weight. Trauma is more than pain.”
Charlie gave her sister a look. “So, no ayahuasca?”
Malhar burst out laughing.
Posey, caught between embarrassment and anger, went silent.
“We should go,” Charlie said, standing up, trying not to take too much satisfaction in the moment.
Malhar picked up his cell off the table. “I’d like you to talk to me again, so I can monitor your shadow’s progress. I hope you know you can trust me.”
“Can I ask you a question off the record?” Charlie asked.
He stopped the recording, frowning. “Sure.”
“Have you heard of a book called the Liber Noctem?”
His eyebrows went up. “The Book of Blights?”