He tried to concentrate on something other than what was happening upstairs, even though part of him could see out of Red’s eyes. His shadow had made it to the man’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, no barrier at all. The man was asleep, wife beside him. She had one of those cannulas in her nose, the ones that supplied extra oxygen—
Remy shook his head, pressed his eyes shut as though that would stop the images from coming. No. No. Think about the last time he saw his mother and how much better she was doing. But that memory wasn’t so good, either, because she’d wanted him to come live with her and he couldn’t.
Think about the fancy private school he was attending and how Adeline had introduced him to her friends. They’d thought he was cool. He knew how to score drugs and how to spot a guy heading into a liquor store who’d buy them a bottle of Grey Goose for an extra twenty. They wanted him to come to their ski lodges this winter. They wanted him to come to their islands for spring break.
And wasn’t that a hell of a lot better than what he’d been doing last year, wrapping duct tape around his sneakers so his feet wouldn’t get wet, trudging through the gray snow?
It was worth it. This was worth it.
That’s what he concentrated on as Red flowed down the man’s throat, as Remy’s head echoed with awful sounds. As the wife woke up and started screaming. Think of having a home. Think of Mom going to the kind of rehabs that celebrities hung out at. Think of a future. Think of Adeline, who wanted to be his sister.
Don’t think about Red.
Ever since his grandfather had discovered how useful Remy could be, he’d wanted him to use his shadow. And his grandfather started collecting books on gloamists, spouting off about how Remy was doing it wrong. How Remy needed to understand that Red was just an extension of him, like a hand, something he had total control over.
That acting like Red could make his own decisions was dangerous.
But Remy didn’t want to kill anyone. It was bad enough he had to be a participant in it. He couldn’t imagine being wholly aware of what he was doing, pushing himself down the man’s throat, watching his eyes bulge and his tongue loll. Listening to the frantic howls of the wife close enough that his ears would feel like they were bleeding.
When it was done, Remy wiped tears from the sides of his eyes.
He hated knowing the man was dying, and he hated the dying man too. If only he’d just gone along with Remy’s grandfather’s business stuff, then they’d all be less miserable.
It didn’t take long for Red to return, sliding across the cobblestones toward him. But his shadow stopped before returning to his dormant place. Instead Red stood black against the brick wall, as upright as Remy was, in defiance of the streetlights and any natural law.
“You’re unhappy,” Red said, although the words could only be heard in Remy’s mind.
Adeline had explained to him that Red was the part of Edmund that Edmund didn’t know about. Like his subconscious.
But Red didn’t feel like his subconscious. He felt like an attic. A place to shove things Remy didn’t want to deal with. At the new fancy private school that his grandfather insisted he attend, they didn’t like people getting into fights. So Remy didn’t get into them anymore, even though at his old school he had to get up in people’s faces if he wanted to be respected. But that anger had to go somewhere.
And when Remy felt sad at times like this or when he was missing his mother, he put that sadness into Red too. His pity for the people his grandfather wanted dead. Which wasn’t fair, because Red shouldn’t have to kill people and feel sorry for them.
But Red wasn’t real. He was Remy’s subconscious. Or an attic.
He used to be a friend.
“So what? It’s over,” Remy said, thrusting all the sadness away from him. He wondered if Red would complain, but it was energy, right? Like the blood that fed him.
“Next time cut me free,” Red said. “And when the thing is done, I will return.”
Remy hated it when his shadow said stuff that didn’t seem to come from his thoughts at all, things that surprised him. He’d used to like it, back when it was moves in a game, or sprinting ahead in a race.
“We need to go,” he muttered, and set off, stalking down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. The police would be coming soon, and an ambulance.
Let his shadow follow. That’s what shadows were supposed to do.
He felt better once he turned the first corner. There was nothing to tie him to the murder.
And the more he thought about it, what Red wanted was what he wanted too, wasn’t it? Even if it was impossible. So it shouldn’t have been that surprising, what Red had suggested. Remy was just being weird about things, on account of what his grandfather had told him.
“I promise I’ll come back,” Red whispered. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.”
“You don’t have a heart,” Remy thought at him. “Or an eye.”
“On my life then. I promise on my life.”
“You’re just me,” Remy said.
“I’m just you,” Red echoed, but Remy wasn’t sure what it meant now that the words were coming from his shadow.
When they were younger, he always knew what Red meant.
“I’ll think about it,” Remy said.
But he already knew he’d do anything if it meant he didn’t have to have a night like this one again.
22
THE SCHOLAR AND THE SHADOW
Once they hit the highway, the elderly chauffeur cleared his throat. “There’s something in the back seat for you, Ms. Hall.”
On the floor mat, where it must have slid, she found a book with a red leatherette cover, stamped in gold. After stealing so many old, crumbling volumes, there was something odd about holding a modern book crafted to seem to come from another time.
The title read Complete Works of Hans Christian Andersen. A hundred-dollar bill was tucked into a page, acting as a bookmark. The story was called simply “The Shadow.”
With little else to do on the ride home, she read.
It featured a scholar from the cold north who traveled to a marvelous city in the south but was unable to bear the heat of its days. He shrank beneath the hot sun, growing thin and exhausted. Even his shadow seemed to fade. Only in the evenings, as the cool breezes came, did he begin to feel like himself again. He would sit out on his balcony with a candle and watch his shadow stretch and lengthen in the night air.
Charlie felt a little shiver go through her. She read on.
Beneath the scholar and his shadow, the city appeared magnificent by moonlight. Rattling carriages passed musicians playing mandolins. Church bells rang. Donkeys carried carts of ripe fruit back from the markets. The scholar drank in scents of spices and smoke and lush flowers. He was particularly struck by those blooming on the balcony opposite his, from where the sound of singing came.
Each night, the scholar would sit on his balcony and look across. Once, he thought he spotted a beautiful maiden among the flowers. When he looked again, she was gone. But in the candlelight, his shadow became long enough to stretch across the street, to the girl’s window.
Make yourself useful, the scholar told his shadow, laughing. Go look inside and tell me what you see. But be sure to come back.
And with that, the scholar went to bed. But his shadow did not. It scampered away to look, and, despite his command, never returned.
The scholar found this very vexing. Soon, however, he found a new little shadow beginning to grow from the very tips of his feet. By the time he returned from the hot country, he had a freshly grown shadow that was perfectly sufficient, and decided to be content with that.
One night many years later, there was a tapping on his door. On the other side was a very thin person, immaculately dressed. Looking at him made the scholar feel odd, but he ushered the stranger inside despite his misgivings.