Plain Kate

THIRTEEN SHADOW

Adrift in a green barge on the tea-colored, slow-flowing Narwe, Plain Kate carved and bled.

She sat on the pole man’s seat, knife in hand, drowsy in the sun. The burl wood wings were almost finished, full of long, strange twists of wood grain, less like feathers now than like long hair spread in water. They had an uneasy beauty. But the lump between the wings would not show her its face. She had cut away the rough and rotten wood and found a smooth knot, like an acorn. Was it a sharp chin and a high forehead? An owl’s beak and flaring ears? Its blank curve told her nothing. She sat with her knife above it and did not know what to do. If the thing was a mirror, then her heart was blank.

She tried to summon up her father’s voice:Be brave. Trust the wood. Lift your knife.

Kate touched the knife to the smooth curve, took a shallow stroke. The blade hit a knot and shot from her hand, skittering across the deck. Kate stood and fetched the knife. She thought about throwing the carving into the river, and maybe following it in.

Taggle was leaning out from the prow like a figurehead, his whiskers quivering close to the water. Kate glanced: Catfish stirred in the willow roots, slowly working their white mouths. Taggle was staring at them, cross-eyed with desire.

“I’m going to lie down,” she told him.

“Fish, fissssshhh,” he answered.

She eased down the ladder into the warm dim hold—and saw Linay.

He was kneeling beside the bunk. On top of the quilts was the box made from the ruins of her father’s stall. Linay had one hand stretched above it, and blood was dripping from one fingertip, into the box.

“Don’t come closer,” he said.

She came closer.

From a few steps away she could see inside the box. It was empty, but it held darkness as a bowl might hold water. The clotting shadow inside seemed to bubble around the blood, like fish after bread crumbs.

She stopped coming closer.

And Linay closed the lid.

“My shadow,” Kate whispered.

“All things need to eat.” Linay shrugged and lifted his pricked finger to his mouth, sucking away the blood. “Tears are better than blood, but some days one just can’t weep. And the shadow must be fed or it will wither to ribs and eyeholes—useless.”

“Useless,” she said softly, “for what? Why do you need it?”

“To raise the dead and spread the fire.” He answered her as if sunk into his own dreams. Then he roused and looked daggers at her. “You’re sharp, Plain Kate. Be careful, or you’ll find yourself cut. If you love your life, do not open that box.”

And he stalked out.

Plain Kate stood looking at the closed box. She put her hand on the carved hart and let its antlers prick the tight new skin on her palm. It was her father’s carving; it was as familiar to her as her own breath. Did something stir? Behind the thin wood, as if behind the surface of a mirror, did something press its hand to hers?

Her heart gave a little lurch as if at a hero’s hurt in a story. “Yes,” something answered her. “Mine.”

Tears, Linay had said. If she wept, would it come to her? She could almost have wept, wounded by the new hope.

The next day, when Linay went foraging in the abandoned country, Kate climbed back aboard the barge. She went below and sat on the edge of the bunk, looking at the box. Taggle climbed into her lap.“Hello,” he said, then rolled over and peered up at her appealingly. “I am fond of you and present my throat for scratching.”

“Taggle,” said Kate. She knitted her fingers through his fur. “I… ”

There’s this itchy spot, you see,” he said. “Just over the left jawbone. Oooooo, yes, therrrrre…” His voice trailed away into a purr.

As you love your life, Linay had said. But she had to see. If there was any chance of getting her shadow back—“I have to try.”

“Oooo, you’re succeeding.” Taggle’s claws bared and velveted as he kneaded at the air. “You’re talented, I’ve always said so. Ooooooo…”

“We’re not talking about you.”

The cat’s inner eyelids had been sliding closed. He lifted one, lizardlike. “We’re not? Why not?”

“It’s my shadow, Taggle. The thing in that box is my shadow.”

Taggle’s eyes opened. They looked uncattishly wise. “And how long have you known that?”

“Since yesterday,” she said. “You thought—”

“I thought you might have known longer, yes. I thought you might have known and yet done nothing. You have not been yourself. You have given yourself too much to that man.” He tipped his head at her. “A dog, you know—her master may beat her and she will still be glad to see him. Open the door of her cage and she might still faithfully wait.”

“I’m not a dog,” she said hotly.

He arched his whiskers into a cat grin and rubbed his brow bone against her cheek.“I should say not.” He growled with fierce joy. “Is it dangerous, this box?”

If you love your life…

“Yes,” she answered.

“Then I will stand by you,” he said.

So Kate stood up.

The box sat in its shadowy corner. She nudged it with her foot. It scraped over the deck. She’d thought it would either lean into her like an animal or stand heavy like a lead casket. But it was just a box. She picked it up and set it on the bunk. In the bunched blankets it looked bigger than it should have. It had butt joints, the simplest of joints, but even so they weren’t square. Just a badly made little box.

Taggle sniffed at it, squinted, and backed away.“Bitter.” He snorted to clear his sensitive nose.

Kate lifted the lid.

The box was empty, but around them, the air was slowly tightening. The emptiness began to rise in the box, sitting up on its blind haunches and sniffing at the air.

Kate’s heart reached for it, and her heart followed. “Easy—” said Taggle. The shadow nosed and licked at her fingers, put its not-breath on her scarred palms. She pulled away and it whined after her.

And then it was out—her shadow.

It flowed over her—it joined her hand and foot—it rushed cold across her skin—it dove into her nose and ears. Wherever it touched her, she went numb—the kind of numbness that comes after a blow. It was between her fingers, inside her smock, inside her mouth. She spun away but it followed her, whirling aroundher like a dancer.

“Katerina!” Taggle spun with her, circling fast, swiping at the clinging almost-stuff.

“Tag—” Kate choked. It was in her. She felt heavier and lighter, buzzing, dizzy. But as she reeled into the light from the hatch she saw it: the Kate-shaped thing flying across the floor, across the wall, a shadow, her shadow!

Yes, said the presence, as it pushed against her.Mine. Us.

Kate stopped and stood panting. She lifted a hand and watched the shadow’s hand-thing lift. It slid up the wall. It grew long claws. Kate stood frozen, one hand uplifted. “Is it—”

“Breaking!” Taggle shouted. One of the long fingers flew off. Another. And suddenly the shadow hand came apart into whirling knots. Kate gasped, clutched at her own hand, and crashed to her knees. “Katerina!” Taggle cried.

Kate squeezed her wrist as hard as a tourniquet; her shadow was in a dozen pieces, her hand felt alien as a flock of birds. Across the floorboards, her shadow slumped as she did. She could see its edges tattering and lifting away.“The light,” she gasped. “The light is breaking it!”

They don’t wear them in the land of the dead, Linay’s voice came back to her. The dead had no shadows. If you had no shadow, were you dead? It felt like death—a breaking apart that was well past any pain.

Something streaked down past her ear and thumped onto the deck: Taggle. He’d gone above and she hadn’t even noticed. “I tried—close the hatch. Block the light,” he panted. “Can’t. Latched. Can’t—Kate! Kate!” She had toppled sideways and lay there in pieces. Taggle seized her by the scruff of her neck and tried to drag her like a kitten, out of the light.

“The box,” she managed. “Close the box.”

He was gone, endlessly. And then back.“The shadow-thing won’t go in,” he said. She could hardly hear him; his words and the whole world was breaking into whirling birds. “What do I do?” A sudden point of pain brought her back. Taggle was biting her hand. “Kate! What do I do?”

“…tears…” It was just a shadow of a thought.

“I can’t!” he wauled. “I’m a cat! I can’t cry! Katerina!”

And then he was gone, or she was. She was alone and broken like the moon in high branches.

And then slowly, like waking from a dream about waking from a dream, she was back. She was sprawled on the deck with no shadow beside her. On the bunk, the box was crookedly closed. Taggle was pushing at her with his nose, his fur standing out in all directions. His eyes were bright with tears. He had put her shadow back in its box.

“More,” she whispered, raising a shadowless hand to touch him. “You’re more than a cat.”

“Bah,” he said, though he was still weeping. “Who would want to be?”

She closed her eyes again. The light from the hatch was blinding, and the rock of the barge huge and sickening. She felt Taggle lean into her.“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but before she could answer, she dropped into a stunned sleep.

Sun. She had been damp so long, and the sun felt so good. Waking, Plain Kate lay still and let it wash over her.

Then she remembered and flailed up. A white hand on her chest pushed her back. Linay was leaning over her, smiling.“Had another adventure, did we?”

“Let meup,” she snapped, swatting his hand away. She pushed herself to sitting. She was not in the hold anymore, but on a mat of moss and willow branches by the campfire. She shuddered to think of him scooping her up and carrying her ashore.

Taggle was beside her, stretched limp on his side.“Taggle!” Kate was terrified for him.

“Oh, honestly,” sulked Linay. “I’ve only sent him to sleep. He was my gift to you, Kate, when you gave me your shadow. Do you really think, after so much distance and so much darkness, I would break that exchange?” He drew a thumb between Taggle’s ears. “Wake, cat.”

The cat woke spitting and hissing and leapt at Linay. The magician lifted his hands and sang. The cat seemed to hit a spiderweb midair. He dropped, and pushed again toward Linay, but couldn’t reach him. Plain Kate was just glad to see that Linay already had cat scratches across his nose and neck: evidence that getting her out of the boat had not gone smoothly.

“Wereally don’t like you,” the cat growled.

“And I really don’t blame you,” Linay said, sighing. “But you must listen to me. You cannot steal your shadow back, Plain Kate. If you set it loose without my help, it will kill you. I am not sure, indeed, how you survived this time.”

She wished she had Taggle’s claws, to swipe him. “Leave me alone, Linay.”

He sat transfixed—hurt, she thought. Then he stood. “We will rest here the day,” he said, his back to her, tending the fire. “And I will bleed tonight. But tomorrow we must again travel.” He walked off into the willow trees and out of sight.

Plain Kate slept, and woke feeling stronger, and warmer for Taggle’s chin fitting neatly in her hand. Still, the sun was slipping away. Upriver, she could see a wall of weather: fog and cloud. A cold draft was blowing it toward them; she could smell its dampness. She sighed: more rain. “It’s as if it’s following us,” she muttered, ruffling Taggle’s fur.

“We draw it. Like a bear on a chain.” Kate sat up and Taggle sprang to his feet. Across the fire, Linay was sitting on a stone, skinning a rabbit. “I’m a weather witch remember? The moods of wind and water.” He thrust a sharpened stick through the rabbit like a man who knew swords. “That fog is hungry.”

“You,” said Kate. “You made the fog and the rain. All of it. Through the whole country.”

There was horror in her voice, but Linay bowed modestly as if it had been awe.“It is no small work, I admit. I’d be ashamed to tell you the dark things I’ve done for such power. Your shadow is only the latest—and almost the last. I have been preparing this journey for years.”

“But—” She couldn’t begin to tell him what she was thinking. He’d made the fog and rain, the crops failing in the wet, the damp fear she’d seen growing like a mold in the Toila market. Even Taggle’s ears were edging back as it sank in.

But then, Taggle was still a cat.“I’ve beenwet,” he snarled. “My paws were damp formonths.”

Linay shrugged one marionette shoulder.“The fog is the rusalka’s home. She needs it as a frog needs water. It is half her skin. Even the blood-spell would not bring her without this fog.” And he sang:

Foggy little oxbows

Forest pools where no one goes

Lost links of the river dreaming dreams

“Without me she’d be trapped in some lonely place where the fog never lifts. With me, she can travel. All the way to Lov.”

Plain Kate pictured it. The wall of fog was creeping up the river, just faster than a man could walk. In it, the rusalka. Anyone she found, she would take—take like Stivo, take like Wen. This was the dark story they were telling in Toila. By now it was a horror. The countryside was emptying in front of it like a forest emptying in front of a fire.

And she had been helping him. Giving him blood for the drawing spell. For weeks. Kate shook—and turned sideways and was sick.

Linay raised an eyebrow and propped the impaled rabbit up over the fire.

Plain Kate felt gray and cold. Waiting for the Roamers to burn her had been no worse than this.“Why?” she said. “Why are you taking her to Lov?”

“Oh,” he sang. “I have reasons. I have plans and schemes.” He ripped a leg from the roasting rabbit and threw it, bloody, to Taggle—who leapt back. “Come and eat your dinner.”

Plain Kate carved. She carved to keep from shaking. She carved to think.

“Are you all right, Katerina?” Taggle peered into her shattered face. When she didn’t answer he shook his head—actually shook it, side to side, a human “no.”

The gesture struck Kate and made her sad. It looked wrong; it looked right. It made what he was visible: not a cat, not human, something new.“Oh, Taggle,” she said. What was he? What was she? What had Linay made them?

Find your shape. Lift your knife.

Plain Kate stopped thinking and carved, her knife knowing things. The gouge she’d made when her knife had slipped suggested the lower lid of an uptilting eye. She roughed it out, put in the other eye, then used the knife tip to sketch the lines of the nose and brow and mouth, and suddenly the oak burl had a face: a woman’s face, narrow and strong and sad, too strange to be beautiful. With only the eyes done it seemed to look at her. And already she knew it: the rusalka’s human face, the face of Linay’s lost sister, Drina’s mother, Lenore.

Find your shape. She was Plain Kate Carver, daughter of Piotr, the girl who knew the secrets inside the wood. The girl who was brave and lifted her knife. The girl who had told her father she would be a master by the time she was twenty.

But instead she was going to die. Because she was going to stay with Linay.

Long enough to find out how to stop him.