Elias’s Shadow's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Elias's Shadow sat on the green rumpled bedding and watched sunlight slide across the floor. Yesterday he had pulled Elias down through a hole in the boards and taken his place. Elias was falling still, somewhere below, in a quiet round dark that held him like a jar. Up here, the Shadow wore Elias's face. He flexed Elias's fingers in the light and counted the warmth on each knuckle. He wanted everything Elias had stopped wanting. Toast. Sun. A mother's hand. He meant to taste them all before anyone guessed. The smell came first, sugar and cinnamon and warm butter, climbing the stairs. He stood. A pair of yellow slippers sat under the bed where Elias had left them. The Shadow stepped over them and walked down toward the kitchen, careful with his borrowed knees. He had not known a smell could pull a body forward like a rope. Elias's mother set the platter on the counter. The buns leaned together under thick white icing. "Sit," she said, and he sat. She slid one onto a plate and pushed it toward him. He tore off a piece with his fingers. The icing stuck. The bread was hot and soft and sweet enough to sting his teeth. He chewed slowly and made a small noise. She laughed and touched his hair, and he held still so she would keep doing it. Then the sun moved. A bright square crossed the counter and climbed his sleeve. The Shadow looked down and saw his hand losing its edge. The line of his thumb smeared into the wood grain. The cuff of Elias's shirt blurred where the light pressed through it. He pulled his arm back fast. His mother was reaching for a knife. She paused. Her eyes caught on his face, then his shoulder, then the place where his jaw should have ended. She frowned. "You look—" she started. She blinked hard. "The light in here." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist. The Shadow slid off the stool and stepped sideways into the hallway dark. His edges firmed at once. He pressed his back to the wall and listened to her breathe. "Bring the plate," he called, and kept his voice like Elias's. "It's too bright in there for me this morning." He heard her lift the platter. He heard her slippers on the tile. He had kept her, for now. But he understood the new rule of his stolen life: he could not cross a sunbeam without coming apart. He would have to learn the shaded rooms of this house before she learned to trust her eyes.