Sue vox's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

The crack widened while Sue watched. A thread of shadow pushed through the specimen's left eye and spilled onto the bench. It slid off the wood and onto the floor. Fresh wax could not mend a broken seal. She knew that now. The shadow was loose, and any bright surface could give it a new door. Theo stood and pressed his back to the wall. "It's out," he said. "Cover the shine. All of it." Sue grabbed a rag and threw it over the dog's dull eyes. She checked the windows. Still sealed. The sealed jar. Still black. But the specimen's glass case caught the lamplight, and so did a row of animals on the shelf, their small black mirrors gleaming where old wax had worn thin. A knock hit the door. Sue froze. She had asked no one to come. The door pushed open and a scrawny teenager stumbled in from the cold. His name tag hung by a strip of tape. He was the grocery boy from town, the one who never backed down when the block's gang leaned on him. He'd carried her wax crates once and asked no questions. "Your light was on," the boy said. He grinned, gap-toothed. "Figured you needed a hand." "Get down," Sue said. "Don't look at any glass." The shadow raced across the floor toward the shelf. Sue saw its aim. It wanted the worn eyes, a doorway she couldn't reach in time. She snatched the melting pot off the stove. "The shelf," she told the boy. "Knock it down. Now." He didn't ask why. He ran and shoved the shelf with both hands. Stuffed animals crashed to the floor. Their black mirror eyes cracked against the boards. The shadow reached the pile and found only broken glass. It coiled, thin and trapped, with nowhere to open. Sue poured the hot wax. She flooded the whole cracked pile, the shelf, the floor beneath it. The shadow thrashed under the black flood, then went still, pinned in the drying wax. She poured until the pot ran empty. The workshop went dark and dull. No surface shone. The boy sat back, breathing hard. "What was that?" "Something I've chased for eleven years," Sue said. Her hands shook. "You just helped me pin it." Theo knelt by the specimen. He lifted it and turned it to the lamp. The left eye was empty now, the glass cracked clean through. The shadow was no longer inside it. It was pinned in the wax on the floor, but not trapped in the flawless specimen she'd built to hold it. "You caught it," Theo said. "But not where you wanted." Sue looked at the ruined eye in her hand. Her trap had failed. The shadow was cornered on the floor, held by cooling wax that would not last the week. She had to move it into the specimen before the wax gave way.