Episode 40: Shadow

Narrator: Welcome to Ghost Wax, a Far and Tall Tales Production. The following story may contain graphic content. Listener discretion is advised. 

[Intro Music]

Episode 40, Shadow

Recorder clicks on

Luca: Sorry, Delia?

Delia: Yes?

Luca (for now): Sorry to bother you. I know it’s late. 

Delia: Not at all. I’m still finishing case notes. You were the one who came up with these recorders, right? Nothing ever worked before. 

Luca: Yeah, I guess. 

Delia: Well then, thank you. You have no idea how much time it saves to not have to write everything out. But I’m guessing you’re not here to check on my recorder?

Luca: No…we have a…a situation. In the confinement ward. A woman, a very… difficult woman named Adreanna Morris, a local PhD student. No known previous connection to anything unnatural and no mundane criminal record whatsoever, then, out of nowhere, a string of grisly murders the Observers trace back to her, only it didn’t seem possible she could have done it.  When he approached her for questioning… well, Master Odai managed to bind it, barely, but the damn thing nearly tore out his throat, he’s in the infirmary along with half the containment team. The woman, she’s secure, but she won’t talk. Just keeps pacing the cell like some trapped animal. It gets worse when we go in. We thought maybe you…

Delia: What thing Luca.

Luca: yeah, sorry… I’m a mess… her shadow.  Her shadow is… feral.

Delia: I… well…. feeling shocked and intimidated but then collecting herself and thinking logically I’m not an interrogator. 

Luca: No. But…from what we know, all of her victims were men. We are all hands on deck out there cleaning up after the… mess at the field office.  Kat’s available but not Kat cleared.  I tried talking to her, but… it hasn’t gone well. I asked Cosa, but they just kept suggesting ways we could effectively destroy her and, as much as I’d love to go that route and be done with it, Voncid really doesn’t want that for some reason. 

Delia: understandable.  It’s been a bad week.

Luca: curt So, sorry to rush you, but they need you. now.

Delia: Fine. I’ll try. No promises. And if I get any shit for not staying in my lane, it’s your head. 

Recording pauses, resumes with clanking/magic entering whatever holding cells you’ve dreamed up. Luca enters first. I imagine more senior members of the Order are likely also here?

Adreanna: Jesus Christ you don’t give up. I’m not talking to you. I will not explain myself to you. 

Luca: Short I know. I brought my associate, since you won’t talk to any of us.

Adreanna: Who the fuck are you?

Delia: Delia. I’m the counselor here at the ardent.

Adreanna: These freaks have a shrink?

Delia: Something like that. It’s Adreanna, right? Do you need anything? Water? Blanket?

Adreanna: You could turn off all these lights, giving me a migraine.

Luca: You know damn well why we don’t do that.

Adreanna: So they brought you in to play good cop to this smug prick? Fuck off. 

Delia: No. They brought me in to try to figure out what’s going on. To see if we can help. 

Adreanna: I don’t need your help.  I don’t need. help. 

Delia: It seems like you might. You’re behind cold iron bars and about seven layers of warding with a bunch of very pissed off Order members just itching to decide that the safest course of action is to exterminate you after you vivisected the very popular Master Odai. 

Adreanna: Less sure I said, fuck off. 

Delia: At least tell me what happened. 

Adreanna: Not…not in front of him.

Delia: Fine. They’ll leave. Just you and me. 

Objections from whoever is there

Delia: I said, they’ll leave. 

Luca: You’ll notice this room is being blasted in light from all angles.  She’s dangerous, unstable… just a person, but don’t forget, not for a second, that you two are not alone in there.  There are two blades silver  who… will never be the same after what it did to them.  You shout cerulean if it gets in your head and vermillion if you’re in physical danger.

Delia: Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be fine. 

Luca: I’m not.  Good luck.

The door clicks shut

Delia: So. Did you know your shadow went on a murderous rampage?

Adreanna: That’s blunt.

Delia: No point in dancing around it. Did you? 

Adreanna: pause Yes. 

Delia: How long since it separated from you?

Adreanna: Not long. A few weeks. But we’d been coming apart for years. I just hadn’t noticed.

Delia: What do you mean?

Adreanna:  I’ve always been a good girl. I followed all the rules, even the ones that weren’t written. Maybe especially those. Stand up straight, but don’t take up too much space. Cross your legs. Speak softly. Smile. Being that person…it was tearing me apart from the inside out and I had no idea. 

I started to feel Her–my shadow– fray when I kept going to school. Earning a bachelors was great, expected, but when I got my masters with no sign of a husband I started to hear about it. My mother asked if I really needed another degree. If maybe men were intimidated by the letters after my name, were worried that I wouldn’t make a good wife and mother. By the time I was finishing my doctorate I dreaded family gatherings. They never asked about my research, my publications, me, only if I’d met a man.

Not that academia was that much better. That was what tore us completely, actually. School. The month before, at this really prominent academic conference, a professor had harassed multiple graduate students. Sent them explicit texts, pictures, asked to come to their hotel rooms in the middle of the night, really gross stuff. So in typical academic fashion, we had a meeting about it.  

Delia: Shit. 

Adreanna: Yeah. Shit. 

I didn’t want to go. I had enough going on–writing my dissertation, planning lessons for my last few class sections, finishing a manuscript for my advisor. The last thing I needed was another meeting. But, academia is all about your reputation, about meeting expectations, so I went. I’d be looking for a job soon; I needed the references. 

It was crowded. All of the doc students, sitting around a conference table,pretending we weren’t checking our email, watching Dr. Barnes, the program director, at the front of the room. Honestly I tuned out pretty quickly. He called it “an unfortunate incident,” wanted to “make sure we knew what to do in that situation”. Another student asked about the consequences for the asshole in question. Apparently he “was asked to leave the conference.” No police involvement. “Not our place” to know if his university had been contacted, if he was still teaching, if he still supervised students. 

A representative from the school was there too. She wasn’t much better. I didn’t need to hear the legal definitions of various forms of misconduct, or which office on campus handled which specific incident. I needed to hear what they were doing to stop it. What happened to people who abused their power. And she couldn’t tell us. Wouldn’t admit, to herself or to us, that the answer was nothing. 

I don’t know exactly why it got to me then. It wasn’t the first meeting like this I’d sat through. I’d grown up with dress codes and advice to watch my drink, to never walk alone at night, to always meet in public places and tell someone where I was going. To sit up straight and cross my legs and smile and bite my tongue until it bled. 

Something was different. Maybe it was me. 

I’d totally stopped listening to the speaker by that point, was just looking around the table, staring at the faces of my colleagues, nearly all of us women. I saw the fear and the understanding–the type of empathy that comes from having been there. But I also saw a tiredness. A resignation that this had happened and would keep happening and that we would always be the ones who had to have a meeting about it. Would always be told what we should have done differently. 

Pressure built in my chest. I realized I was angry. When was the last time I’d let myself be angry? 

Dr. Barnes asked us for our thoughts on the situation. He looked surprised when I actually answered. Honestly, I surprised myself. 

“I’m mad. I’m tired of being told what I have to do when a man misbehaves. I’m tired of  feeling like I’m responsible. Like I’m the one in trouble. ”

I could feel my face flushing, my voice rising, the words spilling out more quickly. My friend Jen kicked me under the table and I forced myself to take a breath, to smile. I softened my voice “but thank you for coming and for the work that you do.”

Something just…broke inside me. It wasn’t painful. Not at all. It was a relief. Like a summer storm that’s been building for days, that moment of release when the rain becomes too heavy to hold and spills from the sky, thunder and lightning cutting through the humid, heavy air. Have you ever felt it? Have you ever felt your Shadow?

Delia: No. Not like you’re describing. 

Adreanna: I was still fuming when I got home that evening. I decided to go for a run to try to clear my head. The sun was just starting to set, but it was still pretty light as I ran towards the cemetery. It’s really not as morbid as it sounds. The plots are old, mostly from the early 1900s. It’s not like I’m dodging funerals. Plus I usually have it to myself–I’ll pass maybe one or two people on my loop through the graves. 

It’s ironic, isn’t it? That as a woman I always felt safer among the dead?

It was warmer than I’d realized and I stopped at the gate, pulled off my shirt and hung it on the fence to grab on my way out. I ran hard until all I knew was my breath in my chest and my feet pounding beneath me. I guess that’s why I didn’t see him. Standing behind a headstone. Grinning. Leering. He was a good looking guy, about my age, not at all what you would picture if you thought about “creep in the graveyard”. But it was obvious he knew what he was doing. Had maybe even done it before. He stepped out when he realized I saw him and stood in the middle of the path, between me and the gate where I could see my tank fluttering on the fence to remind me just how exposed I was. I crossed my arms over my chest, tugged my sports bra as high as it would go.  

My first reaction was to blame myself. I should have been paying attention, should have been watching where I was going, shouldn’t have had my music up so loud. Should have known better than to run alone at night, especially in just a sports bra.  I took a step back before I even realized what I was doing. 

But something inside me said “no”. 

It wasn’t my life that flashed before my eyes, not exactly. It was every moment when a man had made me feel small or stupid or scared. The boy in middle school who waited at my locker and took to hiding around the corner when he realized I was avoiding him, stepping out to catch me just as I was caught now. The TA in college who started showing up everywhere. The police who said they couldn’t do anything about it. The mechanic who’d asked if I needed to call my husband before he made a repair. The coworker who expected me to take the notes even as he took credit for my work, who stole my words and repeated them in a louder, deeper voice that people listened to. Every time I’d texted a friend where I was going, who I was meeting, when I’d be back. The times I’d changed my clothes, put on a sweater over my blouse, covered up my arms and legs and chest because God forbid I ever be seen. 

I stepped forward, not back. I met the man’s eyes, shoulders back, head high. My Shadow did the rest. 

I’d only been able to feel Her earlier; there were no shadows, mine or mundane, in the harsh fluorescent lights at school. Here, in the golden light of sunset, She was magnificent. Every part of me I was told to make small–my confidence, strength, aggression, passion, defiance–it all lived in my Shadow. She was beautiful. 

The man started towards me and She fell between us, the setting sun silhouetting me from behind, reaching out like two glorious black wings... She reached for him. He didn’t even notice, he was too busy staring at me. Her long, graceful fingers wrapped around his neck and his expression changed in an instant, his eyes going wide with fear and asphyxiation. I felt a rush of adrenaline, of power, watching his terror. There was this grinding sound as steady pressure pulped the bones and squeezed the stretchy parts of his neck until they split apart. I’ve never seen, not even in a movie, somebody beheaded by being squeezed so hard.  Blood sprayed around at weird angles as she dropped him. He lay in a heap, like so much discarded trash, his head fell into his own lap, eyes still wide and staring up at where it used to sit atop his neck. 

I guess he shouldn’t have been walking alone at night.

We ran home, my Shadow and I. It was full dark now, but for the first time in my life I wasn’t scared. I didn’t stare into alleys or around corners, didn’t jump at every noise. I didn’t scamper, the frightened run of prey caught in the open. I ran with my head held high. I had Her.  

A man on a fancy bike slowed down when I stopped at a light, whistled, yelled “hey baby” as he pulled up beside me. Normally I would have ignored him, maybe even smiled and waved to hide my discomfort. She gave him the finger. I threw back my head and laughed. When was the last time I’d laughed like that?

My Shadow came with me to campus the next morning. 

I hated teaching. I got nervous and flustered standing in front of people, all those young, judgemental eyes on me. I always laid out my outfit the night before, trying to find the balance between ‘cool’ and ‘trying too hard’. They’d smell the fear, the longing for respect, the need to be liked. 

I couldn’t see Her in the classroom, but now I could feel Her, always right behind me. I took comfort in Her strength. I started the lecture and felt the familiar panic rising in my throat, the fear of not knowing enough, of faking it, of being an imposter. Her hand gripped my shoulder, steadied me. No. I knew this. I could do this. I stood up straighter, spoke more confidently. 

We went out that weekend. I wore my shortest skirt, the one that I’d put on so many times and always hung back up, worried that it would draw the wrong kind of attention, the black combat boots I’d bought but never quite found the courage to wear. A bright red lip. Why the fuck not? She stood behind me as I looked in the mirror. I felt Her approval. I felt my approval. When had I last liked the way I looked?

She flickered in and out of sight in the dim lights of the dive bars, sometimes a tiny pool of darkness at my feet, sometimes stretching across the floor. My favorite was the bar with a disco ball. I watched Her dancing, the specks of light revolving around her. She was the center, the constant. She was always there, always watching, always ready. 

We didn’t kill most of them. Didn’t really even hurt them. We watched a man buying drinks for his increasingly intoxicated date–beer for him, double pours of vodka for her. My Shadow threw them in his face. He stood there dripping, blinking stupidly as the woman called a ride and left. 

We stood by a group of college girls dancing as a man approached one of them from behind, grabbed her waist and pulled her against him, shoved his crotch into her lower back. The girl brushed him off, smiling as a friend took her hand and pulled her to safety, but we saw the fear in her eyes. My shadow tripped him and he fell sprawling, the girls laughing as he tried to get up off the sticky bar floor. 

We didn’t hurt them. We only taught them a lesson. Showed them what it’s like to feel small and stupid and scared. We only hurt the ones who deserved it. 

We watched a couple, a man and a woman, drunk and leaning against a wall. The woman pushed him away, said she was going home. He shoved her back against the bricks, gripped her face in both of his hands, kissed her harder even as her lips formed the word ‘no’. Her words were swallowed up by his gaping mouth, her protests smothered by his body and he pushed her back and held her. She pulled free and he grabbed her again, yanked her back towards him. He was laughing. It was funny to him. “Come on, we were having fun!”

Those men. They were the ones we hurt. The ones who hurt first. I could feel my Shadow building, burning in my chest, begging to be set free. I hadn’t meant to hurt the man in the cemetery; She’d surprised me with her force. Now, watching him laugh at the women’s fear and desperation, I welcomed the release of Her.  

We made sure the woman got away. Her ride pulled up as she twisted free from his grip once more and disappeared into the car. 

We followed the man. He didn’t think twice about cutting through a dark alley, never once looked back to see if he was followed. My Shadow was tall and thin, stretched out by the streetlights behind us. It didn’t take us long to catch him. She grabbed the man and shoved him back against the wall, gripping both sides of his face as she sunk her nails into his eyes and cheeks. Blood spurted around Her fingers as she dug them deep into his flesh. She didn’t listen to ‘no’ either. She pressed her lips against his, swallowing his cries for help and smothering the life from his body. 

We left him there, slumped against the wall. 

She stayed in control after that. I didn’t mind. I’d spent my whole life trying to please others, making myself small for their comfort. Now that She was free, there was no way to cram Her back into that tiny, cramped cage of expectations and norms. And I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. 

Is it really hunting when they’re the predator? The world is built for them and no one is doing anything about it. Except for Her. 

We went to a frat party that weekend. I trusted Her by now, knew that She would take us where we were needed. Where there was work to be done. No one was watching the door to notice that I clearly wasn’t an undergrad. We stayed on the edges of the room, hugging the walls, standing in corners. Watching. Waiting.

It was fine at first. The kids were drunk and stupid, but they were all equally drunk and stupid, dancing and yelling and kissing. Then a boy, one of the fraternity brothers based on his polo, led a girl away from the group, towards a flight of stairs to the basement. “Led” isn’t the right word. She could barely walk. Her makeup was smeared, her eyes huge and unfocused. She leaned heavily on his shoulder, shuffling her feet. He half carried her down the stairs. His brothers watched. One of them gave him a thumbs up. 

We followed, stood at the base of the stairs as he put her on a torn, dingy couch, stained from countless other nights like this. 

The girl blinked as he laid her down, started to sit up, clearly confused as to where she was and how she’d gotten there. I hadn’t thought her eyes could get any bigger. He shoved her down, pinned her to the couch as he straddled her, unzipped his jeans. 

It was dark, a single overhead bulb swaying in the center of the room. It made the shadows stretch and jump. Especially mine. He hadn’t noticed us following him down to the basement, certainly didn’t see my Shadow as she crept behind him. Silent, graceful. Strong. 

She pulled him off the girl, throwing him to the floor. He landed heavily, the back of his head striking the cement. His pants were still undone, boxers pulled down, dick exposed. She grabbed it. Twisted. He screamed.    

He obviously couldn’t be trusted with it. 

I helped the girl stumble up the stairs and made sure she found her friends. Told them to go home. They were too fucked up to question why I was there, why I was telling them what to do. They left. 

I went back down to the basement to move his body, dragging it across the room. My shadow helped with his weight. We found an empty garbage can in the back corner and jammed him inside. Cleaning up. 

Then we found the others. The ones who allowed it. Who encouraged it. It was embarrassingly easy to get them to the basement, to walk down those dark stairs with someone they’d never met. Did no one ever tell them to be careful of strangers? We lured them down one by one, shoving their bodies out of sight when we were done.  With a little force we managed to cram one more into the garbage can, pushing the lid into place with a satisfying crunch as bones compressed. We propped one in a corner, hidden behind some brooms and a mop covered in dust and cobwebs. We left the last one lying on the couch, face up. Helpless.

She tore out their eyes, for what they watched happen, doing nothing. Their tongues, for the words they never said to intervene.  Their balls, She pulled out and unraveled… they never had the courage to do what was right…

I walked home, savoring the darkness, the chill in the air, my Shadow skipping beside me. I’d never known freedom like that. To walk alone at night and notice the breeze on my face and the fireflies in the trees because I’m not worried about who’s behind me. I bet you haven’t either. 

That’s when they found me, drunk on my triumph. I guess I should have been worried after all. 

So. What happens now?

Delia: I think that’s largely up to you. 

Adreanna: I won’t go back to who I was. That girl was small and stupid and scared. Scared of herself. Of what she could be. I won’t be her again. 

Delia: No, no one’s asking you to. But you can’t be this, either. 

Adreanna: Why not? What I’m doing, it’s good. She gave me this power and I’m using it to save people. Those men, the…the Order…they’re just jealous. Jealous and scared of what I can do.

Delia: No, Adreanna. It’s not good. Well intentioned, maybe, but not good. You’re using this power in the same way it’s always been used against you–to hurt and to humiliate. There’s no less pain in the world because of what you’re doing, it’s just someone else who’s suffering. 

Adreanna: You’re wrong. They deserved it. The ones who lived, maybe they’ll think twice next time they’re tempted to be a fucking creep. And the ones who died…they deserved it. 

Delia: Maybe. I won’t pretend to have all the answers. But what happens next? You and your shadow may be in agreement for now, but it’s only a matter of time before you lose control. Before she lashes out in ways that you can’t even imagine. She will burn the world to the ground, and you along with it. Is that really what you want? Is that who you want to be?

Adreanna: I–no. But what else is there? Women who resist have always been burned. Better by my own flame than theirs.  

Delia: I’m asking you to be something more–more than who you were and more than she’s trying to make you. I’m asking you to recognize the you that you’ve kept hidden away for so many years. Your shadow didn’t give you power. She just helped you find it. I’m asking you to reclaim it as you, to stitch yourself back together piece by beautiful, ragged piece. I’m asking you to be whole, really and truly.  

Rage and hope and fire are more alike than most people realize. It takes a kind of rage to stare down the evil of the world. A desperate hope to cling to the belief that things can change. A fire to be the one to change it. 

Believe it or not, that’s what we’re trying to do here. I think there could be a place for you, if you want it.    

Adreanna: not convincing I don’t want anything.  I don’t need you.

Voncid: But we have need of you.  

Delia: Master Voncid… 

Voncid: Delia, please turn off the recorder, I need a word with her.  I need her help.

Adreanna: I don’t have anything to say to you.

Voncid: I was talking about our other guest… Delia, the recorder… and if you could get the lights.