“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.