Talking to Shadows

“Hello friend, where were you?”

The shadow man didn’t say anything. Just waved, silent, cold as ice on the back of Lana’s neck.

“I know, I haven’t been talking to you as much anymore. I- I can’t stand to look in the mirror, you know?”

The shadow man nodded, tilting his head in a sympathetic way.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m ok. Or I will be. It was just hard for a hot minute. I’m sorry.”

The shadow man reached out from behind me, reaching for my shoulder, but he was a shadow, he couldn’t touch anything. It seemed so lonely. Except for Sissy. What was so special about Sissy? Why could he touch her?

"Thanks. I'm sorry I left. I know you can't be here if I don't look in the mirror. It's just…"

The shadow man nodded again. He understood. He used to be like her. A fat, ugly nobody. An outcast. Crazy, they said. But the shadow man was real. Lana knew he was. He’d always been real.

Footsteps clunked up the stairs. Lana looked back down the long, skinny hallway, like a street downtown, walls reaching up like hands clawing for the sky.

"I gotta go. You know how the others feel about you. I’m sorry. I'll be back."

Lana scurried down the hallway, towards the stairs, but also towards her room. She was so close to her door. So close when Giva's head popped up over the edge of the stairs, drinking something forbidden out of a mug. Lana wasn’t allowed to have the spicy stuff, and they had to hide it when the police came to check on them. Giva wasn’t supposed to have it, but she said it was ok to bend the rules when you owned a house. Not that she owned the house. It was pappas house. But he was away. Giva said it would be a very long time until he came back. Fio said pappa would never come back, said Giva wouldn’t let him, said pappa did something unforgivable to Sissy, and to Harley. But Giva said he’d come back eventually. And Fio was always spreading lies. At school all the kids talked about him, about what he talked about, about the little secrets he kept in his secret pouch.

Giva looked up, "Lana, what are you doing?"

"Um, nothing!" she squeaked, scrambling back, tripping over her feet.

Giva raised an eyebrow, "Really. You know you can't lie to me."

Lana looked away, shame crawling up her cheeks, for the lie and the truth, "I- I was talking to my shadow friend."

Giva glanced behind Lana at the mirror, fear flashing over her eyes, and she hissed, "You know you can't do that. What is wrong with you? I thought you'd gotten over that silly… thing."

"I know! But I can't just leave him there."

"Yes. You can. Did you forget what that thing did to Sissy?"

"I know! But it was an accident-"

"An accident? It shoved her down the stairs!"

"She was scaring him! She was being mean."

"So you pushed her down the stairs?"

"I didn't push her!" Lana was screeching, crying now, terrified for her life. Overreaction, overreaction, overreaction. Giva loved her, Giva loved her, Giva loved her. It had been an accident, of course it was, Lana loved Sissy. Loved Racheal. Sissy was a nickname. A mean nickname. She wasn't a sissy. But she was a meany. Why was she always so mean to Lana? Sissy was so pretty, why did she need to point out that Lana wasn't? Sissy was so skinny, and pretty blue eyes and pretty blond hair, barbie the girls at school called her, like the doll. The boys called her sexy. That was a weird name for a doll.

"I- I know, just calm down, I'm not gonna hurt you."

Giva reached out, and Lana ran into her arms, both nearly toppling down the stairs, like Sissy did.

"Hey, it's ok, calm down. Let's get you in bed and we'll talk in the morning."

"Noooo."

"Yes, this is what adults do. You can't be seventeen and not be able to talk about your feelings."

"Noooo, I don't want toooo."

"Come on, let's go."

Giva picked Lana up, carrying her like a bride, and took her into her room, laying her next to Ollie on the bed. He was fast asleep. It was good he was a deep sleeper. Lana tended to scream when she had nightmares. Almost every night. Sissy used to sleep with them, but when the thing happened, she moved to the couch, and no one wanted to take her place. They were all scared. But the shadow man wouldn't hurt them in the bedroom. There were no mirrors. We only had one mirror in the house. And Sissy and Gabe were always hogging it, anyways. But Ollie still liked Lana. He wasn’t scared of Lana. They were best friends. He’d only been alive six years, five years, Lana had lost count, but they were closer than anyone could be. Except maybe Lana and Giva. But Giva was close to everybody. She’d taken the mommy place, even before pappa left. They’d never had a mommy. Lots of sissies, though. That’s what Giva called them, pappas friends, the ones that came, left a new sister or brother, and left.

“You’ll be ok, right?” Giva asked. “Your… friend isn’t gonna visit us tonight.”

“No, he won’t be back tonight. You scared him off.”

“Ok, good. Well let me know if he does come back and bother you, ok?”

Lana nodded, smiled. Giva didn’t need to worry about the shadow man. He would never hurt Giva. Giva loved them both, even if she didn’t admit it.

“Miss Lana, I’ve got your food here.”

“No!” Lana scrambled for the pen and paper in front of her on the clean, white tile floor, frantically writing down what she’d just remembered. “No no no, you ruined it! I was seeing it! I got further, but you ruined it!”

“Miss Lana?”

Lana stuck the paper to the wall in front of her with a tiny magnet of her new house’s name, ‘Saint Peter’s Hospital’. She put the paper between when Sissy had been pushed and Lana stopped looking in the mirror, stopped talking to the shadow man, and when Ollie had walked in on Lana and the shadow man having a private conversation. Why had he done that? Why had he gone and ruined everything? If he had just stayed outside with the others, none of this would’ve happened. Lana wouldn’t be here, the others wouldn’t have stopped talking to her, no one would have abandoned her. If he’d just stayed outside, he’d be alive.

Lana still couldn’t remember hanging him out the window, couldn’t remember the others in the yard and in the hallway, begging her to stop, couldn’t remember the police pulling up, flashing lights, sirens blazing, as they had so many times before. Too many broken people in one house. Too many broken souls. Too many fallen stars. There were bound to be a few shadows. She was just unlucky enough to talk to them.