It seemed so, so long ago that Thorn had been human. The girl curled up on his couch reminded him of that. Somewhere between the murders and his home, she had hidden herself deep in the comfortable safety of unconsciousness. Since he’d gently sat her down on the couch, she had not broken eye contact with the wall. She seemed motionless. Thorn knew her insides were coiling, changing, disfiguring. He could see it in the patterns the shadows formed on the walls, on the floor, in every corner. He remembered being like that.

He had been seventeen, seventeen and skinny. It’d have been the 20th century, but Thorn hadn’t seen a lot of it. Like May, he had been born on a small, terribly windy fisherman’s island. There hadn’t been electricity, and Thorn was just another cog in a centuries long pattern. He’d felt secure, like that, his life spelled out for him from the beginning. His parents had called him Terji at birth, just like his grandfather before him. His sisters would marry boys from the town, and he’d inherit his father’s boat in time. For the moment, he only had to worry about growing up.

That had changed the winter after his seventeenth birthday. He didn’t recall exactly when it began, just that it was someone around the time his older sister married and moved out. It was only an itch, at first, tucked away between his heart and his gut. It would get worse and then lessen, and then get worse again. It always returned a little worse than it had been before. Terji hadn’t told anyone. He still didn’t tell anyone when it started to keep him awake at night. It was then he picked up the habit of scratching at his skin, despite the itch lying deeper. The pain would keep the itching away a little longer, and kept it from migrating into his bones and his spine and his brain. The last few days, he couldn’t think of anything else. He botched his work, he yelled at his younger sister, he remembered considering rowing out into the tide and jumping into the water. But by then, the shores were frozen. So he didn’t.

That final night, when everything he’d known came crushing down on top of him, the itching had woken him up. A million ants marched through his blood, and scratching his skin didn’t push it away anymore. He got up, and went outside, intending to numb himself with snow. The snow was heavy, that year – waist-deep. The top layer was frozen. Three winters earlier, a child had fallen down through that thin top layer and drowned in the snow beneath. They hadn’t found the boy until spring. Terji intended not to go back inside before his skin would be as pale and blue and frozen as the kid’s had been. Yet when he stood there, bare feet in the snow, he realized his insides were colder than the outside world.

It was then that he went back inside and killed his family.

Thorn sighed, running his hands through his hair, watching the girl on the couch. Had she felt that itch, in the depth of her bones, wishing for dear life that she could just scratch? He wished he hadn’t met her, not at Dyst, not in that alley. It would be so much easier to leave her behind. But he had to stay, if only for a little while. He couldn’t rely on Abigail to tell her everything – she only knew so much. She’d never experienced any of it. And she wasn’t entirely unbiased. She’d tell May she was a monster, plain and simple. The girl would have plenty of reasons to hate herself, later – she didn’t need Abigail to add to that. So he’d stay. He’d keep her safe, while he could.

Terji Mjikkalsson had spent three days in the forest before Helga found him. He thought, he knew he was going to die there, freeze to death underneath the pines. He told himself everything would be alright, then.

He hated himself for being glad the itch was gone. By the second day, he was gliding into himself, keeping himself safe. By the time Helga found him, he was unresponsive, and already changing. She’d carried him to an old, abandoned house somewhere in the woods, and dumped him in front of the fireplace. It took him weeks to regain his consciousness, bit by bit. He spend a lot of time forgetting things. He had no details of his family to cling to anymore, even their names cloaked in a layer of fog. He couldn’t recall the exact layout of their house, what upkeep the boat would need before spring came. Besides forgetting, he learned things. He learned how to keep the shadows out of his head, safe in their nooks and corners where they did not bother him. He’d watch Helga scuttle around the house, using both arms as though she’d never accepted the loss of her right hand. Terji knew she was exactly what he was. He could feel her push on the shadows, and when she’d leave, he could feel her dissolve into them. When she did that, it nearly felt as though she became a part of him, and that sickened him. He didn’t want to be like her, with her unwashed clothes and the sleep deprived eyes, the mass of scars around her stump. He didn’t want to eat nothing but old carrots and stock, say nothing except spit bitterness around. She didn’t look old, Helga – but she acted as though she was centuries old and no one would let her die in peace.

How young he had been, Thorn thought. In some ways, he was jealous of the boy who’d curled up in front of the fireplace. Dead to the world, somehow at peace with the coiling within him. He recalled that distinct sense that this was right. Thorn knew it was a sign of his humanity that he’d remembered that no, nothing about this was right – and yet ignorance seemed so much safer. But eventually he’d come out of that ignorance. He’d woken up, slowly, scratching the blood off his fingernails. At first, he’d only studied Helga. He didn’t let her know he was awake. Instinctively she felt like a threat, the way she pushed and pulled on the shadows with the grace of a cat. He didn’t know why she’d picked him up and taken him home. Terji hadn’t known anything. Then one time she’d spoken up.

‘Child,’ she’d said, ‘You know that I know you’re awake, right?’

He hadn’t said anything. The woman spat on the floor, staring at him. She’d pulled all of the shadows towards her, pooling on the floor around her body, leaving Terji terribly exposed. Involuntarily he jerked his body away from her, and she laughed.

‘No need to fear me, kid, last thing I’d want is killing you.’

She let the shadows go away. Still, Terji remained on an edge. He reminded himself what had happened to him – this was a game without rules, death nothing but an everyday occurrence. The boy looked at Helga. She was undeniably old – it showed in the way she moved, if not in the way she looked. Yet she wore her hair loose, like a young girl would, as though she’d never married.

‘Did you do something to me?’ he asked, voice unstable. The shadows around him quivered with his fear. Helga laughed.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

‘Boy, had I done something to you, you wouldn’t be here to ask me about it,’ she said, and then went back to cooking dinner. Terji wasn’t hungry, but the scent reminded him of late-winter food at home – the salty stews, because there was very little left at the end of the dark season. The dark bread, the potatoes that’d already begun sprouting. Helga wordlessly handed him a wooden bowl and he spooned down his portion. Then she’d sat down beside him.

‘There is one thing, boy, you ought to remember,’ she said, cloaking them in shadows. ‘There is absolutely nothing you can do about what happened or about what will happen. You got that?’

Terji shook his head. He didn’t dare speak for fear his voice would fail him. He knew he didn’t understand what he was in for. It terrified him. Helga waved her stump at him, the arm lacking a hand, the loss she had never gotten used to.

‘You see boy, I’ve seen you toying with the shadows,’ she said, staring at him, unblinking.

He wondered if besides old she was mad.

‘You treat them like a curious kitten treats a ball of wool, but I promise you it won’t be long before you’ll hate them, you’ll fear them, you’ll beg at them and you’ll hate yourself for being part of them.’

Terji swallowed, his throat dry, Helga’s eyes fixed on his fear.

‘You remember your parents, don’t ya? Of course you do. I know it fades, but it never fades away far enough. You’ll always have to live with the life draining out of their eyes, the taste of your sister’s blood in your mouth. Stuck in your mouth. It won’t wash out, I promise, boy.’

She paused for breath.

‘And boy, they won’t be the last. There’ll always be more. There won’t be anything you can do to stop yourself. You will kill them. And each will be as bad as this first time.’

‘But-’

‘No buts, child. I tried chaining myself up, once, when I felt the urges coming. Figured I could ride it out, wait for it to be over – but they came and took my body anyways, boy. They had me chew my hand of. Then I killed that woman anyway – Gods, it was a mess! Her blood, my blood, hers warm enough to melt the snow, mine cold enough to freeze it back up. Thing is, boy – those shadows are sentient. No matter what Sigrin will tell you – they’re sentient. Promise. They could’ve just broken me out of those chains, you know – but I had to lose my hand. They wanted to punish me, boy. Try not to defy them. Questions?’

Terji was trembling. He was no longer afraid – he was terrified. Every grain of his being knew wanted to resist. And yet Helga was smiling, happy, almost, it seemed. She got up, stretched, and went for the door. Then she turned around.

‘On last thing, boy,’ she said. ‘They call us skugabor, but that ain’t quite right. It isn’t us who eat the shadows, those shadows eat us.’

Then she’d gone out into the winter dark. Terji had thought she’d be back soon – she’d only been wearing a thin dress. But she hadn’t come back. The next time he saw her, Helga had been a dead body in the town square. He’d only caught a glimpse of her. Sigrin shepherded him through the crowd, onto the boat, off the island. It was his last memory of something that vaguely resembled home.

Now the cycle had passed, and there was a teenager curled up on his couch, for a lack of a fireplace. For the thousandth time, he wished she’d been someone he didn’t know. He wished Sigrin was around to ask her why. Abigail wouldn’t have answers for him. So he stayed home and watched the girl. Fed her. Gave her tea. Watched the patterns she made on his walls, his floors. What worried him were the times she’d drag all of them back into her, nestle all the darkness between her hair and in the folds of her clothes. Thorn thought maybe she was cold, trying to create warmth – so he pulled the blankets off his bed and folded them around her. It didn’t help her pulling on the shadows. She did start smiling, sometimes. He was glad for her.

They were long weeks, with May on his couch. He made sure none of his bandmates would suddenly come over. He turned the couch, so that she could watch over Slakshaven. He figured she should get some daylight while it lasted - the days were shortening fast. Sometimes when sat down beside her with dinner or a book, she’d huddle up beside him, desperate for warmth. At least he told himself she was looking for warmth, not for comfort. So he let her.

He didn’t see Abigail much, these days. He figured she was glad to be rid of him. Then again, he wished she’d give some sign of life, some small sign that something in her cared that he’d be gone, soon. He tried not to let it hurt too much. She had her reasons. It had been some long decades, together, and he was only glad it wouldn’t be centuries. He showed up at crime scenes when she called, uploaded his photos, received an income, and tried to consider that enough. He took more portraits and hung them up in his bedroom.

Mostly, he found more and more excuses to be in the living room. He’d read more than ever, make a thousand cups of tea and coffee, roll his cigarettes at the table. He vacuumed the floor. Cleaned the windows. Tried to play guitar, although he’d long made peace with the fact he’d only ever be the vocalist. And slowly, he watched May come back to life. At first, she only watched him. He’d gotten used to her frantic, instinctive tugging at the shadows, but slowly she gained enough skill to be less noticeable. She stopped making the patterns.

What worried him is that he knew she had learned to sink into the shadows. He remembered very distinctively that’d he’d hated that feeling, had despised the idea that he could become one with them and travel though them. So he’d never done it if not absolutely necessary – or not compelled by the dark. Yet May seemed to love it. He could feel her spread so thin he worried she’d drown in that darkness. Thorn knew she travelled far away in those shadows, but where to, he could not tell. She always re-emerged on his couch, safe, but unresponsive. He had no idea what she was looking for.

Even all those weeks later, she was still on the news. Thorn thanked several long-forgotten gods that the news used May’s school ID for a photograph. She was sixteen in it. He thought the girl on his couch was young, but in that photograph she had chin length blue hair and a septum piercing. It screamed teenage rebellion with a passion that reeked of despair. He was glad it hardly looked like the May he knew. There was less chance of anyone remembering her, like that. It’d keep her safe. Despite that, he didn’t watch the news around her.

Asrun still hadn’t been found. Not dead, not alive. Thorn had no idea if she’d even been at the house, but it became more and more likely the longer she was dead, too. She was fourteen, not four. She’d have known some place to go, and Thorn seriously doubted someone with dubious intentions had picked her up on the same day the new skugabor had been selected. That would be too ridiculous a coincidence even for him. He assumed she was dead somewhere, somehow never found. Thorn didn’t want the girl on his couch to know that, not yet. So he stayed silent, and watched her slowly wake up to a new world.