Shadowhand

Across rolling hills, through jungle valleys, over jagged mountains, vast oceans and treacherous cliffs, there lies a tiny kingdom. Ruled over by a certain King Midas, the kingdom suffers greatly from his greedy and avaricious rule. All are left, including the most favoured courtiers, impoverished and famine-wrought. In the far reaches of the land, where the people are wracked most by poverty and hardship, a desperate Miller spreads a rumour that his daughter is able to weave straw into gold. Calculating as ever, the King sends the order for the girl to be arrested without charge and brought to the palace, where he can coerce her into weaving gold for him alone. Brought before him, the girl is ordered to a tower room littered with yellow straw, there to weave gold or die in the attempt…

I was alone.

My heart beat pulsed weakly in the thin cradle of my collar bone.

Cold filled my trembling fingers.

A light gust of a foul breeze threaded through the room, sliding slick across the back of my neck and down my spine. Only a thin shaft of moonlight threw shadows. Shadows which seemed to grow and flicker on the walls, dancing in strange, deadly ways across my face and hands. A mouse skittered across the floor, raising my heartbeat in a sudden crescendo. I breathed heavily, clutching the straws which littered the floor.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” I repeated to myself, the useless mantra only serving to highlight my own terror. Pressing my eyes tightly shut I leant against the stone, begging it to give way physically, tumbling me to my death, before I gave way mentally.

But none of my prayers are ever answered.

Tears slid thick down the hollows of my jaw and neck, trickling into my shirt and shivering down my breast. Falling thicker, faster, they began to hit the wooden floor with echoing drips. Quiet, but the room was quieter.

“Boo,” whispered a low voice in my ear.

Terror hit my heart, paralysing, painful. Two dusky eyes floated suddenly in front of me, their dull globes gazing in a curious, mischievous manner into my own. My breath caught in my throat as the shadows which had danced so dangerously across my face moments ago ripped across the room into solid shape, building up and up until a… thing stood before me. Not man, not child, its face flickered from one age to the next, first young then old, strong then weak, pale then dark.

“Having fun?” the shadows asked, face close to my own, cold breath caressing my face idly.

“What?” I asked, my voice crackling in my contracted throat.

“Having fun, with your straw and your gold?” they repeated, flickering forwards and backwards across the room, one minute inches from my face, the next standing at the far end of the room.

“I have no gold,” I rasped, bitter.

“Not yet,” it commented.

The shadows flicked from crouched in the corner of the ceiling to millimetres from my face. Shadows leapt out and propelled wisps of my pale hair into the air.

“Would you like some gold?” they asked, playfully.

“It is not I that wants gold,” I cried.

“No… but if you could have it, to give to the King… to gain your freedom… what would you do for that?”

“Anything,” I rasped, “But it’s not possible.”

“Anything is possible,” it whispered to me, “At a price.”

“What price?” I asked, anticipation regrettably filling my chest.

I should have stayed silent. I should have let this shadow being fly away from me. I should have let the King reek his vengeance upon my piteous frame, and fled this mortal realm forever. But life seemed too precious to give up.

“One lock of hair,” the shadows replied.

“Is that all?” I asked, laughter shaking my skin.

“All for now,” the shadows breathed.

“Have it!” I cried, seizing the shears lying on the floor, slicing through a lock without a second thought.

Hollow laughter filled the air, rippling from one wall to another. The lock flew from my open hand, floating in the air under the observation of the eyes for a second. My breath caught once more in my throat, a premonition of the gravity of my situation filling my lungs instead of air. Before my eyes the lock was crushed, glittering golden once then blowing into the air as dust.

A satisfied sigh filled the room, long, fulfilled.

“Now,” breathed the shadows, “Your gold.”

A hand emerged from the shadow, edges blurred and colour barely discernable from the surrounding dark. It passed swiftly from one straw to the next, flitting each momentarily into the air in a whirlwind of flashing yellow. Caught in the centre, I closed my eyes to the golden storm. Shadows breathed against my skin and I lost consciousness.

The next morning something was wrong.

The lock of hair which the shadow-goblin had taken somehow reappeared, golden in the thin sunlight falling through the slit window. Its form was corporeal but under my fingers it felt ethereal, sliding out of my grasp as soon as I touched it, no longer entirely there.

My freedom was not to be won that day. Nor the next. Nor the next. Each morning the king swept in, greedily appreciative of my effort, ordering for the gold to be removed, ordering more to replace it. Ensuring me that this was to be the last day of my confinement. Each night shadows would dance before my eyes, stealing locks of my hair and weaving straw into gold for an idle king. Months past. My hair became an appearance only, moving without a breeze, sliding snake-like through my fingers at my touch, dancing with the shadows.

The day came when I had no golden hair left to offer.

“What will you give me?” the shadows asked, eyes twinkling over me.

“Anything,” I confessed, enthralled by the dance which the shadows played around my face.

“Anything?” they prompted.

“Anything,” I repeated, whetting my lips.

“Give us…” a pause filled my chest with dangerous emotion, “…your skin.”

Hypnotised by shadow, enthralled by my own ghostlike hair, and half-enchanted with the prospect of the danger which this offer gave, I held my hand out to the shadows. They flitted softly, tracing across, invading my skin, covering me from head to toe in seconds. Something constricted around me, and before my eyes my skin turned to dust. Pain shot through my senses, and the hurricane of flashing straw had hardly begun before darkness claimed me.

The next morning my fingertips slipped over everything they touched. The ground felt oddly unreliable underneath my feet, and no breeze caressed my sense, only shadow. The dangerous game had only just begun to play itself out. The King demanded more gold, and the shadows demanded more of me. I began to give up everything; my blood, my sight, my voice, my breath, my mind… only one item remained untouched, and it lay beating under an unreal chest.

“You know, my dear,” the King muttered one day, before leaving, “I simply cannot let you go.”

All remains of hope evaporated before my eyes, which had taken to seeing shadows in everything. The King, devoid of shadow, was hardly significant in my cloudy vision.

“You are the most precious thing in this kingdom,” he continued thoughtlessly, “The only woman worthy of my hand… you will marry me.”

“Anything,” I murmured, caught up in two dusky eyes which watched me from across the room.

The eyes vanished.

Our wedding day lasted only as long as any other. Once the King had amused himself with the gold of my hair and the gold of my body his thoughts turned to more material gold matters, and, noble as ever, he left me alone once more with the straw. My eyes drifted from shadow to shadow, my senses blind to the world around them, feeling other, higher things. Only my heart beat solidly in my chest.

“What will you give me?” asked the shadows, gliding across the straw, plucking at it with idle fingers.

“Anything,” I replied, my voice quiet, echoing.

“Give us your heart,” said the shadows, flexing greedily against the walls.

“Anything,” I repeated dully.

Cold slid through my breast, through bone and sinew and flesh, for a moment returned to solidity that I might feel the entirety of the pain inflicted. Frozen fingers constricted around my heart, tugging blindly from my chest the last remaining piece of myself. Something snapped within me, my vision shifting irreplaceably. Only the thread which had sewn me together was left, floating idly through a dead world. My soul cried out in horror as it realised the enormity of the sacrifice. The shadows swallowed me whole and my consciousness swam out of reach once more.

I thought it was the last. I thought there was nothing more to give. But my husband wished for more, and more I would give. The next night found me sitting silently on a straw-strewn floor, waiting for the moment when my life would finally be taken from my hands. The shadows didn’t ask this time, they only demanded.

“Give us your child,” they whispered, caressing my stomach with fine fingers.

“Anything,” my voice responded, for it wasn’t my own anymore.

Shadow reached into my womb and ripped the child from it.

“Stop!” I screamed, “Stop!”

The shadow hands faltered, flexed around my child who dangled piteously, ready to be made dust.

“She’s not mine to give,” I whispered, eyes caught by the sight of my future.

“No, she isn’t,” the shadows consented.

Shadow plunged back into my womb, my child returned, still aching from the separation. Withdrawn, the shadows flicked, calculating from wall-to-wall.

“Would you have us weave the straw?” they asked, fluttering against my cold face.

“No,” I replied, resigned.

“No?” the shadows giggled, “We always weave the straw.”

Silence reigned for a moment.

“We always weave the straw,” they repeated, forceful, “You always give.”

The hurricane of gold began, the child ripped once more from my womb, child-dust flying through the air with the rush of wind, whipping my translucent hair from my face, raising me up from my crumpled position on the floor to hang, a marionette in a strong wind, steered by the shadow hands alone. No darkness grasped my sense now, no black to take me over. No blissful ignorance. Ghostly tears, like those of the first night, flew thick and fast from my face.

The shadows paused in their gleeful dance, the golden hurricane calming suddenly, half the straw unchanged. Some guilty innocence shot through the dusky eyes’ gaze.

“Don’t cry,” the shadows soothed, “Don’t cry…”

Some plan filtered through the shadowy features which floated in front of me, reconciliation formed in seconds. My freedom suddenly hung in the air.

“Guess our name,” the shadows whispered, “Guess our name and you shall have your child.”

They touched my cheek gently, then my fingertips, returned my shadow-child back to my womb, and sank back into the walls. My fingers shimmered. In my sorrow I picked up a piece of straw, twirling it haphazardly. A golden sheen swept from my skin into the straw, atoms rearranging at the touch of my fingertips. I stopped my tears, the straw turning solid, golden to my horror.

Now I was truly cursed.

The shadows returned each night, asking me their name, taunting me with visions of my child, whispering idle thoughts into my ear as I laboured through the straw. The ghost-child in my womb grew steadily each day, but I knew it had no substance. If it lived it would live only a half life like myself. And so I began to search. I searched for the name which would grant my child’s freedom. But the search was idle, like everything in my life. An idle husband, an idle father… No right name was passed from another’s lips to my ears.

So it came to the night upon which my ghost-child would be born. Pains wracked my half-body, and as the shadows danced wilfully in front of me, I knew this was my last chance to guess.

“What is our name?” the shadows asked, eyes wide and gleeful, knowing I did not know the answer.

“Devil,” I screamed, anger boiling from the pit of my soul.

“It is not that,” they laughed.

“Satan!” I cried.

“It is not that,” they twirled.

“Lucifer! Demon! Old Jack! Harpy! Siren! Whore!...”

The shadows laughed at my anger, dancing faster, always circling, the room becoming one large tornado of shadow. I screamed louder, wracking my soul for any answer, anything to throw at the hateful shadows which had stolen my life.

“Only one guess left,” they screeched, laughing harder than ever.

My desperation filled the hollow room. I looked into the shadows and saw myself reflected in their eyes, my voice, my blood, my breath, my skin, my heart… the shadows were me. A twisted, terrible, horrible me. I looked into the shadow and saw only myself.

“Eve,” I sighed, peace pervading my soul for a single second.

“Eve?” the shadows cried, laughter turning to wrath in one bitter inflexion, “EVE?”

“EVE!” I screamed at the shadows, wanting my child and only my child.

“The child was never yours to give,” the shadows screamed, “So you shall not have her back!”

“She is not yours to take!” I cried, despair wracking my soul.

“But you are!” they hissed, shrieking laughter invading the room, battling from wall to wall, ringing from ear to ear, “YOU ARE!!”

Shadows reached out and clutched my soul, ripping my body to shreds before my child’s newly opened eyes. Pain, anguish, an empty arrow of nothing split my soul into atoms, and I left the world with one last terrible scream.

…the day the Queen disappeared from the Palace; the day the princess was born into the world; the day which saw the moon eclipse a blood-red sun; that day a terrible shriek was heard by every subject of the King’s kingdom. Hundreds swore they saw a woman standing, screaming, ahead of them, anger storming black in pale eyes before imploding in a blinding white flash. That day, every piece of gold woven by the queen turned to ash and dust in the hands of those who touched it. And since that day, on the eve of the winter equinox, just as the sun sets, they say you can hear the scream on the wind still.