The Shadow Men

“Enemy?” Trix finished for her.

“Perhaps,” Veronica said, smiling enigmatically.

“What does any of this have to do with Jenny and Holly?” Jim asked. Trix knew that tone; he was barely holding back his impatience. She’d heard him like that a few times before—usually when Holly was being difficult and deadlines pressured him into being a lesser father than they all knew he was.

“Plenty,” Veronica said. “Didn’t I say I’d tell you what was happening?”

The car was silent, and neither of them responded. And she shut down his rising anger just like that, Trix thought, seeing how much more loosely Jim sat in his seat.

“Well, then,” the woman continued. “Thomas McGee spent a long time planning how to pass on the responsibility of Oracle. It’s not a title, as such. It’s not a position that you can interview people for, or place an ad in the newspaper for when you feel your time in this world is coming to an end. The Oracle is you, as much as you are the Oracle, and it makes decisions through you.”

“It’s something separate?” Trix asked.

“Yes and no. The Oracle shares the soul of the city. It exists within me just as my own soul does. Though the city does not control the Oracle, it influences.” Her voice was lower, darker. “It becomes a corner of your own soul, when your soul has no corners.

“McGee was the city’s heart and soul for over forty years. In that time he saved countless lives, settled hearts, calmed ghosts, protected the city from dangers. He was, as far as I can tell, a good man. But he also spent a long time studying magicks that no Oracle should ever need. Druid ceremonial chants, Native American magic, Chinese and Eastern European spells, and much, much more. He accumulated a whole library of texts and parchments, purchasing them when he had to, procuring them by other means if he could. Though he could never leave the city, he sent people out to fetch what he sought. He studied and planned, and made it his aim to secure the Irish lineage of Oracles from his life forth.”

“He wanted Boston to remain Irish forever,” Jim said.

“Yes. He witnessed the Italians flooding the city, lessening the Irish majority, and though he was the Oracle, I believe there was always a small part of him that was still too much of what he had been before. He’d suffered hardships and discrimination, and that twisted parts of him that not even being Oracle could completely erase.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” Jim said.

“Have you ever heard of me?” Veronica asked.

In the backseat, Trix smiled. That had been a question she’d asked her grandmother, all those years ago. If the Oracle’s so awesome, how come everyone doesn’t go to her? And her grandmother’s answer had stuck with her forever: She’s there to help people who come to her with open minds and open hearts, and who are truly in need. Others will never believe in her, and if they don’t believe, they’ll never find her.

“Fair point,” Jim said. “Which way?”

“Left here. Five minutes. I’ll show you more then, but for now all you need to know is this: McGee tried something that no one had ever tried before, and he failed. And his failure had dire consequences.

“He performed a ritual to try to secure Boston for the Irish, to make sure the influence of Irish culture would remain and that the Oracle would always be Irish. But he toyed with magicks far beyond his capacity to control, and his meddling splintered the city. No one since has discovered just how he did this, because everything he used in the process was destroyed. But his ritual created a schism, splitting Boston’s reality into three distinct paths: one where a Brahmin Oracle would exist, and the city reflected those influences; one where an Irish Oracle persisted; and one, this world we know, where the Oracle is chosen by the city, as was always intended.”

“What happened to McGee?” Trix asked, though she thought the answer was almost inevitable.

“I believe he died,” Veronica said. Trix hadn’t been expecting that. Doesn’t she know for sure? she wondered.

“And these Bostons,” Jim said, gesturing at the windshield as if to indicate all three. “What are they? Where are they?”

“They’re here and now, but beyond the reach of most,” Veronica said. “Alternate paths. Histories, presents, and futures created by McGee’s dabbling. He smashed reality and replaced it without most people noticing. It’s possible he changed things—thousands might have ceased to exist, and thousands more been dragged into existence, though there’s no way of telling.”

“But how could he do that and not change the whole world?” Trix asked. “If he changes Boston …”

“They’re alternate paths, and in the other Bostons the worlds beyond are subtly different, too,” the old woman said. “But only insofar as they’re affected by Boston. He split this city into three new worlds, but Boston is the heart of the change. Its differences seep into the wider world. He made it one of the most important cities ever, and most Bostonians don’t even know.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jim muttered. He stopped at traffic signals and glanced back over his shoulder, and Trix expected to see his weary cynicism souring his face. But he looked excited and hopeful, the emotions sheltered but definitely there. She knew him well enough to see that.

“You think Jenny and Holly have slipped through to one of these other worlds?” Trix asked.

“Our world, but an alternate path,” Veronica said. “And yes, that is what happened.”

“How?” Trix asked. “Why? In that bookshop? How come no one saw, or raised the alarm? Why them? What happened to them, do they know, will they … Will they be scared?”

Veronica turned in her seat, shifting sideways so that she could look comfortably at Trix. Jim glanced nervously at her, as if expecting her to do something terrible or unexpected. But the woman simply remained there, staring at Trix as something changed in her eyes. She’s seeking, Trix thought, unsure where the idea came from. But it seemed to fit. Veronica was in the car with them, but part of her was elsewhere as well.

“Trix, you were cold and wet and alone,” she said. “You tried to grab the branch, but it was slippery, wet from the rain and slick with moss. You tried for a long time, kicking against the current. Kicking against the depths pulling you down.”

Trix suddenly felt very cold. She gasped, shock stealing her breath.

“Every time you grabbed the branch you held on tighter, but when you tried to pull yourself out, it always slipped away. Because you weren’t grasping tighter, you were holding on weaker. You were fading. You knew it, but you refused to panic.” She leaned toward Trix, almost kneeling on the front seat now. “Am I right, Trix?”

“Yes,” Trix tried to say, but it came out as little more than a breath.

“How old were you?”

“Seven. My grandparents told me not to go too close to the river. We were on vacation in Baxter State Park in Maine. They were in the cabin getting dinner, and I … I went for a walk.”

“Too close to the river,” Veronica said.

“Yeah.” Trix remembered seeing the branch above her for the last time, shattered into a hundred slivers as she slipped below the water and sunlight glancing from the surface rippled her vision. Something grabbed her then and dragged her away, her limbs trailing through plants and weeds growing across the riverbed, though she could not grab hold of anything. She remembered wondering why, with hands so small and strong, nothing would let her hold on. And then after that things were dark and lost, until the sun prized her eyelids apart and her grandfather was crying above her.

“In the other Bostons … I don’t know if you drowned in that river at the age of seven, or died at a later age in an entirely separate incident. But in both of the other Bostons, you no longer exist.”

“Three years ago,” Trix said. “I had a bad car crash.” A chill went through her, raising goosebumps on her arms. For an instant too short to be measured she felt totally, utterly alone, little more than the memory of a name in the cool vastness of space. Then Jim adjusted the mirror again so he could see her, and his kind eyes brought her back.

“You died there, Trix,” Veronica said. “But here you live. And that makes you one of a handful.” She turned back to Jim. “You, too.”

“Jim?” Trix asked.

“Meningitis when I was six,” he said. “My mother always told a story about me fading away and then coming back again. I died, she told me. They brought me back.”

“And so they did,” Veronica said. “But in those other Bostons, death caught up with you, either that day or some other. You’re both Uniques. Most people exist across realities, but not you. And that gives you a certain freedom that those people don’t have.”

“What freedom?” Trix asked.

“To dream. You’re missing over there, but perhaps when you sleep, you know those other worlds.”

“The paintings,” Trix said, and she saw Jim’s gentle nod. The cityscapes that haunted them both were more real than they could have imagined.

“We’re here,” Veronica said, gesturing through the windshield. “Third house along. Come inside, and I’ll show you.”

Jim pulled up to the curb and put the car in park, killing the engine. “Just tell me,” he said. “Please, just tell me.”

“It is possible that you’ll see them again,” Veronica said. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? But much will depend on what the two of you do next.”

Standing at the front door, feeling Jim slip his hand into hers while Veronica fumbled with a set of keys, Trix had a very definite image in her mind of what to expect in an Oracle’s home. There would be walls lined with books and framed maps, both old and new. There would be a wealth of artifacts from Boston’s past—many of them rare, some perhaps believed lost to antiquity. There would be dark, shadow-clogged rooms with high-backed leather chairs, a liquor cabinet, perhaps, and the carpets would be worn by generations of honored footsteps. Perhaps the place would be slightly run-down, in need of a spring cleaning, but the accumulated dust would be a sign of just how crammed the building was with evidence of a wonderful history. An Oracle was a human as well, and there would be a kitchen and dining area with a well-stocked fridge and pantry. And upstairs, perhaps she slept in a four-poster bed, her window open to the night so that she could hear the pained requests and sad wishes of those in the city who believed.

But as Veronica pushed the door open, Trix realized quickly that her preconceptions were about to be shot down.

The hallway was light and airy, the stairwell rising above them to an atrium window on the third floor. Moonlight flooded in, silvering the walls and dark wooden staircases. The floor was light oak and the furnishings spare: a phone table, a chair, a coatrack with a lone umbrella propped in the stand.

“Please, come in,” Veronica said. “Hang your coats. The rack’s by a radiator so they’ll dry.”

“Where are we going?” Jim asked.

Veronica closed the door behind them and smiled gently at Trix. “There’s a room upstairs,” she said. “I’ll lead you. It’s where Thomas McGee tried to cast his abominable spells, and where he probably died.”

“Probably?”

“It was his library. His study. This whole house.” She waved one hand to indicate the building around them, taking in all the rooms whose doors they could see and others they could not. “He could have used any room, but he chose that one. And every time I even walk by the closed door, I know why.”

“You sound afraid,” Trix said.

“The room … fascinates me,” she said softly, and then without further explanation she started up the staircase.

Jim followed without even sparing Trix a glance. He thinks he’s close, she thought. He must be terrified that she’s lied, or is mad, but he can’t ignore the idea that every second takes us one step closer to getting them back.

Trix climbed the stairs after Jim, and soon Veronica stood on the landing outside a closed door. She was pale, and the effect was not simply moonlight on her skin. The gentle artificial light emphasized the bags beneath her eyes, and the skin hanging on to her jawline seemed to defy gravity’s best efforts. Her eyes were wide, and there was a sheen of perspiration across her brow. “You don’t have to—” Trix began, but Veronica quickly cut her off, harsh and berating.

“Of course I do!” She reached out and opened the door. “There’s a small anteroom, then another doorway. An attempt at privacy, put in by Thomas McGee, I suspect. Just … just look for now. Look and see, and you’ll believe me. You might not understand … but you’ll believe. Then come to the living room downstairs, because I have something to give you.”

“What?”

“Two letters.” Veronica swayed past them and started down the stairs; she seemed to strengthen a little, and a smile crept over her face.

Trix suddenly felt abandoned.

Jim grabbed her hand and nodded at the open door. Inside, in the shadows, she could see a second closed door. A strange smell emerged—old, wet ash, and something less identifiable, like the scent of fallen pine needles but more sour.

“Are we doing the right thing?” she asked softly, and Jim scoffed.

“You’re the one who—” But he stopped mid-sentence, his face softening. “Trix, if there’s any clue, any chance that I can know what happened to them”—he looked at the doorway—“however crazy …”

“We have to take that chance,” she said.