#mom said something about a cortadito but that’s coffee

[simplyghosting]

Being asked to sing: yikes

Being asked to sing with only a week to prep: double yikes

Being asked to sing with only a week to prep in a language I don’t know:

[strawberry--sunrise]

Shadow Girls

This part may be the shortest one yet. Two more to go until the shadow girls come out of the woodwork.

Part One: Roots // Part Two: Stamen

Part Three: Stem

I didn’t bother knocking on Lil’s door. I swept right in, taking off my shoes. Warm and spicy notes drifted from the kitchen; promises of that night’s dinner. But even Mrs. Martinez’s cooking couldn’t calm the frenzy in my brain, and I only offered her a quick hello and thank you.

“Lily is in the shop,” she replied simply.

I nodded, making my way through the cramped house. I took the small path that connected the backyard to the main building, picking up the large rock beside the back door. I plucked the hidden key from beneath it, the ring of the bell announcing my arrival. Lilian’s father, tall and thin, appeared in the doorway of the back room.

“Ah, Hana,” he said, inclining his head. “Everything alright?”

My breathing hadn’t leveled out. I still looked a mess. But I smiled. “Couldn’t be better. Could I borrow Lil?”

Mr. Martinez shrugged. “Ah, I suppose. Could even keep her. She barely worked an hour. Slept in all morning.”

“I’m a teenager,” Lil huffed, coming up behind him. “And I’ve never restocked or mopped that fast.” Her bright eyes found me, nervous and flitting all over my body. “Han? You okay?”

“I...” I gripped my bag, a shaky breath escaping me. “I messed up. I got in a fight with my mom. I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble.”

Lil crossed the distance between us, hands gentle on my arms. The shirt I picked didn’t cover my bruises. She brushed my hair back, a sympathetic whine in her throat. “Papi?” she asked.

Lil guided me back down the tiny path, sitting me on the living room couch. Toys littered the floor, and children bounced between the rooms, cartoons playing on the small TV. Lil’s family screamed greetings as they zipped past.

Lil took out every pin in my head, grabbing a hairbrush that had been discarded on the coffee table. She brushed out the strands and sang me a song. Her father returned from the shop to hand me a large mug of his spicy-sweet hot chocolate.

I sat there sipping until I calmed down, feeling less like a boat in a hurricane. Then I turned to Lil, who had fetched baby wipes from the bathroom. She wiped the make up from my eyes as I spoke.

“Thomas isn’t so bad,” I began, voice croaky.

“I’d say Thomas is one of the goodest boys in the county,” Lil joked.

“He was really bashful and cute. He loved the ducks. I feel bad for him.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing at my freshly cleaned cheeks. “He’s like me. Stuck in someone else’s web.” I glanced over to make sure Mrs. Martinez was still in the kitchen, then urged Lil closer. I whispered in her ear: “His father sent a car to pick him and his mother up. I looked at the license plate, and Lil...it was the same partial.”

Lil sprung back, mouth open. “Woole?” she asked.

“Or maybe, maybe someone on his private detail? Another relative?” I shook my head. “It could just be a coincidence, but... My dad and Woole haven’t been friends for long. And the disappearances started six months ago.”

Lil looked at me for a long while. “Do you think your father has something to do with these girls?”

I clutched the empty mug, studying the remains like tea leaves. “My father is not a good man. But I can’t say he’s responsible. Not...yet.”

Lil took a deep breath. “Okay, okay... So what happened with your mom?”

I explained the outburst, leaving out the part about the Martinez family. I’d never heard my mom so angry. The door had actually splintered down the middle. “I’m afraid she might call the cops,” I said. “I don’t want them showing up at your house, but I also don’t want to go back. I’m scared she’ll--that he’ll--”

“You don’t have to,” Lil cut in, her hand over mine. Her lips flattened into a thin line, her brow drawing together. “You don’t have to,” she repeated, firm.

She drew me into a hug, and we stayed like that for a while. I didn’t notice when I dozed off, and Mrs. Martinez draped a blanket over us. I opened my eyes to the blare of the TV, my cup on the table, and a warm body sleeping next me.

For a moment, I could forget. For a few hours after, I ate dinner and laughed and felt better. I sat on the porch with Mrs. Martinez and her kids, listening to the faint conversation coming from the shop. Cigar smoke mixed with cortadito, and the sound of dogs barking down the street.

Though I feared the red and blue lights washing the houses, no police cars came. I tried broaching the subject of the license plate with Lil in her bedroom, but she refused. She also didn’t want to talk about our unfruitful hunt in the marsh this morning. She treated the night like any other sleepover, playing games with me and painting my toenails.

“What about Talia?” I whispered. “Saturdays are your...get-together nights.”

Lil paused midcoat. “Talia knows how important you are to me. And she would feel guilty kissing me, knowing you were crying. I couldn’t even think of it.”

Sunday came and went, most of the day spent at church with the Martinez family. But by the afternoon, I knew I had to go back. Several times, the phone rang, with the caller hanging up as soon as someone answered.

Mr. Martinez gave me a long look. I adjusted my bag, Mrs. Martinez’s care package secured inside. “Are you sure?” he asked, blocking my path out the door. “One more child is nothing. Ah, you could even replace Lily.”

“Hey!” Lilian protested.

I smiled, quelling the nerves fluttering my chest. “I’ll keep it in mind. For now, I might as well face the music. I’m sure my mom’s had enough time to cool off.”

“I’ll keep an ear out for the phone,” Mr. Martinez promised. He laid a large hand on my shoulder, his touch comforting. The difference was startling.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

Mr. Martinez allowed me past, and, at a much slower pace, I started cycling.

The house announced my arrival, the front door swinging open to an empty hall. The floorboards creaked with every step, laughing at the disgraced daughter. Potbelly stayed hidden as I walked the rooms, looking for my punishment.

I found my mother in the front parlor, by the window. She looked out at her garden, face half covered by fern leaves. Dozens of plants filled the room; dangling from hanging baskets, and guarding the walls. My mother sighed, surrounded by green.

“Hana what kind of girl are you trying to become? At this rate, you’ll be nothing respectable.”

I’d come to stand silent and accept my fate. But all too quickly, my voice unlocked. “And do you want me to be like you?” I asked.

Her head whipped toward me, lips thin and eyes ablaze. “Excuse me, young lady?” she asked, teeth bared.

I stepped back. The light shifted, my mother’s shadow chasing me across the room. “I’m trying to understand,” I mumbled, “exactly what kind of girl I should be.”

Her glare simmered to a slow burn. Weariness ebbed into her voice. “The kind who listens to her mother. Who obeys her curfew. And who offers thanks when they’re due.” She gestured at a chair by the fireplace. “Your father wanted to sit in this chair, ready to shake a fist at you when you returned.” He would certainly have done more than that. She tugged the edge of her sleeve further down. “You shouldn’t stress him like this. It’s already been stressful enough.”

I wanted to tell her that that wasn’t our fault. That dad had made his own choices, and he would’ve had to pay for them sooner or later. It was a storm always bound to make landfall.

Her eyes returned to mine, subdued and pleading, a sign of peace. She wanted to make the best of a sinking ship. And in that moment, I realized: She knew. She knew there was no turning back. That she would either see her husband succeed, or follow him to the depths of the tempest. The same as her mother before, and her mother before. It was all she had been taught.

But the world was no longer as it was once. And I wasn’t bound to the fates of my elders.

“Thank you, Mother,” I said. Her shoulders stuttered at the formal speech, then sagged. She crossed her hands, one palm over the other, and nodded.

“Of course,” she murmured to the garden. “Anything for my daughter.”

I crossed the room and kissed her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I said, for a different reason than she wanted to hear.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, apologizing for the wrong sin.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, as she resumed watering the fauna.

“Community business,” she answered, reaching to grab a spider plant.

I was sure she didn’t have the faintest idea what that meant, just as I didn’t. But if he wasn’t home, that was fine. I wasn’t ready to crash myself into the rocks a second time today.

“And honey,” she added, back to me, “your room was relocated while you were away.”

My breathing stopped. “What?”

She turned and smiled at me. “Daughters who exhibit good behavior get the finer things in life. Until you can prove you’re worth our trust, we’ve enacted certain limitations on your freedom. You’re a runaway risk--a danger to yourself--and we can’t have that. We took the liberty of removing any unhealthy propaganda from your possessions. We’ve got to protect you.” She blinked big eyes at me, kind yet firm. “I’ll do anything to keep my daughter safe.”

The bag on my back burned with all the heat of a wildfire. The room tilted, and I lowered my eyes. Submissive. I had to yield. Or I was about to lose everything.

“You’re right,” I said, voice husky. “I’ve been...erratic. I’m sorry. I just...needed some time to think.” I took a breath, hoping it would steady me. “May I go lie down?”

“Yes,” my mother tutted, pleased. “You may. Welcome home.”

I turned and walked out, the floorboards silent. There were two empty rooms in the house, and only one that I was allowed in.

I opened the door to the cramped former study, coughing at the dust that still lingered. Briefly, my heart sank at all that had been taken from me. I stared at a bare bed, a dresser with a bible on top, and a plain desk for schoolwork. Not a single poster. No longer a towering bookcase. My guitar was missing, my closet was downsized, and my radio had been tossed in the trash.

I swallowed a scream and tried to tell myself that they were just things. That this was the latest in a long line of unfathomable, but predictable, power grabs. Hana Liftgate had overstepped her boundaries, and so new ones had to be drawn. They’d tightened the noose on me before. I’d made the same mistakes in the past. A lady was supposed to act in accordance with her stature, and do nothing else. A lady was only born to further her family, not her personal worth. She was nothing but a pawn in a centuries-old game of chess, to be traded, sacrificed, and used for the sake of the players.

But the match was only won on the backs of rooks and queens. And, finally, I was a few moves away from checkmate.

The door didn’t have a lock, so I sat against it. I was grateful that they had left it there at all. I held my head in my hands, the windowless room lit by a single floor lamp. I needed to figure a way out of this. My parents had swept through my old room. They had to have found everything: The magazines from out of town, with clipped articles by an unknown author. The multiple rejected submissions to the Gazette. The half finished drafts for new stories, and a single page filled with leads on the missing girls.

I hadn’t been careful enough. And now this bag was all I had left, stuffed with theories and snacks.

I hid the bag under my mattress as best I could, even as it formed a noticeable lump. I’d have to give it Lil as soon as possible tomorrow. I had all the information in my head--somewhere--and that would have to be good enough.

My new room didn’t have a mirror. If I wanted to see myself, I’d have to go to the bathroom. If I wanted to make myself up, I’d have to get permission from my mother, to whom all my tools had been given. So I went to dinner barefaced, hair combed by fingers, in the same clothes I had arrived in.

Mother said nothing, but that wasn’t anything new. Father’s seat sat unoccupied, and we ate in silence. I was ordered back to my room, if I didn’t want to watch the evening news with my mother. I accepted the invitation, which seemed to surprise her. I was just tired of the same blank walls, not feeling safe enough to gather my own thoughts.

We sat beside each other on the couch, cool blues and greys washing over us, mugs of tea in our hands. Somehow, it wasn’t as warm as being with the Martinez’s. But I sipped my tasteless leaf water, too done up with cream, and tried to pretend. The sooner I got my mask back, the sooner I could find my own freedom again.

I tried to go to sleep that night, but the new mattress was too firm. The sheets had been starched, and rubbed coarsely against my arms. I sat up, sick of the uncomfortable fit of my mother’s hand-me-downs. I could hear her saying something about a young woman should dress traditionally. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as I stripped, searching for familiar fabrics.

My parents had spared me one dress, and though it was far from my favorite, the touch of it was smooth. The scent was clean and comforting, a welcome turn from musty and old. I slipped it on, as well as a pair of shoes. I knew I couldn’t leave the house, but the yard was part of our property. A stroll through the gardens could hardly be called sneaking out.

I was several feet from the lake when a bark shot through the night. I turned my head, finding a dog at the top of the path, tail wagging and tongue lolling. Their collar glinted in the moonlight, as they trotted toward me. I stayed still, nervous but curious. And as the dog drew closer, I realized that I recognized her.

“Hey girl,” I said warmly, kneeling down and petting her. “Long time, no see.”

She barked again, excited, and started running circles around me.

“Shh, shh,” I said. “What is it; how did you get here?”

She gave one more bark, then bolted back up the path. Without thinking, I followed, kicking up dirt. I couldn’t let her get hit by a car, or more lost than she already was.

She easily cleared the jump over the border fence. I unlocked the swinging gate, throwing it back in place. I raced across the lawn, beneath the oaks, down to the main road. The dog galloped, half seen in the blackness, showing up under the streetlights every few seconds.

I watched her bank right into a local park, and stopped just short of hopping the log fence. She had stopped in front of a dark figure, sitting at his feet obediently.

My hands clenched on the wood. I should’ve known it would be him.