Shadow of Doubt: Part 2 (2 page)

Erebus glanced at Aurora, her color
pale grey. As she looked up at the waitress and smiled, he noticed
her smile didn’t reach her eyes and her lips trembled.

“I’d love to have some of that famous
hot apple pie, please,” he said.

“Sure thing, sweetie.” Gail turned to
Aurora. “Anything for you, darlin’?”

Aurora shook her head
slightly.

Erebus waited until Gail walked away
before he turned to search Aurora’s eyes. Her pupils were large,
hiding the blue-green he loved about them. He exhaled slowly as he
rested his hands on top of the table. He waited, afraid to
think.

“You’re not lying about this, are
you?” She stared into his eyes. It felt like she was staring
directly into his soul.

He gulped and whispered,
“No.”

This was new territory for
him. He had no idea what more she was going to ask or how he’d
answer.
The truth. Just tell her the
truth. Don’t hide anything
.

“Did you, like, grow up? You know,
like superman, start as a kid and grow into an adult?”

“We don’t age. We are whatever age we
are when the object is created.”

“You don’t get older?” She shook her
head. “Then how old are you?”

“How old do I look?”

“Around early twenties.”

“Then that’s how old I am. I’ve been
around for longer, of course.”

“If you don’t grow older, can you
die?”

“No. Well, maybe.” This was going to
get complicated trying to put into human terms. Erebus stared at
his fingers as he drew a pattern on the linoleum tabletop. “I never
get sick, I don’t feel physical pain, and I can’t die from some
disease.” He was tempted to add that fatal injuries couldn’t kill
him. Coty had once tried jumping in front of a car but hadn’t been
hurt. Aurora had enough on her plate at the moment.

“So, you’re…immortal?” She spoke
calmly but kept double-blinking. Blink. Blink-blink. Blink-blink.
Erebus hoped she wouldn’t faint.

“In a sense. I’ll live as long as
there are phone booths. With cell phones, blackberries, and
Internet, there isn’t much need for communication via a pay phone.
I guess you could say I might become extinct.” He tried to laugh,
but it came out as a bark. He thought about the phone now in his
studio apartment.

“What happens if you can’t find a pay
phone?”

“If my shadow disappears, so do I.” It
was the simplest way he knew how to explain it. That was his
instinct for survival. The thought crossed his mind every morning,
just before sunrise.

“Is every object a shadow?”

“No. I mean, every object
has a shadow, but a Shadow, like me, is limited. There are only a
few of us. We can’t be human shadows, only physical objects. I
don’t know if new ones are still made. Maybe it’s just something of
olden days. I just know we exist and it’s the only way we
know.”
Why am I telling her all of this?
Shut up! It’s too much information
.

“Do you have some special sort of
marking that shows you’re a Shadow to each other?”

He smiled at the picture she
painted. “Not really. We just
know
, like a sixth sense.”

Aurora leaned back against
the red leather, slipping out of her jacket, her blouse opening a
bit as she moved. She looked at him from a slightly sideways
glance, lovely long eyelashes partly covering her eyes. Erebus
glanced from her now rosy face down to her chest. He could feel the
heat in his loins.
Stay focused,
‘Bus
.

“Have you travelled a lot then?
Where’ve you been? Where did you start?”

Curiosity had to be winning over
reason. Erebus grinned when he realized Aurora wasn’t scared; she
was fascinated.

He let his guard down a bit and
relaxed. She was okay; no Night Council had appeared. This could
work. “First time? Do you know the K-Six telephone boxes in
Britain?”

“K-Six?” She raised her eyebrows, and
small little lines appeared momentarily on her forehead. “Oh! You
mean the red telephone booths they have in London and around
England?”

“Yes, they’re also called K-Sixes.
First time I stepped out, it was a K-One. The booths have evolved
since the twenties.”

“Eighteen or nineteen twenties? Duh,
it’s nineteen.” She seemed to be talking to herself for a moment.
“So, you’re really from England? I could never exactly place your
accent.”

“I guess you could say I’m from there.
I’ve never really thought about it.” He remembered telling her the
night they’d met that he was originally from England. No need to
bring that up now.

“How’d you get here then? If you can’t
travel by day…” She let the sentence trail off as the waitress set
the apple pie down on the table. They watched silently as she
refilled both mugs and sauntered away.

Erebus pushed the plate towards
Aurora. “Eat.” He waited until she’d taken a bite.

“How did you get here?” she
persisted.

“Actually, my coming here was kind of
by accident. One minute I was in England, the next I was on a boat
heading to America.”

Aurora stopped chewing and her eyes
grew big. She swallowed a half-chewed bite, needing coffee to wash
it down. “You just woke up on the boat?”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been to
New York City, but there was a red K-Six pay phone setup on Fifth
Avenue. That was me. Guess that morning I picked the booth being
shipped out.”

“I guess you don’t need to have to
have one of those K-Six phone booths now?”

“No. Any pay phone will do. It took me
a while to learn that when I first arrived, but instinct filled in
what I didn’t know.”

“Have you ever tried to be some other
kind of shadow?”

“I can’t.”

“How do you know if you haven’t
tried?”

“It’s impossible.” He shrugged, not
sure how to explain. “I just know it’ll kill me.” He tried to
explain it another way. “Have you ever tried to breathe under
water?” When she shook her head, he said quietly, “You haven’t
tried but you just know it won’t work.”

“I guess I can go with that.” She took
a bite of ice cream, holding the spoon upside against her tongue as
she thought. She pulled it out and pointed it at him. “Have I met
any other Shadows?”

“Yes, Coty.”
And Janus
.

“Coty?” She took another bite of pie,
scooping melted ice cream on the spoon. “Yeah, now that you say it,
that makes sense.”

Erebus raised an eyebrow. “What do you
mean?”

“Well, if I had to picture someone who
would be this ‘Shadow-thing,’ I’d have picked Coty. He’s flighty, a
live-for-the-moment kind of guy.”

Erebus laughed.
Definitely Coty
.

Her head popped up, her eyes bright.
“Is that why you asked me the meaning of Coty’s name that night I
was working on my mythology paper?”

She didn’t forget anything. She’d
definitely make a good lawyer. “Oh yeah, you asked me for some
names, and I just said Shadow names. I had no idea what our names
represented. Though I must say, I’m not entirely sold on the idea
that mythology had any part in it.”

“Hmmm… I sort of got this thing about
mythology. No one gets it, but I do.” She gave him a quirky,
embarrassed smile. “Who named you?”

“I don’t know. We just have
them.”
Like they’re
predestined
.

“How come that night at the library,
you gave a bunch of names but not your own?” Aurora pushed the pie
crust away, setting an elbow on the table as she rested her chin in
her hand. “Do you know what yours means?”

Erebus chewed on his lip, pausing
before answering. “I did ask you,” he whispered.

“I don’t remember you saying
Aaron.”

He glanced up at her and
then concentrated on playing with a crumb on the tabletop. “My
name’s not actually Aaron. That first night we met, at the frat
party, you couldn’t hear me because the music was so loud. You
called me Aaron and later that night you put Aaron Buss in your
blackberry.”
I liked it. It made me
feel
human
. “It’s
Erebus.”

“E-re-bus…” Her eyes squinted
slightly, and her brows came together. “Erebus,” she said
again.

He pictured her brain picking through
the names and definitions from that night.

A squeak came from her mouth, which
she covered by her hand. “You’re the personification of darkness. A
shadow,” she recited in a muffled, but clearly excited
voice.

“Yeah. Not that appealing of a name to
share with a girl you like.” Especially a smart girl with a good
memory.

Aurora moved her hand from her mouth
and stared at it as she traced circles on the tabletop. Erebus
watched her fingers glide across the sparkles set into the
table.

“That night in the library, when you
went to the restroom, I looked up your name.” Erebus refused to
lift his head up.

“I wouldn’t be in the mythology book.
But my name means morning bird, or something like that.” Her voice
went husky, “I’m…”

“The goddess of the
dawn.”
My sunrise, my
dawn
. He wanted to say that out loud but
didn’t. How could she understand what she now represented to
him?

“Ironic, isn’t it? That we should
meet.”

“Maybe it’s destiny.” He wished so
badly that might be true. He held off his urge to reach across the
table and grab her hand and hold it tight. He knew tonight would be
the last time he saw her. Instead, he curled his fingers into a
fist under the table, letting his nails push into the flesh of his
palm.

“You believe in destiny?
Now
that
seems a
bit tongue-in-cheek.” She leaned forward and began slipping into
her jacket.

“You’re leaving?” His pulse quickened.
Butterflies flew into his stomach. He wasn’t ready to spend the
rest of his life without her. He knew he wasn’t fine, like he kept
telling everybody. This was it. She would leave him now.

“I need to walk. I have so much to
think about.” She stood up.

He stayed seated, unsure of what he
should do. Did he say goodbye? Should he hug her?

“Aren’t you coming?” A wry smile
played on Aurora’s lips.

He didn’t respond. He jumped up as
quick as he could, tossing fifty dollars on the table without a
second glance. As he shoved his wallet in his back pocket, he felt
Aurora slip her hand into his. Unable to stop himself, he leaned
down and kissed her hair. She smelled wonderful, intoxicating as
always. His drug of choice. He smiled against her head.

Soundlessly, they headed out of the
diner and into the street. Snow had begun to fall, which seemed to
make the air feel slightly warmer. They continued in silence, hand
in hand, for a few blocks.

Erebus watched Aurora, waiting for her
to realize what he’d told her and tell him to get lost. Passing a
phone booth, he felt her slow down and watched as she stared at it
and then back at him.

“How do you do it?” She raised their
held hands and pointed with her finger.

How do I explain the rush
of fear and the terror of the unknown
? He
took the safest route he knew. “It’s a natural instinct. Like fight
or flight.” He dropped her hand and stopped walking. “Why aren’t
you running?”

Aurora stopped and turned to look at
him. “I don’t know. I should be thinking you’re mad, but I don’t.
The crazy thing is...I believe you.” Squinting, she focused passed
him, on the phone booth. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone
before. It’s like I need you – like you’re my destiny.” She shook
her head and closed her eyes. “I like mythology, but I don’t
believe in destiny or fate. Mind you, after tonight I’m not sure
what I should believe in.”

Erebus wondered if she was talking to
herself or to him. He shoved his hands into his pockets, staring at
the snowflakes. “The whole thing has flown by for me – decades,
years, everything that has happened in my life. Then I met you. You
made my world stand still.” He watched her eyes draw to him. “In
that wonderful stillness you created, without evening knowing, I
found an independence I’ve never known. I don’t want to lose that
freedom, and I can’t lose you.” His voice became a whisper as he
finished.

Aurora reached out, resting her hands
on his jawline. She stared at him intently and then dropped her
eyes to his lips.

They both leaned in. Erebus let his
mouth find hers. This wasn’t a kiss of passion or lust. It was
something Erebus hadn’t felt before. He realized, as Aurora wrapped
her arms around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder,
it was a kiss of tenderness.

Time seemed to stand still as they
held on to each other. Erebus didn’t understand the swelling inside
of him or his need to hold Aurora as tight as he could and never
let go. These feelings were all new, all uncharted
territory.