Shadows Gray Read online

  Shadows Gray

  By

  Melyssa Williams

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, locations or people are used fictitiously. Names, places and events are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  ©Copyright 2012

  Melyssa Williams

  All rights reserved. This book and its parts may not be reproduced or copied without the author’s permission. The author may be contacted at www.shadowsgray.com

  Chapter One

  By all accounts, as well as I can say, I am 18 years old now, but I could be as old as perhaps 20 or as young as 16. I have slept and woken in 13 different eras now, and now I am in America in the twenty first century. This is a difficult time to be Lost.

  My name is Sonnet Gray and I was born in 1737. My mother was born in 1880 and my father in 1174. We are Lost, like our ancestors before us. I remember nothing of the eighteenth century, at least not during the time of my birth or during the four years of my life. I do recall visiting it briefly again, but it was never home to me. I even hated it and couldn’t wait to leave as it reminded me of my sister whom we had left behind. Each time I saw a babe in white lace I thought of Rose, and each time I saw a young beautiful woman with light blue eyes, I startled, thinking could it be Rose? I wondered if she lived her whole life in that century, while her mother and father and sister had been forced to move on. Before I even had another birthday however, we were lost again, my father and me.

  My mother, shaken with sorrow and drunk with sadness, had not made it even a month after we left baby Rose. Desperate to find her, and sick with the guilt she could not rid herself of, she neither ate nor slept until she was a hollow wraith of a woman, empty and void. It doesn’t seem as though I should remember her at all, yet I do. She was a vague, shadowy woman with yellow hair and a listless voice. I don’t remember Rose well though, and I only have Dad’s tales in lieu of my own recollections. I do know she had flaxen hair – golden like our mother’s, and that her eyes were like mine – a disconcerting light blue – also from our mother. While I am taller than average with long legs and arms, Dad said Rose was a tiny thing, bird-like. She was three years old and I four the night we disappeared and she stayed behind. It was the first leaving we had been subjected to since her birth and no one could have predicted that she wouldn’t possess the same ability her family did. She wasn’t the first child of course who wasn’t Lost, and there are always whispers as to why some cannot wake in different centuries the way their families can. Half siblings for instance, rarely have enough magic (for lack of a better word) in their blood to accomplish it. The sickly…. There have been cases of the ill or very old and frail being left behind. We will never know what happened that night. We only know that we woke up in Italy in the 1500s and Rose had not passed through time with us. Mother grieved and grieved for two weeks, either sitting motionless in one position for frightening amounts of time, or pacing, agitated and restless outside in the sun. When she was tired of grieving, she combed her hair, put on a cornflower blue dress that my father had stolen for her, and calmly walked off a cliff.

  My father started drinking heavily that night, and he has not stopped since.

  The first few months were frustrating for me. I arrived in this century for the first time and found it incredibly fast-paced and overwhelming, noisy and confusing. Everyone had gadgets pressed to their ears and they drive cars instead of walking. I had never seen automobiles before, but of course I had heard of them through people who had traveled much further in time than I had. I found out quickly enough that I need papers to identify myself if I wanted a job, a house, anything. A mutual friend of a mutual friend, who was shady to say the least, stole an identity for me that came with a number. A “social security” number. I didn’t like being assigned a number, but we needed to get a place to live. It was winter - Dad was sick again and so was Prue. So, for several months I became Emily Winn. I told people that I preferred to go by my middle name, Sonnet, (so I could hold onto some semblance of myself). Finding a job was not easy, but I have become accustomed to that whenever and wherever we go. The Lost cannot take much of anything, aside from their fellow Lost family and whatever they are holding in their hands when they pass on, so I have learned to rely solely on music to provide me with an income. I have a low, throaty voice that serves me well for singing and I find singing to be a pleasure that each and every century will stop and listen to. This decade proved hardest, but I secured a job at a coffee shop that has live music and poetry on the weekends. The wages and tips are enough to feed me and Dad and to keep him in cigars and alcohol. There is no need for other things and no need to save because the expression “you can’t take it with you” is never truer than when you are Lost. I sew extra money into my nightgown hems so that I am not destitute when we pass on again, but it rarely helps. If you are suddenly living in ninth century Germany, no one is going to recognize your $50 American bill.

  The Lost stick together and as everyone knows, misery loves company. No one wants to be lonely. It is a comfort to go through our trials together. Also, no one fully understands. We are lost in groups. Too large of a group and of course we are far too conspicuous, so most of us keep our groups at fewer than ten. Our group now is eight (though we may take on others as time goes by) and we are noticeable enough as it is. Somehow we managed to get one drunk storyteller (Dad); a married couple who say they are my second cousins but I highly doubt it (my personal opinion is that they were kicked out of their last family group due to being ridiculously annoying and irritating everyone to distraction with their bickering); old Prue who has to be at least a hundred years old; Matthias and Harry (elderly themselves, brothers and bachelors); and Israel Rhode who is several inches over six feet tall, black as night and completely unforgettable. For the past several years they have been my family. Together we speak almost every language you could think of; I myself speak five. When you live in as many places as we do, you pick them up quickly. Each other is all we’ve got. We are not immortal, though legends may say we are. No one knows whether The Lost age differently than the rest of mankind. There are different thoughts and no one agrees. One man might say he fell asleep clean shaven and woke the next morning in a different time and space with a full beard.

  I’ve wondered about a man I’ve seen at the coffee shop; he gives me the feeling that he is keeping an eye on me. Since there is nothing remarkable about me (my boss tells me if it weren’t for my voice and the way I froth milk he never would have hired me), I can only assume he is Lost and looking for others to be with. It’s common for our type to land in similar places, in similar decades, narrowly missing each other, but sometimes even perfectly together. It’s as though whatever pulls us on, whatever fingers our marionette strings, has a specific goal in mind but does not share it.

  He is a man, young and tall and aimless looking. He always looks as though he went out to fetch the morning paper and the door slammed locked behind him. His hair is a bit too long and his face on the scruffy side of smooth. He wears glasses when he reads the paper but takes them off to pinch the bridge of his nose when he drinks his coffee. He sits at the bar and pretends not to stare at me. This isn’t an attractive description, but he’s an attractive man in an unkempt, confused looking way. I know he isn’t staring to start something romantic. If it was love at first sight he was looking for, he’d be much more apt to turn his owlish eyes towards my coworker, Penny, who is far more beautiful and alluring than I am. Of course she’s terrible at frothing milk and her poetry is a thing of horrible legend, but men rarely find that a suitable turn off. No, this particular man keeps his eyes on me and I am unsure as to why.

>   Tonight, I accused him of staring. “It’s your coffee,” he replies, wistfully. “You make it so strong I can’t blink or focus my eyes. Your fault.”

  “I make it the way I was trained to make it,” I answer, primly. “If you aren’t manly enough for it, I could make you some warm milk.”

  He looks wounded and takes a big chug of his coffee, swallowing slowly and pointedly.

  “Well, anyway,” I continue, wiping an imaginary spot of the counter with my dishtowel. “It’s rude to stare and you’re always staring at me. You should stare at Penny; she’s just started her new poem on stage.”

  “I’d rather drink warm milk,” he shudders. “Will it be about goats and chocolate again?”

  “I think it was supposed to be a metaphor.”

  “I don’t need to know what for. Anyway, I didn’t mean to stare at you. I’m lost in thought.”

  “Constantly? You’re constantly lost in thought? That’s a lot of thinking. You should give it a rest. Maybe switch to decaf.” I offer some from the pot behind me. I know my conversation is inane, but I am no good at conversation with handsome men.

  “Pointless. Boring. Sleep inducing. Like warm milk. Or Penny’s poetry.”

  I smile in spite of myself. Penny is sweet but it’s a pleasant change to be ranked higher somehow. I have no delusions about myself; I am tall and lanky with dark, nondescript hair that neither curls nor straightens properly. My light ice blue eyes might be fascinating, but are probably just creepy. I’ve been told by 21st century girls that I have a horrific sense of fashion (evidently t-shirts with kitty cats is not haute couture). And I have the inability to come up with witty responses to conversations from the opposite sex. I’m “a keeper,” I overheard someone say dryly once.

  “Actually, I’m only scoping you out because of your grandma,” he continues, sipping.

  “Prue?” I blink, not sure whether to be disappointed or wary with the change of subject.

  “Elderly woman with an accent? Dispenses cryptic advice with her food?” He asks.

  “Well, yes, that’s Prue. Where did you meet her? And why are you scoping out my grandma anyway?” I wonder if he knows my father as well. Prue and Dad sell Cajun/Irish/Southern/Italian food from a cart several blocks away. Prue is an excellent cook but between her fiery take-no-prisoners personality combined with a heavy accent and a tendency to swear at customers; she and Dad don’t pull in much income. Dad himself is a bit useless, truth be told, and most always drunk. He doesn’t exactly pull in the customers either. Although Prue’s cooking is amazing, they won’t be featured in any upcoming restaurant reviews, at least not favorable ones.

  “She made me this really spicy gumbo and pasta thing. It may or may not have been alligator.”

  “So?” I snap. “Don’t go back if you didn’t like it. And it’s not illegal to cook with if that’s what you’re getting at.” Worse than that, is a worry my Dad may have picked his pocket.

  “What are you talking about? I loved it. I love her. I asked her to marry me and she hit me with her rice spoon. If it’s illegal to cook with alligator, I’ll cheerfully hide Gramma in my house from the authorities. I was actually hoping to get her to talk to me; I’m a photographer and I’d love a picture of her.”

  “Oh. Well, you can ask, but she’ll probably turn you down.” Prue doesn’t like photos. Most of the Lost don’t. We’re timeless enough.

  “I did, but she started waving her spoon at me again and I got scared. I guess I was hoping you’d butter her up for me? I’m a decent photographer, I promise. You can see my work if you like. These are all recent and from the area.” He pulls out a folder with several sheets of photos.

  In spite of myself and the fact that I should be refilling coffee right now, I leaf through them politely. They are quite good, at least to my untrained eye. I see a young boy that I recognize from the street where I live. The photographer has captured his mischievous grin and his missing front teeth perfectly. He poses in a cocky way for the camera. There are a couple of teenagers holding up a large fish, grinning and looking deliciously sunburned and young. A woman nuzzling a tiny baby – I think I’ve seen her as well, only she was pregnant the last time she was in the coffee shop. Another: a girl, around my age or younger, leaning against a tree, her skirt billowing back against her knees, her arms crossed. She doesn’t know she’s being photographed. Her feet are bare and her hair long and straight. She looks like a fairytale princess. She is small and delicate.

  I think it is my sister.

  Chapter Two

  “Where did you take this?” I ask hoarsely. I feel as though my world has tipped sideways and I am dizzy and nauseous.

  He peers over his coffee cup at the photograph of the girl I feel certain is my sister, Rose. “At the river,” he says. “It was during the fair last weekend. Know her?”

  Suddenly I feel ridiculous. Of course I don’t know her. Of course it isn’t Rose. How many times have I thought I’ve seen her, been certain I’ve spotted her? I do the same with my mother. Any woman with yellow hair and light eyes really. That quickening of my heart and breath, that butterfly feeling in my stomach, and then they turn and I see they are nothing like my family at all. I feel foolish and desperate. And yet, she is so very much the way I imagine Rose to look.

  I clear my throat. “No, no I don’t know her. She looked familiar though for a minute, that’s all.”

  “Well, I didn’t catch her name, but she’s a beauty and the camera loves her. Got a couple shots of her in the crowd as well. Do you have any muffins left?”

  “Hmm?” I say distractedly. “Oh, sure. They’re day old though, still want one? I’ll charge you half price.”

  The photographer eats his muffin, drinks his coffee. We listen to Penny’s poetry – he’s right, there was mention of a goat. When he leaves I clear his plate and find his business card, Luke Dawes, Photography. I pocket it in my apron to show Prue and since he leaves a nice tip, I decide to vouch for his character so that maybe she’ll let him photograph her.

  I’m home late that night as I always am on weekend nights. The shop stays open late and I’m the only one who can close it because I’m the only one trusted enough to do the changing out of the cash register and balance the books. Israel comes to collect me, as he always does, and we walk home together through the night, since his car is low on fuel and the night is warm.

  Israel is a good man to walk with; he’s not talkative and we fall into an easy rhythm. He has been with our group since we came here – no, since just before I suppose. We met him in our time before this one, which was Portugal in the 1850s. I have traveled thirteen times in my life, and lived in four different centuries. There is no rhyme or reason to how long we stay, no pattern, no way of anticipating how long our times will be before we move on unwittingly. Portugal was short. My time here now has been two years, longer than most. I do not get attached. I have all that I need, or fiercely say that I do. My father is irritating and difficult, but he’s mine. Prue is as well. The others have been with me long enough to love them dearly but they will most likely not be with the three of us forever. At some point someone will distance themselves and we won’t make a jump through time together, but we will meet up with others. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find someone from your past again, but it’s rare. Once we met my uncle, my dad’s brother, who has always been a wanderer and a loner. I hadn’t seen him – well, no one had – since he had wandered away from us when I was ten, but we somehow made a passing together anyway and ended up in Portugal together. He seemed happy enough to see us and we all made plans to stay together this time, but no one was completely surprised when he wasn’t around the night we all traveled again and woke without him. Every so often the loneliness is more than you can bear; but it’s easier for some to be the one to force it upon themselves than to be the one who is left behind. I wonder if Luke is like that, and then I remember no, he is not Lost, he merely wants a photograph of my grandmother. He probably has a wond
erful family, people who are never further away from him than a phone call or a letter or a boat ride. I kick rocks all the way home and my fists are curled in my jacket pocket in muffled, stifled anger. Israel is silent but there is no familiar sense of comfortable camaraderie in our silence tonight.

  ********************

  I wake the next afternoon to the smell of strong tea and bread. Amelia and Will are at it again, arguing in the living room. I can hear their tone of voice, if not their words, although I can guess at the conversation since it rarely differs. I can also hear the sound of the television with the ever running game shows. It sounds like Family Feud. Matthias and Harry are huge game show fanatics. They were so excited to be back in an era with television, they almost wept with joy.

  I stumble out in my favorite old shirt, a soft gray one with faded pictures of horses, and a pair of plaid pajama pants. I have changed from the white, old fashioned nightgown I wear every night. The risks of waking in an unknown era are vast enough without calling attention to myself by an odd set of clothes. The nightgown, while a little eccentric in this day and age for a young woman, is the best I can do. I yawn and give Harry his customary high five as I walk by the couch. He loves this century. He loves smacking people’s hands instead of shaking them.

  “Sonnet,” Amelia – Meli for short - calls out as I reach the kitchen and open the refrigerator. “Sonnet, tell this bum we need to go out! We need to go out, Will.” She turns her attention to her husband and props her cute, heart shaped face on her hands. She stares pointedly at him.

  Will is short and small and wears glasses. He reads a book and sips orange juice and doesn’t pay her the slightest attention. Will and Meli have been married for several years and they haven’t agreed on anything since. Meli frets and mopes and stomps around the house when she isn’t working as a nanny, and Will indulgently pats her head occasionally, but mostly ignores her. Their devotion to each other and to their respective pursuit’s border somewhere between ridiculous and inspirational. Last week their daily arguments were focused about whether or not to have children. Now it seems Meli just wants a date night.