Chapter 8

Without a Shadow

When Kaisa opened her eyes, Rita and Archie were still fast asleep. She turned her head and stared out onto the empty street through her bedroom window for a while. It must have been almost noon, the sun having just barely made its way over the horizon. Kaisa loved the snow and the cold of winter. She thought everything was so peaceful and quiet during that time. But she did miss the sun. She thought about the first warm spring days, the first days without clouds. When you could tilt your head and your face was hit with warm rays of light. Kaisa rolled over and saw that Rita’s eyes were still closed. She looked so much like her mother, Orla. Her dark skin, her black curly hair that was almost impossible to tame. It shouldn’t be tamed, Kaisa thought. It suited her. The people who didn’t know her that well would say she was all her mother, but Kaisa knew her better than anyone else. Thorinn was in her eyes, her gentle ways. Without her, Kaisa was sure she’d have died a long time ago. Rita was her voice of reason, but one that was all too easily persuaded to follow her down the wrong path. 

Kaisa reached out and lightly touched Rita’s nose. 

“Boop.”

Rita opened her eyes, tried to blink the sleep away. Kaisa scooted closer so that their faces were only an inch apart. 

“Your breath stinks,” Rita said, closing her eyes again. 

“So does yours. Nononono, don’t go back to sleep. I want to talk.” 

“Why always in the morning? Why?”

“Please, please, please! You can keep your eyes closed.”

Rita sighed, clearly not happy with the choice she’d been given. 

“Fine. What’s weighing so heavy on your heart that can’t wait until I’ve had something to eat?”

“I was thinking about that story from yesterday.”

“Oh, you mean that story where you turned out to be ocean girl, chased by a monster that took your mother’s voice? Yeah, man, I’d think about that too if I were you.”

“Do you think that maybe…maybe I’m not a person?”

Rita blinked her eyes open and suddenly didn’t look all that tired anymore. The longer she looked without saying a word, the more Kaisa wished she could take it back.

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about? Of course you are a person.”

“I look like one, yeah. But I don’t have parents. Maybe I’m not a human person.”

“You have parents. Your mom is…”

“She didn’t give birth to me.”

“You might have other parents.”

“Who live at the bottom of the sea? Can you focus, please?”

“I actually refuse, Kaisa. I am about to fall back asleep. Goodbye.”

“No no no please wait. Wait. Listen, I’m so weird. Everything I am is so weird, even here. I can see these things, I can look between the lines like a cat. And I don’t…”

Kaisa rubbed her face with her hands and rolled onto her back. It was so difficult to say these things out loud. Part of her felt like it made them more true.  

“You don’t have a shadow,” Rita concluded.

“Yeah. Why on earth is that?”

“Who knows, Kaisa. Shadows are something else in and of themselves here. People’s shadows. Mine left for a week or two when I was ten, remember? No idea where that bugger went. Maybe yours left and found a nicer place to stay. A place it didn’t have to smell your morning breath, for instance.”

“Can you please be serious?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I mean it, and Little Bean told me I’ve never had one, too. Ever. Remember when we went looking for it?”

Rita chuckled softly. 

“Yeah, that was wild. We walked so far up north with our little legs. How old were we?”

“Seven, I think. Just two years older than Archie.”

“My mom was so mad. She was so, so mad. My dad was worried. That kind of scared me more.”

“I remember. Nonni was terrified. I didn’t understand it back then. What the big deal was, I mean. You can see the hills surrounding the town for miles. You can’t get…lost.” 

Kaisa paused, thinking about the irony of it. If they’d gotten lost, would they have just ended up in Hesteyri? Or maybe getting lost wasn’t something that could happen in the Spillage altogether. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how absolutely oblivious she was to the world she called her home.  

Kaisa sighed, and pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. Just before she drifted back to sleep, she felt a small touch on her nose. 

“Boop.”

They slept for almost three more hours and were woken by a sun that dared to peek through the thick clouds, just to send a bright glare through the bedroom window. Kaisa blinked and slowly opened her eyes, blinking the sleep away. Archie was sitting up in his futon. He must have taken the whale book from the shelf while they were still sleeping. He was looking at a photograph of two blue whales diving underneath a kayak, the person in it looking like an ant compared to the colossal mammals. It was truly something you had to look at for a little longer to understand what it really was. When he saw her awake, he smiled up at her.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, little man. Are you well rested?”

“All good.”

“That’s fantastic. Now would you look at that!”

Kaisa propped herself up onto her elbows. She looked down at Rita, who was, lo and behold, still sleeping. 

“She’s super sleepy!” Archie said and crawled from his futon up onto the girls’ bed, Steve tightly tucked under his right arm. 

“She is indeed. But I happen to know how she loves to be woken up. Wanna see?”

Archie laughed and nodded. Kaisa stretched out her index finger, put it into her mouth and pulled it out through her lips, covering it in spit from top to bottom. 

“Oh, that’s so mean,” Archie gasped. He laughed into Steve’s back, trying not to wake Rita too early. Kaisa moved her finger over Rita’s head and was just about to stick it into her ear, when suddenly…

“I would think long and hard about the fierce and painful consequences of the mistake you’re about to make.” 

Rita, it turned out, had just been waiting. Kaisa stopped half an inch before her finger touched the inside of her ear. Archie threw his head back and started laughing until he lost balance and landed backwards on his futon. 

“You know what, I am actually scared to death and I would like to keep this hand. It’s the useful one.” 

Rita opened her eyes and gave Kaisa a smirk. 

“A wise choice indeed.”

When the three walked out into the kitchen, Kaisa got herself ready to, like every morning, retrieve her favorite mug from the lamppost. Nonni, brewing coffee already, turned around when they came in. She raised her hand and in it was Kaisa’s mug. 

“Are you joking?” Kaisa whispered.

“Is that your mug? Isn’t that thing supposed to be…well anywhere but here?” Rita replied, eyeing the mug in Nonni’s hand.

“We should focus on finding out what is going on, don’t you think? Or maybe you guys would like a day off? Have another stroll through the shop?” the cat said and walked in behind them, and Kaisa found its hostile tone appalling, especially so soon after she’d just woken up.

“Can you calm down for a hot second?”

“Oh, you mean just like you? It’s noon, for crying out loud. You seem to enjoy the lack of interest the Oddity has in you recently. Your mug is still there, your boots are still where you left them. So is the key. The inside of every cupboard is just how it should be.”

“Can’t we just appreciate it?” Rita said from behind Kaisa’s back, but her tone betrayed a weak chest.

“Don’t be stupid, child!”

Just as Kaisa decided she was more than ready to have an argument with this feisty little feline, Rita interrupted her rising temper. 

“Is it the same everywhere?” she asked. 

“At least one of you is using their brain,” the cat replied, eyeing them both with half-closed eyes.

“We share one, she gets to have it in the mornings,” Kaisa countered, trying not to laugh at her own joke like an idiot. 

“Just the mornings? Anyway, to answer your question: No. Quite the opposite, actually. I’ve been to a couple of other houses. Your parents’, Olli’s. The Oddity is going crazy. And I mean it’s becoming dangerous.”

Kaisa’s smirk was quickly wiped from her face, and she shot Rita a worried look.

“It’s not just funny little misplacements. It’s tools flying at high speed or falling from the ceiling. Avalon’s front door led down a cliff. She stepped out and just barely managed to pull herself back inside by the door handle.”

“She almost…died?” Rita said, starting to pull on the collar of her pajamas. The cat had mentioned her parents’ house.

“She did. All this time the Spillage has existed, the Oddity has never felt threatening. Never. Until now.” 

All three then looked down at Archie, who hid his face behind his hands.

“Archie, don’t worry, okay? We should check on Orla and Thorinn. And everybody else for that matter,” Kaisa said, ruffling his hair.

“Ah, and you’re planning to do what exactly? Throw yourself in front of random darting objects? Checking every entrance door for potential deathtraps? I’m sure you’re gonna be of great help.”

“Hey, how about you chill out. None of this is our fault,” Rita snapped and Kaisa was happy it wasn’t always her playing the firecracker for a change. 

“Is it my fault?” Archie pulled on Kaisa’s pajama pants, looking up at her. 

“No! No, Archie it isn’t. We’re going to get you home. I promise.”

“You better not make promises you can’t keep. Do me a favor, line up in front of that window over there.” 

The cat was in an especially prickly mood that day, but Kaisa wasn’t interested in fighting any longer. All three of them, without protesting, went to position themselves in front of the window. Nonni leaned against the kitchen counter, already drinking her coffee. Kaisa glanced over at her and knew her mother was glad to find her stuff in the same place for once. It was always a dangerous game to play, enjoying comforts you knew would end up collapsing onto you like a brittle ceiling. She really couldn’t blame her though.

“See?” 

The cat walked by the three children, one by one. It came to a halt and sat down to face all three. Rita’s shadow was rather unassuming, considering the circumstances. It scratched its head once in a while, but obeyed the situation more or less. Archie’s shadow didn’t do anything. It was like you’d expect if you didn’t expect odd things to happen, with one small exception. Its outlines seemed blurry, maybe even frilled. Curious, Kaisa thought. She’d never heard of people from the living world having strange things happening to their shadows. 

“Your shadow doesn’t really match anything I have ever seen. It also doesn’t seem to have much life in it. You’re a very interesting boy. We’ve had lost boys before. You’re different, and we need to figure out how you’re different. Don’t mind me being sharp tongued, Archie. I just worry about this place and its people.”

Kaisa carefully eyed the cat as it paced up and down. She wondered about this particular one sometimes. Cats weren’t really bound to humans, wouldn’t even accept a name. They only used Hesteyri as a passage when they wandered in between the worlds. A cat could move freely, and she envied them for it. But this one always seemed to be around. 

“And then there’s you. The girl without a shadow. I don’t know why I bother asking, but have you ever wondered where it is?”

Kaisa shrugged and shifted from one leg to the other. 

“You know, if you’re me, you gotta wonder a whole awful lot. At some point, it seems…pointless.”

“Believe it or not, but I can empathize. Not easy being strange among strange people.” 

The cat twitched its right ear and looked Kaisa up and down for a moment.

“You have no shadow, Kaisa. Weird,” Archie yelled and pointed his little finger to the ground behind her. 

“But the talking cat seems fine to you so far? Strange lines you draw, brother,” she replied and ruffled his hair. It was funny to her, how children were so quick to adapt to the nature of their world, though they were the only ones who had a chance to go back. The thought made her smile. Perhaps that was the secret. 

“Even Steve has a shadow, and he’s not even real, look,” Archie chimed, holding up his stuffed artichoke before the beam of light that came in through the window. Kaisa watched as Steve’s shadow danced in unison with its counterpart, and even though she knew Archie didn’t know any better, she felt a sting in her chest. Just as she wanted to turn away, there was a little pull on her leg. Archie had stopped dangling Steve and now reached up for Kaisa to pick him up, but she was hesitant for a moment. He’s just a kid, she said to herself. He didn’t mean it. She grabbed him by the armpits and settled him on her hip.

“Can you read to me later?” he asked, gently tugging on a strand of her hair. Kaisa watched his little fingers tangling in her white strands and his big brown eyes staring at her so intently, almost like he was reaching out to her. 

“Sure, little man. A little later, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and leaned his head against the nape of her neck. Kaisa sighed, and saw Rita watching them from the corner of her eye. 

“Aren’t you at all worried about your mom? About your dad? The cat said things in your house went flying. We should maybe go, Rita,” she said, interrupting her own train of thought. As much as she didn’t find it fair to feel responsible, she couldn’t really help it.

“Worried? For my mother? She’s not in danger, she IS the danger.” 

Rita laughed, but something in her voice didn’t seem quite right. She sounded uneasy. Seemed like her, Kaisa thought. She always tried not to worry, because her mother never worried. Her dad did, and he got his leg pulled for it every so often. But Rita worried too. A lot, actually. 

“I would like to go, Rita. I’m concerned. Archie, you should stay here.”

“Don’t you think Archie should come with you? After all, the only people having a good time right now are hanging out with him,” the cat said, and it did have a point, but Kaisa wanted to see what was going on. She also preferred for peace to stay at her own house. If she was the one taking care of things, then she could afford to be at least a little bit selfish. 

“No, Archie should stay here. Come on Rita.”

Rita agreed and Kaisa saw her looking somewhat relieved. They put their boots and jackets on in a hurry. As soon as Kaisa put her hand on the door handle, she felt a strange sting in her palm, but one that she tried to ignore. Probably just a small current, she thought, but didn’t really believe it herself. 
She opened the front door in a hurry and just barely held her hand out to stop Rita from running through. The stone steps leading from Kaisa’s house were gone. Instead, they were staring into darkness. Something that looked like a long tunnel. Like a narrow cave broken deep into a mountain. And just as their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, something moved. Swiftly, across the walls of the cave. The next moment, it was quiet. Rita and Kaisa kept staring. 

“Girls! Close the door!” the cat hissed from behind them. Quick shuffles along the black cave walls, echoing through the darkness, closing in more and more.  

“CLOSE IT!!” 

Kaisa slammed the door shut and took two steps back. She stared at the closed door, then over at Rita, whose color had drained from her face. 

“We need to get to your parents’ house. Now!”