Viv took a deep breath. She didn’t like that Sasha had talked to her mother without her. But he’d only done it out of necessity. She couldn’t hold it against him, not when she’d probably have done the same in his shoes. “All right.”
“I might… need to be let in,” her mother said, and Viv looked at Micah, who was frowning, teeth worrying at his lower lip.
“Go ahead,” she told him, and Micah nodded.
“You can come in once,” Micah said, and Daria stepped through the door. Viv braced herself, panic rising—what if she was wrong, and the thing had taken another form? But it was still her mother standing in the grass, looking at them like a hunted deer before the bow.
“I don’t know what I can do,” she said softly. Viv suppressed the urge to shout,Anything, anything is better than the nothing you’ve given me before.But it was Micah who spoke, stepping forward to kneel before the doll.
“We’re calling it here,” he said, and Daria flinched when Micah placed a hand on the doll. “You know what this is.”
“That’s dangerous,” Daria said. “You can… you can call something you can’t send back.”
“Only if we lie.” Daria winced again, and Micah looked at Viv. “It’s midnight. I think we can start now. Do you want to, or should I?”
“I will.” Viv stepped away from Sasha and knelt in front of the doll. She placed both hands on it, feeling the smooth clay under her fingers. “My name is Vivian Black.”
The doll twitched under her hands, and the wind picked up, making the candles flicker.
“I let myself think my sickness was a death sentence,” Viv said slowly. This was the hard part, the part she never said aloud. “But it isn’t, though there isn’t an easy answer. I’m going to have to ask for help, even if it makes me feel weak to do it.” She glanced at her mom when she said the last part, but Daria was staring at the woods, her arms wrapped around herself. “And I’m angry. It’s easier to be angry than to confront why I’m hurting. To admit that I’m still that kid, sometimes, who just wanted my mom to love me.”
Daria’s hands tightened on her arms, and a wind moved outward from Viv, racing over the grass. When it passed the door, it rose into the shadowy shape of a woman Viv’s height, standing straight and still.
Viv moved out of the way, still kneeling, and Sasha got down on his knees next to her. He touched the doll, and it shivered, limbs rattling.
“I guess there are some fights I can’t win,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try anyway. I’m not as brave as Micah and Viv. Sometimes I think if I don’t get in the ring, then I can’t lose. But I can. And that’s fucking terrifying.”
Again, a wind made the candles sputter, and it formed into the shape of a man who looked vaguely like Sasha.
“Fuck,” Sasha said softly. “Even my shadow’s hot.”
“Oh my gods, not the time,” Viv whispered, reaching for his hand. She knew what it took to say the unpleasant part aloud, in front of everyone. For Sasha, who just wanted people to be happy, that was probably harder than the rest.
Micah knelt next to Sasha and touched the doll. It trembled. “Okay. Okay. I’m not broken. But I… listened to my parents. I believed them, even when I thought I didn’t. I hid from other people, and I hid from myself. I hated the part of me that’s not like everyone else, because their voices became my voice. Sometimes I might still think like that. Sometimes I might forget and think I’m not enough.”
“But you are,” Sasha said, and Micah glanced at him, that lovely smile flashing across his face even as the doll twitched and the wind blew, coalescing outside the barrier to make a shadow Micah.
“Mom,” Viv said. Daria looked away. “Mom, it’s your turn.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” Daria whispered, and Viv boiled with anger that even now, even at the last hour, her mother would rather wallow in silence.
“Fine. We’ll do it ourselves.” Viv looked at Micah, and Micah raised the doll. All three shadow figures looked toward them, and Micah swallowed.
“Go find the thing that wants Vivian,” he said, “and bring it to the door.”
The shadows drifted away toward the forest, blending with the dark until Viv couldn’t see them anymore. For a long minute, nothing moved—even the wind had died, leaving them in an unsettling silence—but then there was a flicker, and a lump of shadow writhed across the grass, coming closer. Daria took several steps back.
It was as though the shadows they’d summoned were fighting a wolf. The shadow creature howled and twisted, clawing and biting, and the shadows fought back, their darkness writhing over a lump of bracken and twigs shaped like a woman. Their own shadows weren’t made of stone, twig, or moss; they could move fluidly, swiftly, adaptable and powerful. Viv wondered what would have happened if any of them tried to hide the truth during the ritual. If their shadows would have tried to make themselves bodies, like this one had, and turned their weaknesses, their desires, into something terrible.
Viv watched her shadow drag at the creature’s mossy hair. The creature tried to wrench free, but it was beset on all sides. Sasha’s was too strong for the creature to escape, Micah’s too quick, Viv’s too vicious. But just as a spark of hope kindled in Viv—they’d done it, even without Daria’s help—Micah cried out, and his shadow sank to the ground and slid back into him. Viv’s broke next, creeping over the grass and into her skin like a rush of cool air, and then only Sasha’s was left, furiously pummeling the creature just outside the barrier.
For a second, it looked as if Sasha’s shadow might win. But then the creature rent at it with its teeth, and Sasha swayed as his shadow returned to him. They all knelt there, panting, as the creature scrabbled at the barrier.
“It wasn’t enough,” Micah said. “We need to… need to do it again.”
“We can’t. The shadows are already spent.” Viv felt desperate, panicked, the way she did when she shivered in her sweaty nightgown, wondering if this time the fever might not break.
“You need to do it,” Sasha said, and Viv looked up to find him facing her mother.
