Echoes of Shadows - Excerpt 3

A tale with magical realism

“Things always work according to their nature.”

―C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

Johanna didn’t know who he was. But he joined them at the park one day about a week after her tenth birthday. 

“We could go into these bushes and no one could see us,” he said. 

“Why would we want to do that?” Johanna asked roundly.

“To see what we could get away with.”

“Like what?”

“Anything.  That’s the point.”  He looked at her with exasperation.

“Hmm.” She couldn’t think of what that would be, but did start to feel prickles of fear.

“I could hurt you.  No one would know.”

“My brothers are here and will hear me scream!” Johanna shouted and ran away to find them.

The boy was not deterred.  He followed her. He was maybe 14 or 15 years old, like a high-schooler.  He followed her all the way to the creek, where there was a platform for forklifts that was made of wood and also floated in water and made a fun impromptu raft.  Right now, though, it was balanced on rocks like a deck under the trees, with the creek cresting past.

Johanna went to stand on the deck, test out its strength and levelness.  He stood under the trees, just watching her as she stood there in the sun, solitary, almost statuesque.  Her hair was glinting, like hay glittering in the fields.

Feeling his eyes on her, a feeling Johanna was used to since she was under such constant scrutiny from her mother, whose eyes she could also singularly feel on her when she was in her presence, Johanna jumped down and ran off down the creek. 

Down the way, Johanna saw her brother Terry picking berries.  He was putting them into some sort of bowl he had found, and the fairies were buzzing all around him, trying to make him stop.  

“Why are you taking all the berries?” Johanna asked him, picking off a few plump fat ones that looked exactly like the fish roe she ate at her Grandma’s, her mom’s mom.  They burst in her mouth, too, just like roe, but tasted sweet and berry-like, with a thin skin over a squelching jiggly juicy interior.  They called them salmon berries because of the roe, although Terry and Levi had never tasted roe.  They just took her word for it.  As they should, Johanna thought.  After all, she was the eldest, and she was in charge.  Brenda had said so, like she did every time. 

Johanna looked up past the trees, over to where she’d come from, and her heart sank.  Not only was that boy still there, but he’d been joined by another.  Terry, who had never answered her question, noticed them as she did. 

“Who hails here?” he bellowed at them. 

“Well I’m Butch,” said the new boy, “and this is Robby.” He gestured to his friend, the original boy.  Johanna half-laughed, not sure if they were joking about their names.  They weren’t. 

“Can we play with you?” Butch asked. 

“Aren’t you a little old?” she retorted.  He seemed much too old to have the kind of imagination needed to play make-believe with someone like her. 

“Sure!” exclaimed Terry.  “What should we play?”

Johanna waited smugly to hear their pathetic suggestions.  But Butch addressed her, not Terry, when he said, “Let’s play dragons.  You can be the princess, and we’re trying to get you.  And you,” he pointed at Terry, “Can be her guards.”

“You mean her knights,” said Levi, who had just joined the fray. 

“Fine,” Johanna declared.  This sounded fun.  “The deck is our castle, and we have magic so you can’t get in there.”

“Sounds good,” Butch said.  “For now, we’re between you and the castle.  Better run!”

And you’d better believe they did.  They ran all the way down the creek, cut through a few lesser known trails, and wouldn’t you know it but they beat those boys back to the castle.  They were so frustrated and out of breath they roared like real dragons, which was fun.

Then Robby strode straight up to the deck and boarded.  “You can’t do that!” Johanna yelled.  “I have magic!” She shoved him off the deck before he had time to react, and he stumbled down into the water and yelled again.

“Look darling, we’re going to catch you,” he snarled, and just then, a high pitched whistle blew through the neighborhood, Brenda, calling them home. 

“It’s mom!” Terry yelled, and the three of them beat it home before the other two boys had a chance to even realize what was happening. 

They only lived 2 blocks away, and Brenda’s whistle was the stuff of legends.  They came careening into the house, much to her chagrin, though she’d been the one to call them home. 

“Time for dinner,” Brenda said, and gestured to the table, where 3 bowls were overflowing with hamburger-helper.  The kids were so starving that they just ran to the table as though magnetized to it and barely rested their bums on the chairs while shoveling hot steaming goodness into their mouths. 

She smiled and left them to our own devices. 

After dinner, the boys went to play Super Mario Brothers on the little TV in the garage while Johanna rested on a chair and read her book.  She was reading The Chronicles of Narnia and was on book 6 of the set that Tim B.’s new wife MaryAnne had recently gifted her, while visiting mom and Tim C. from Chicago where they lived.  The Magician’s Nephew was the title and Johanna was deep into it when her dad walked into the house later that night.

“Why aren’t you in bed,” Dan snapped at her, and Johanna awoke from her reading reverie to the real world and took that as her cue.  She jumped up.

“We can go now, but can we have a snack first?” She asked, hoping to eke out a little something extra from him. 

“Sure, you can have cereal,” he agreed amiably, and probably immediately regretted it when she shrieked “Yay!” and went racing to the garage to get the boys. 

They had their cereal: plain cheerios with sugar heaped on top with a spoon, to make a nice sweet gristle at the bottom with the milk.  Johanna gave everyone a secret extra heap of sugar when no one was looking and spilled some on the red tablecloth by accident. 

When they were done eating and had cleared their dishes to the sink, Johanna shuffled the boys to their rooms.  Terry went off to his room, and Levi and Johanna went off to his across the hall. 

She didn’t have her own room at Dan and Brenda’s, even though she came over every other weekend for 3 days and was the only girl.  So she shared with Levi, which was mostly fine because it was Terry who gave her difficulties. 

Levi had a shelf in his closet stuffed full of books, like it was a secret to have them.  Johanna pulled out An American Tail: The Illustrated Story and read it out loud to Levi.  He stayed awake until she was done, then they nestled down to sleep.