the playgrounds. Sometimes they sat and fed the birds, sometimes they jogged or walked dogs, but they always watched the children. One afternoon, she hung around a merry-go-round until one of the men noticed her. Pretending she didn’t see him, she walked off to a deserted alley.
The man followed her in. He offered her a soda, then tried to grab her. She let her shadow devour him in a puddle of fetid water beside a Dumpster.
After that, her shadow made her hunt in earnest. She walked all day, sometimes even skipping lunch when her shadow scented a pedophile or a new wet place. By early August, she’d trapped two more men. Hunting was easiest when she was on her period; when she was bleeding, her shadow spoke to her constantly, urging her on. When she wasn’t near her period, the shadow spoke rarely, and only around water. When it wasn’t there to reassure her, she worried about the hunt, and lay awake at night, wondering if her soul was destined for hell.
When school started, Charlie had to abandon her daily walks for the dull routine of books and teachers and bland cafeteria food. She was in junior high school now; she’d hoped it would be better than elementary school, but it was just bigger.
She sat in the back of the classrooms, as always. Almost everyone ignored her. Everyone except her shadow.
It started to whisper ominous suggestions when she was walking to classes:
See that boy? He burned a litter of kittens alive. He’s going to the restroom; follow him in and let me have him.
See that girl? She’s been trying to poison her baby brother, putting soap in his formula. She’ll kill him soon if you don’t help me take her.
Charlie knew she couldn’t possibly do what her shadow wanted, not at school. Parks and underpasses were one thing; there was lots of space, lots of ways to slip away unnoticed even if people screamed as they were dying. But she was trapped at school. She’d get caught for sure.
She tried to ignore her shadow’s exhortations by making up rhymes in her head while she was between classes or by doing anagrams and palindromes in class when the teachers got boring. But when her math class had a young substitute teacher named Mr. Berling, the shadow became unbearable.
Mr. Berling was young and smiled a lot. He explained things a whole lot better than their regular teacher, and Charlie liked him.
He touches little girls, the shadow told her. Takes them out to see the horsies on his father’s farm and feels them up in the stable.
“Able was I ere I saw Elba,” Charlie muttered under her breath. Her hands were shaking so bad she couldn’t write.
He’s scum, just like the rest of them. Follow him home, let him take you to the farm. He’ll fit nicely in the horse trough.
“Stressed desserts.” Charlie thought she was going to start crying.
“Charlie, are you okay?” asked Mr. Berling.
“I think I ate something bad at lunch,” she stammered. “I think I need to go to the bathroom for a while.”
“Please do,” he agreed.
Charlie bolted from the classroom, ran downstairs to the girls’ restroom in the basement. It was usually empty; Charlie prayed no one else would be in there.
She pushed through the door and found four girls clustered around a pack of Camels. Two were inexpertly puffing on cigarettes as the third showed the fourth how to work the childproof lighter. They all turned to stare at her when she came in.
Charlie, get out of here this instant! the shadow demanded. But it seemed to be growing weaker, recoiling from the smoke. With each breath she took, it slipped farther away.
“Can I try one of those?” she asked, stepping toward the group.
“I guess,” said the girl with the pack. She pulled out a cigarette and handed it and the lighter to Charlie.
Charlie lit it and took an experimental drag, then immediately started to cough and gag. This was surely the foulest thing she’d had in her mouth since … since a time she didn’t want to remember. Eyes streaming, she took another puff.
It was working, wind and fire canceling water and earth. Her shadow’s indignant demands were faint, fading into the rhythmic drip of the leaky faucet.
Charlie soon learned that it only took two cigarettes a day to silence her shadow. She smoked them on the sly in the bathroom at school and in the backyard at home. When the shadow started to talk to her