Shadowshaper Read online

  “Sierra! Bennie!” Tee shouted, running over. “Y’all seen my baby shred that tiny dapper kid?”

  “Hey!” Pitkin yelled.

  Tee cringed and then rolled her eyes beneath her perfectly coifed pompadour. “ ’S’all love, bro!”

  “I did what I do.” Izzy grinned and walked over, making a little curtsy. She had been entertaining everyone with her perverse rhymes since the fourth grade. “King Impervious on the mic!” she yelled. “Waddup, Brooklyn!”

  “Who’s King Impervious?” Bennie asked.

  “That’s my MC name, you ain’t know?”

  “How she gonna know, Iz?” Tee chided. “You came up with that this morning!”

  “But I’m already a global phenomenon!”

  Everyone groaned. Izzy was a wisp of a girl, both skinny and short, but she sported a meticulously groomed mane of black hair that added a couple of inches in all directions. She sighed and rested her head on the shoulder of Tee’s designer polo shirt.

  “Hey, c’mon now,” Tee yelled, stepping away. “This polo brand-new. Lean on Sierra, her T-shirt been around since the seventies.”

  Izzy made a pouty face.

  “I’m all set,” Sierra said. “Y’all seen Robbie?”

  “You mean Weirdo McPainting Dude?” Tee said.

  “You mean the Cartoon-Covered Haitian Sensation?” Izzy suggested.

  “You mean the Human Walking Stick?” Bennie offered.

  Sierra shook her head. “I hate you one and all. And Bennie, he’s not even that tall and skinny.”

  Izzy scoffed. “He’s eight feet tall and two inches wide, Sierra.”

  “When he walks down my block,” Tee said, “all the telephone poles be like ‘Ay bruh, what it do?’ ”

  Izzy spat her drink back into the red plastic cup and dapped her girlfriend. “Good one, babe.”

  Behind them, someone screamed. Sierra whirled around, but it was just Big Jerome, finally succumbing to the team of ninth graders that Little Jerome had rallied. Big Jerome hollered and tumbled headfirst into the pool, taking at least three younger kids with him. The whole party burst into jeers and laughter.

  When Sierra turned back to her friends, both Bennie’s eyebrows were arched. “You shook up, girl. Talk to me.”

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go help your boy?”

  “Don’t even start,” Bennie said. Big Jerome had harbored a gigantoid crush on her for as long as anyone could remember.

  “Y’all seen Robbie or not?”

  Bennie snickered. “Why you wanna know?”

  “I gotta ask him some stuff.”

  “Sierra!” Izzy yelled. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a crush! We woulda gone easier on the guy.”

  “What? No!” Sierra rolled her eyes again. “First of all: No, you wouldn’ta. And secondly, a girl can’t ask a guy stuff without everyone launching interrogations? I’m not tryna … no!”

  “It’s cuz you both draw?” Tee suggested. “Because a lotta people draw. If you go to art school, you will find a whole teeming buttload of drawing dudes.”

  “Please,” Izzy said. “Never say ‘teeming buttload’ ever again.”

  “You guys are literally useless,” Sierra said.

  “He’s right over there,” Tee said, “by the mango tree or whatever that is, in that little dark garden area. Being creepy like always. Hey, where you going?”

  Sierra made her way up a narrow path surrounded by an herb garden and some scrawny trees. The light was dim deeper into the shrubbery, and Robbie’s slender form blended so well with the curling vines and branches it took Sierra a few seconds of squinting to find him. Robbie sat with his back against a tree and a sketchbook propped on his bent knees.

  Sierra’s policy on cute boys, and really, boys in general, was this: ignore, ignore, ignore. They usually ruined all their cute as soon as they opened their mouths and said something stupid, and she had more fun hanging out with Bennie and the crew anyway. Robbie had always seemed a little different, though. He was mostly quiet and didn’t have that insistent hunger for attention about him. In school, he just sat there sketching and smiling like he was in on some joke no one else got. Which would normally be annoying, but Sierra found it endearing.

  All that only made her more dedicated to sticking to the triple-I policy. Inevitably, Robbie would open his mouth and end up an idiot like the rest of them. Why bother? But here she was standing at the edge of this weird garden in Park Slope, a house full of partying teenagers behind her, and a bizarre mandate from her normally incoherent abuelo to recruit Robbie to finish a mural. She sighed.

  “You just gonna stand there sighing,” Robbie said, “or you gonna come say hi?”

  Sierra cringed. “I … Hi!”

  “Hi! I’m Robbie.” His hand poked out of the bush.

  She laughed and shook it. “I know who you are, man. We were in Aldridge’s American History AP class together, aka naptime.”

  “I knew that!” Robbie said. “And I knew who you are, Sierra Santiago. I just don’t really expect people to, you know … notice me? I don’t really say much.”

  “You really don’t.” Sierra parted some branches and entered the shadowy grove. “But you draw and I draw … er, paint, mostly, so I noticed you.” She found a spot beside him.

  Robbie gasped through a mischievous smile. “How ever did you know I like to draw?”

  “Sir,” Sierra said.

  “But seriously, I didn’t know you did too. What you paint?”

  “Actually, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.” But how to explain? She peered at Robbie’s picture. “What you makin’ there?”

  “Just sketchin’.” He held up his drawing pad. Thick graffiti letters sprang from a swirly garden not unlike the one that surrounded them. The letters B U Z Z wound and looped with exaggerated grace; here they were brick, there balloony with globs of shine. “You like it?”

  “I do.”

  Robbie smiled and went back to his drawing.

  “Listen, Robbie.” Words failed Sierra. Drawing was so much easier. She waved her hands a few times in the air. “I’m working on this mural.”

  Robbie looked up briefly and nodded, still drawing. “That’s cool. I do murals too.”

  A shout rang out from the party. Both Jeromes were in the pool now, each with a tenth-grade girl on his shoulders. Everyone was yelling. Some stupidity was surely about to commence.

  “The thing is, my grandpa actually told me I gotta finish this mural like … quickly. Right? Which is weird, cuz he —”

  “Who’s your grandpa?” He shaded a thick loop of the letter Z with slanting lines.

  “His name’s Lázaro. Lázaro Corona.”

  Robbie looked directly at Sierra. She caught her breath. He had big brown eyes, kind eyes, but something else danced behind them now. Was it fear?

  “You’re Lázaro Corona’s granddaughter?” he said.

  Sierra scrunched up her face. “Yes. That mean something to you?”

  Robbie just nodded. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

  She decided to ignore his stare. “Well, he’s been pretty much out of it since last year when he had this stroke, but tonight he told me to … He told me to find you, and to get you to help me finish the Junklot mural, and to do it fast. He said the murals were fading and that someone was coming for us, and something about shadowshapers …”

  And the painting was crying, Robbie. It was fading and crying. The words lingered at the edge of her tongue, made her mouth feel heavy. No. He’d think she was crazy. Or maybe they’d just sit there for ages and stare at each other and not say anything.

  And as she looked again into his brown eyes, in a weird, quiet way, that was what Sierra wanted.

  Finally, Robbie looked back at his sketch, his brows creased in concentration. “Lázaro told you about the shadowshapers, huh?”

  “He just mentioned them,” Sierra said. “Didn’t explain. You know about ’em?”

  “A
thing or two.”

  “Well, that’s gratingly vague. You gonna help me with this mural or not?”

  “If Grandpa Lázaro said I gotta, then I guess I gotta.” He looked up and smiled.

  “Oh, great, don’t do it for me or nothin’. I see how it is.” She took his notepad from him and scribbled her number on the cardboard backing. “There. You got the digits and you didn’t even ask for ’em.”

  Robbie laughed. “Look, the shadowshapers … It’s a lot to explain. I’m not really sure where to start …”

  A hubbub was rising from the party, some yelling and cursing — a fight perhaps. Robbie was staring through the tangle of vines around them. He stood up suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” Sierra said.

  “It’s begun.”

  Sierra got up too. “What has, man? Talk to me.”

  “We have to go,” Robbie said. “Right now.”

  The commotion from the pool area got louder. Through the forsythia and pumpkin vine, Sierra saw a middle-aged man stomping through the party with an even gait. He wore an old winter jacket and stained khakis that didn’t quite fit. His skin was pale, like hospital fluorescents, and dull, cataracted eyes glared out from his grayish weathered face. Kids stood back, giving the stranger a wide berth.

  Robbie shoved the notebook into his shoulder bag. “We gotta go,” he said again.

  “What’s going on?” Sierra’s hand wrapped around his arm. “Who is that?”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” he said, backstepping deeper into the bushes. He took Sierra’s hand and pulled her toward the garden wall. “Hop over this wall and run. You hear me? Go!”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’m going to lead him off somewhere else. He’ll chase me. You get out of here.”

  “Chase you? Robbie, no —”

  But he’d already disappeared into the underbrush. Sierra took a quick look around. The party was trying to get itself started again. Apparently, the stranger had wandered off; she could hear kids carrying on about messing that dude up, wherever he was.

  A movement caught Sierra’s eye in the bushes where they had just been sitting. As she turned her head, the man stepped out with a muffled grunt. His unblinking eyes stared down at her.

  Sierra’s yell got stuck somewhere in her throat. She took two steps backward.

  “Where’s Lucera?” His hoarse whisper sounded somehow dissonant.

  “What?” Sierra was whispering too, and she had no idea why. A stank, heavy air invaded her nostrils. It was the same smell they couldn’t get out of their basement after a rat died inside one of the walls.

  “Where … is … Lucera?” he growled again.

  She took another step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The thing — it didn’t seem like a man at all anymore — tensed as if it was about to pounce. One thick, bluish hand grabbed Sierra’s left wrist. It was cold, like a slab of raw meat. “Tell me.” It pulled her arm toward its face, eyes twitching.

  Sierra yanked her hand free. “Get away from me! You talkin’ to the wrong girl!” She walked backward, keeping her eyes on the thing.

  “Sierra …”

  It knew her name. She glanced up. It was smiling.

  Sierra turned around and ran. She reached the wall and scrambled up over it, scratching her fingers badly on the sharp stones but not caring. The only thing she could think about was the thing rushing up behind her, the cool grasp of its hand. She landed on the pavement of a quiet side street, the vibrations of her fall shooting up her legs and back. She broke into a run, glancing back just quickly enough to see the thing lurch off the wall and stumble to the ground. She turned a corner and headed uphill toward Prospect Park.

  “Sierra,” it brayed. It stood at the far end of the block, panting.

  “Stay away,” she yelled. She dipped around another corner, then another. She heard heavy footsteps clomping the pavement on a nearby street. She ran harder. Where was Robbie? How could he just vanish like that when she needed help?

  She stopped to catch her breath on the wide avenue where the spiraling mansions of Park Slope met the edge of Prospect Park. The streets around her were empty — no creepy dead-looking guy.

  She sighed. Even on a creepy night like this, the park’s darkness seemed welcoming somehow, its shushing leaves beckoning her from across the street. When Sierra was little, Grandpa Lázaro and Mama Carmen used to take her there for picnics. Each tree and stone brought with it a story, and little Sierra could dance for hours, imagining the adventures those silent field dwellers may have seen. When she became a teenager, the quiet and beauty of the park was her solace when the rest of the world just seemed too overwhelming to handle.

  But tonight there wasn’t time for solace or peaceful moments in nature. Someone — something — was after her. It knew her name. It had found her once and probably could again. She had to get home. She took off at a jog toward the bright lights of Grand Army Plaza.

  Back in Bed-Stuy, police lights pulsated up and down Putnam Avenue. Ambulances were parked at urgent angles alongside the rows of SUVs and hoopties. Folks from the neighborhood crowded around, gazing down the cordoned-off block to see who had been shot this time.

  “You know what happened?” Sierra asked an elderly lady with a handcart full of freshly laundered sheets.

  The old woman shook her head. “Another young something-something gone to dust, I’m sure.” She shrugged and walked on, her pushcart squeaking crankily with each turn of its wheels. The cops keeping people away looked bored. Just another shooting, ho hum. Sierra scowled at one of them and he scowled back.

  “Ay!” someone yelled. Sierra spun around, her whole body tensed to strike, but the corpse-like man was still nowhere to be seen. Some old guy banged on the bulletproof-glass window of Carlos’s Corner Store. “Ay, C!” the guy yelled. “Gimme a loosie, man! C’mon, wake up!”

  Further down Gates Ave, a couple of guys were throwing dice in front of the Coltrane Projects. “Why you frownin’, girl?” one of them called out as Sierra walked past. “Smile for us!”

  Sierra knew the guy. It was Little Ricky; they’d played together when they were small. He’d been one of those boys that all the girls were crazy about, with big dreamy eyes and a gentle way about him. A few years ago, Sierra would have been giddy with excitement to have his attention. Now he was just another stoopgoon harassing every passing skirt.

  “I ain’t in the mood, jackass,” Sierra muttered, hugging herself. She was still shaky from the horrible night and she knew any sign of weakness would encourage them.

  The guys let out a chorus of ohs and pounded one another. “I’m just saying, Sarcastula,” Ricky called after her. “C’mon back when you in the mood …”

  Sierra kept walking. At her block, she paused to make sure the creepy guy was gone for real. The trees shushed their quiet night song and Rodrigo, her neighbor’s cat, strolled by. Otherwise, the block was deserted. She made her way inside, crept up the stairs, and collapsed into her bed, trying not to think of the hideous voice whispering her name.

  “Aw, damn, y’all you seen this?” Across the kitchen table, Sierra’s godfather, Neville Spencer, held up a page of the Bed-Stuy Searchlight. The wide grin he usually wore was gone.

  Sierra squinted. It was ten in the morning. She’d only gotten about three hours of sleep, and woken up to some weird texts from Robbie saying he was okay and he’d explain later, and another from Bennie, demanding to know where she’d run off to. “I can’t see anything, man,” Sierra said. “I ain’t put my contacts in yet.”

  “What happened?” Dominic Santiago, Sierra’s dad, appeared in the doorway, wearing his pajamas. He was short and stocky with black hair exactly everywhere on his body except his face and the very top of his head. “Lemme see. What mess Manny shedding light on this time?”

  Neville passed the paper to Dominic. “Bottom of page two. You didn’t work last night, D?”

  “Nah, t
he hospital just hired a bunch of new security guys and I took a much-needed personal day, thank you very much.” He looked at the paper. “Oh, man, that’s a shame.”

  “You guys! What’s a shame?” Sierra forked a load of French toast into her mouth.

  Neville shook his head. “Nobody safe anymore.”

  “Whatsit say?” she asked. “Pass it over.”

  Dominic handed her the Searchlight.

  “Ol’ Vernon missing,” Dominic said.

  Sierra almost spat out her French toast. There, squished in between a wedding announcement and an article about yet another double murder at the Coltrane Projects, was a black-and-white picture of the thing that had attacked her last night. Ol’ Vernon had a big smile, and his eyes were wide open like he expected something great to happen at any moment. He looked a world away from the whispering fiend from the party.

  Vernon Chandler, 62, has been reported as missing from his Marcy Avenue apartment. Vernon was last seen two days ago; family members stated he had been acting unusually quiet the past week. Vernon has no history of mental illness and no criminal history. No note was found at his domicile. A spokesman for the NYPD’s 38th precinct said that if anyone has any information about Vernon’s whereabouts, they should contact the police or medical services. Otherwise, the spokesman said, “He was probably just out for a stroll.”

  “Wasn’t he a buddy of Lázaro’s from back in the sh —” Neville said.

  “Yeah.” Dominic sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe. “But you know …” He nodded toward the kitchen, where María was preparing another batch of French toast. “She don’t like to talk about all that.”