Chapter 2

The widow went about her early chores quietly the next morning, so as to allow the stranger more time to sleep. Kneading some dough for the evening's bread, she was startled to hear a voice, and more startled still to realize that it was her visitor's. Though asleep, he was restless, appearing to be flailing in slow-motion, whimpering, and uttering soft cries of distress. She watched him for a moment, then felt compelled to release him from whatever nighttime torments had pursued him past the dawn of a new day.

Crouching beside his makeshift bed but afraid to touch him, lest she cause him a great fright, she whispered, then spoke more loudly, "Wake up, wake up, you're alright, it's only a dream..."

He wandered far, in dimly lit laboratories, across wide verandas awash in the light of a billion stars, through the endless void of space to a blue planet. The widow at last grasped his shoulder, unable to bear witness to his cries a moment longer. He jerked upright with a small scream, gasping, and for a moment, just a small moment, his lilac eyes saw the rough but warm blanket covering his legs, the tidy room he lay in, the comely young woman crouched at his side, concern and no small amount of fright etched across her face. All of this happened in less than a second, and then the fog swirled invitingly around him, beckoning him back into the oblivion where he could rest. He surrendered to it willingly, and once more the demons of rage and grief howled their frustration that they could not find him.

The widow had not missed this instant of clarity when the veil had lifted, however, and she knew, then, that she would live for nothing more than the next, and the next, and the next.

-.-.-.-

Over the following days, the widow did her best to balance the work her berry trees and animals required with the care her visitor needed. He was in dire need of a bath, which the widow, blushing, attempted to explain into his silence. Thankfully, once he was beside her tub, filled with steaming water, soap and a towel nearby, he did as he needed to and she did not have to intervene. He seemed to follow her wherever she went, without even being asked: a quiet presence as she pruned the trees in the orchard or tended to her animals. The silence became familiar to her, and no longer felt awkward. Looking down at him from the top of a ladder against a berry tree one morning, she smiled and said, "Won't you please tell me your name?" When she, predictably, received no response, she said, "Well, you are always following me about, without ever saying a word, like a little shadow. May I call you Shadow?" The visitor blinked up at her, then gazed down the row of trees, and not for the first time, she wondered what it was that he saw.

Repeatedly as the week passed, she sensed a presence nearby but out of sight. When she heard quiet, metallic sounds on her roof one night, and discovered strange marks in the dirt of the sheep's pen the following morning, though, she began to grow alarmed. Surely these were bad omens, warning her of a coming darkness? Her prayers increased in fervor and frequency.

She bolted the door that night before beginning to prepare dinner, a step she rarely took even in the midst of all her neighbors' hostility. "Please do not be alarmed," she told her wordless guest, who was seated at the table and looking off into the distance, "but I am not sure we have been alone here these last few days. I don't know if you were being followed, but rest assured that I will protect you if danger comes. My husba - ehm, Pieter, taught me how to use a gun so I would be safe when he was away with the army."

Gazing out the window as she absentmindedly cubed a potato, her eyes roved across the dusty, circular driveway in her front yard, along the orchard fence, and to the animals' tidy pens beside the barn. All looked as quiet and peaceful as it always had. The late afternoon heat shimmered and danced in the waning sunlight.

The room blackened suddenly as the head of an enormous, dark creature appeared at the window. Two sky-blue eyes blazed malevolently at her, and it opened its great mouth to snarl, revealing fierce, metallic teeth.

The Widow Engel screamed, leaping back from the counter, and nearly fell to the floor. The gun - the gun - where was it? It was in the drawer of the small table next to her bed, wasn't it? Could she get it in time, before this creature broke down her front door?

Incredibly, her Shadow looked up in the direction of the window, eyes dim and uncomprehending. Yet, he stood, and approached the door. "Don't! Don't let it in!" the widow cried, to no avail. He opened it, and the hulking mass of the beast in the doorway seemed to blot out all the light in the world. The creature stood still for a moment, appraising her visitor, and then reached out one strange paw to him, as if to make sure he was real, and he in turn looked and looked but did not move. And then, incredibly, after a long moment the creature stepped back from the threshold, and moved away to the dry, dusty grass in the middle of the dirt track out front. There it remained, immobile, watching them - standing, it seemed, guard over the cottage. Now that the hazy light fell upon it, the widow realized what this creature was: no organic devil, but metal. A black organoid.

-.-.-.-

The Widow Engel did not ever fully adjust to the organoid's presence, frightening as it was, like a beast loosed from the very maw of hell, but she did settle upon an uneasy detente. After its first appearance, the organoid never again startled her in such a fashion, nor did it ever make any further threatening movement or vocalization. Always, it remained in the vicinity, a dark sentinel watching over them, but especially her Shadow. The boy and organoid were rarely physically parted, unless, of course, he was in the cottage, where the organoid, seemingly by some unvoiced pact, did not venture. The widow did not know what to do with such a presence, but did not attempt to rid herself of it, so long as it remained peaceable and did not frighten her or her animals. The chickens, cows, and sheep nevertheless granted the organoid a wide berth.

Despite the widow's relative social isolation, it did not take long for the organoid's presence to become known among the townspeople, who gossiped and fretted: it was yet further proof of her witchcraft. It was a sign that she was summoning the apocalypse, or the spawn of the Death Saurer. And what of the mute boy, to whom she was not related, living with her in sin? What of Pieter? Had she already taken on a new lover so quickly, and one even younger than she? What terrible spells were they conjuring together when Zi's moons were full? Or perhaps he, like Pieter, owned something of value, and she would kill him too in order to have it for herself, the same way she had acquired her orchards?

These cruel barbs struck and stung her, but she faithfully maintained her course, convinced that rendering help to a person in need remained the right thing to do. He did not seem to otherwise have a friend or caretaker in all the world, aside from the black organoid. Besides, her Shadow seemed to be doing well under her care: his appetite normalized, the cuts and bruises all over his body were fading, and his right hand, of which she caught glimpses when changing the bandage dressings for him each night, was no longer infected. It would almost certainly leave a terrible scar on his palm, but, she thought fiercely, this was much preferable to an infection spreading, coursing through the alleyways of his body, poisoning his blood, and ultimately killing him.

Every night, after changing out his bandages, she bolted the door, covered him with a blanket after he lay down, tiptoed upstairs, and knelt beside her humble bed, whispering her gratitude to the Creator.