Shadow

A Paper Gods Novella

Amanda Sun

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Meet two teens whose worlds are about to change forever in this paranormal Young Adult novella, a prequel to Ink by debut author Amanda Sun...

Katie Greene’s worst nightmare comes true when her mother dies, and she’s devastated to learn that she will have to leave the only home she’s ever known. Desperate to find where she belongs, she must decide if she has what it takes to start a new life across the ocean.

For Yuu Tomohiro, every day is a nightmare. He struggles to control his strange ability, and keeps everyone at a distance so they won’t get hurt—even his girlfriend, Myu. At night, a shadow haunts his dreams, and a mysterious woman torments him with omens of death and destruction. But these haunting premonitions are only the beginning...

Don’t miss the moment when Katie’s and Tomohiro’s worlds collide in Ink, book one of The Paper Gods series.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Glossary of Japanese Words and Phrases

Prologue

Tomohiro

Taira stumbled in the sand, only for a moment, but it was long enough for the shadow to reach him. It uncurled a smoky finger that scraped along the side of his ankle. He yelled out and pushed himself off the sand with his hands, the sharp grains sticking to his palms as he staggered along the shore. The wooden geta sandal fell from his foot and the shadows swirled around it, parting on either side in ashen waves before they engulfed it with the dull glimmer of oil.

His body wasn’t so young anymore—he struggled with each step, heaving breath into his burning lungs. The whispers of the shadows moaned in his ears, sweeping across his thoughts like they were coming from inside his own head.

How do you run from yourself?

But he kept running, imprints of a single footprint lapped by the tide, the raised geta on his other foot carving deep lines into the sand. Half nobleman, half monster, scrambling to the only place he might be safe. And even then, there was no guarantee.

He couldn’t give up.

The arch rose in front of him as he neared, the bright orange of it dulled by the oncoming twilight. Two large urns placed on either side of the Torii smoked with sour incense and thin, waxy candles. They seemed so far away. Too far.

The voices rose in awkward discord. “Taira no Kiyomori,” they breathed, each syllable a separate voice.

He didn’t dare look back. The shadow’s breath was on him; he could feel it searing the nape of his neck.

He stumbled toward the Torii. The tide lapped in to shore, washing only knee-deep against the base of the orange gateway. It towered above him, the huge Shinto entrance to Itsukushima Shrine. He’d gone through this doorway before, but not on foot. How beautiful the imperial ships had looked as they sailed through the Torii at full tide, how colorful as they approached the shrine flooding with the sounds of kagura dancing. But not now. Now it was stark, the white salt spray of the ocean peeling away the pale orange paint on the shrine’s walkways. Taira splashed through the surf alone, forgotten, toward the barnacle-encrusted legs of the gate.

If this didn’t work, he was dead.

He might be dead anyway. The ink had soaked too deep beneath the surface of his life. He was drowning—what’s a last gasp of air to one already lost to the angry waves?

Everything, he thought. It’s everything.

A shadow ensnared his lone sandal and he fell forward to a mouthful of sand. Another inky swirl tugged on his ankle. He kicked them back as he dragged himself through the gate. The shadows smashed against the Torii like a dark tide, all of them trying to enter at once, jamming the space between the legs of the gate like storm clouds, the darkness stretching to the huge orange beam laid across the top.

Taira coughed and sputtered as he kicked the shadows off his feet, watching as they struggled to enter the shrine. But they couldn’t. It was forbidden, just as he’d hoped. Golden light flashed like lightning across the shadows’ surface as they tried to break through the sacred barrier. They moaned and shrieked, denied their victim.

Taira breathed heavily, watching, the sand sharp against his palms.

“So,” said a woman’s gentle voice, and Taira leapt upright. “You have run from yourself.”

She wore a beautiful kimono of pure gold, embroidered with threads of silver. A red obi was tightly wound around her waist, and her slender hands rested upon the back of a heavy brass mirror as big as a shield.

“You know you cannot fight,” she said.

“I know.”

“It is what it means to be one of us,” she said. “You must bear the marks.”

“Help me,” he said, falling to his knees before her. The returning tide soaked into his hakama skirt, logging the fabric with heavy salt water.

“There is no help for you,” she said. “There is no escape. There is only death.”

And she turned the mirror in her hands, the bottom of it grinding in the sand as she twisted it to reveal the reflective glass.

Taira looked into it, but he didn’t see his reflection.

He saw me.

Chapter One

Katie

It rained all of August, but the day of the funeral was so bright and sunny that my family struggled to mourn. They waved their programs back and forth, pulling at the necks of their tight dresses and their choking black neckties as the sweat poured down. Black was the worst possible choice on a record-breaking day like this. Mom had always hated black, and I felt like the heat was her way of having the last word.

At least I knew what she’d want. I wore red.

It was strange watching our living room fill up with mourners—strange and horrifying. It didn’t feel like our space anymore, Mom and me, but like a moving picture of a place I’d once known. I hadn’t been back in the house until two days ago, and then only to pluck the red dress from my closet. I’d been staying with Mom’s friend Linda, not because I couldn’t fend for myself at sixteen, but because she worried the silence of the empty house would be too much to bear.

She wasn’t wrong. The only way I’d found to survive was to numb myself to the loss, the icy cold sting of it freezing my heart until the reality of her death was merely something disorienting, something I couldn’t really fathom.

Mom couldn’t be gone. That wasn’t something that could even happen to me. She had been totally fine before I’d found her that morning. I’d even poured myself a bowl of cereal, thinking she was just sleeping in late.

I knew that wasn’t like her, but it’s not like you expect people to die. You somehow think they won’t, that life will just carry on the way it is now. You get too comfortable.

And then life shatters, and you pull the shards around yourself so you can pretend it’s all fine.

As much as the quiet of the house had creeped me out, seeing the living room full of people was somehow worse. Watching half strangers grind their sweaty bodies into the fabric of our cushions, sipping punch on the good couch where Mom never allowed food—it was like I was a ghost, like the house had somehow shifted into a new future where I didn’t belong.

If I couldn’t stay here, then thank god I was going back to Canada with Nan. My own space wasn’t comfortable anymore. I was a stranger to myself.

“Cocktail weenie?” came a loud voice and I looked up. I’d been huddled in the corner by the stairs, but I guess with my red dress I still stuck out.

“Aunt Diane,” I said. She was the only other burst of color in the room, wearing a black dress covered in purple flowers and a too-dark purple lipstick to match.

“Have one,” Diane said, wiggling the silver tray at me. She had a forced smile on her face, but even then she looked way too cheerful. “You look like you could use a bit of a pick-me-up.” I didn’t think we’d even owned a tray like that. Mom would have thought it tacky and cliché.

“A pick-me-up?” I said, staring at her. “My mom is dead, and you think a cocktail weenie is going to help?” It was snarky, and I knew better, but the room full of strangers was stifling. I was starting to feel claustrophobic, when there’d always been enough room in the house for Mom and me. It was like all my relatives had brought little pickaxes to chisel away at the barrier I’d built around myself so I didn’t have to face the truth. Couldn’t they just leave already?

“Trust me,” Diane said, thrusting the tray closer. “I’ve lost my sister, and the last way I want to remember her is cramped in a room with sweat and bad breath and a bunch of people she wouldn’t have wanted here anyway. You and I need some calories to get through this.” I looked into the sea of black as the mourners trampled around our living room and spilled into the kitchen. There was no space for memories; there was no space to breathe.

I reached a shaky hand toward the tray and loaded a couple different snacks onto a napkin. “Thanks.”

“Okay,” she said, and then she was gone, shoving the tray into the face of one of Mom’s coworkers.

I didn’t know Aunt Diane very well. She’d moved to Japan to teach English when I was eight, and before that, she’d moved around the States teaching in a bunch of small schools. She had a nomadic streak, restless the way Mom was, but unlike her, Diane longed to see other countries. Mom liked to stay where things were predictable and safe. I wondered now if she would have regretted that choice. If she’d known she’d die so young, would she have lived differently?

The anxiety trickled through me. When would death come for me? Would I suddenly stop existing in the night, leaving a trail of restless mourners to share memories over puff pastries and room-temperature punch? The minister had talked about Mom’s legacy to us, her compassion and giving—she was always volunteering for things, helping people out in the community, although she often turned around and made human interest stories out of the experiences for her newspaper gigs. What was my legacy? Would my life matter?

Did I matter anymore, now that Mom was gone?

Deep thoughts for a sweaty living room but the panic rose in me anyway.

Oh god. Mom is gone. She’s gone. I felt like I would break into a million shards, all pinpricks and a blood-red dress and pain, clouds looming over me, raining only on me in the whole room.

“There’s my Katie.” Suddenly Nan was towering over me, which she could only do if I was curled in the corner the way I was. It felt as if reality swirled on either side of her, the cracks holding together like fragmented glass as I stared at her hopefully, like she could fix it somehow.

“Nan,” I said, getting to my feet and then towering over her.

“You’re like a bright red rose in a garden of wilting flowers,” she said, rubbing the fabric of my dress between her fingers as I hugged her. “Don’t you look pretty in that dress?”

“Mom never liked black,” I said, and Nan grinned.

“I know,” she whispered, and pulled back the neck of her dress to show the bright magenta camisole underneath. I smiled, though I felt like crying. “You and me, we’re a couple of troublemakers.” She gave me a sly grin.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re rebels.” I relaxed a bit as Nan held my hands in hers. She understood. She knew what I was feeling. And I was so glad to have her here, because I knew enough to know I was breaking.

Leaving Albany would suck. I’d managed to get into the Advanced English class I’d wanted at school, and there’d been a waitlist a mile long for that time slot. And leaving my friends and my home—leaving my life with Mom...

But at least I had a few friends I knew from summer vacations in Canada. And being with Nan and Gramps was familiar and comfortable. Their house was small, an old converted log cabin that they’d built on to, but I was sure they’d find room for me somehow. Maybe the attic that Nan always talked about fixing up when Gramps was better.

“I better go say hello to Linda,” she said. “Thank her for pulling things together, you know.” Linda had done most of the organizing for the funeral because Nan had her hands full with Gramps’ health.

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s Gramps? I want to say hi.” I hadn’t noticed him at the funeral, but then again, I’d spent most of the service staring at my lap, pretending it wasn’t happening.

Nan didn’t let go of my hands. Then she squeezed them, her mouth a thin line.

“He couldn’t come, Katie.”

“But” I scanned the room for his smile, the curve of his back as he stumbled along with effort, but of course Nan wouldn’t lie about it. “How are we going to drive to Deep River?”

“Let’s talk after, okay? It’s been a long day for you.”

I wanted to ask how they were planning on getting all my stuff back to their house if Gramps wasn’t here. Had someone else driven Nan to pick me up? Were we going to fly? I opened my mouth to ask, but the serious look in her eyes silenced me.

“Okay,” I said. “After.” Nan squeezed my hands one more time before she dropped them. She walked into the kitchen calling Linda’s name, and I was left to wonder just how sick Gramps was. I thought the last round of chemo had finished a while ago, but if he didn’t come with Nan, it couldn’t be good news. At least I’d be able to help Nan take care of him when I moved up. How much time did he have? I thought he’d be in remission by now.

The thought was too much to handle in the middle of Mom’s funeral. Death surrounding me, pressing in from every angle. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as I rubbed the rough fabric of my dress between my fingers. I was drowning, the room starting to spin. I leaned against the banister for support.

“Katie,” called someone, and I looked up. My mom’s coworker from the newspaper, with a wine glass in her hand and a deeply concerned look on her face.

“Hi,” I managed, but my heart was pounding in my ears.

“You poor sweetie,” she whined, and suddenly the spindles of the staircase felt too solid against my back, like the bars of a cage. “How are you doing?”

My mom is gone, Nan’s acting weird, my house is full of people who suddenly care about us and my whole life is destroyed. How do you think I’m doing?

“Um, I’m okay.”

“It will take time,” she said, swirling the punch around the wine glass. “But time heals all wounds, you know. She’s in a better place now, your mom. I know she’s looking down on you and smiling.”

I wanted her to butt out. How did she know what I was feeling? It’s not like I didn’t hope it was all true, that Mom was in heaven and happy and all that. But I didn’t need this clueless woman reassuring me. She didn’t know anything. She barely even knew me.

I had to get out of there before I lost it. I didn’t want to cry in front of all these people. I didn’t want them to swarm me with their empty consolations.

“Thanks for coming,” I said quietly and squeezed myself past her outstretched arm as it swirled the punch round and round. I walked along the wall to the foot of the stairs and bolted up them.

I shut my door behind me, sliding down to the floor. The air was familiar here, cooler than the living room. My eyes glazed over as I stared at my bookshelf, running my eyes over the colored spines and letting my mind go blank.

I was nothing now. I didn’t have to be angry, or sad, or confused. I could fade away, barely here at all.

It lasted about five minutes before I burst into tears.

I forced them back, unwilling to accept the truth. When my heart had calmed down and I could hear the birds chirping outside instead of the pulse in my ears, I mulled over why Gramps hadn’t come. He loved Mom, his eyes always shining when we visited. There’s no way he would’ve missed the funeral unless he was really sick.

One of the books on the bookshelf stuck out farther than the others, and my eyes kept drifting back to its odd shape. I rocked forward onto my knees and reached for it. The novels on either side of it toppled over with a thud as I pulled it out. No wonder it stood out beside them—it was the thick travel guide Diane had sent from Japan for my twelfth birthday, hoping she could convince me to visit. She’d just about given up on Mom, but at twelve I could fly without an adult.

“No way, José,” Mom had said when I’d asked.

“Why?” I’d whined.

“Send my baby girl to the other side of the world? You’re dreaming.”

“Just for a week, Mom!”

“And then? What if you want to live there forever? What if you never come back?”

“Like that would happen.”

“Diane never came back, honey. Why do you think you would?”

It was such a strange thing to say, I remembered thinking. Who wouldn’t come home from a vacation? But Mom’s eyes had filled with tears.

“We need to stick together, Katie. You’re everything to me.”

She was afraid. Dad had left her, and she was terrified I’d leave her, too.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll stay with you. Promise.”

I flipped the pages mindlessly, past glossy photos of cherry blossoms, Buddhist temples, markets filled with rows of gleaming fish.

When my tears fell, they wrinkled the pages until I couldn’t even read the words.

I’d kept my promise. I’d stayed.

And after all her worrying, it was Mom who’d left me.

Chapter Two

Tomohiro

The nightmares were getting worse.

I sat up with a shout, my fingers clawing into my comforter. The darkness in my room was disorienting. Where was I? Who was I?

The shadows. The beach. The Torii.

My chance to escape.

All gone.

But the worst was the simple truth—the woman in the kimono was right.

There is no escape, she’d said. There is only death.

It’s not like I wanted to be all dark and hopeless about it, but night after night of monsters whispering in your ear will do that to you. I used to think there was something wrong with me, that I needed medication or serious therapy. Like my mom—Kaasan always took a bunch of different pills for her nightmares, though she tried to hide them until she thought I was upstairs.

Now I know. There’s definitely something wrong. And it’s not something I can fix with any drugs.

I pushed my bangs out of my eyes and reached for my keitai phone on the table. I flipped it open, squinting as the bright LCD screen flashed into my eyes.

A couple texts from Myu, both from last night, wondering why I hadn’t called. I was a shitty boyfriend, I’ll admit it. I wasn’t really sure why she put up with me. She was tall, leggy, determined to have her way. Sometimes I wondered if Myu just saw me as a challenge, a puzzle to untangle like the Debate Club she belonged to. When Myu confessed her feelings for me, I was a little embarrassed she hadn’t seen through me. A lot of girls confessed because they thought I was some kind of mystery. I came late to class a lot, and sometimes I needed to skip, because of my...condition. But I worked late nights and pulled the grades I needed to keep my dad off my back. Tousan’s the last one I wanted involved in what was really going on with me. And somehow the girls thought this made me a disappearing badass who was boyfriend material. I’d thought Myu was smarter than that.

Why the hell would I want to be some mysterious badass? All I wanted was for the shadow to leave me alone, the nightmares to stop.

But they won’t. Not until I’m dead. I know that, because of what I am. Marked, chosen. Hunted, like Taira.

I scanned through Myu’s text messages and clapped the phone shut, tossing it on my pillow. Half a second later my alarm went off and I slammed a hand on it in the darkness.

Normally I would stumble downstairs to start on my school bentou, but lately Myu had insisted on bringing me a homemade lunch, the box wrapped in bright furoshiki cloths and filled with cream-and-strawberry sandwiches, cherry tomatoes and onigiri rice balls. Her cooking wasn’t too bad, but she always had trouble rolling the sweet egg right. It came out lumpy and crooked, which she tried to hide with strategic flower-shaped picks.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. I couldn’t get it right either.

In the kitchen, I wolfed down a bowl of miso soup and slathered a piece of thick toast in honey and butter. I grabbed my blazer from the hook by the door just as Tousan stumbled down the stairs.

“Ittekuru,” I mumbled at him, letting him know I was heading for school. He nodded, sleepy, rubbing his head with his hand. He’s not lazy, my dad. He likes to see how far he can push the notion of overtime, which means getting home at 4:00 a.m. and waking up late. Sometimes he ends up sleeping at the company because it’s just easier. We didn’t really get along anymore, not since I’d had to transfer schools. So it’s easier for both of us if he’s at work. He thinks I’m following his rules, and I don’t have to disappoint him with the truth.

He didn’t even say the expected farewell “Itterasshai” when I closed the front door. He just grunted, like that alone was too much effort.

I grabbed my bike and cycled as fast as could toward Suntaba Senior High School. One more year and I could vanish from Shizuoka City into whatever life I wanted. Everyone wanted to move to Tokyo but I wanted somewhere quiet—Kyushu, maybe, something really remote. There were a few attractive schools in Osaka, but I wasn’t sure if they were far enough away, and they were definitely too crowded. And I wasn’t sure what Tousan would say when I brought up schools that weren’t for banking or medicine. He’d probably hit me so hard that I’d land in Osaka anyway.

The minute I slammed my bike into the rack at school, I heard Myu from across the courtyard.

“Yuu-chan!”

I wouldn’t let her use my first name. It was too close, too personal, and I wasn’t used to letting someone see that deeply into me. I had to keep Myu at a distance, to keep her safe. I couldn’t let her get hurt by the monster in me. I wasn’t that shitty of a boyfriend.

She walked toward me, waving goodbye to her friends with perfectly manicured fingernails. I rolled my eyes. She should’ve been wearing gloves—it was winter, and even though there was no snow on the ground, the wind still held a sharp bite.

It’s not like I didn’t like Myu. For one thing, she was totally hot. I was pretty sure Sato was jealous she’d confessed to me because he’d acted all pissed. And sometimes Myu whispered kind things to me that caught me off guard, and then I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and never let her go.

I liked having someone who cared about me, how being with Myu let me pretend I was normal. I liked that I was starting to really fall for her. Loud and demanding as she sometimes was, she had this other side to her that was thoughtful and soft. I wanted to let her see the real me, call me by my first name, to let her into my world. To draw for her.

Then I would remember what I was capable of, and why I could never do that. The shadows that tried to claim Taira in the nightmare—they were coming for me, too. The ink drowning my life—I could barely control it. I couldn’t afford to drop my guard, not even with Myu.

She wrapped both arms tightly around my arm, pressing her cheek against my shoulder.

“Yuu-chan,” she whined, her fingernails glittering in the sunlight. “You didn’t answer my texts last night.”

I wanted to say sorry, but that’s what nice guys said, and I couldn’t be one, not with the crowd we were drawing. Nice guys attract friends, but I needed everyone to leave me alone. I stepped back and shrugged.

“I was busy.”

“With what? Practice?” I didn’t answer. It was a good enough excuse. I couldn’t tell any of them the truth, not really. “Yuu-chan, the tournament’s not for weeks. How long does it take to write your girlfriend a text?”

“I barely made it home before I collapsed, Myu,” I lied. To make up for it, I cupped her chin in my hand and kissed her forehead gently. It’s not like I wanted to be a jerk, but I couldn’t afford the attention. To protect Myu and my classmates—to protect myself—I had to keep everyone at a distance. That way I could stay in control. I couldn’t let it fall apart the way it had before.

Being a loner had worked for a while, but that’s when the balance tipped. Because when one of the kendo champs of the school turns down every cute girl’s confession, shuns almost every guy who wants to hang out, forgets his wristband and shows off the trail of scars on his arm—that’s when he becomes mysterious, a puzzle to be solved. That’s when people talk, when the rumors swirl and the truth hovers just below the surface, ready to destroy everything.

That’s when Myu had confessed, and I’d known what I had to do. Now we’d been together for three months, and they’d stopped digging into my past, into my present. They’d forgotten to ask where I disappeared to or where the scars came from. We’d become mini-celebrities, as much as an American quarterback dating a cheerleader, shallow crowd-pleasers who weren’t asked any tough questions. We were normal, and on top of that, I blended in. And as I’d come to know Myu better, I’d found maybe I didn’t have to be alone anymore.

Maybe. And then the voice from my dreams, the woman holding the mirror.

There is only death.

“Oi, Yuuto!” came a sharp voice, and I snapped my head up. Damn it. Nothing like spacing out to get the rumors going.

“Yo, Sato,” I said, waving my free arm at him. Satoshi grinned back as he walked toward us. His hair was bleached as white as a rice ball, and he’d hoisted his shinai, the wooden sword we used for kendo, across the back of his shoulders, both wrists wrapped around it like he was carrying a yoke. The white tie wrapped along the handle was unraveling, meaning he wasn’t taking care of his equipment. Coach Watanabe would be pissed if he noticed during practice.

Myu’s lips turned in a frown. She and Satoshi didn’t get along. Myu didn’t think much of the circles he associated with, but Sato and I went too far back for me to turn on him for any girl. We were kendo teammates and best friends since elementary school—since the transfer, when the world had gone dark around me. He had his own share of secrets, but it didn’t stop him from trying to drag mine out from time to time.

“Ne, Ishikawa,” Myu said, calling him by his last name to stress the distance between them. I stumbled as she tugged me toward her and pointed a finger at Satoshi. “You had all last night’s kendo practice with him. It’s my turn now, so get lost.”

Ishikawa’s face crumpled in confusion. “Kendo practice?”

Shit. The ice below me was cracking. I headed toward the school door. I had to lose the crowd before I plunged down and drowned in the truth. Myu was dragged along with me, her arms slowly unlinking from around my arm. Satoshi followed, despite the glare of death I was giving him.

“Wait,” Myu said as I pulled open the genkan door. Walls of stacked boxes formed aisles of shoes and school slippers around us. “There was no practice last night?” The door swung shut behind the three of us. I said nothing, slipping out of my shoes and striding toward my box.

“The week before school ends?” Sato smirked. “Not likely.”

“Yuu-chan, were you...lying?”

“I didn’t lie, exactly,” I said, my eyes downcast to the floor. I had to fix this, but instead I’d gone into panic mode, alarms blaring in my head. My heart felt like it would give out. So much for being suave and in control. Dumbass.

“Where were you then?” Myu said.

“With some other girl.” Sato grinned.

I gave him a look of imminent murder. “Urusai,” I spat. “You’re a dick, Sato.” I pressed my fingers into Myu’s shoulders, looking into her wide eyes. “He’s lying.”

She didn’t look like she believed me.

“I’m totally lying, Myu,” Ishikawa laughed, and then she let out a shaky breath. What the hell? She believes him, but not me?

“So?” she said, waiting for the truth.

“So he was probably sketching,” Satoshi said, ramming his toes against the wooden floor to push the slippers onto his feet. “Loverboy wants to be a freaking Picasso.”

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