The Neverborn Thief

Chapter 1

What Happened That Night

To the eyes of one practiced at acting like an adult, nothing unordinary loomed in Connor’s room. That observer would notice a pile of dirty clothes that never quite reached the hamper, a cluttered bookshelf which also featured an old video game console as a decoration, and the arms of several action figures jutting willy-nilly from underneath a lid that barely covered the box’s contents. An unpaired sock hung from a dresser drawer; its partner lay balled up on the far side of the room. Old school papers on the desk were badly crinkled and bent like they’d been shoved into a backpack by the fistful.

In other words, it gave every appearance of a normal thirteen-year-old’s room.

Of course, those who practiced acting as adults often missed things. Every little kid who woke in the dark to see what lived within the shadows under their desks and bureaus and behind their closet door learned the difficulty in convincing a practiced adult of the truth. Adults assigned importance to bills, responsibility, chores, a balanced diet, minimizing screen time, and getting places on time. They discarded what they deem unimportant or unlikely, brushing it into the dustpans of their minds. Connor’s mother did this all the time.

When the shadows began to converge and coalesce into something altogether new and foreign to the boy’s room, Connor, like a good kid practiced at being a proper teen, dreamed of a pizza night and fast food tacos, about playing video games and going to the movies—without a parent sitting three to five rows higher watching the back of their head in the dark. His blanket rose and fell, his nose occasionally whistled. Once in the midst of a rather gluttonous dream, his lips smacked as he imagined biting into a fistful of Christmas Tree cakes.

The shadows flowed from the room’s corners, from inside boxes and under lampshades. They bulged and swelled, formed the shape of a tall, featureless figure whose head brushed the cord hanging from the ceiling fan. A cool breeze, not from the single vent under the window, swirled and rustled the crumpled papers on the desk. At the same time, a most peculiar sensation invaded the young teen’s dream, intruding the way an alarm intrudes into the dream before one wakes to it.

Something Connor wouldn’t want to lose was being pulled out, torn from deep inside him.

The pitch-black head slowly pivoted from side to side. The spots where one could only imagine eyes nested scanned the room until they fell on the sleeping child. A snarling smile spread across the shadow’s face. Legs pulled free from the shadows from which they had grown and trekked the dark figure in a slow circle around the bed. Arms emerged, black hands spread into clenching fingers that reached out and slid underneath the bedsheets, probing at Connor’s back, his neck, under his knees.

It was then that Connor woke to a feeling of intrusion. Like his insides were coated in thin, cold plastic slowly being peeled off and pulled out through his belly. His heart felt nestled in a frozen fog. His muscles were ice. He opened his eyes to the tall, black form hunched over him. Clouded with sleep, his eyes could not discern a single feature of the figure other than its looming height. The thing practically brushed the popcorn ceiling.

The scream erupted from Connor’s mouth, mindless at first, then shaped into words.

The figure reared up with a snarl and leapt into the darkness in the corner by Connor’s dresser. Connor lurched upright, the sheets falling as he twisted to follow the fleeing shape. The creature disappeared, or, perhaps more accurately, dissolved into the surrounding shadows. As it did, something black and bulky, nearly the size of Connor, writhed in its hands. It almost seemed to reach for Connor at the last second before it was altogether gone.

Connor hyperventilated and stared into the now-empty corner, trying to wrap his head around the fact that something had been there and now was not. This was in part due to the boy’s age. Like any kid his age, he wanted to believe he already had the teen figured out, but what had happened did not mesh with his understanding of reality. Little did he know he would have struggled were he already as smart and learned as most practiced adults. Those practiced at being adults know how few words exist for what isn’t there, and they know how poorly equipped they are to process the idea. However, if they had any familiarity with the profound feeling of absence welling in Connor’s soul, they would have understood entirely when Connor covered his face in his hands and pulled his knees to his chest.

As a single hard sob shook his shoulders, footsteps thumped down the hall. The door flung open, and his mother entered in her rumpled pink bathrobe. As the practiced adult in the household, though she knew full well that practice did not always mean confidence, she saw immediately that the best course of action was to sit on the edge of the bed, lean forward, and wrap her arms around her son. Connor clenched harder, partially wanting to pretend he was asleep because he didn’t want to admit he’d gotten so scared, but also because doing so almost made him feel like if he clenched hard enough, he would be able to hold onto whatever had left him. It was a feeling he knew too well. It was much the way he’d felt the night he learned his dad had died.

The way his body constricted a bit more, of course, only caused his mother to squeeze him a little tighter. Despite her embrace, that profound absence dulled any sense of comfort the hug brought. He didn’t feel like he was being squeezed by Mom. Something was wrong. Her warmth didn’t feel warm. Her squeezes only felt tight. Something had been stolen out of him. What it was, he didn’t know, but the thought pained him.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” his mother whispered into his ear. “Just a bad dream.”

“No,” Connor said. Part of him wanted to agree it was a bad dream, but the coldness inside him was nothing he’d ever felt, and his voice came out firm with certainty. “No, someone was in my room.”

His mother sat straighter and brushed his hair back with her hand.

“You just dreamed someone was. Hard to tell the difference between being awake and a dream when you’re asleep.”

“He was right beside the bed, leaning over me.”

His mother leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. He pulled away, something any practicing thirteen-year-old boy would probably do, but not only because he wanted to be tough. Her lips felt cold and clammy, like the skin of a fish without scales. Then she stood.

“And where did he go?” she said. She walked over to the window, parted the curtains, and gave it a tug. It didn’t budge.

“Window’s locked.”

Frustration stirred in Connor. His mother was treating him like a little kid. This didn’t call for the nightmare routine like when he’d been seven.

“Mom,” he insisted.

She crouched to look under the bed.

“Nothing down here but toys.”

“Mom, stop,” he snapped.

She walked to the closet and said, “See, the closet is empty,” even before she opened it.

Connor opened his mouth to object again, but, for a split second, when she reached for the knob, Connor was certain the hulking black thing was waiting behind the closet door. The words died on his tongue as the knob twisted.

His clothes hung in tidy rows along the narrow closet’s twin bars—shirts on the right, pants on the left, just as always. Above them, shoeboxes, scuffed board games, and bins of forgotten toys rested in quiet disuse. Everything looked exactly as it should. And yet, something was wrong. If the air didn’t feel too still, too heavy, Connor might’ve convinced himself it had all just been a dream.

His mother sat on the bed’s edge and rested her hand on his forearm. Her skin felt like a doctor’s latex glove.

“Maybe it wasn’t a nightmare,” she said. “Maybe it was what’s called a night terror.”

Connor wanted to tell her she was wrong, but the words “night terror” did stand out. He’d had a friend on his soccer team a couple of years back named Tommy who said he’d had night terrors. Tommy had said he’d wake up sometimes thinking a monstrous demon was in his room sucking the life out of him and that he couldn’t move a muscle. It made sense. Certainly more sense than there being some sort of shadow person who disappeared into the corner.

His practice at being a teen kicked in, and he nodded, feeling a fool even though the feeling of absence still festered all throughout him. As Connor tried to convince himself the coldness was the lingering of a particularly awful dream, his mom brushed his hair off his forehead and crossed to the door. She paused at the switch and said, “Sleep well, dear.” Then, she hit the lights.

Only moonlight lit the room once the door closed and his mother’s footsteps retreated to her bedroom.

Connor pulled the blanket up over his shoulders, trying to prevent his eyes darting from shadow to shadow as if the shadow-thing would re-emerge any second. A strange tiredness swelled. He was sleepy. It was the middle of the night after all, but it was more like his mind receded from the world around him.

Dark as it was, the room grew dimmer.

A whisper came from the corner, from the gap between his desk and the wall where the moonlight never reached.

“She’s gone.”

“About blooming time,” a second, louder voice said. “I thought she’d never leave.”

Then, the darkness between the desk and the wall bulged the way a bag bulges when something too large is shoved into it. The shadow expanded like an inflating balloon until it suddenly pulled free from the darkness. Connor gasped and mouthed the words, “What the—?” His whole body burst into a cold sweat as a huge shadow person, round and bulbous in the middle, emerged into his bedroom and appeared to adjust some sort of belt. A second figure grew from the corner, tall and skinny as a rail. This one shook its foot, breaking from the passive shadows like they were gum it had stepped in.

Connor squinted at the intruders. When a regular person stands in darkness, you can still make out the faint color of their skin and clothes. These shadow-people were darker than darkness, and Connor couldn’t see their features at all—no lines or contours, just outlines. How could they exist? Connor’s mouth opened and closed again. Even a full-blown adult wouldn’t have known what to say. Connor was still practicing being a teen, so the only thing that came to mind was words he was discouraged from saying.

“So, then, what happened?” the skinny one asked, planting its hands on its hips. The voice was crisp and polite, and Connor thought it sounded like a woman. Indeed, it sounded much like Ms. Harminger, last year’s math teacher. He opened his mouth to call his mom again, but an image of these shadow-people clapping their shadowy hands over his mouth stopped him short.

“What, you a mute?” the bigger one said, this one distinctly male with a low-bellied voice and an English accent. “A right problem, that would be.”

The skinny one placed one shadow hand on the bed, reaching forward with the other toward Connor’s face. Connor flinched, expecting some sort of attack. The impulse to slap the hand away surged, but he restrained himself because he didn’t know what these beings were capable of if they could simply appear in the room at will. Fortunately, the hand merely tilted Connor’s head from side to side, though the boy couldn’t feel the fingers on his skin.

“Doesn’t seem hurt,” the skinny one said.

“Seems useless to me,” the fat one said. “Lot of good he’ll do us.”

The thin one pressed two fingers to Connor’s wrist.

“Pulse is fast. Think the poor Flicker is scared.”

“Hate these calls,” the fat one said. “Flicker teens are the worst. Terrified of their own shadows, let alone us. Not that they’d admit it.”

“Give him a second to calm down,” the skinny one said. “We came out of his walls. As I hear it, they’re scared by books where that kind of thing happens.”

Connor’s arm fell back to the bed, and the thin shadow straightened. Both shadows crossed their arms and stared at him. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. After a moment that felt like he was chewing the air, he said, “Who are you?”

The fat shadow snuffled.

“Who are we?” He slapped the thinner shadow on the arm. “Little Flicker doesn’t know who we are.”

The thin shadow didn’t join the laughter, but she nodded. She crouched, the shift making her seem less threatening.

“I am Sergeant Dandrich, and this is Officer Bell,” she said. “We’re Shadow Police.”

Connor would have felt incredulous, but nothing about the situation was credulous. In fact, he wondered if he’d blown a blood vessel in his brain and was hallucinating. However, since that also meant he would be dead, he figured he would have to run with it either way. On the other hand, since he’d obviously heard of the regular police, the gist of who they were was obvious. Were they here because the shadow woke him?

He asked, “Why are you here?”

The fat one, Officer Bell, chortled, and Connor feared the noise would bring his mother. Part of Connor wanted that, and part of him wondered how his mother would react if she came into the room to find the two shadows standing over his bed. Perhaps more importantly, how would these two shadows react? Would they hurt her?

“Why are we here?” Officer Bell bellowed. “Gone through the trouble of crossing the boundary, and the little Flicker acts like he doesn’t even know he’s been robbed.”

“I’ve been robbed,” Connor interjected. He meant it as a question, but it came out more like a statement.

“Now we get to the matter,” the thin one said.

“Bet you he was jerking us around,” Officer Bell said, leaning forward over the edge of the bed. “You jerking us around, boy? Think it’s funny to waste our time?”

“No, I—I would never—”.

The thin shadow pulled Officer Bell back by the arm.

“The boy’s obviously confused,” Dandrich said.

“Then you deal with him,” Officer Bell huffed. He became interested in the room itself, craning his head about, peering towards the corners, the closet, and the bottom of the bed. He picked up an old teddy bear from one of Connor’s shelves and examined it as if he’d never seen a stuffed animal before.

Meanwhile, the thin shadow stepped over to the desk, a child-sized desk, one Connor had outgrown but his mother hadn’t been able to replace. In fact, most of the things in his room were ones he’d outgrown, but his mother hadn’t replaced them. Heat rose to his cheeks. No one but his mother had been in his room for quite some time. Why hadn’t he gotten rid of all this stuff?

The thin shadow plucked the little wooden chair in one hand and carried it over to the bedside. She sat down on it, but because it was so low, her knees bent upward and her legs splayed out.

“You’re going to wake my mother,” Connor said.

“Pshhhhh,” said Officer Bell.

Sergeant Dandrich said, “Casters don’t notice us unless we want them to. Now, let’s get to the bottom of this. Tell me what happened.”

Connor swallowed again, mouth paper dry. His voice barely sounded like his own as he said, “Well, I don’t really know. I was sound asleep, and then I started dreaming about…at least it seemed like a dream—”

“We don’t need to know about your dream,” Officer Bell interrupted.

Connor blushed as he said, “Well, I woke up because I felt like something was being stolen from me.”

The thin shadow nodded, and Connor thought he could make out a tight-lipped frown within the otherwise uniform darkness of her face. Were there eyes too? A nose and nostrils? The more intently he looked at her, the more certain he was that he could make out all the normal features.

“Go on,” the sergeant said.

“I saw something standing over me and pulling at me. This cold, awful feeling filled my whole body” Unconsciously, he drew his knees to his chest and shivered as he talked. “When it saw I was awake, it hissed and disappeared.”

“I see,” the sergeant said. “Get a good look at the thief? Man or woman? Size? Color?”

“Color?” Connor said. “Aren’t all shadows the same?”

“Bah,” Officer Bell roared. His voice brimmed with offense as he said, “All shadows the same? Do the sergeant and I look alike? Do I look the same as the shadow under your bed? The shadows in your closet? Are shadows in the moonlight the same as those cast by the sun?”

“No,” Connor stammered. “I suppose not. But it was just a shadow.”

“Just a shadow?” Bell said. “No such thing as ‘just a shadow,’ let alone just a shadow thief. How do you think we’re supposed to find him without a single distinguishing feature? Load of help this one is. Bet he can’t even describe his shadow.”

“It looks like me,” Connor muttered, voice shrinking.”“”

The laughter from Bell this time was decidedly nasty, and Connor realized he was terrified of the officer. Both of them really, but Bell especially as he stepped forward and leaned sharply into Connor’s face. “I oughta teach you what’s what.”

The anger in the sergeant’s voice as she snapped “Enough!” at Officer Bell brought Connor back into focus.

“I didn’t see him long,” Connor said, his heart pounding. He didn’t like feeling so scared. He wanted to be stronger, but his mind was struggling to keep up with everything. “It was a glimpse. I don’t know much about shadows.”

“It’s okay,” the sergeant said, placing a hand on Connor’s. He knew she squeezed because he felt his fingers press together. “We’re used to this. Officer Bell needs to learn patience when it comes to Flickers.”

Connor clenched his jaw and tried to keep fear out of his voice as he asked, “Flickers?”

“People who reflect light rather than dark,” the sergeant said. “Officer Bell forgets how different the Shadowed look to those used to bright things.”

The sergeant stood and turned to Officer Bell.

“You find anything useful?” she asked. “Or you been huffing and puffing the whole time?”

Still holding the bear, Officer Bell stiffened. “No trace that a shadow’s been messing with any of the things about here. Thief wasn’t interested in the room’s shadows, only the boy.”

The sergeant leaned forward, reaching past Connor to the darkness above the bed sheets and pillow. Gingerly, she lifted something and examined it. It took Connor a moment to realize she was holding a piece of his shadow.

“Looks like he only got half,” the sergeant said. “The left side.”

“Half my shadow?” Connor asked.

“That’s the good news,” the sergeant said. “And the bad.”

“What do you mean?” How could something steal half his shadow? Wasn’t it a part of him? When neither officer answered, Connor asked again, “But what does that mean?”

“Paperwork,” Officer Bell grumbled.

The sergeant waved a dismissive hand at Officer Bell. “It’s good news, because if he’d gotten the whole thing, there’d be almost nothing to do about it. The bad news is we have little time to find the missing half, and we have little to go on.”

“What happens if you don’t find it?” Connor asked.

Sergeant Dandrich sat on the edge of Connor’s bed. “Half a shadow can’t survive by itself. What is left will slowly slip away through the tear until there is nothing.”

“What happens then?” Connor asked.

“You don’t want to know,” the sergeant said. “And it’s not our job to explain. We need to get to work if there’s any hope of catching the thief in time.”

“But I’m scared,” Connor said. “Can the thief come back? What if they come back?

Sergeant Dandrich reached, and Connor felt his hair smooth against the side of his head. It would have been comforting if he could feel the touch. “They won’t risk it. They’ll know we’ve been here. They’ll lay low or target someone who hasn’t been flagged. We’ll send someone to speak to you in daylight when your shadow is a little stronger.”

The form of her shadow waivered, then was gone like a cloud of breath. Officer Bell turned to Connor. A strange smile spread across his face. The officer held up the teddy bear and asked, “Do you need this?”

Was the bear evidence? Had the thief touched it or something? Something about the officer’s demeanor said otherwise. He seemed embarrassed to be asking. Unsure what to say, Connor said, “Do you?”

“Well, no,” Officer Bell said, stammering a bit. “Not specifically, just took to mind maybe you’d outgrown… never mind.”

Officer Bell tossed the bear onto the floor and disappeared. Connor found himself again sitting alone in the darkness of his room, full of fear and confusion. As he tried to process everything, his head swam. He found himself lying down and falling into a black sleep.