Read Online Spirits in the Wires by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online

“It’s how Eadar stay potent. You know
here.
We teach sense to the shadows.”
    Maxie was an old friend of mine, a green-eyed, pink-haired gamine, not quite as tall as me, with a penchant for bright-coloured clothes, clunky boots and endless conversation. Tonight she was dressed as a punk ballerina. Her tutu was the same shocking pink as her hair and her leggings were fishnets that looked as though they’d lost an argument with a shark, they were so torn and tattered. Big black Doc Martens on her feet. Truth is, her costume wasn’t much of a stretch from her usual wear, except normally she didn’t wear the Zorro mask—a black scarf with eyeholes cut in it.
    She was always full of life, always so
present
that it was easy to forget that she’d been born as a minor character in an obscure chapbook that had been mostly unread in its author’s lifetime and forgotten thereafter. Since Eadar—such as she was—depend on their existence by the potency of the belief in their existence, it never made any sense to me that she would continue to be as vibrant and lively as she was. From all I know of them, she should have faded away a long time ago.
    â€œTeaching,” I repeated, my mind going back to that day I’d asked Mumbo why she’d been waiting for me the first time I’d crossed over. “Like Mumbo did with me?”
    Maxie nodded.
    â€œAnd doing that makes you stay real?”
    Maxie grinned. “I always said you were a quick study.”
    â€œAre there a lot of you doing that?”
    â€œOh, sure. Mumbo and Clarey Wise. Fenritty. Jason Truelad. Me. Whenever you see an Eadar who’s
particularly
present, it’s either because they were born in a story that was really popular—so lots of people believe in them and keep them real—or they’re connecting with shadows.”
    â€œSo Mumbo wasn’t there to help me. She was only there to help herself.”
    â€œNo, no, no,” Maxie said. “It doesn’t work like that. You really have to care about your shadows. Lots of Eadar don’t even like them. I mean, think about it. You shadows show up in the borderlands, snotty little toddlers full of new life but without a clue, most of you with a chip on your shoulder and the last thing you want is advice from anybody.”
    â€œI wasn’t snotty,” I told her.
    She grinned. “Says you. Regardless, it can be so frustrating teaching some of you how to get along. I can’t imagine anyone getting into it unless they really, truly loved the work. The fact that it keeps us real is a side-benefit. Or at least it is now. I can’t answer for the first Eadar who figured out that the relationship benefits them as much as the shadows under their care.”
    â€œI never knew.”
    â€œLots of people don’t. Lots of
Eadar
don’t, which, when you think about it, is being really dumb. They just piss and moan and fade away. But like I said, if it’s not something you feel comfortable doing, it’s better that you don’t try.”
    â€œBut why shadows? What makes us so important to you?”
    Maxie shrugged. “I don’t know. For some reason your belief is really potent. All it takes is one of you to keep us
here.
”
    Isn’t that a kick? One shadow, cast off and all, is equal, at least in this particular case, to all the readers of some bestseller.
    The first time I met Christy?
    I can’t remember the exact when of it, but I remember the where. And the look on his face. He can be so cute, don’t you think? You know, when something really catches him off-guard.
    So what I did was, when I saw him out on one of those late night rambles of his, I followed along until I got a sense of where he was going then slipped on ahead of him. By the time he stepped onto the Kelly Street Bridge, I was already there, leaning on the stone balustrade and gazing down into the water. It was a lovely