Jack and Adelade

(minor gore, monster)

Adelade was going to be powerful beyond her wildest dreams, she just didn't know it yet. There was only one creature in the roil of creation that knew of her destiny, of the esoteric and absurd conjurings that she would crosshatch into creation. And his name was Jack.

He had always been a Jack. He could remember the exact moment of his birth, the binding of dreams and feelings that pulled him into reality. He had not screamed, for the moment of his creation was also the moment his purpose was instilled in his tiny, furtive soul. To protect and nurture young Adelade McGin until such a time that she could see him. It was a harder task then one might expect of a quadrupedal, skinned creature that resembled the corpse of a possum. Yet it was Jack's task, his purpose, his raison d'être, and it was...miserable.

Young witches almost never awoke to their powers on their own. A witch, as humans called them, could only ever become if a path of guidance was set before them, whether by divine prophecy, greater being, or...manifested familiar. Just as the great Delphi or Baba Yaga left clues and trails for the sorceress children to follow, so too did the familiar: a literal shadow of the girl's emotions and desires, cast onto the wall to burn into reality.

Being such a creature connected to such a girl came with strict, unfair rules. Jack could not interact directly with Adelade. In fact, he could barely indirectly interact with Adelade.

He existed in the shadow of her vision during the day, a sort of limbo that was reserved only for the smallest of ideas. He could not directly observe her, nor could he interfere with objects that came into her possession, or people interacting with her. The rapid movement of Adelade's anxious eyes frittered from person to group, crowd to individual, and in its process he was shunted along: always at a distance, always quiet, always watching. It was a series of vaporization and re-assembly that had no pain, only oblivion, life, oblivion, then life again. So long as there were places that his destined companion could not see, he would be there.

Another of his kin and the only of his kind that he had ever seen and spoken with had told him that in this state he was like a magnet facing the opposing direction to his charge. Each movement, no matter how small, affected the field by which they were facing each other. In order for Jack to succeed in awakening her, he needed to get closer. There were two such places that such intimacy could exist for him. Sleep, and danger.

Jack had known of the first. When the young girl fell into the occasional dream, he could pop out, observe her within her dwelling and domicile. He could walk the quiet halls and lopsided stairs of her family home, touch the burning iron of their kitchen cookware, even come so close as to feel his destined master's breath on his face. He whispered to her, read the fantastical stories from her shelves to her, encouraged her to be confident and proud.

"You're so much better than you know. I don't need to read your diary, I never would, but I can tell. You're afraid. Its ok to be afraid, I'm afraid too." He would curl his tail beneath him, the shadowy ichor of his being leaking like candle flame. "I'm afraid that you won't like me. That you'll think I want to hurt you. Or that-that I've somehow invaded your space. But I didn't, I-I-I am simply another part of you. And if you're scared, then I'm scared. But I'm also brave, so that means you are too."

The girl would never have a nightmare so long as Jack was around, of that, he swore.

There were still opportunities. The "monster in the closet" had given shape to Adelade's latent obsession with the animals he so resembled. His name, he discovered, had come from a dog on a television show she had watched with her grandmother before her death to cancer. His constant whispers of encouragement inspired her to jump from club to club at school, exploring anything that seemed her taste. Each bit of information, each shadowed encounter, each whisper of the past was another step closer toward the tipping point. Yet, there seemed no end to the labor.

It was Adelade's 17th year now, and Jack was beginning to lose hope. She was living a quiet life, devoid of much of the danger and excitement that might bring them close. Jack spent his days hiding under the bed and in the smalls of the vents, waiting and listening to phone calls and the clacking of keyboards, the rotating band posters and plushies mockingly similar to him.

It was on a Halloween night, that most auspicious and hopeful of nights that he prayed. He had been shunted to the roof as Adelade had dropped her smartphone into his hiding place. The dark purple of night had crept in over the rim of the earth, the houses and skyscrapers in the distance blackening to monoliths illuminated by pinpricks of service lights and glowing streets. Jack stared out and prayed, to the Earth, and to the stars, which he had never seen, as he had never been beyond the toxic light pollution of the suburbs here.

"Oh, spirits...help my charge, help my young Adelade find her way. Power that is promised means nothing to those ignorant of it. This life is empty, hollow, and there is no joy, nor love in such unrequited being. I will grow for her in all ambition and direction she desires, and in turn, she will become strong, and brave, and joyous. But only if she knows. Only if she knows that she is loved. That she is brave. That she...is."

He closed his eyes that were not eyes, and waited for the cold wind of autumn. The window below him opened.

He opened his eyes. Then he was gone, down in the bushes. Rustling surrounded him, a squeak, then a touch. He was gone again, perched in a tree, watching Adelade stumble forward, her glasses askew as she snuck away into the night.

He followed. They crashed through the neighborhood, him above, her below, each scrabbling in tandem over the dead leaves and earthy loam. Jack saw the stirring of the Earth, the deep night shaking the hallows to awaken and spin their cauldrons once more. There was a chance. His body raced with anticipation, his mind aflutter, unable to tell where his body ended and began as he shifted and warped about. His excitement was matched by the spirits about them both, the ancient bones of creation dancing along in all the places that never were. The pumpkins and masks and candy belied a secret humans beheld now, forgotten, re-discovered, and now forgetting once more. The wisps saluted Jack as he jumped along, the fae smiled wide. Great magics were occurring on this holy night, and Adelade had come to the most holy of places (as most outcast teenagers do on Halloween).

The graveyard, inhabited by youth in defiance of its foreboding resolution, were already into the alcohol that they had procured. They laughed, and made light of the heavy stones, placing obnoxious color over the statues and defacing the artifices of the dead. As excited as Jack had been, it had turned to another night of disappointment as Adelade sat disheveled, nursing a single beer in the corner while speaking in nervous squeaks.

It was just as one of the boys kicked over the stone that Jack felt the change. The dead had been disturbed too much. On tonight, of all nights, this meant ill for all, including Adelade. The rising fear saturated the air like sulfur, an acidic rise that set his haunches high. There, at the edge of the wood beyond the graves, it was approaching.

Jack was helpless. Almost. He shunted himself towards the monster by deliberately diving towards Adelade, and found himself tucking his body below the feet of the shambling mimic. It fell, and the thump of its body alerted the children, causing a few more cautious to leave. Jack waited to felt the pull of their bond as Adelade ran, but he did not. He waited. Then waited. Nothing. She wasn't leaving? Why-

He felt the beast grab him. It choked him until he popped out of reality, closer back to Adelade. His mind raced. What could he do? He looked to Adelade, and froze. She was crying, and it was obvious why. She didn't fit in here. She never belonged. Not with anyone of her own age, and not anyone out of it either. She had always been a lonely girl, no matter how much Jack had...

He had pushed her, hadn't he? This state she was in, this emergent danger, it was partially his fault. Always pushing, always whispering of bravery, putting her closer to situations she found uncomfortable. Feeding her confidence that wasn't there, hurting her without realizing. He felt, for the first time in his existence, shame. He had let her down. The one person that truly mattered, and he had spoiled their destiny.

As the monster emerged, she lifted her face and screamed. She saw what it was immediately, the empty, hollow clay that was not a real man. It gaped at her in agonizing clarity, flesh birthing from its mouth into the abomination that would devour her, and the ones who had run. Red, pulsing, angry. A boil of roiling limbs and skulls.

Jack padded over to Adelade. He knew now what he was missing. What he needed to be. "Adelade." He spoke for the first time, and his body wavered. It did not disappear. "You don't need to be brave right now."

She turned and looked. She saw him.

The magnets snapped together, the barrier between them shattering like rigid steel struck by bullets. Jack rose up, his body taut, his limbs muscled, his shadows hungry. He was a part of Adelade; he was her bravery, her ambition. He would not allow her to die. Never.

He fell upon the angered ghouls and ripped them. He ate and tore and gnashed, scattering them back to the afterlife beyond. He unmade the clay man that guarded this place. Then he turned.

Adelade had her eyes open wide, watching, finally understanding, the puzzle pieces of herself fitting back together to include this massive beast of shadows and power. She was afraid. So was he. Yet they both knew that this was always meant to be.

He shrunk to the size he had been all his life, and jumped into her shocked arms.

Together, they would be unstoppable.