Weighing Shadows Read online

  PRAISE FOR LISA GOLDSTEIN

  THE RED MAGICIAN

  “Turns the hidden world of Eastern European Jews during the 1940s into a world of wonders, then transcends the Holocaust with a magical optimism.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “[Goldstein] has given us the kind of magic and adventure that once upon a time made us look for secret panels in the walls of wardrobes, or brush our teeth with a book held in front of our eyes, because we couldn’t bear to put it down.”

  —The New Yorker

  THE DREAM YEARS

  “A short book but an intense one. Like all Goldstein’s work it’s beautifully written and full of marvelous lingering imagery.”

  —Jo Walton, author of Among Others and The Just City

  “This is an excellent little novel…Highly recommended.”

  —Solar Bridge

  A MASK FOR THE GENERAL

  “In transplanting the consciousness of the 1960s to the near-future, the author of Dream Years has created a brilliant parable of nonviolent revolution. Recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “Absorbing, quietly impressive, thoughtful work—welcome evidence of Goldstein’s steady improvement as a clear-eyed fantasist of depth, range and charm.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  TOURISTS

  “One of the great American novels of the 1980s.”

  —Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “A charming tale of magic realism … A cool, quiet breeze in a realm too often filled with hot air.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  STRANGE DEVICES OF THE SUN AND MOON

  “That rare and marvelous beast, a fantasy grounded in humanity. Lisa Goldstein mixes history, faerie, literature and love to engrave a tale both intelligent and fine…. It is, from first to last, a delight.”

  —Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods and Neverwhere

  “Goldstein imbues this material with the proper amount of stylishness and invention, skillfully weaving a richly textured tapestry of narrative unmarred by the ratty threads of cliché.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  SUMMER KING WINTER FOOL

  “With its clear, spare style and knowing reversals, Summer King, Winter Fool is a fantasy that uses its exotic setting to universalize a poignant examination of the follies of the human heart.”

  —Interzone

  “Builds a magic intricate spell of wonder for the reader who will allow herself to be challenged and her imagination to be stretched.”

  —SF Age

  TRAVELLERS IN MAGIC

  “Goldstein is at her best in the stories that touch on themes of Jewish experience, such as the Holocaust: the touching ghost story ‘Alfred,’ the vivid and effective ‘A Traveller at Passover’ and, perhaps best of all, ‘Breadcrumbs and Stones,’ which combines fairy tales and Holocaust memories in a tale of tragedy and hope.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The most important short-story collection I’ve seen this year … displays an imposing array of talents.”

  —Locus

  WALKING THE LABYRINTH

  This marvelous and (in the old sense of the word) fabulous book combines the best qualities of narrative, epistolary and personal journal novels…. Walking the Labyrinth is full of enchantments and illusions, wonders and delights, and the mysterious connections of a family. A highly satisfying read!”

  —Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “A modern morality play that says much about what it means to live, love and learn. Along the way, Goldstein confronts us with bold truths, as well as enchantment.”

  —Locus

  DARK CITIES UNDERGROUND

  “The novel moves rapidly, building momentum as each secret is revealed…the story’s premise, and the questions that arise from it, should keep readers involved.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Reveals and explores the connections among the worlds of Narnia and Never-Never Land, the Wind in the Willows and Wonderland, myth and legend…. This fine modern fantasy is also about archetypes, childhood, growing up, loyalty, immortality, death, and love.”

  —Cynthia Ward

  THE ALCHEMIST’S DOOR

  “Meticulous research, pristine storytelling, and Goldstein’s genuine affection for her characters make this historical fantasy a priority purchase for most libraries.”

  —Library Journal

  “Aficionados of historical fantasy or simply of strong prose will love this fast-moving and entertaining novel.”

  —SF Revu

  THE UNCERTAIN PLACES

  An exquisitely beautiful, eerily compelling modern fairy tale.”

  —Library Journal, starred review

  “Goldstein’s complex and ingenious plot transplants the forest realm of European folktale, where witches grant wishes with strings attached and you’d better be careful which frog you kiss, into the sun-drenched hills of Northern California in the 1970s—and beyond.”

  —Ursula K. Le Guin, author of A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness

  “A gripping story that twists with compelling dream logic; Goldstein’s fairy-tale family radiate believable unreality, and the faerie realm contained herein evinces the perfect mix of terror and attraction. Start reading this at your peril; once I did, I couldn’t stop until I was done.”

  —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

  Also by Lisa Goldstein:

  Novels

  The Red Magician

  The Dream Years

  A Mask for the General

  Tourists

  Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon

  Summer King, Winter Fool

  Walking the Labyrinth

  Dark Cities Underground

  The Alchemist’s Door

  Daughter of Exile (as Isabel Glass)

  The Divided Crown (as Isabel Glass)

  The Uncertain Places

  Collections

  Daily Voices

  Travellers in Magic

  LISA GOLDSTEIN

  Night Shade Books

  An Imprint of Start Publishing

  New Jersey

  Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Goldstein.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Start Publishing, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

  Night Shade Books is an of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.start-publishing.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Goldstein, Lisa.

  Weighing shadows / Lisa Goldstein.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-59780-840-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3557.O397W45 2015

  813’.54—dc23

  2015013599

  Print ISBN: 978-1-59780-840-8

  eISBN: 978-1-59780-585-8

  Cover illustration by Cortney Skinner

  Cover design by Jason Snair

  Printed in the United States of America

  THE WOMAN WAS STALKING her again. She was keeping to the other side of the street and staying back a few paces, but Ann had no doubt about who it was. She had seen her a few days ago on her way to work, and a week before that, and now here she was again, almost not even bothering to hide her interest.

  What did she want? Ann turned to look at her and the woman nodded. It was as though they were playing some kind of game, the rules of which were known to both of them. You know I’m watching you, she seemed to say, and I know you know, and you know I know you know …
/>   We could stay here forever, Ann thought, trapped in infinite recursion. The woman was shorter than average, and because Ann was short herself she had wondered once or twice if the woman could be her biological mother, come to find out what had happened to the baby she had given up. And her hair was brown like Ann’s, though Ann’s was a few shades lighter, more reddish.

  Ann turned away and continued on to Sam’s Computer Solutions, and by the time the boss let her inside her stalker was nowhere to be seen. She went into the back room and dumped her coat and purse in her locker, then headed out to the office and started work.

  She had gotten a reputation at the shop as a clever hacker, so the other two employees often saved their most difficult problems for her. It meant that she sometimes got to work on interesting things, but on the other hand it also meant that she failed more often than the other two, which gave Sam, the boss, more reason to pay attention to her. She disliked that, felt uncomfortable when people noticed her.

  That dislike was probably why she had spotted the stalker so easily. She knew any number of ways of making herself inconspicuous, and it alarmed her that the woman was still interested in her. What could she possibly want? Some of Ann’s excursions into the Internet hadn’t been entirely innocent. Still, if the woman was her mother …

  She fell into a well-worn reverie of reunion, an embarrassing fantasy in many ways but one she couldn’t keep away from. It took her through the boring job she had started yesterday, retrieving data from a hard disk someone had wiped accidentally. A mix of off-the-shelf recovery utilities and her own custom code designed to predict missing sector data, based on file types and still extant CRC data, made it a pretty mundane task, but a distressingly common one… It was amazing how often people managed to screw up like that. PEBCAK, they called it at the shop: Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard.

  It took her less than an hour to recover everything, and she sat for a moment after she had finished, summoning the energy for another job. “Ann!” Sam called from the front of the store. “Could you come here for a minute?”

  She headed out to the front—and there, talking calmly to Sam, was her stalker.

  “She asked for you by name,” he said, and turned away to help another customer.

  “Who are you?” Ann asked, shocked into rudeness.

  “What?” the woman said.

  “You heard me—I want to know who you are. You’ve been following me, haven’t you? It’s creepy, and it’s probably illegal too. I could go to the police.”

  “No. No, you have the wrong idea. I want to interview you for a job.”

  “You—you what?”

  Sam hurried over to them, probably drawn by the sound of Ann’s raised voice. “Is there a problem here?” he asked.

  “No,” the stalker said. “Ann and I were just talking.”

  That’s right, Sam said she knows my name, Ann thought. This is beyond creepy.

  Up close Ann could see that the woman didn’t look much like her at all. She had round cheeks and a snub nose, nothing like Ann’s thinner face. Her hair was streaked with gray.

  Sam headed back to his customer. The woman went on quickly, before Ann could say anything. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I brought my computer to your store and you got rid of a virus for me. I like the way you solve problems, that’s all. We might be able to use someone like you.”

  “So why were you following me? Do you do that to all your potential employees?”

  Careful, she thought. She said she wants to offer you a job—don’t alienate her.

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you,” the woman said. “We wanted to know more about you, that’s all.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “My company. Transformations Incorporated. We’re— well, we’re problem-solvers. Look, the easiest thing is to show you. Can you come to our campus, take a look around? When’s your next day off?”

  It sounded too good to be true, Ann thought. Things like this didn’t happen to people like her. “I should tell you—I never went to college,” she said, trying not to sound defensive. They’d find that out sooner or later; it was probably best to get it out of the way.

  “That doesn’t matter,” the woman said. She seemed unsurprised, as if she’d known all along. And maybe she had; maybe they’d learned all kinds of things about her from following her around. “The important thing is how well you do on a series of tests we’ll give you.”

  “I don’t even know your name,” Ann said.

  “I’m sorry. I’m Emra Walker. I could shoot my data to your phone, if you like.”

  Ann nearly laughed. Did Ms. Walker really think she could afford a smart phone on the salary they paid her here? “My phone wouldn’t take it. Don’t you have a card or something?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Where’s Transformations Incorporated, then?”

  “I can pick you up and bring you there. When are you free?”

  “Tomorrow’s my day off—I guess we can go then.”

  Ms. Walker asked for her address and phone number, then made a show of programming them into her own phone. Ann had the idea that it was just a formality, that they already had all her information, including her work schedule. Why else had they made contact with her just before her day off?

  ANN GOOGLED THE WOMAN that evening, as soon as she got back to her apartment. She found a website for Transformations Incorporated, written in language so vague that it seemed to be intentionally hiding something, filled with buzzwords like “proactive” and “forward-looking” and “forming new paradigms for time-honored modalities.” She clicked on the “Contact” link but there was no street address, just some phone numbers and email addresses. Emra Walker herself she found listed under “Facilitators.”

  She surfed over to the Department of Motor Vehicles and snuck into its employee remote access interface, something she had figured out how to do a while ago. Once in the database, though, she couldn’t find a driver’s license for Emra Walker anywhere. Well, maybe she had moved here from another state. But when she hacked the Social Security administration she couldn’t find a social security number either.

  Walker rang her doorbell the next day. Ann felt her heart speed up as she opened the door and saw her standing there; some part of her, she realized, had not expected her to come.

  They got into Walker’s car, a late-model Toyota. Walker pressed a button and the engine caught, and Ann, who had never seen a car that started that way, had to keep herself from staring, from looking like some kind of technological ignoramus. It reminded her of ancient planes in World War I movies; she almost expected to see propellers whir into action.

  Ann lived south of San Francisco, in a boring suburb on the peninsula. Walker turned onto the freeway and headed away from the city. They drove for several miles in silence, and then Walker took an off-ramp leading to an industrial neighborhood Ann had never visited before, filled with factories and warehouses. A few blocks later they turned in at a driveway leading to an empty lot. The lot was surrounded by a chain-link fence and concreted over; weeds were growing up through cracks in the pavement.

  Walker slid a card into a machine by the driveway, and a gate in the fence opened. They drove a long way up a weed-filled road, then came to a large square building that looked like a warehouse. There was no sign in front to show what kind of business went on within it, or even that it was a business at all. Walker parked in a lot at the side and led Ann up the front steps.

  Walker used her card again to open the door. It was very different inside, cool and quiet and softly lit, with white walls and pale wooden floors. A secretary at a front desk said something to them, too softly for Ann to hear. Ann looked at Walker, waiting for her to reply.

  Walker didn’t say anything, though. Now Ann saw that the secretary had a short wire leading from her ear, that she was probably on the phone, though Ann had never seen a telephone like that before. Where was the microphone, did she have it
implanted somewhere?

  The secretary murmured something and turned toward them, then buzzed them through a door behind her. “I’ll give you a tour, then you’ll have to get started on the tests,” Walker said.

  The tour was quick, fitful, as if Walker felt she didn’t need to be polite once Ann had agreed to come along with her. She led Ann down a hallway lined with open doors, showing her classrooms, offices where people worked at computers, a laboratory filled with equipment she didn’t recognize.

  Ann stopped to look at a picture on the wall, a photograph of people running through a stone alleyway. A vast red fire, like a curtain, hung in the distance.

  The people were wearing togas and sandals, she saw, and there were frescos on some of the walls around them. It looked like—she had read a historical novel about Pompeii once, and she had imagined it something like this. But a photograph? Well, you could do a lot with Photoshop these days.

  Now she saw other photos, one of knights on horseback chasing a group of ragged-looking people without armor, another that looked like something she’d read once about Zimbabwe, men and women cementing bricks in an enormous circular tower. The photos looked surprisingly real; she could see the shadows of the ladders on the tower, and a dark stain of dirt, or maybe blood, on the flank of one of the horses. Someone had had a lot of time on their hands, she thought.

  “Come along,” Walker said. She sounded impatient.

  Another door led into an open courtyard. For a moment, as she walked outside from the dimly lit corridors, the sun seared her vision, turning the green lawn black. Then her sight cleared and she saw fountains and trees, and groups of people sitting at tables or on the grass and eating and talking.

  They headed across the courtyard and back inside, then down another hall to another classroom. This one was half filled with people, most of them, like Ann, in their early twenties. A laptop computer sat at each desk.

  “This is where we’ll be giving you your tests,” Walker said.

  She seemed to have assumed that Ann had already agreed to work for them. “Wait a minute,” she said.