The Shade was a neighborhood in a bad mood.
It hadn’t always been that way. Izara remembered sun that lasted the first century after she moved in.
She used to ask the neighbors why it was even called The Shade. “Just wait,” they would tell her, but decades passed with cheerful light blocked only by the occasional passing skyscrapers that floated downtown.
Back then the sun’s moods had swung from an innocent graze to an angry sear, but Izara liked the heat. She liked to soak up the Vitamin D on her skin. As long as she could dress in next to nothing, a sheet-thin dress or breezy culottes, she was fine to sweat under the rays and absorb the nurturing energy.
The Shade hadn’t turned shady all at once. Mornings, Izara’s commute involved a walk to the nearest public link and instant teleportation to the office. On the first few thousand overcast mornings, she had rarely given a second thought to the sky. Those morning commutes got earlier and earlier, the sky darker, the rent higher, the hours on Constellation’s sales floor longer, the days shorter. And so, two centuries later, Izara lived in the Shade and couldn’t escape it.
Bay thought Izara was imagining things. On breaks at the Cloud Cafe, where she slung plates evenings and weekends after her ‘real job,’ they discussed deep, important life thoughts. “Didn’t this used to be poppywood?” asked Izara.
The table was gray. An unnatural gray. Lifeless, colorless. Scratchless. Not poppy red any longer.
“I can’t imagine it used to be anything other than what it is now,” said Bay.
“Have you ever found yourself thinking that this life is too impossibly, unnecessarily painful to be real?”
“To be real?” Bay slurped back a hot cha with conjured milk and conjured up a smile.
“Don’t you feel it too? Like there’s a wrongness. Like life in the Shade defies suspension of disbelief. There’s something wrong here. With the Shade. With people. Like the dull disconnectedness is just so unnecessary.”
Bay thought Izara had textbook depression.
Yet maybe a climate spell had disrupted the natural weather patterns in the Shade.
And the people in this neighborhood. They brushed past you on the sidewalk without a look even if they’d pushed you into the path of a moving vehicle. Once a woman slid ahead of Izara in line to pay without even noticing she’d done it. No one held doors open for each other anymore. Never an “after you” or an “excuse me.” Everyone was in a single-minded hurry, like they were wearing blinders and could only see the next step to achieving their next life goal — no matter who they pushed into the path of a moving vehicle to get there.
Thus, a spell. A spell must have been cast over the neighborhood.
“It’s called the Shade for a reason,” said Bay.
Maybe it was a Constellation conspiracy. An unintended consequence of weather modification spells, whether due to cloud seeding to induce rainfall for non-magical plant growth, or to keep the neighborhoods with high value real estate sunny through all four seasons.
“That’s a wild conspiracy theory,” said Bay.
But when you spent sixteen waking hours a day wondering why you felt so alone, you might entertain more than one conspiracy theory.
It could be hormones. Three hundred and twelve years on the reproduction waitlist could do that to a person. It could cause an estrogen imbalance, plausibly, and low testosterone levels in women contribute to feelings of lethargy, low energy, difficulty focusing, decreased productivity, drowsiness.
It could be something in the water. In her building’s ancient pipes. Unnecessarily ancient, but that was the Shade for you. A slum in the magic capital of the world. As if there wasn’t enough magic to go around, the faucets took forever to get hot enough, or cold enough. And mold grew in the stairwell as her landlord slumped on repairs and the green carpet in the hallway grew more brown.
“And we work two jobs just to live in a place that’s becoming less and less livable.”
Everyone worked more and more hours, and for what? She once posed that question to a woman next to her in a bar, close to midnight, bent over a Stellar. Working. “What does it get you?”
The woman’s threads were animated. Pinstripes that vanished and appeared and vanished again. The only part of her that didn’t exude wealth and magic was the short crop of healthy curls roaming out of her head, absent of magical styling. She said, “I get to shovel this heap off my plate just in time for a new one tomorrow.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. If I don’t get it done, tomorrow will feel infinitely worse than tonight.”
Izara put her more burning question to the woman at the bar too. “Have you ever felt like life defies suspension of disbelief? Like it can’t possibly make sense for it to feel this bad?”
“Excuse me, I need to get back to this.” The woman hopped off the bar stool, scooted three stools over, and reopened her Stellar at a great distance from Izara.
Coworkers kept her at a distance too. “Can’t talk now, catching up on homework,” said Bay. Bay had gone back to magician’s college. She said she was going to specialize in surveillance portals, climb through the guardia and become a detective, but no one believed her. She was a waitress. Clearly the story was a coverup for her real plan: open her own restaurant and compete with the Cloud.
Izara believed Bay was going to get her degree, get a good job, and get the stars out of the Shade.
“I’m always drained. The skies are always gray. I’ve looked into rent in another neighborhood — anywhere else. I work two jobs, I’ve been promoted this year, and I still can’t afford to move somewhere the weather spell hasn’t blocked out the sun.” She told all this to Doctor Asakaze. Doctor Asakaze’s office was not in the Shade. The cost of the link from work to Doctor Asakaze’s office was covered, but Izara’s portal home after wouldn’t be.
At least Doctor Asakaze listened. For forty-five minutes she listened, then she said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if weather tampering has led to unfair levels of fog and cloud in your neighborhood. And on top of work-related stress, and the pressures of the reproduction cap, your neighborhood may be a little on edge. But the experiences you have described transcend the diagnosis for SAD. I’m going to recommend a combo mood elevating spell subscription to ease anxiety and depression.”
Combo subscription. That sounded like a subscription that cost twice as much as a regular subscription.
“Just give it a trial run.”
“Isn’t there a more . . cost efficient . . . option?” Like maybe Doctor Asakaze could prescribe a ‘be less of an asshole’ subscription to Shade residents. And they could pay their own stars damn bill.
She allowed the doctor to put the spell on her. Encased between four rectangular links, each the size of a standing mirror, a fierce sunlight glow scanned her body from the toes up. The best part was the full force light of infinite stars on her eyelids. It felt warm, and the warmth in her chest didn’t fade when she linked back to the Shade.
The sun hadn’t visited from behind the clouds, but Izara could feel its heat within her lungs, her muscles, and even her fingernails. A new energy launched her down the sidewalk and gave her the power to speed between lackadaisical pedestrians. She pranced into a coffee shop, all smiles, holding the door for the person behind her, who didn’t say thank you.
It was overcast out, and cold, but the barista behind the counter didn’t seem so chilly to Izara. As she passed over Izara’s steaming brew, which was encased in a temporarily conjured to-go cup, she complimented Izara’s hat.
That was weird. The spell should take away her shade, not the whole damn community’s. “Where did you get it?” the barista asked. “It’s so nice.”
“Really?” said Izara. It wasn’t animated or anything. Just tweed. “It was a rare gem at the Virgo Street thrift shop.”
“It’s like one my mother had when I was growing up, and I’ve been wanting one. It’s really nice.”
Izara left positively bouncing as her hands clasped the invisible to-go cup. Normally she would fear spilling, but now the busy city sidewalk was all hers. She figured she’d stop by the Cloud, invite Bay over for a home-cooked, magic-free meal. Her eye was caught by a stout old immortal she would have to pass by; they were of a height, and the elderly woman’s hat looked not unlike Izara’s.
“Fuck you,” said the lady, out of nowhere, before Izara had been able to pass on a compliment of her hat.
Classic Shade. It never failed to surprise you.
This Izara recounted to Bay before begging her to come over for a meal after her shift.
“Exams are over, no more excuses.” And she had a winning argument for their old debate. “A little magical medicine made me right as rain, but everyone else here is unwell. Which raises the question. Is Constellation doing it on purpose? To get us to subscribe to the remedy? Did the company put a spell over our neighborhood?”
Bay leaned back, initiated a staring contest, and crossed her arms. “I don’t need any magical medicine. And I’ve lived in the Shade my whole life.”
And so life went on in the Shade, and Izara got better, but it didn’t. Izara took her magic medicine, and it chipped away at her illness. And at her savings. And at any chance she had of ever moving out of the Shade.
Thank you for reading Episode I of Izara’s star in Constellations.
Constellations is a fantasy series in the works, including an upcoming anthology. Though the world is fantastical, it’s inspired by real lives, real workers, real addictions, and loves, and dreams. That can be said of most every work of fiction, yet I mention it as a reminder that stories bring us together in all of our struggles, passions, upsets and victories. In all of our journeys.
I hope you will join me to see where Izara’s takes her. If you like my work, please clap for it or share it, to give me a hand with mine.
