Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

her brother’s bike. They’d been cruising down DeKalb one bright summer afternoon, he was talking trash with some girl from around the way, he hit a pothole, and they’d both ended up at Kings County, Sierra with a concussion and a permanent scar across one eyebrow and Juan with a fractured wrist and wounded pride. That was that, Sierra had declared as they lay side by side on the hospital stretchers. No more stupid peg riding.
    But it was strangely comforting on this dreary, haunted night, standing behind Juan with her hands on his shoulders, watching his spiky head bob up and down as he pedaled along Ocean Avenue, and the manicured suburbs gave way to the twenty-four-hour vegetable stands and roti spots. Even the rain was a soft blessing against her face, and the warm June wind brushed away some of the terror of what had just happened. The gloomy darkness of Prospect Park loomed ahead of them.
    “Juan,” she said, squeezing his shoulders. “How’d you know to find me? You never bike around Flatbush. And you’re s’posta be in, like, Connecticut or something with the band.”
    He didn’t say anything.
    “Juan?”
    “I just popped back through to check on things.”
    “Juan. You suck at lies. Just skip it.”
    “The shadows led me to you.”
    Sierra dropped her foot to the street and the bike almost tipped over.
    “What the hell?” Juan yelled, screeching to a halt.
    “What do you know about the shadows?”
    He looked away. “A thing or two, I guess.”
    “Juan.” Sierra got off the bike and walked around to glare at her brother, full in the face. “What’s going on?”
    “Look, you being shady too. You tell me what happened to you back there, I’ll tell you what I know about the shadows.”
    “Deal. You first.”
    Juan scrunched up his face and exhaled irritably through his nose — the same frustrated tic he’d been doing since his whole life. “It was Grandpa Lázaro first told me about all of it.”
    “When?”
    “When I was like, I dunno, ten.”
    “When you were ten?” Sierra crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you serious?”
    “Dead ass. Said he was passing on the legacy or something.”
    “Legacy of what?”
    “It’s like a whole spirit world in Brooklyn that Abuelo was in touch with. He was deep with them. Came over from PR with a buncha spirits, I guess, and then kept it going the whole time he was here. Right up till his stroke.”
    Sierra just stared blankly at her brother. The rain was a misty sprinkling on her skin. Cars honked and shoved busily past, sending out fleeting excerpts of whatever hot new single was getting overplayed on the radio. All these years, she’d blamed herself for having a shallow relationship with her aging grandfather, and now it turned out he’d had an entire supernatural universe he shared only with Juan.
    “Did Gael know?”
    “I think Abuelo tried to tell him before I was born, but Gael wasn’t trying to hear about it.”
    “Why … why didn’t he ever tell me?”
    “I dunno.” Juan shrugged. “You know Abuelo was all into his old-school machismo crap. He probably just didn’t think you’d get it.” Sierra stopped herself from slapping her brother across the face, but only barely. He recognized the violence dancing in her eyes. “It’s messed up, I know.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I figured you’d just think I was crazy. Plus, the ol’ man made me swear not to tell nobody. Said it’d be dangerous.”
    Sierra watched the speckles of precipitation jangle and spin beneath a lamppost. Sorrow and rage combined, and Sierra had to push back a wave of tears. This was not the time.
    “Can we, uh, get back to heading home now?” Juan asked. “I’m pretty wet. You can tell me what happened on the way.”

 
    Later that night, Sierra stood frozen at the foot of Lázaro’s bed. The rain sang its gentle song against his wide windows, and outside, the lights of Brooklyn made a blurry haze in the night. She studied her