Written by Joe Henderson
Art by Lee Garbett, Antonio Fabela
Published by Image Comics
The shadows grow darker for Zadie in the next installment of Shadecraft.
After a long night of being chased by literal and figurative shadows, Zadie listens as voices drift in and out of her sleep-addled awareness.
Do they belong to the shadows?
Not this time.
It’s only Mom and Dad there to ground her after her misadventures in the woods last night.
Zadie is too tired and too rattled to put up a fight. Whatever, let them ground her. The monsters that found her last night present far bigger problems to deal with.
While Zadie collects herself as much as she can before school, the shadow of her brother, Ricky, fills her in on his memories of the night of his car accident. Maybe there is a connection between what happened then and what is happening now.
A mysterious shadow on the road turned out to be an 18-wheeler with no headlights, headed right for Ricky’s car. He swerved out of the way in time to avoid colliding with the truck but crashed into the woods. Everything went black, and in the year that passed, Ricky existed in his coma.
It wasn’t until Zadie fled the house the night before that he could connect with anything outside himself. Her distress called to him somehow. Ricky doesn’t understand how he saved Zadie, weak and disoriented as he was. He doesn’t understand how he saved Zadie at all from those woods without his physical body.
Ricky’s accident. Zadie’s shadows. Everything can be traced back to those woods.
Now, Ricky is Zadie’s personal shadow. In the chaos of the woods last night, Zadie’s shadow was taken from her. Ricky took its place.
To Zadie’s horror and Ricky’s amusement, this means he follows her everywhere now to avoid her appearing suspiciously absent a shadow. There’s the usual frustrations of school, friends, and boys–and now a new school counselor.
Zadie is surprised to be called into the counselor’s office only because she doesn’t remember a counselor working there before. She’s not surprised to be called in with everything swirling about her recently. Despite her intentions otherwise, Zadie talks with her, even admitting the toll that Ricky’s coma has taken on her and her family
But Ricky spots something in the counselor’s desk drawer that seems unusual for her profession. Zadie is determined to find out what the counselor is hiding and how she’s tangled up in it.
She’s not going to like what she discovers.
