It is difficult to fathom the Earth when you only study one continent, and more difficult to understand the universe when you only understand one galaxy.

Knowing this, as he knew many things, Jack Hawthorne dedicated his life to the study of reality and the transmundane. Across time, and across the endless sea of realities that most would never see, he wandered on a never-ending journey. He had always been a scholar of the unknown, of the supernatural secrets old and new. Ever since the day he fell into a land of starless skies and autumnal voids, and left the mundane behind, it had been his calling in life to walk an endless road.

And for more than a decade, now, he has taken to a new purpose.

An old friend has grown furious with the world and sought to bring Earth to ruins. And in the aftermath, there may two defenseless children: Ananym of Limbo, and Annika of Earth. It has not been an uneventful time, raising Annika as his own. In the years that followed, the two had found that the shadowy land he called on for power was safe for her, they’d discovered the magical abilities she was capable of, and most of all, they’d spent her lifetime wondering where in all the universe she had originally came from.

For a man who could move across trillions of light years in a single step, it had been an impossible task. But one that they had accepted they might never answer. And so it was that Jack embraced his role as Annika’s guardian for as long as was needed.

In recent times, she’d developed her first spells under his guidance. They were simple, but it was a start of something powerful. They stepped between universes, trespassed into realms unknown and learned what one another was capable of as he shared an unending journey with her.

---

Annika had what one would call a unique childhood. For one, she didn’t grow up with children her own age. In fact, she didn’t know any children her own age, but she did know how to read and write. She knew her times tables and the infinite space of galaxies, but she also knew of worlds unknown. Places only a few humans have seen. She knew witchcraft and spellwork, shadow magic and combat skills. She learned to create friends from shadows and had developed a deep love for the place so few could survive in.



A mystical place between space and time. A part of the world and yet completely separated from it. It was strange and confusing. There wasn’t much Annika understood about it, but she knew it breathed and lived. Sometimes, in the moments of stillness, she thought she could hear the air around her breathe and would slow her own breath to match its inhale and exhale. She loved it here. This strange little inquisitive place.

Annika sat on the porch of the home she shared with her father, Jack, reading one of the books he had written about the magic in the Everdark. Even though Jack Hawthorne had told her he wasn’t her biological father and was hell-bent on helping her find her family, nothing could change the knowing that Annika had developed. Jack was her father; even if he was rather unconventional.

“Dad, what about this one?” Annika untangled herself from where she sat and bounded back into the house to look for Jack. She held the book open on a page about shadow manipulation and creation, feeling drawn to the power and the spellwork. She often felt the Everdark shift to create shapes and unseen creatures around her. Maybe it was a sign.

The ten-year-old girl tucked her dark-brown hair behind her ear as she peered into Jack’s office, seeking out the brilliant purple eyes and black mess of hair that was a part of her father’s signature look. If Jack had never told Annika that she had been adopted, the dark-skinned girl would have figured it out quickly. She and Jack were near complete opposites. What with his light complexion to her tanned, his sharp features to her more rounded ones, not to mention the eye colour and different textures of hair. It had been glaringly obvious to Annika that Jack was not related to her, but blood relation mattered very little to the girl.

It was an ominous house they lived in. Once, it had just been an untouched field of land, this place Jack referred to as the Twilight Pass. He had many maps of the Everdark, and chose this area to construct a home for himself through a dizzying amount of spellcraft. That was long before he’d crossed paths with Annika.

Everything in the backdrop of the universe was cast in gloom, yet the house embraced that. Black walls, rows of bookshelves, halls illuminated by purple lights, even a black cat that was probably benign walked up and down the halls like it owned the place. Other magicians had their sanctums, their spires that overlooked a realm. This was Jack’s, and now it was Annika’s as well.

He sat within a room at the top floor, in a reading chair with a book open in his lap. In front of him was another chair, and a fireplace that burned with flames as purple as the evening sky of Earth. He looked over his shoulder as his daughter came running in. The book snapped shut and floated away to a shelf.

”Hmm? What have you found?” He spoke in a quiet voice that made the walls listen. Like a god in a realm of their own creation.

The gentle sighing of the house at the sound of its master’s voice encouraged Annika to enter the room. She hurried over to her father’s chair and plopped the book onto his lap, pointing to the spell on the page.

”This feels… I don’t know, different.” She flexed her hand, looking away from the page and concentrated on the feeling of her muscles contracting and flexing. ”Maybe I was meant to create something. Like you.” Annika looked away from her hand and into the deep purple eyes of her father.

For as long as Annika could remember, Jack was hell-bent on finding answers and family for her. At first, it was fun, exciting even to jump between planes of existence to search for a family she didn’t know. But at some point, Annika stopped worrying about finding answers. She just wanted to live up to Jack’s standards. To impress him and make him proud.

Jack did have standards for a child raised by him. That was true, but Annika was a child no less. She was not meant to be a mirror to the things he did, even if she learned every single mystic technique he ever invented. Jack peered down at the page, and recognized what Annika was looking for: A simple conjuring. Nothing particularly difficult, in fact, manifesting things from the shadows was something of a foundation for Umbramancy. Jack waved his hand, and the shadows cast by his fingers became something solid. Along the page manifested a black bookmark, and he turned a few pages towards the back of the book.

He recalled writing down methods in the back of it, once.

"To create things is to develop influence over the shadows," Jack began. "The dark is often regarded as having no substance, yet for you and I, there is something within that we may reach for. Once you have that something in your grasp, your methods will determine how you shape it, to what length you see it as an extension of yourself."

He pointed at a page where he'd scribbled down precise shapes, and outlined how he'd hew them out of shadows. "Think of a simple, mundane object you are familiar with. A pencil, or perhaps a knife. Treat the dark as if it were that object, and cut it away until the shape becomes clear. Once you have this shape, the trick is to give it substance."

To demonstrate, he held out a hand that was itself made of shadows. He had never told Annika how that came to be. In the palm of his hand, there formed a rose black as oil. He held it out for her, and let her hold the solidified shape between her fingers.

"To make it real."

Annika watched Jack with rapt attention as he created something from seemingly nothing. Although Annika knew the shadows were not nothing. There was substance to shadow, and as Jack created the bookmark from shadow, Annika knew there was potential, too. She played with the fridge of the bookmark before her father’s voice captured her attention again.

Every lesson Jack taught was another moment to get to know her home better. Every story, more instructions on what Annika needed to know. This was no different, and yet she understood it more deeply.

”Influence over the shadow,” Annika murmered. She touched the inky, black rose with light fingers, waiting for it to vanish. When it didn’t, she took the stem out of her father’s hands and examined the flower closely. ”But if the shadow doesn’t want to be manipulated, it won’t be. Or can you really control it?” She looked back at Jack, holding the rose to her chest protectively.

”These shadows we live in amount to a fickle thing, Annika.” he traced a circle in the air, and a black ring of smoke appeared there. ”They grant us safe passage into this world between all other worlds, and make our ruin otherwise. We cannot truly know it, for that is what it means to be hidden in the dark. But in what we do understand, we find that the darkness, even here, does not truly want anything.”

It was a paradox, in a way. They worked with supernatural darkness and studied what it could do, yet that very darkness was something they could only understand in passing. The Everdark was an entire universe all its own, with endless secrets- Far too many to learn in one lifetime.

”Such questions will often have no answer, but they are importantly nonetheless.”

Annika frowned, her nose scrunching up before she sneezed. A strange quirk she had developed when her curiosity spiked, and her questions remained unanswered. Jack always seemed to answer her in riddles when it came to anything that dealt with the Shadow Realm.

As Annika grew, she came to understand that the Everdark accepting her was a rare thing. It made her appreciate the little things more, but it didn’t make the whole place any less frustrating. If the shadows and the Everdark dictated whether Annika succeeded with a spell, then what was the point? If she studied hard and knew the spellwork forwards and backwards, but the shadows still denied her request, why bother trying?

Annika huffed and rubbed her nose after she sneezed. ”You sound like that Alice in Wonderland book,” she informed her father.

"You and I have influence over a force that so many others cannot understand." Jack stood, and held the book in one hand. "That is the way of any sorcerer, wizard or magician you meet in life. What we do is the same, insofar as it can be considered magic. To question what you see is to accept you do not know everything. And as someone who can wield such power, that is something you must acknowledge."

He stepped out of the room, beckoning Annika to follow. Only it wasn't the same hallway she had come through. No, the living room downstairs was on the other side of that door. And when they walked through, the door simply wasn't there.

"Some mysteries are meant to be solved, others are not."

Annika sighed and spun around on the ball of her right foot. She tucked her hands behind her, clasping them, and walked into the hallway with her father. The house had shifted again, something that Annika had grown used to it. It made hide-n-seek a lot more fun.

She looked up at her father, measuring his words and the truth behind them. Magic made sense to her. It had come easily, but more challenges came as Annika grew. It came harder for a spell to work just right, but the thrill Annika felt when it did work made all the frustrations more bearable.

”I understand,” she said. ”Doesn’t make it any less frustrating.”

”No. it does not.”

Jack walked into the kitchen and returned with a small knife. He sat it down on a table in front of a couch, sitting down himself with the book. ”Draw the shadows inwards, however slow and difficult it may be for you, and show me your ability to learn.” He held his hand over the table, and it cast a shadow far too dark for it to make rational sense. That shadow bubbles up and then collapsed.

It became a rectangle, and bits and pieces of it fell onwards, as a shape slowly coalesced into something tangle. A vantablack kitchen knife.

”Do not feel the need to rush your attempt. Use patience.”

Patience had never been Annika's strong suit. She was a perfectionist, and for her, that meant getting the trick right the first time. She stared at the shadows, feeling a familiar kinship with them and reached out to touch them. However, they quickly faded to do her father's bidding.

Annika had always been fascinated with watching her father work. She knelt on the ground, watching the shadows shift and form with rapt attention. Annika looked up at Jack when he relayed his instructions. She nodded curtly, her face contorting to one of concentration before she shut her eyes. She held her arms out, feeling more connected to the shadow realm when she did such things. The power of the Everdark came to her easily, the trick was keeping its attention long enough to work with her.

Annika pictured the knife in her mind's eye. The colour, the weight, the feel, and the shape. She wanted to create something authentic and real, but with the power the shadow contained. She tried not to force the change like her father had instructed but Annika was eager.

"You are reaching to assert your will over that which exists in the negative," Jack explained, watching her attempt. "Where there is Nothingness, you are giving it shape. That is something that will require time to master."

Whenever Jack spoke, walked or so much as waved a hand before him, the house they lived in had a way of shuddering. Those who could call this place home became inseparable from it. From the moment this world welcomed Annika, it was one and the same with her. This is an extension of hers and Jack's souls. The act of using Umbramancy involved pulling on that connection in the same way one leveraged their ability to close their fingers into a fist.

"I remember when I was only a few years older than you are now... I spent weeks simply learning to see through the shadows, shaping them was unthinkable."

The shadows shied away from Annika’s touch, seeming to taunt her. They danced around her hand before fading from her completely. Annika opened her eyes, dropped her hands, and pouted. She stared at her father’s shadow knife, still intact even though Annika had been trying to mold the shadow to her will.

Annika crossed her arms and huffed. Jack’s words filtered in, informing her of his struggles, but Annika didn’t understand it. What she did understand was what Jack could do. Now. She wanted to do the same and then improve upon it.

”See through shadows? How do you see through shadows?” Annika’s voice turned petulant, annoyed with her lack of progress.

A cloud of shadows raised up from the floor, around every corner and underneath the furniture of the house. It became a bubble of sorts, closing around Annika, and it could've swallowed her whole were it not for the one responsible.

"This is how." Jack's hand reached through the black, and it rested on Annika's shoulder. All at once, she suddenly had the ability to see in the darkness and well beyond it. The magical gloom was both there and not there, like an optical illusion, or some sort of transparent veil layered over her vision.

Jack's eyes, though, became pitch black. Like they were made of charcoal.

"Darkvision. A spell you will one day want to learn, that requires a firm grasp on the fundamentals. We live in a land cloaked by mystery, defined in the negative. You'll understand, one day, how to think in that lens. For now, merely be patient."

Annika watched the shadows enclose around her. It happened slowly and yet at one moment Annika could see and then she couldn't. She reached her hand out, expecting to grasp something solid but connected with nothing. Although Annika was comfortable in the shadows, her heart did start to pound the longer she remained blind.

Jack's hand connected with Annika's shoulder, causing her to jump until she could suddenly see; everything. She turned her head this way and that, seeing the world around her in a different light. It was then that Annika realized she didn't understand the shadows, not the way Jack did. There was an entirely different level to them that she had yet to unlock.

Annika looked at Jack while he explained. She felt suddenly small and rather inexperienced. She looked away from Jack, feeling sheepish.

”You know I lack patience,” she said, looking back at him. ”But I'll try, dad. I'll work on it,” she promised him.

"Patience is something you will learn, not something you will find." It would've sounded corny to say something about how raising a kid taught him patience, so he didn't say it, but that was true to some extent. Magic required patience as well, it was something he had an ample amount of at this point in life.

”For now, try to reach for something tangible in the shadows you are working with. Do not search for it. Rather, assume that you already know it is there, and take hold,” He suggested. ”Draw it up from Nothing.”

The shadows ebbed and flowed, waiting for Annika to take her chance. It was as if the shadows were wanting her to learn how to wield and work with them. Annika smiled to herself. She never felt alone in this place, despite her only real company being her father and the shadow cat when it decided to be social.

”Like manifesting?” From what Annika understood of manifesting was that an intention was set before working on steps towards that goal, but subconsciously. Then seemingly from nothing, the universe would deliver on what was originally manifested.

Annika watched the shadows until images started to dance within her mind's eye. The girl reached forward, her hand and half her arm disappearing into the shadows. Annika stretched her fingers out, brushing them along nothing. She found a few solid objects but nothing came to her touch immediately. Annika took a deep breath in and shut her eyes until something pushed into her hand.

She opened her eyes as she pulled out a long, slender wooden pole with a string attached to one side. The string pulled on the wooden pole to connect the ends together. Tendrils of shadows slipped over the curved object while Annika examined it.

Bow.

The word came to Annika from somewhere deep within her mind. She didn't think she had come across such an object before, but maybe she had read something long ago. However, Annika's free hand shot forward into the shadows, and produced another wooden object. It was smaller and thinner in size with shadowed feathers on the end.

As Annika examined the foreign object closer, she noticed a groove in the wood. The perfect place to hold a string. Following her intuition, Annika notched the arrow onto the bow and lifted the joined objects. She pulled the string back until her fingers brushed her cheek. The motion was new to Annika and yet it felt so completely familiar. She released the arrow and watched it soar through the house before it connected with a target that had appeared. She grinned before looking at her father for approval.

Jack watched Annika pull an entire bow out and felt a bit taken back by it. She’d just been struggling to get something simple to form and was understandably frustrated. And suddenly she’d pulled that out without so much as a thought. It was a strange sight, one he approved of, to be sure, but curious. What was the difference? He wondered, for a brief moment, if it had something to do with who she once was.

Still, his surprise was quickly replaced with approval. Pride, even. He smiled back at her, which was a rare sight even when he was empathically proud of her.

”Well done, Annika. You found the trick, it seems.”

Annika beamed from Jack's praise. It had always mattered a great deal to her that she made her father proud. ”Thank you, dad! I'm going to keep practicing.” Annika scampered from the room with her newly found shadow bow and arrow.

For the next few days, Annika remained true to her word and practiced hard. Some days were successful and some weren't, but she didn't give up. Something had unlocked within Annika when she held the bow for the first time, and she continued to chase that feeling. It led to daydreaming which led to Annika faltering in her progress which led to her embarrassment when she was caught. However, one night, the daydreaming led to nightmares.

Annika woke in a cold sweat, the remnants of a scream caught in her throat. The shadows in her room moved chaotically, looking for something to latch onto and soothe their discourse. Annika began to cry. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth in an effort to self soothe, but she was scared. Annika threw back the covers and stepped onto the floor. She dashed across her room, the soft floor absorbing the sound of her footfalls. The house shifted until she came across her father. Annika cried harder, and explained through the hiccuping what she had dreamed of.

---

It felt like a different time with strange sounds and smells. Annika walked through a dark world, but it wasn't the one she was familiar with. And yet, Annika felt a kinship to the space. Crash.

Annika turned around quickly, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Run. The sudden need to move overtook her, but Annika hesitated. Within that second of hesitation, a woman screamed, followed by more crashing sounds and louder bangs. It was a sound Annika had never heard before. It was jarring and terrifying. Annika ran.

The building became more defined as she ran. Solid, wooden walls were formed, shattered windows appeared, and stairs erupted in front of Annika's path. She moved to race up them but stopped short when she felt a sharp wind across her face. Annika turned her head to see a sharp weapon stuck in the wall. Her eyes widened as she stared at the instrument. Then she felt a burning sensation on her cheek. Annika turned, touched her cheek, and when she pulled her hand away, it came back bloody. An impassioned cry reached her ears and she turned to see a man running at her.

---

”I threw up my hands to fend him off, but then I woke up,” Annika explained. She was shaking as she retold the events to Jack. ”It felt familiar but it was so strange, dad… It felt like a different Annika, not me now… Does that make any sense?”