Shadowing Alice [Soon To Be Rewritten]

Ch. 21

"We need to find Hugh while he's still in town."

            But you—I mean—we can't get caught.

            A light turned on in the basement.  I quit breathing as if it would hide me better.

            "Alice?  Are you down here?"

            I brightened up.  "It's Matt!"  I scrambled out of the cabinet and onto the floor.

            Yay… Matt's here, Danny said in monotone.

            Matt raced down the stairs, his perfect smile ablaze.  "What's going on?  I got into town from the farming lands but everyone was frozen."  He helped me to my feet.  "I managed to see you run in here."

            "The magician did it so D—I could escape," I said, dusting myself off.

            "The royal magician?  Wait, escape what?"

            "We were locked up in the castle. The king found out about us—me.  And, yeah, the royal magician; is there another one?"

            "I've never seen him do anything like that before." He eyed me up and down, his smile reemerging.  "What have you been up to since I saw you last?"

            I frowned.  A lot had happened since then.  "We need to find Hugh fast.  I think Danny's and my souls are starting to bind."  Ooh.  I hadn't told him that I even had another soul in me; he raised his eyebrows.  I sighed.  "I have the prince's soul after Hugh did that body-sharing thing.  That was before you picked us up out in Rift Valley and brought us here.  And now everyone might be looking for me because I'm the Alice who's supposedly going to kill the prince like it says in the prophecy—but I'm not going to, I swear."

            That wiped the smile off his face.  "How long has his soul been with you?"

            He took that all pretty well, said Danny.

            "I don't know, four days?"

            "Well," said Matt, unexpectedly serious, "one of you is going to have to quit for a while because I don't know where Hugh is."

            "Didn't you see him on the way over here?  He's in—wait—what do you mean quit?"

            "Who's shadowing who?  Who's the one in control?"

            "Uh… I guess I'm… shadowing Danny."

            "Then you're going to have to let go.  He needs to shadow you."

            "What?"

            He means I have to take over your body for a while, Danny translated.

            "Wait, what do you mean take over?"  I was looking at Matt, but I was mostly speaking to Danny.

            Matt hadn't caught that.  "You have to let Danny have control so that your body and soul know that Danny is a dominant soul too.  If he gains some control, Danny's soul will appear equal, and so your soul won't find it easy to shadow Danny's.  Your souls won't bind so quickly."

            It just barely sank in.  "Why can't I just control my own soul to not shadow Danny?  It's mine, isn't it?"