Peaches and the Shadow
By K.L. Noone
“Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado…”
—Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado”
Ethan Aur, sitting on a large grey rock beside a California stream and wearily shaking a pebble out of his boot, saw the ghost at the corner of his eye. The shade flickered onyx in green-gold forest light, and vanished.
Ethan said, boot in hand and without any real hope, “You could come back, I’m not going to hurt you, and I’d quite like your help, you know.” Nothing phantasmal reappeared, but then again he’d not expected it to. Sunshine skittered across his shoulders and bounced away amid tree-trunks and rivulets and his sword and his motorcycle back on the highway, turning them all to gilded tr
