Amari’s Shadow Part 2

Welcome back! Last week we started the story of Amari, a young girl who has lost her shadow because it’s protesting the heat of the desert. If you’d like to read part 1, click here.

Otherwise, let’s jump right in and see if she finds her darker half =)

Amari skidded to a halt halfway to the cellar door at the back. She’d crossed Ms. Mavery a time or two and didn’t wish to repeat the folly.

“I think my shadow’s down there,” she said bluntly.

Ms. Mavery snorted. “Your shadow? Dearie, it’s dark down there. Your shadow isn’t there.”

“But it’s not with me either!” Amari pointed around herself as proof.

Ms. Mavery’s cheeks sucked in, hollowing out her face even more than usual as she leaned on her cane. “You’re not going to give me peace until you check, are you?”

“No, ma’am.” Amari tried to look sweet like some of the other kids. They somehow always left the tavern with a treat in hand. She rarely left without a stinging backside. But she and Ms. Mavery had come to a kind of truce over the last year and this was the first time she’d darkened the door of the tavern since Winter Tide.

“Fine,” Ms. Mavery flicked a hand, “but touch nothing beyond the lantern.”

Amari grinned and scampered for the cellar door. Lantern in hand, she slowed down for the cut stone steps. The cellar always smelled musty and the footing liked to trip her up due to the warn groove down the center of the stairs.

Reaching the floor, she raised the lantern high and whispered, “Shadow Row, you down here?” It hated the nickname but would usually protest its use, which would reveal its location. Silence answered her.

Amari moved into the shelves of pickled beets and canned peaches, calling softly again. It never did to shout in the cellar. Everything inside lived in quiet, and the bottles sometimes got frosty if you disturbed them. As it was, a few pickled eggs eyed her from the top shelf.

She hurried past, calling again once she entered the next aisle full of crates and potatoes.

Thirty minutes of looking produced no shadow.

Dejected, Amari emerged from the cellar to return Ms. Mavery’s lantern. “Told you no shadow’s hiding down there.” Ms. Mavery snuffed the lantern.

“Lots of shadows,” Amari mumbled. “Beet shadows and potato shadows, even egg shadows. Just no Amari ones.”

Ms. Mavery paused and tapped her cane on the floor. “Shadows need light, Dearie. You’re sniffing in the wrong place.”

Ameri left, shuffling her feet in the dust as she wandered the street, then the path into the hills, and then picked up a bit of mud as she approached the pond the river fed into. All around the village was desert except for here where the mountains fed a river and the river fed a pond which in turn fed a patch of sad plants just trying to survive.

The mud squished over the leather of her sandals and into her toes, its cold seeping into her skin. Azor wasn’t wrong. The water from the mountains was cold. Lifting her head, she caught movement out on the pond.

“Shadow Row?” she called softly. Nothing responded. The pond sat still as a frightened toad. But she’d seen something. Inching closer, she peeked through the leaves of a baby date tree that overhung the water. Nothing but the tree’s shadow there.

Inching closer, she dipped a toe into the water. Small ripples radiated out from her, disturbing the placid surface until they reached the shadows from the overhanging plants.

“Uck!” Someone yucked up gray matter into the water.

Amari grinned. She tapped the surface again and her shadow skittered out from under a nearby fern. It launched itself up onto the mud and lay there. Amari felt its glower.

No matter. She knew how to brighten its day. “Hi, Shadow Row,” she greeted it. “Want to join me for some ice cream?”

The End

Thanks for stopping by for some fun! Next week we have a brand new adventure starting. Just like it’s been far too long since I posted a story, it’s been waaaay too long since we explored an adventure. Hope to see you then