Tansy and the Long Shadow

Tansy’s shadow reached her bedroom door before Tansy did.

Tansy stood in the library doorway, holding her bedtime book close. Her room was directly across the candlelit hall, and she had promised to bring the book there before bed.

The candles behind her made her shadow grow long and lean. It stretched across the hall, climbed the stone arches, and spread around her bedroom doorway like a great dark blanket.

Tansy stopped. Her shadow stopped, too—or so it seemed.

“Wait for me!” Tansy whispered.

She took one small step into the hall. The shadow’s long arm seemed to reach across her bedroom doorway.

“Oh,” said Tansy. “You’re in the way.”

She tried stepping to one side. The shadow seemed to slide across the floor, too. Tansy tried the other way. There it was again, stretching toward her like a giant finger.

The castle was quiet. Somewhere behind her, a clock gave a sleepy tick. Tansy’s book felt warm beneath her hands, and her room waited across the hall, with its quilt, pillow, and little wooden chair.

“I only want to take my book to bed,” she told the shadow.

The shadow gave no answer. It spread over the floor and wall beside the open doorway. It couldn’t close the door or stop Tansy from walking through. But its big, dark shape made her feel as if the way were blocked.

Tansy looked up at the arches. Her shadow reached almost to the top of them. It was much taller than she was—tall as a tower, or maybe taller than a tower if the tower had very long legs.

That thought made her smile a little.

She lifted her book. The shadow lifted a huge book, too. Tansy leaned to one side. The shadow leaned with her.

Tansy blinked. Then she leaned the other way, slowly, watching the dark shape on the floor and stone wall.

The shadow leaned the other way, too.

Perhaps, Tansy thought, it was not trying to block the door at all. Perhaps it was waiting to see what she would do next.

Tansy stood in the library doorway and looked carefully at her shadow. She raised one finger.

The shadow raised one very long finger.

She wiggled it. The shadow wiggled, too. She bent her knees. The shadow crouched. Tansy lifted the bedtime book above her head, and the shadow lifted its enormous book above its enormous head.

“You’re copying me!” Tansy said.

The shadow seemed to nod, though perhaps that was only Tansy nodding first.

She glanced across the hall at her open bedroom door. The shadow still stretched around it, but now Tansy knew it would follow whatever she did. It was only a shape made by candlelight, not something she had to push or chase away. She only had to give it a different shape.

“What if we make something silly?” she asked.

Tansy turned sideways. She planted one foot behind her and leaned forward. Then she held the book out in front of her with both hands.

The shadow copied her pose. Its body became a tall mast. Her arms and book made a wide triangle, like a sail billowing from a boat.

Tansy gave a quiet laugh. “A sail!”

She tipped her hands a little higher. The sail-shaped shadow stretched up the wall beside the doorway. She moved one foot, then the other, keeping the pose. The shadow shifted across the wall, away from the middle of the hall.

Tansy looked at the clear space between her and her room. The hallway had been open all along. Now the shadow didn’t look so frightening.

“Ready, Captain Shadow?” she whispered.

The shadow’s sail leaned toward the wall.

Tansy held her book against her chest and crossed the hall. One step, then another. The shadow moved with her, sailing over the stone arch and following close behind. It did not block her path.

At her bedroom door, Tansy turned to look back. The library doorway and candlelit hall lay quiet behind her. Her long shadow stretched along the wall, still shaped like a sail.

“Good sailing,” she told it.

Then she went into her room. The book was safe in her arms, and the doorway stood open behind her. As she walked to the bed, she tried a tiny sideways tilt. The sail tilted, too, as if it were gliding through a calm sea.

Tansy reached her bed. Her little wooden chair waited beside it. She set the book on the quilt and turned toward the candle on her bedside table.

Its light made her shadow appear on the wall, long and tall, with a sail still stretching from its arms. Tansy leaned to one side. The shadow leaned, too. She raised her hands a little, and the sail grew broad across the wall.

For a moment, the room became a tiny boat. The chair was a passenger. The bed was a soft blue sea. The shadow-sail carried Tansy’s bedtime book safely home.

Tansy climbed onto the bed and opened the book. Its pages showed the little boat, the blue sea, and a wide white sail. She looked from the picture to the shadow on the wall.

“Your sail is even bigger,” she said.

The shadow lifted its arms as Tansy turned a page. Together they sailed past the picture’s small island, then past a flock of little seabirds drawn in a row. Tansy’s finger followed the boat across the page.

When she finished the story, she closed the book with care and laid it beside her pillow. The castle hall was far away now. Its candles still burned beneath the tall stone arches, but Tansy could see only the little candle in her room and the familiar shape of her chair.

Her mother came in to tuck her in. Before Tansy snuggled beneath the quilt, her mother safely blew out the bedside candle. The sail on the wall disappeared, and the room grew dim and peaceful.

Tansy raised one hand and curved it above her head. She turned her other hand sideways, just as she had in the hall. In the faint light from the doorway, her shadow made one last little sail.

“Good night, Captain Shadow,” Tansy murmured.

She closed her eyes. The book rested by her pillow, the shadow rested on the wall, and the castle stayed peaceful around her as she drifted to sleep.