In the quaint town of Novis where wayward shadows fled, and pesky fires played tricks of the eye, Maeve Fields lived with her grandma.

Their house was perched precariously by the edge of a rocky cliff, far enough from the rest of the town that Maeve was labeled a freak, but not far enough that she wouldn’t know what people spoke of her.

“No father to claim her, no mother to nurse her, surly she must be the daughter of a harlot!” Rumors like those spread amongst the town gossips and made their way up the cliff, until even Maeve began to believe some of their words.

“Mind what I say dear!” her grandma would tell her in extreme moments of doubt. “Their nasty words just reflect the rotten they harbor inside.” Maeve tried believing her grandma, but when even her shadow decided to run away, the words turned sour in her mouth.

So when a few months after her shadow disappeared, her grandma passed while at the market, and Maeve was sure she harbored some curse that drew everyone away from her.

She was too young to marry and too old to be taken in by another household. The only thing left for Maeve to do was look for a job.

The Millers claimed they would take no apprenticeships in their bakery, but when Lory Lue began working there, she knew it was a lie. Then, Maeve traveled all the way to the northern hills of town to see if any farmers would need an extra hand. They were more honest than the Millers, she would give them that, when they said “your too skinny and frail to wangle a cow!” Then, a fortnight after her sixteenth birthday, fortune smiled upon Maeve as she secured employment at a tobacco factory.

Dry, cure, age, cut, roll, form, and package. She repeated those steps every day and night, until her fingers turned ash black and the days seemed to melt like aging wax. Nobody cared who she was there. The rumors quieted, and then one day, stoped. Yet, in the same breath, no eyes lingered long enough to catch the weight of her absence, as if she could vanish without a trace, swallowed by the vastness of the world.

Maeve, elbow-deep in suds, tended to her apron in the unruly company of a cranky sink that barely agreed to yield water. She scrubbed and scrubbed at the ashy stains with great concentration, that the first whisper barely caught her attention. By the second, she froze.

Something loomed behind her, and she recognized it before even having to look down. Her shadow.

“You came back!” Maeve exclaimed, watching in awe as her shadow attempted to fit the mold of the girl she became. Like her, it grew a little taller and a little wider. Only, it did not feel like her anymore. They had both been apart for to long. “Tell me, what took so long?”

Instead of responding, Maeve’s shadow silently slipped out the factories walls.

"Wait up! Don't you dare go disappearing on me!" Maeve hollered, abandoning the apron to its soggy fate in the sink and bursting through the doors of the factory. Her shadow slivered through cobble stones and townsfolk, pausing and waiting for Maeve to catch up.

She breathlessly followed, wishing her aching bones were not tired from sitting and working all day.

Her shadow paused near a screeching tram that came to a halt. Maeve weaved through the sea of men in suits and elegantly clad women, who responded with gasps of disdain.

She ran so fast, with so many distractions, that she bumped into someone who ran at a pace matched with hers.

“Oh! I am so greatly sorry!” Maeve exclaimed, all in a flustered tangle of apologies. Her knee had scraped and peeled against the side walk, and her dress had ridden up mid thigh. The boy who’s limbs tangle with hers got up first. With a swift move, he clasped her mucky hands and yanked her back on her feet.

“No, no. I am the one who must apologize” the boy said. Now that they both stood, she saw he was dressed in an expansive blue coat with gold embroidery. One she most certainly got dirty.

“Well, you see” the boy explained, pointing to a spot beside Maeve. “My shadow seems to have a mind of its own.”

The boys shadow extended a friendly wave towards Maeve, and, in response, her own shadow decided to reacquaint itself by her side.

"Curious, isn't it? I seem to be plagued by the very same problem." Maeve gave her shadow a firm stomp, her annoyance radiating in heated waves to her cheeks. However, her shadow merely crossed its arms.

The boy grinned, two dimples framing his face. “I don't believe we've been introduced, but it seems our shadows have."

Maeve stared at her shadow. The pesky little thing stood proud. “Like you said. They have a mind of their own.”

With a brief exchange of parting words, Maeve and the boy went their separate ways, but she couldn't shake the feeling that their shadows might conspire to bring them together once more.