On the floor mat, where it must have slid, she found a book with a red leatherette cover, stamped in gold. After stealing so many old, crumbling volumes, there was something odd about holding a modern book crafted to seem to come from another time.
The title read Complete Works of Hans Christian Andersen. A hundred-dollar bill was tucked into a page, acting as a bookmark. The story was called simply “The Shadow.”
With little else to do on the ride home, she read.
It featured a scholar from the cold north who traveled to a marvelous city in the south but was unable to bear the heat of its days. He shrank beneath the hot sun, growing thin and exhausted. Even his shadow seemed to fade. Only in the evenings, as the cool breezes came, did he begin to feel like himself again. He would sit out on his balcony with a candle and watch his shadow stretch and lengthen in the night air.
Charlie felt a little shiver go through her. She read on.
Beneath the scholar and his shadow, the city appeared magnificent by moonlight. Rattling carriages passed musicians playing mandolins. Church bells rang. Donkeys carried carts of ripe fruit back from the markets. The scholar drank in scents of spices and smoke and lush flowers. He was particularly struck by those blooming on the balcony opposite his, from where the sound of singing came.
Each night, the scholar would sit on his balcony and look across. Once, he thought he spotted a beautiful maiden among the flowers. When he looked again, she was gone. But in the candlelight, his shadow became long enough to stretch across the street, to the girl’s window.
Make yourself useful, the scholar told his shadow, laughing. Go look inside and tell me what you see. But be sure to come back.
And with that, the scholar went to bed. But his shadow did not. It scampered away to look, and, despite his command, never returned.
The scholar found this very vexing. Soon, however, he found a new little shadow beginning to grow from the very tips of his feet. By the time he returned from the hot country, he had a freshly grown shadow that was perfectly sufficient, and decided to be content with that.
One night many years later, there was a tapping on his door. On the other side was a very thin person, immaculately dressed. Looking at him made the scholar feel odd, but he ushered the stranger inside despite his misgivings.
The stranger introduced himself as the man’s shadow. Astonished, the scholar was nonetheless a little amused to see him again. The shadow told him many tales of his adventures and how, since he was able to slip in anywhere and see all those things that the powerful wanted to keep hidden, he had done very well for himself. He had become quite wealthy.
The scholar marveled at this, for he had remained poor. The shadow invited the scholar to travel with him, and offered to pay his way. This was a bit too much for the scholar’s pride, but in the end, he relented.
Away they traveled to a place where they could take the waters, with the shadow claiming he hoped it might heal his lack of a beard. As they went, the shadow made all the decisions and paid for all that they ate and drank. Soon, the shadow began to treat the scholar more like a servant.
Many people from all over came to the healing waters, and the shadow met a princess who had come to cure a condition she had—one which allowed her to see things too clearly. She took a look at the shadow and told him that he had come to the waters in the hopes he might grow a new shadow. He laughed and said that she must be cured already, because his shadow was right there. And he indicated the scholar.
The idea that his shadow was so much finer than anyone else’s intrigued her. That night they danced together and she told him of her country. He had been there, and had such a breadth of knowledge that she quickly fell in love with him.
She wanted to marry him but needed to assure herself of his wisdom, since a ruler ought to be wise as well as knowledgeable. She tested him by asking him a series of difficult philosophical questions. The shadow laughed, saying they were so simple that even his shadow could answer them. And when she put the same questions to the scholar, he answered them so handsomely that she agreed to marry the shadow immediately.
That evening, the shadow made the scholar an offer. He could live with them and be wealthy all his days if he would tell everyone that he was the shadow, and the shadow was the man.
The scholar refused. He said he would go to the princess and tell her everything. But the shadow told him that if he tried, the shadow would tell the princess and her guards that the scholar was a liar.
Be reasonable, he said. I am the one who is going to marry her, and they will listen to me instead of you.
But the scholar insisted. And all was as the shadow predicted. The shadow told the princess’s guards to seize the scholar and they did. By the time the shadow and the princess were married, the scholar had been put to death and was no more.