Shadow Things

IX

Next morning Hansel woke up to find every window of his bedroom closed, dark curtains drawn over all of them. Waking up in the morning on his own had turned into an endeavour most arduous; usually he would need the racket of an alarm to perform this feat, or his tolerance for coldness should have been surpassed. He got up from the floor and glanced towards the bed on his left, which was empty but still held every appearance of having been slept on. The digital clock on the table across the room showed the time to be 6:18. Felix must have left already-he usually disappeared between five and six in the morning.

Hansel wondered about the windows. Unless he had begun sleepwalking without his knowledge Felix had to be the one who had shut them all. But why would he do that? Did he not care about breathing fresh air anymore? Hansel approached one of the windows and peeled the curtains back tentatively, looking out for any booby traps, but there seemed to be nothing suspicious about the set up. A grey-black sky and a shadowed world greeted him on the other side, the sun not risen yet. A very normal sight for a normal morning.

Once he realised there was nothing amiss Hansel turned away from the window. He padded towards his bed-now Felix's-then sized it up as if it were a bait on a hook. His heartbeat sped up inside his chest. He was cold, and Felix was gone, and he hadn't slept in a bed for so long.

He crawled into the bed, putting his head on the pillow with the relief of a man putting down a mountainous weight after travelling with it across deserts and oceans. He pulled the blanket over himself, dragging it up until it covered his face. A strong minty scent washed over him, threaded with a milder smell of burning wood, and somehow, he found the smell to be comforting. He felt oddly safe, snuggled up under the blankets like that, like there was a benevolent spirit watching over him, keeping him from harm.

It was a strange thought to have...

Maybe he had missed his bed too much...

If Felix found him out he'd be dead...

He was so sleepy...

Then Hansel closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep.

It was eight when he woke up again. The sun was up, the birds were chirping beyond the closed windows and he was late for school. Hansel scrambled out of his bed and hurried through his morning routines, brushing his teeth, skipping through the shower and scarfing down a piece of roll from last night, all at record speed. Then he returned to his bedroom to pick out a shirt to wear for the day. But when he tried to open his wardrobe, he found its doors jammed shut. Hansel did not have the time to take a gentle approach towards solving this new problem. He braced a foot against one of the doors and closed his hands over the handle of the other. Then he tugged hard.

The door opened with a light popping sound, rendering Hansel off balance. He stumbled back a few steps before he found his footing again. Then he peered inside the wardrobe and let out a small yelp.

Felix was asleep inside the wardrobe, knees curled against his chest in a makeshift nest he had made out of Hansel's clothes. He blinked one eye open at the sound Hansel made, annoyed at the disturbance, then became aware of the stream of sunlight falling all over him through the window Hansel had uncurtained earlier. He thrust out an arm and pulled the door of the wardrobe shut again. Fast.

Seeing Felix in plain daylight came as a shock to Hansel. He found himself paralysed on his spot. How did Felix manage to stay back? Didn't shadows like him have to disappear when the sun came out? He glanced around and took in the closed windows and the drawn curtains, and thought he understood. Felix must have done it all as a precaution against the sunlight. Even ensconcing himself inside Hansel's wardrobe must have been a part of the effort.