Of Shadows and Darkness

Chapter 1

I took a black six-inch by six-inch paper from the wooden box. I folded it into the shape of a rabbit, placed the rabbit on my desk and tapped it on the back. The folded paper shook and then jumped off my desk. I looked inside my box to get another paper but it was empty. I groaned and leaned back in my chair. I didn't think I would be out of shadows so quickly. It was so hard to tell when I was running low on shadows since the box was no heavier when it was full than when it was empty. A breeze slipped into my room and made the wind chimes sing like tinkling rain drops. The sunlight from my window only fell on half of my desk, the other half was in shadow. How much easier it would be if I could take shadows from my desk, or trees, or my own shadow rather than from other people? I don't think it hurts anyone but getting shadows was such a bother. "Hey let's go out," I said as I got up from my desk. From underneath my bed five shadow rabbits bounced out.
"I thought there would be more of you," I grumbled and took my box and tucked it underneath my arm. Shadows did not didn't last long after they are separated from someone, maybe a couple days. If I make them into familiars they last about two weeks if I keep them near me. I shuffled between the beds to the closet. I glanced at the beds, my one was a mess. Sheets undone and rolled up like a discarded new paper, covered in clothes, books and hopping shadow bunnies. The one next to it was neatly made with a pink floral duvet. Clair hated it but she did not come with me to market town in the summers anymore. Gran probably didn't have the heart to remove her bed or her things from the attic.
I tugged on the closet door. The door always got stuck as far as I could remember. It needed a good tug, hard enough that you'd think the loose hinges might fall off. The door opened after a few tugs. I moved my boots, some hoodies I hadn't bothered to put on hangers, and took the umbrella from the back.
I whistled. "Come on."
The rabbits jump from my bed and squeezed into the shadows of the umbrella. I closed the closet door and opened the attic door it obstructed. The attic opened up into a narrow staircase where the steps were not wide enough to fit my foot. I've had to go up and down the stairs placing my feet sideways since I was thirteen.
I look around the kitchen and the living room on the first floor. "Gran, I'm going out!" I shouted. I saw a glimpse of navy on the salmon pink couch. I grabbed my backpack and put my box inside it. Gran's house was what you would expect a stereotypical grandmother's house to look like, oddly stiff cushions on ugly couches, knickknacks on every available surface, collections of cookbooks, sewing kits and tea sets- all mismatched.
I walked down the stairs to the ground floor which was Gran's potion store. "Gran I'm going out," I shout again when I got to the last few steps. The stairs lead directly in to Gran's potion shop which took up the entire ground floor. Tables, shelves and cupboards full of hundreds of colourful bottles, each meticulously labelled. Gran was sitting behind the lace covered wooden table she used as counter. She was reading a book on felting and looked up from it when she saw me. Gran always tied her hair up in a bun and wore pink everything. Everything from her glasses to her blouses to her coats and shoes were pink but never in the same shade. She gave me an icy glare. Gran would say all witches had to master the icy glare, it was basically an unofficial rule of witches.

"Where are you going out to dear?" she asked.

"To the main street," I reply.

"Alright dear," she said looking back to her book. "Remember to take a spare key, I'm going out to get my hair done later so I'm locking up the shop."

"Okay Gran, bye," I said. I took a single brass key attached to pink elephant keychain that hung on one of the hooks by the door. A bell chimed as I opened and closed the front door. Under the glass panel in the front door painted in what I could guess was some sort of circus font, "Ms. Britty's Potions and Magical Ingredients." I have no idea who Ms. Britty was, Gran's name was Susan.

Market Street was a minor realm, part of the Goblin Country. There was a large street that went from one edge of the realm to the other, lined with all kinds of shops selling things from all over the dark realms. I passed a Goblin bakery named Buckberry. All their pastries were so sweet it hurts your jaw when you eat, but that's the sort of sweet I liked. It was just a regular bakery with normal pastries in odd shapes with strangely misspelled or puny names. Goblins had that sort of humour, innocent and harmless but whimsical and nonsensical. All of the shops had a sort of whimsy about them, like a florist selling flowers and plants from the demon world named Angel Bells, while the shop opposite sells vegetables that inexplicably have human faces. Gran tells me never to eat from there because you have weird dreams if you eat their vegetables but only if you cook them in a clay pot.