A Lost Boy

Chapter 4

Two hours after Mr. and Mrs. Fernandes left, when the children were sound asleep in their beds the window blew open again like the night before and a boy flew into the nursery. He was no older than thirteen and wearing only pants made of leaves that were held up by a vine strap. When his feet landed on the floor a pink light flew up to his shoulder, this light however was actually a fairy.

"Alright Meredy we find my shadow and then we get out of here capiche?" The boy whispered.

"Capiche." The fairy replied in a high pitched jingle voice.

The two began to search the nursery for the boy's shadow. They checked the wardrobe, the toy chest, the shelves, even under the beds but they didn't seem to have any luck finding it.

"Oh where could it be?" He asked quietly in frustration.

"It's your own fault." The fairy with long pink hair complained. "If you hadn't of been staring at that girl then that horrible animal wouldn't have caught you."

"Oh shut up." 

"Why were you even looking at her?"

"I don't know. Why do you care?"

"Because you never look at me or the mermaids the way you were looking at her."

"Meredy this is not the time for one of your moods now pipe down and keep looking."

The fairy called Meredy rolled her eyes and flew around the room stopping when she noticed one of the nursery drawers shaking. She called the boy over to the drawer. 

"It's in there?" He asked.

She nodded with a smile.

"Okay on the count of three we open it. One...Two...Three."

He quickly opened the drawer. In an instant the shadow flew out startling the boy into accidentally shutting the drawer and trapping Meredy inside.

"Hey!" She shrieked. 

The boy didn't hear her. He was too busy trying to stop his shadow from getting away. It flew into the hallway with the boy chasing after it. In his attempt to catch it, he accidentally made a ruckus like noise that did not go unheard by Mirajane who was reading in the drawing room. Concerned, she went upstairs to see what all the fuss was about. Upon hearing her footsteps on the stairs the boy and his shadow hid themselves very well so Mirajane saw nothing unusual. 

She did take a peak in the nursery but all she saw were the children still asleep in their beds and a few toys scattered about on the floor. She noticed the window was open and she would have closed it but became distracted by the sound of Panther Lily clawing at the fence door. He knew there was an intruder in the house and he was trying to warn her but she did not understand so she just tried to silence him. 

As soon as she was downstairs again, the boy and his shadow came out of their hiding spots and proceeded with their chase back in the nursery. They flew around and around the room until finally he managed to grab the shadow and pull it down on to the floor. The shadow struggled but the boy was persistent.

"Oh no you don't! Come back here you! Hold still! Ouch! Why you-" Once he managed to get a good grip on his shadow he grabbed a nearby bar of soap and began trying to use it to stick the shadow back on to him but as expected it didn't work. "Come on stick you stupid thing!"

But it didn't. No matter how hard he rubbed the soap would not make it stick and the shadow mocked his failure. Frustrated and not sure what else to do, he began to cry and his sobbing woke Juvia from her sleep. She sat up in bed and she was not alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor. She was only pleasantly interested.