Charlie Sue staggered to work, dragging her shadow behind her. The gremlin guards frowned at her. "Bad to not keep eyes to your shade, isn't it?" one of them laughed. "Careful today... " She rubbed her eyes, entering the mall where she worked.
She lost track of her shadow as the day went on, and as she got more tired. Easy enough to do in this mall, which was spelled to be entirely gray, to prevent theft. Every bit of merchandise inside became its proper color when picked up, tried on or bought. But for Charlie Rose, this was tiring; her eyes swam staring at the bland color. The cash register sang and rang, and kept making snide remarks to her about incorrect change, and, "Sure you want that?"
At Funeral Hour the sun went into eclipse, calling for lunchtime in the kingdom. Charlie Sue found that she could see right through herself, down to the skeleton. "Bad luck, bad luck," the gremlins giggled. "Get it back before the nooner tolls, or off with the Lord of Annwn you'll go..."
_Lord of Annwn doesn't come to the mall_, Charlie Sue in her tired condition thought confusedly. The lettuce she had to eat tasted stale, and the tiny bit of meat she had with it had almost no taste, though she was sure she'd spiced it well with garlic.
When lunch hour was finished, she still found the shade running about the mall by itself. Now a little more energetic, Charlie Sue recognized that she needed to get hold of it again, if only on general principles; she didn't want to wind up without her shadow anywhere. When she went on break later that afternoon, she went to find it. There it was in the clothing store, waltzing with the mannequins.
"Hey! Come back here!" she cried, dashing through a rack of fine silks. But the shadow moved onward as soon as its owner got close.
That was the way of it all day long. Charlie Sue went on several more breaks than she probably should have, and every time she tried chasing the shadow it danced off easily. But every time she was at work, she found the thing across from her as if grinning at her insultingly.
The people who came to the mall came in droves that afternoon, and she found herself working harder and harder. The cash register sang and rang, but soon Charlie Sue found herself stuck doing stock as they got a new shipment of shoes in from the cobbler. That was when she got an idea. Wearily, as she helped one of the little cobbler elves bring in another carton of running shoes, she asked it if it knew anything about how to keep hold of a shadow, and more importantly how to get one back once it had run off.
Cobbler elves were decent sorts; they'd been persecuted for years, so they understood how the human settlers in Forever-land felt. So this one thought a bit about Charlie Sue's question before replying, "Wal, y'know it's supposed to be stapled to ye good - like how does a human like yerself lose that? Never mind. To entice it, yer needs sumtin' sweet; girls made o' sugar 'n spice an' everythin' nice... then yer sticks it to yer w' honey. That's 'bout what I heard."
"Thanks," Charlie Sue said and hurried off, rubbing her eyes.
She ran smack into a tall gentleman dressed all in a white suit. He cocked his head at her. His face was very pale, and he carried a golden horn at his belt. "Hello," he intoned.
The man was holding the reigns of a white horse, though it didn't register in her mind who he could be just then; a lot of people here brought their animals to the mall. There were stables on one side though some, like this man, preferred to either bring the animals around with them as they explored the place, or even ride them.
"Hello," Charlie Sue said. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get by."
He smiled slightly. "You're mine now, you can't go anywhere. Not till you find your shadow and attach it. For this is the closing of the mall..."
...And he was Arawn, the Lord of Annwn. Apparently he did indeed come to the mall. It finally clicked in Charlie Sue's mind, and she felt herself going truly faint. "I'm - dead?" she cried. "No! Please, no!"
"Worse - you're undead!" Arawn threw back his head and laughed, as lightning streaked across the sky, sealing the deal. "You will walk this mall for a hundred years, till you get the sugar and spice... you will ride the Wild Hunt through the mall with the sugar for a hundred years, collecting my debts... and then you will see an elf in a feathered cap, who can help you attach your shadow to you." With that, he disappeared.
And so, ever after, the ghost of Charlie Sue has been searching the mall for her shadow. She has hopefully gathered the sugar 'n spice... and the honey, by now.
END