Look at the shadow.

Yes, your shadow

Wave at it and it will wave back

Dance and it will dance with you

Look at it and it will look back

But, what does your shadow do when no one is looking?

The coin rose into the air. It flipped, spun, glinted in the sunlight, reached the apex of its flight before falling back onto the table. Matt threw the coin again and it landed, clattering loudly on the glass table top.

"Matt! Stop that!" His mother's voice called from the second floor.

Matt considered throwing the coin for a third time out of spite. His fingers itched to do it. Then his eyes fell on the forest outside. Was flipping the coin again really worth it when compared to the luxury of possibly playing in the trees outside in the afternoon? He set the coin down, breathed on the glass table top and settled for drawing pictures in the steam instead. His small fingers traced out loops and circles and little stick people. He imagined them coming to life and gave them swords, spears and a little horned monster to fight against. After all, what was a good story without its monsters? The steam eventually faded away, taking his imaginary world away with it, the monster being the last to vanish.

Matt sighed and lifted his eyes up to scan the kitchen. He remembered sitting in the backseat of his mama's car as they drove away from their old home for the last time. He still didn't really understand why they had to move from their old home.

In his opinion, their old home was bigger and better. It even had its own pool! Matt had really liked the school there too. All the children liked him and the teachers loved him. He could ask for anything and they would give it to him. Really, anything at all. He had even asked for his English teacher's dog after the end of class. He could've asked for it during the middle of class when he'd first thought of the idea. But, that would've been rude. Anyways, as soon as Matt had asked for the dog, the teacher sprung out of her seat and practically ran to her car. In about 5 minutes time, she was back, dog in tow, before she thrust the animal into his hands.

It was that day when his mama decided to move, again. In the span of merely a day, their few possessions were packed into their car and away they drove. Now they lived in a small house with no pool in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The town didn't even have a school.

"Matt, it would just be spectacular if you could take your stuff upstairs to your room. You can go play outside when you're done putting everything away." His mama had come down to the kitchen and was surveying the space with tired eyes.

Matt looked at the boxes still occupying the floor of the kitchen. He wrinkled his brow in focus. Matt counted 10 boxes in total. 10 trips upstairs, 20 counting the trips coming back down the stairs. Matt put on his best endearing smile and widened his eyes. "But mama, it's already 12 and it's so hot today." To emphasize, he fanned his face vigorously with his hands and wiped away imaginary sweat. "Why don't I just do half and you do the other half. In school, they alway tell us that sharing is caring! And, it'll go fa - "

His mother sighed and walked toward him before cupping his face between her hands. "Matthias," she started with a smile, "You like being called a big boy right? Well, big boys do everything by themselves, even the things they don't like doing." She straightened and put a stern look on her face, before ruining the effect by poking him on the nose. Matt giggled which made her laugh. Her mother straightened her face again,

"We're have a new life here, Matty. And if you act just right, I'll never treat you like a little kid ever again. You'll be the big guy who always protects me, instead me protecting you. You'll be fighting all my monsters, just like your papa."

Matt grinned. "I'll be just like papa! I'll be better than papa!" He hopped off the chair and picked up the first of the boxes closest to the foot of the stairs. He made to climb the stairs before looking back at his mother. "After I'm done, we're going to play outside, right?. You'll be the princess and I'll be your knight and I'll fight all the bad monsters away! You promise?"

His mama frowned slightly and the crease between her eyebrows deepened before she relented and sighed. "I promise. I'll try my best."

Matt didn't like the crease in his mother's eyebrows. He didn't like the frown that marred his mother's face. His mama should never frown. Matt told his mother his thoughts, adding on that playing with him would wipe his mama's frown away.
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Matt's mother didn't play with him after all. He had done everything he knew she wanted, from putting his boxes away in his closet to folding his clothes and tucking them away in his dresser. He had arranges his pencils neatly on the side of his desk. His bed was perfect, no wrinkled sheets in sight.

Matt came back into the kitchen for what he hoped was the final time to behold his mother, not dressed up in playing clothes at all. She said, with her back turned to him and her hands busy with her purse, that there were things she needed to buy at the store. His mama talked about important documents she needed to sign. When Matt asked what the documents were, she waved him off. Those documents were too complicated for children to understand. The documents were for work, for money, for food.. His mother turned toward the front door but Matt grabbed onto the fabric of her coat and held on tightly.

"Mama. You aren't going to play with me?" His lip quivered and his eyes watered and he looked up at her. His face was red and sweaty from the exertions of running up and down the stairs with his boxes. Matt had found his plastic sword from his box of toys and cleaned it meticulously. A clean sword would make the cleanest cuts. He held the sword in his hand, ready to fight off monsters.

"Not today sweetheart. You know how busy it is when we move into a new home." She looked at her sons eyes and quickly reached to the kitchen counter to grab a box of tissues to dry his tears. Her forehead wrinkled and she rubbed the tissue over her own eyes as well. "Oh don't cry Matt. It makes Mama upset. You don't like it when Mama is upset, right Matt?"

Matt looked at the floor, eyes downcast. He dropped the sword and rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, His left hand never let go of his mother's coat.

"Alright, how about this. When I come home today, I'll cook you your favorite dinner, spaghetti and meatballs. And then, we'll watch a movie together. With hot chocolate."

Matt lifted his eyes and regarded her seriously. "You forgot the marshmallows".

The sentence brought light back to her eyes and she smiled. "Yes, and marshmallows. Is that alright?"

"But when will we play together?"

She sighed and flicked a glance at slightly lopsided calendar of the wall. "Maybe in a few days during the weekend."

Matt pouted while his mama shook her head.

"Now Matt, you know how busy I am. We've been through this plenty of times, every time we moved homes. I want you to be a good boy and stay in the house for me until I come back. I don't want any bad men to come and steal you away. I want you to promise."

" I promise." Matt whispered so quietly that even he could hardly hear it.

His mama smiled and pressed a brief kiss to his cheek before gently removing his hand from her coat and hurrying to the front door. The clicks of her high heels echoed through the house and the door closed behind her.

Matt stood amidst the silence of the house looking at the sword he had dropped carelessly on the ground. He shouldn't have raised his hopes that cleaning his room well would have persuaded his mama to play with him. She hadn't even gone upstairs and checked. For all she knew, he could've thrown the boxes on the floor, scattered his clothing on the floor, and jumped on them. He could've broken every pencil that was lying on his desk and not made his bed at all. His mother wouldn't have known. She hadn't even cared enough to check. A fat tear rolled down his cheek and he angrily wiped at it.

Matt looked at the forest across the street through the kitchen window. The sunlight glinted invitingly outside. His mother's voice echoed in his mind. 'Stay in the house'.

Matt had never disobeyed his mother's words before. But she had broke his promises many times. He picked up his sword off the ground and walked toward the front door. Matt twisted the knob and pulled the door open, relishing the cool afternoon breeze and swept across his face. The tree's across the road swayed invitingly. Sword held tightly in his hand, Matt closed the door behind him and headed toward the forest.
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Matt laughed as he swung the sword about, killing invisible enemies. He whacked some of the branches that grazed his arms, imagining them to be the weapons of the enemy.

"You traitors! How dare you defile the throne of the king! I will give you no mercy!", he cried as he whacked away more branches with his sword, heedless that his enemies did not respond in kind. His cries echoed into the quiet of the forest.

"You're hurting the trees."

Matt froze and spun around. A young girl stood a few feet away from him, with a disapproving frown on her face.

"How do you know that? Trees can't talk." Matt batted away a few more branches near him. "See? Nobody's talking."

"I wouldn't like it if someone hit me with a plastic stick. I'm sure the tree's don't either. What are you doing anyways? Talking to one's self is a sure sign of madness. Only a person with a diseased mind would talk to themselves.."

Matt scowled. Who did this chit think she was? His mother? How dare she say that he was mad? Did she know what playing was? Matt spoke his mind. "Don't you know what playacting is? It's where you pretend to live in a world that you make up. I am a noble knight, protecting my king from awful intruders that are trying to seize the crown. I'm not sure where you're from though. Who hasn't heard of playacting? Do you live under a rock?"

"I'd rather live under a rock than have a diseased mind." The girl raised an eyebrow.

Why was this girl being so cruel? Were all people in this town so mean? Matt hadn't even introduced himself before this girl started throwing out more insults than she had bones in her body. And now she was forcing him to be mean as well.

"Well, I hope you stay under that rock. Although I'm not sure that the rock can stand you enough to have you stay under it."

The girl stamped her foot and managed to look down her nose at him despite being shorter than him by a head. Somehow, she had approached him without him noticing and now stood within an arm's reach away. At this proximity, Matt could see that, her clothes were slightly torn and scratches marred her pale skin. There were leaves and twigs tangled in her blond hair. She was very thin, almost too thin. She smelled like the forest.

"You're mean." The girl sniffed and made a sobbing noise. She rubbed her eyes like she was wiping away tears. However, Matt couldn't see any tears.

"What do you want, anyways? I'm only being mean because you were being mean. If you were nice I'd be nice too. I'm new here and was hoping to make some friends. But I don't make friends with mean people."

"Who said I wanted to be friends with a person like you?" The girl dried her tears in record time and smirked at him. Then, as fast as Matt could blink, the girl lunged at him and snatched his sword from his hand. She turned around and sprinted away, shouting, "The swords mine if you can't catch me!" Laughter followed her words.

"Hey! Give my sword back!" Matt ran after her through the forest. It was hard to follow her as she dashed between trees. The more Matt ran, the more he felt that she knew them better than the back of her hand. The evening was approaching and the trees made long shadows so that it became harder for Matt to follow the black fabric of the girls ratty shirt. He ran and ran until it became so dark that he could barely distinguish the trees from themselves and just as he was worrying about never finding a way back home, Matt found himself back in the middle of the street across from his house.

Matt staggered to the sidewalk in front of his house. The girl and his sword were nowhere to be seen. He turned back and looked at the forest, which looked ominous now in the twilight. The trees loomed over the street, branches reaching like they were going to grab him. Matt shivered and decided that he could look for the sword tomorrow.

Climbing up the porch, he opened the door to a dark house and reached to turn on some lights. His mother wasn't back yet. Matt walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty. He closed it and opened the cupboards, finding a single, slightly stale loaf of bread. He took two pieces and put it on a disposable plate before going upstairs to eat in his bedroom. The empty rooms downstairs made the hair on his arms stand up. His mama had yet to begin shopping for furniture.

Matt's mother came home very late. Matt had wanted to go downstairs to welcome her home but he didn't think that she would be happy seeing her son awake at one in the morning. So Matt feigned sleep when his mother came into his room to kiss him good night. He opened his eyes into tiny slits. Her hair was disheveled, and her clothing was slightly lopsided, like it had been hastily put on. A bruise stretched across her right cheek. Matt thought sleepily that his mother looked like she had been fighting monsters. But he hadn't been there to protect her.
*^*^*

The next morning, Matt woke to the sight of his sword, propped up against the side of his bed.