In Valdecierzo, shadows wore out like any other cloth. They frayed at the elbows, tore at children’s knees, faded with the years. That was what Ezequiel Urrutia’s workshop was for: he was the only shadow tailor for forty leagues around. Irene, his apprentice, had spent two winters threading needles with dark thread and repeating the first law of the trade: a shadow is never thrown away. It is mended, or buried with its owner.
There was something else everyone there knew: the river gives back its drowned. Shadows float, and they pull bodies towards the bank the way a sail pulls a boat. That was why nobody in Valdecierzo ever vanished completely. Not even on the night of the great flood, eleven years before, when the water swallowed half the mill.
That morning Casilda, the ferrywoman, came into the workshop dragging something that dripped like a net. It was a man’s shadow, long, with the unmistakable outline of a wide-brimmed hat. “It was tangled in my nets,” she said. “I’ve been through the village street by street, master. Everyone here has their own.”
Ezequiel put on his glasses, spread the shadow across the cutting table and examined it in silence. Irene noticed the chalk trembling between his fingers. “It’s old,” he declared at last. “Some traveller’s. Best to burn it before dawn.” Casilda crossed herself; Irene said nothing, although she had never heard him suggest such a thing. When they were alone, she looked at the edge of the shadow. It wasn’t frayed. Someone had cut it, and the cut traced a small, even zigzag, like the one left by the pinking shears the master never lent to anyone.
That night, while sorting reels in the back room, Irene opened the drawer where Ezequiel kept his brother’s letters. Abel, the elder, the one who should have inherited the workshop, had left for Buenos Aires during the flood without even saying goodbye to Elvira, his fiancée. A year later, Elvira married Ezequiel. Since then, every Christmas, a letter had arrived from America. Irene held one up to the oil lamp. The ink was violet, the same violet the master used to mark patterns on cloth.
“Those letters are none of your business.” Ezequiel stood in the doorway, a candle in his hand and the grey face of a man who hasn’t slept. He looked at the letters, then at the shadow folded on the table. “Shadows without an owner bring bad luck,” he said quietly. “At dawn, into the fire.” Irene held his gaze. “And what if it does have an owner, master?” He didn’t answer. He blew out the candle and climbed the stairs slowly, as if every step weighed on him.
Irene waited until she heard snoring from upstairs. Then she folded the shadow carefully, the way you fold a flag, slung it over her shoulder and set off for the river. If the water had given it back once, it would know where to take it.