Mirea and the door with a keyhole

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The fog of the previous evening had cleared, but the smell of damp wood and cold embers still lingered in the streets. Mirea walked slowly, the cat on her shoulder, her gaze forward, but her thoughts still on the place she had left behind. The fountain square, the whispering from the water—it was as if a remnant of it clung to her skin. The alleys here were narrower, as if the houses had to support each other to avoid sinking in. A pale light ran between the roof edges, lacking a clear source. It was too bright for dawn, too soft for midday. Mirea pushed her hat further down over her face. Her cat squinted, as if seeing something invisible to humans. Mirea stopped at a bend. A girl stood before her. She was barely older than Mirea herself, perhaps younger—hard to say. Her form seemed solid, and yet Mirea saw something flickering at the edges, as if individual threads no longer belonged to the fabric. Her shadow didn't lie solid on the ground, but in shards: dark splinters spaced apart, as if they couldn't touch each other. "You're too early," the girl said without moving. Her voice sounded like a note in an empty teacup, slightly hollow, but warm. "For what?" Mirea asked."For me. For what I am not yet." The cat jumped from Mirea's shoulder, ran to the nearest shard of shadow, and sniffed it. The shard wobbled as if startled and slid slightly to the side. Mirea felt a cool breeze pass by her. "Your shadow..." she began. "...is no longer whole," the girl finished. "It is what was left when the light forgot me. I was once in a place that no longer exists. Half of me didn't go back with me." Mirea approached. The light emanating from the girl wasn't a glow that illuminated everything; it was a kind of memory of brightness, faint but persistent. The closer she got, the more clearly she saw that the girl's face was blurring in places—as if a detail couldn't decide whether it belonged to her. "Can it be healed?" "Only if you know where to take the missing pieces. But the destination is gone." The cat meowed, and the sound echoed briefly, as if trapped inside a dome. The girl looked at the cat, smiled fleetingly, and reached out her hand. Her fingers touched not the fur, but the cat's shadow—and it brightened for a moment, as if it had been pleased. "Why me?" asked Mirea. "Because your shadow is still complete," the girl said, "and because it can remember where it has already been." She inclined her head. "It might find the way I lost." Mirea didn't know whether to ask how a shadow finds a path. Instead, she knelt down, and her cat returned, sitting between her and the girl. "What happens if we don't?" "I'll stay like this," the girl said simply. "Half light, half memory. And eventually, the memory will fade." A light wind picked up. The shards of shadow began to move, hesitantly at first, then faster, like loose leaves on a pond.