Borrowed Shadow

It has long been my conviction that there exist certain phenomena for which neither science nor Scripture has yet contrived a satisfactory explanation. Of these melancholy curiosities, none has remained more indelibly impressed upon my memory than the singular fate of Mr. Alistair Pembroke, a gentleman of sober habits and irreproachable character, whose disappearance in the winter of 1891 was quietly attributed to nervous exhaustion. Those who offered such explanations knew nothing of his shadow.

London, during that season, was enveloped almost perpetually in a mournful haze, through which the lamps burned like pale amber stars imprisoned behind yellow glass. The streets glistened beneath an endless drizzle, and the very buildings seemed to perspire with age, their blackened stones weeping soot into the gutters. It was upon one such evening, whilst returning from his chambers near Chancery Lane, that Mr. Pembroke first perceived the slightest irregularity.

As he paused beneath a gas lamp to consult his watch, his shadow did not.

It lingered for the briefest imaginable instant, as though reluctant to obey, before gliding forward across the damp cobblestones with a motion so smooth and deliberate that it might almost have been mistaken for a trick of the mist. Mr. Pembroke, being a man educated at Oxford and not inclined toward idle superstition, dismissed the occurrence as a deception born of fatigue. Yet reason, admirable servant though it be, is often the first casualty of impossible things.

Thereafter the disturbances became impossible to ignore.

His shadow anticipated rather than imitated. It inclined its head a heartbeat before he offered a greeting. Its hand reached for the door-latch an instant before his own fingers moved. Once, whilst crossing Westminster Bridge beneath a melancholy moon, he became dreadfully aware that the silhouette beside him had turned its face toward the river, though he himself had never once diverted his gaze from the road ahead.

Sleep soon deserted him. Every evening he arranged candles throughout his house with meticulous precision, believing that a multitude of trembling flames might confuse the unnatural thing that clung to his heels. Yet wherever light was cast, there it stood—longer than it ought to be, darker than the night itself, and possessed of a curious stillness that no earthly shadow should command.

Then came the morning that extinguished every remaining comfort.

Whilst shaving before the looking glass, Mr. Pembroke raised his razor.

The reflection obeyed.

The shadow did not.

It remained perfectly motionless upon the wall behind him, its featureless head turned ever so slightly, as though observing not his reflection, but the man himself. Slowly—oh, with what dreadful deliberation—it lifted one hand and touched the brim of an invisible hat in silent acknowledgment.

That gesture, Mr. Pembroke would later confess in the final pages of his journal, was not imitation.

It was introduction.

From that hour his own movements grew strangely uncertain. He found himself hesitating before speaking words he had intended to utter, whilst his shadow seemed never to hesitate at all. Indeed, there were moments when he could not altogether escape the monstrous suspicion that he was no longer leading, but following.

The servants remarked that their master had become pale beyond all natural complexion and had taken to extinguishing every lamp before dusk, preferring absolute darkness to even the faintest outline cast upon a wall. They believed grief or madness had overtaken him. Neither explanation sufficed.

On the twenty-third day of December, the housekeeper entered his study to find the fire reduced to cold ash, the journal lying open upon the desk, and every curtain drawn tightly against the morning sun.

Mr. Pembroke was nowhere to be found.

Only upon the far wall, where the winter light had crept through the narrow gap between the curtains, there lingered the unmistakable silhouette of a gentleman standing with perfect composure.

As she watched in mute astonishment, the black figure reached upward with measured elegance, removed an unseen top hat, and bowed.

The room, though utterly empty, returned the courtesy with the faint sound of departing footsteps.