The Village of Painted Shadows

In Shadowvale, the houses have no painted walls; instead, artists use special brushes and pots of color to decorate the shadows that stretch across the streets each morning. Leo, a small boy with messy black hair and a yellow apron, watches with fascination, his own shadow Pip, a smoky blue-black creature with glowing amber eyes and a thin red ribbon on one ear, dancing beside him. Carrying a wooden brush with a red handle everywhere, Leo practices painting shadows in the square, dreaming of one day painting the whole festival.

When the yearly art festival arrives, organized by the kind Mayor Brushwell, the streets fill with wiggling, swirling shadow designs. Then a tall magician named Marlo, dressed in a purple coat with gold stars, trips and sends his jars of paint flying. The colors splash and mix into a muddy brown puddle, and the confused shadows begin to act silly. With the sun already sliding down, Leo realizes the shadows will vanish at sunset unless the colors can be separated in time. This tale by Yavuz DEMİRKIRAN can be read on Online Masal.