A gargoyle drove a hansom down a winding midnight, when he saw, by the roadside, a bedraggled, white-robed woman wearing a black cube on a necklace. The darkness behind her was deep.

She asked for a lift to the tower across the haunted wood. “I’m a Mender. Help me, and I’ll owe you.” She gave him a calling card. “Tap thrice to call me.”

He opened the door. “Hop in.”

She got in the front seat. “Can my shadow come too?”

He nodded. Her shadow got in the back seat.

Off they rumbled. They talked politely, though her shadow said nothing. Her expression and tone never changed.

“I’m a mender myself,” he said.

“What do you mend?”

“I’m a roofer. Longtooth Mossytail. Scary at the fore, soft at the last.”

“Caezera.”

“You remind me of my wife,” he said. “Stoic. She’s an angel.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Literally.” He produced a daguerreotype of his family posing on the eaves of their gothic city perch and pointed to a rain-drenched stone angel smiling in sunlight. “Come visit, meet the little grotesques.” His children made faces, hidden in leafy stone filigree. “So how’d you get stranded?”

“Mending holes.”

“There aren’t any here.”

“Not anymore.”

*     *     *
Decay dug deep into Longtooth’s littlest daughter grotesque. Angel wept. Stonemasons had pronounced the worst. From their rooftop home, Longtooth saw distant haunted woods, a spire on the horizon, remembered a lonesome night.

He found Caezera’s calling card and tapped thrice.

She materialized from the dark, her shadow standing upright behind her. Was it closer now than it had been the last time?

He brought her to his daughter. “Can you mend her?”

Caezera frowned. “This is a bigger favor than you did me.”

“You won’t help?”

“I will, but you’ll owe me now.”

He bowed his head. “Of course.”

Caezera opened the black box on her necklace. The decay seeped out of Longtooth’s daughter and flowed into the box, like water down a gutter. She shut the box. Her shadow grew taller and stepped toward her. Longtooth rushed to his daughter. She smiled, whole, as if newly carved.

Longtooth turned to Caezera. “How?”

“I removed her absence of health.”

“So the decay is gone?”

“Absences cannot be destroyed—only displaced.”

“Where did the absence go?”

“My shadow ate it.” Gathering her robe, she regarded Longtooth over her shoulder. “Your turn to aid me next.” She vanished into the shade.

*     *     *
Damp drizzled through Caezera’s tower roof onto piles of paper.

“That’s no good,” agreed Longtooth.

“Can you mend it, Mr. Mossytail?” asked Caezera, sitting on her desk. “To even our debts.”

“I’d be a crummy roofer if I couldn’t.” He grinned toothily and got to work. “But you’ve powers—why hire me?”

“I cannot mend without rending. You can help without being hurt.”

He flew to the ceiling to measure the hole, hiding his expression in thatch. “Did healing my daughter hurt you?” Would he have asked her aid if he’d known it would?

She watched him work. “I am not the part of myself that aches.”

Then where’s the part that does? He didn’t dare ask those icy eyes. Rather he regarded her shadow. The midnight being stood larger and closer to her than it had last time. What would happen when it caught up with her?

“Why do you mend?” he asked.

“Absences are the root of ruin.”

“How can problems be caused by something not there?”

“Hate is lack of love, war is lack of peace, cruelty is lack of kindness.”

“Does moving lacks create their opposite?”

“It allows the whole to heal.”

“Caezera … who heals you?”

*     *     *
Longtooth pounded on Caezera’s tower door, his family beside him, the clamor of a mob on their heels. The door’s window opened.

“Help!” Longtooth pleaded.

Caezera let them in.

The stone family huddled behind her as the villagers stormed the hillside, brandishing torches and pitchforks, spewing malice. They hesitated at the sight of Caezera.

“Send them out, witch, or we’ll burn you all!” yelled the leader.

“Why?” Her voice was cold as night.

“The skies throw ice on us for their bad luck!”

She scoffed. “Typical. Blame the strange for uncontrollable misfortune. You lack tolerance.” She opened the black box on her necklace. The fire in their eyes and torches flew inside. Her shadow swelled, scraped the vaulted ceiling, and stepped nearer, looming behind her.

How long till it reaches her? Longtooth worried.

The villagers staggered; then their eyes softened. “Sorry, Mr. Mossytail, Ms. Angel, little grotesques,” said the leader. “You’ve aided our town, shown naught but amity. The hail must have another cause.” He beckoned the stone family home.

Caezera touched Longtooth’s wing and murmured low, “You owe me again, the greatest debt of all.”

“You saved my family. Whatever the cost, if it won’t harm them, I’ll pay.”

*     *     *
Longtooth landed on a barren crag where Caezera stood, robe tossing in the wind, her shadow one step behind, mountain-large, foot raised, face finally distinct.

“Time to pay your debt.” Her voice was calm, eyes gaunt.

“Your shadow—it’s here. What can I do?”

“Hold my hand.”

“Just that?”

“You’ve been a friend. I’d rather not be alone.”

He took her hand in his claw. The monumental shadow stepped into her. Every horror Longtooth’s nightmares whispered wracked her frail form—she screamed, sprouted wounds, eyes filled with countless griefs. Bone-white bats poured from her and dispersed.

She stirred. Sat. Eyes widened with wise wonder, more awake than he’d ever seen them. “My heart could bear it.”

“What was that?” he asked her.

“Instead of banishing holes, I take them into myself. I made myself a deal: I severed my heart to bear the ache, my mind to continue the work. I thought the pain would destroy me, but my joy was greater.” She wiped tears. “The absences escaped. All havocs past will happen again.”

He crouched. “The world is raining. We’re roofers, you and I. We’ll mend.” He offered her an arm.

Hanging onto his claw, she pulled herself up.