What are you grinning at?' Nal muttered. As if in response, the gull spread its wings and opened its shadow over the miniature ruins of the castle - too huge, Nal thought, and vaguely humanoid in shape - and then it flew off, laboring heavily against the wind. In the soft moonlight this created the disturbing illusion that the bird had hitched itself to Nal's shadow and was pulling his darkness from him.

Author: Karen Russell