Excerpt:

I spread my school books and notes out on the living room floor to start my homework while my parents watched TV. Just as I was getting into the bulk of it, a couple of shadows slide out from the display hutch. Growing from the flat shadow on the floor, they grew into counterparts of my mother’s porcelain ballerina and stuffed bear from when she was a small child. Waddling, the darkened bear with a missing eye and scowl followed the twirling ballerina in tatters around my books. I did my best to ignore them and not even shoot a glance at them, but it got hard when they started blocking what I was reading.

“Now look here, she does not even acknowledge us. That is quite rude of a well behaved child like yourself,” said the shadow bear as he took a left at my math book.

As the broken looking ballerina twirled towards the bear she replied, “You know how these humans are about appearances. They can’t see us, so she doesn’t want to look crazy. That’s too bad. Crazy people get away with much more. But like you said, she’s too well behaved. Oh, well, can’t let them interfere with our job.”

“That is right. We’re here on orders from the King. If you won’t speak in front of them, then you should move somewhere more private. And hurry it up, we don’t have all day.”

These are not normal counterparts; I do not even think they are attached to anyone, other than the King anyway. The King is one of the creatures without a human counterpart. He is strong and has extra abilities that I do not know the extent. Shadows, like the bear and the ballerina, are his messengers. I have not talked to them before, but I have seen them. They do not have limits on distance like the others. And they will not stop until they have what the King wants. I saw them trying to get information from some creature that would not tell them. Kicking and flailing, they pulled him out of range from his human counterpart. Both dropped dead instantly.