Translations, in order of appearance (all are best-guess translation via google translate):

mititei – a type of sausage, often sold in outdoor markets

dantelă frumoasă – beautiful lace

gogoașă – donut (singular)

băiatul din umbra – boy of shadows/Shadow Boy

cornulețe – crescent-shaped pastry filled with honey, nuts, cinnamon, etc, usually eaten around holidays

gogoși – donut (plural)

Cimitrul Bellu – one of the larger cemeteries in Bucharest

băiatul meu din umbra – my boy of the shadows

-o0o-

Constanta Dumitru put down her box of doilies, the same ones she had not sold the day before because there had been such mayhem in the market, and shook out a black felt cloth over her table. Yesterday had been a bad day for everyone. She hadn't seen who or why, but the police had gone after someone nearby, and there had been such shouting and chasing, and then off in the distance she had heard sirens and car tires screeching and cars crashing. It sounded like World War II all over again. By the time it all finally faded out of hearing, market goers were so stirred up that none of them actually bought anything. They'd all stood in huddles, whispering and speculating and then finally slinking homeward empty handed, as if worried if they actually bought anything they might somehow be marked as the next target.

Constanta hadn't bothered asking anyone for news. At day's end, she was still alive, still free to sell her lace. Living in Romania her entire life had taught her that it was best not to be too curious when the world went mad. A madhouse it had certainly been yesterday, and the immediate aftermath like a funeral. It was as bad as when the miners and students all rose up against the government back in… was that 1989? 1990? She wasn't sure. When you have lived to the age of 91, the years and regimes tended to run together. Upheavals happened just as sure as spring storms, and they were always bad for business.

But today the sun was shining and the market was coming to life like yesterday had never happened. The fruit and vegetable vendors were carefully stacking plums and potatoes on crates and tables, and the smell of sausages grilling already hung heavy in the air. She breathed in deeply of the aroma of mititei as she opened her box and set out the white doilies atop the black felt. A sausage would be an extravagance, but it smelled so good that she decided she would get one, along with some plums, for her lunch today. A treat, to celebrate surviving another day. At her age, that was no small thing.

She stopped for a moment and kneaded her left hand. Arthritis had turned her fingers stiff and gnarled, but she was proud of the fact that she could still create beauty with them. When the pain eased, she finished the display by putting out a small sign listing her prices on a little tabletop easel. She settled back into her chair, hopeful that today would end more peacefully than yesterday. As she picked up her shuttle and thread to start work on a shawl for her great-granddaughter, she glanced over at the doorway to the apartment building on the north side of the market. It was where the man she called her Shadow Boy liked to stand and watch her work, usually while eating one of Bogdan's pastries.

The first time she'd seen him was when he had paused to look at her lace. As he murmured, with a painfully American accent,"Dantelă frumoasă," she saw that under the brim of his cap and his mop of long dark hair he had kind eyes. Beautiful bright blue they were, but oh so sad. He had hurried away before she could ask his name or his story, almost as if he hadn't meant to speak aloud and was ashamed he had been caught out. That had been the one and only time he stopped at her stall, though he always passed by on his way to the shadowy doorway, keeping his distance, even when she waved at him. He would nod, then go on to the doorway where he would always lean one shoulder against the wall. He would quietly eat his gogoașă and watch her make her lace, and when the gogoașă was finished, he would move on, often so quickly and silently that if she didn't look up at just the right time, it would seem as if he had turned to vapor blown away by the wind. An enigma, that man, harmless but so fascinating that she soon started looking forward to his silent arrival each day. Her little wave and his polite refusal had become almost a private joke between them. Getting him to smile even a little had become Constanta's chief aim, and she had been inordinately pleased when she finally coaxed a sweet but fleeting grin from him before he ducked his face so she couldn't see. So bashful, her băiatul din umbra, her Shadow Boy. One of these days she would get him to come talk with her.

He had yet to arrive today, smiling or otherwise, which was somewhat odd. He didn't miss many days and usually showed up just after the market opened, when the pastries were fresh. Eh, maybe he slept late. Some days were like that. He would miss out on his gogoașă, though.

Speaking of pastries, she saw Bogdan walking toward her stall, a bag in his hand and a newspaper under his arm. She waved. "Good morning, Bogdan Barbu. Come to tempt me with your cornulețe again? You know I make my own and it tastes one thousand times better than yours." Her crescent-shaped pastries didn't really taste better than his, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Besides, she only made them at Christmas, so if he had any in that sack he carried, they would be a welcome treat this time of year.

"No, only gogoși today."

She sniffed. "Your gogoși is like eating rocks. Too heavy. I tell you to use more yeast, but do you listen?"

His perpetually worried gray eyes narrowed and his overgrown salt-and-pepper mustache bristled. "I use just the right amount of yeast, you old crone, and my gogoși come out perfect, as they have every day for the last fifty-three years. Our mutual young friend certainly has no complaints."

Another sniff. "He is American. What would he know about good gogoși?"

"He knows enough to buy one every day." He seemed to sag a little and his worried frown returned. "But today, he has not come by." He lifted the bag toward her as evidence.

"Eh, he is young. He probably stayed out late drinking with friends and is in bed sleeping it off."

He shook his head. "I do not think he has many friends, and not the kind that go out drinking like most young people. Tell me, did you see the fuss yesterday?"

"Do you think me blind and deaf? How could I have missed it? All the sirens and cars screeching… it nearly raised the dead in Cimitrul Bellu."

He didn't laugh at her little joke. "I have not seen today's paper—Sergiu was already out of them—but I fear our young friend may have been part of that. Perhaps even at the center of it."

"Pfff, what nonsense you spout at an old woman with no time for such. He is as sweet as your pastries. Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because this"—he shook the newspaper at her—"is yesterday's paper. I saw Sergiu staring at him and then running away when our friend started walking toward the newsstand. He looked at a newspaper—this very one—and then he hurried away. It wasn't long after that that all hell was unleashed." He showed her the newspaper, which had a bold headline about a bombing in Vienna and a photograph of the alleged perpetrator.

"Oh no," she breathed. "Surely that is wrong? That security camera picture is so blurry, it could be anyone. And when was this bombing? Our Shadow Boy has been here nearly every day for weeks, and he was definitely here that day. He could not have gone to Vienna to set off any bombs. It's ridiculous."

"I know that, old woman. Do you think I am an idiot? I went to the police station to tell Captain Dragomir just that. He was very angry because many officers were wounded in the fight. He barely listened to me, but he said he would 'take it under advisement', whatever that means."

"Bah, it means that he will have forgotten what you told him by the time he stuffs his fat face with the dozen mititei he has for lunch every day."

Bogdan sighed and gave his sack of pastries a sad look. "Our friend with the kind eyes has surely been arrested. I fear we will never see him again."

"Oh stop that, you pessimistic old man. We will see him again."

"How can you be so sure?"

She wasn't, but she didn't like seeing Bogdan so sad. "If he has been arrested, he will surely break out, because he'll want more of your gogoși."

He almost smiled. "Why, Constanta Dumitru, are you actually saying my pastries are worth breaking out of jail for?"

She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Of course not. But that young man has never tasted my pastries so he doesn't know that yours should be fed to pigs."

He snorted, glared at her, then stomped away. She picked up her shuttle and wrapped the thread around her fingers to resume work on the shawl. But her eyes kept straying to that darkened doorway, which seemed very empty and forlorn today. Her hands fell idle on her lap.

"Oh, băiatul meu din umbra," she whispered, "I pray you are safe, wherever you are."

She picked up her work again and kept herself busy, making great progress on the shawl, but she couldn't help thinking how odd it was that the sunshine seemed so much darker for the lack of that one single shadow.

Epilogue

Bucharest, October 2020

Constanta sat counting her stitches. She missed one, grumbled under her breath that she was becoming a blind old woman, picked up the missed stitch and continued on. The market had been busy this morning, which was good for making money but bad for making more doilies to sell the next day. She had reached the amount of sales she needed to pay her rent and buy her groceries with a little extra for a rainy day, so she almost hoped no one else would stop.

She was considering pulling up her remaining doilies and heading home when a shadow darkened her stand. She squinted up at the outline of a tall man silhouetted against the slanting afternoon sun. "The prices are on the sign. I am too old to waste time dickering, so don't even bother."

"Dantelă frumoasă," he said.

That voice! She'd only heard it once, and that nearly five years ago, but she knew that American accent anywhere. She dropped the shuttle and the doily on the table and hurried around so she could get a good look…

Dark hair still long, eyes still bright blue, but they shone with warmth and happiness now, with only a trace of sadness. His smile… oh, his smile was as bright as the sun. So handsome, that curling smile and bright teeth. For a fleeting moment she wished she were twenty again.

"Oh my, it is you!" she cried. She threw open her arms and gave him a tight hug that he returned with a tender gentleness that her old bones appreciated. Ha! She knew he was kind.

"It's been a long time," he said. "I didn't know if you'd still be here."

"Oh, I'm still alive and still well, young man." She let him go and leaned back to look up at him. She had to lean back very far. He was so tall. Had he always been so tall? She had always remembered him smaller, but memory was a fickle thing. "I heard you were arrested that day. I don't know what ever became of you; if it was in the newspapers, I did not know because I stopped reading them. Too full of ridiculous stories of flying men fighting monsters from outer space. It is all idiotic nonsense written for people with weak minds."

He suddenly coughed and turned away for a moment.

"Are you all right, young man?" He nodded, and when he turned back around, his eyes were positively dancing with some secret mirth. It made her heart light to see it. "I never forgot you," she said. "I prayed every day for your happiness, wherever you were. I thank God to see my prayers have been answered."

"Thank you," he murmured, swallowing hard a few times. She caught a glimmer of a tear in one eye, but his smile never wavered.

She patted his chest. "Do you know how hard I tried to get you to smile, back then? And now look at you."

The smile faded a little, but his eyes were peaceful. "That was… a dark time in my life. But things are better now."

He didn't offer any more explanation, and, much as she had wanted to know his story back then, she decided now that it didn't matter. He was back, her băiatul din umbra, and that was all that really mattered. "Have you seen Bogdan yet?"

"No, I wanted to stop by your stall first."

"You must go see him. Get yourself a gogoașă. He will still have a few, I'm sure. Then come back here and I will make my lace while you sit beside me where you can see up close. I might even teach you how to do it yourself."

He laughed, a wonderful sound of mirth. She liked the way his eyes crinkled in the corners and the way he threw his head back. Her Shadow Boy was now casting the light, and it was a wonderful thing to see. She blinked away a few happy tears of her own. "Now hurry off… but before you go, what is your name, young man?"

A little of the old bashfulness returned. "Call me Bucky."

"Bucky. It is a good name, a happy name."

Another smile, then he started toward Bogdan's stall. But before he took three steps, he turned around and called, "I don't suppose…"

"What, dear one?"

"I don't suppose you could make… a dragon?"

"A dragon? Goodness, whatever for?"

"I'll tell you when I get back. It's kind of a long story." He winked.

"Oh, you!" She waved at him, the same way she used to when he refused to come over to her stall. He smiled, she laughed, and he headed for Bogdan's stall.

Her shadow was back, and the day was bright again.

A/N:

See Chapter 10 of "You Will Call Me Friend" to find out about lace dragons.

Yes, Constanta's name is a nod to Seb's birthplace. It's also a woman's name, so how could I resist?

Also, slight edit post-publication because my dear beta Nath betas even when I gave her the day off with this one and let me know that Bucky did indeed have the plums with him in the apartment. So line deleted if anyone re-reads and notices.