The Girl Who Drank the Moon (22 page)

36.

In Which a Map Is Rather Useless

Luna had never run so hard or fast in her life. She ran for hours, it seemed. Days. Weeks. She had been running forever. She ran from boulder to boulder, ridge to ridge. She leaped over streams and creeks. Trees bent out of her way. She didn't stop to wonder at the ease of her footing or the length of her leaps. All she thought about was the woman with a tiger's snarl. That woman was dangerous. It was all Luna could do to keep her growing panic at bay. The crow wiggled away from the girl's grasp and soared upward, circling over her head.

“Caw,” the crow called. “I don't think she's following us.”

“Caw,” he called again. “It's possible that I was mistaken about the paper birds.”

Luna ran up the edge of a steep knoll to cast a wider view and make sure she was not being followed. There was no one. The woods were just woods. She sat down on the bare curve of the rock to open her journal and look at her map, but she had veered so far off her route, she wasn't sure if she was even
on
the map anymore. Luna sighed. “Well,” she said, “I seem to have made a mess of things. We are no closer to my grandmother than when we started. And look! The sun is going down. And there is a strange lady in the woods.” She swallowed. “There's something wrong with her. I can't explain it. But I don't want her coming anywhere near my grandmother. Not at all.”

Luna's brain had suddenly become crowded with things she knew without knowing how she knew them. Indeed, her mind felt like a vast storage room whose locked cupboards were all at once not only unlocking but flinging themselves open and dumping their contents on the floor. And none of it was anything Luna remembered putting in those cupboards in the first place.

She was little—she couldn't quite place how young she was, but definitely small. She was standing in the center of the clearing. Her eyes were blank. Her mouth was slack. She was pinned in place.

Luna gasped. The memory was so clear.

“Luna!” Fyrian had cried, crawling out of her pocket and hovering in front of her face. “Why aren't you moving?”

“Fyrian, dear,” her grandmother had said. “Go fetch Luna a heartsblood flower from the far edge of the tall crater. She is playing a game with you, and she will only unfreeze if you bring her the flower.”

“I love games!” Fyrian cried before whizzing away, whistling a jaunty tune as he flew.

Glerk appeared through the red-­algaed surface of the swamp. He opened one eye, and then the other. Then he rolled both to the sky.

“More lies, Xan,” he chided.

“Good ones!” Xan protested. “I lie to protect! What else can I say? I can't explain anything that's true in a way they can understand.”

Glerk came lumbering out of the swamp, the dark waters shedding in great beads from the oily sheen of his darker skin. He came close to Luna's unblinking eyes. Glerk's great, damp mouth deepened into a frown. “I don't like this,” he said, laying two of his hands on either side of Luna's face, and the other two hands on each of her shoulders. “This is the third time today. What happened this time?”

Xan groaned. “It was my fault. I could have sworn I sensed something. Like a tiger moving through the woods, but
not
, you understand. Well, of course you know what I thought.”

“Was it she? The Sorrow Eater?” Glerk's voice had turned into a dangerous rumble.

“No. Five hundred years I've worried. She's haunted my dreams, and don't mistake it. But no. There was nothing. But Luna saw the scrying device.”

Glerk took Luna into his arms. She went limp. He rocked back on his tail, letting the girl's weight sink into the squish of his belly. He smoothed back her hair with one hand.

“We need to tell Fyrian,” he said.

“We can't!” Xan cried. “Look what happened to her when she just saw the scrying device out of the corner of her eye! She didn't get better once I took it apart—and that was a while ago now. Just imagine if Fyrian spills the beans that her grandmother is a witch! She'll go into a trance every time she sees me—every time! And she won't stop until she turns thirteen. And she'll be enmagicked and I'll be gone. Gone, Glerk! And who will take care of my baby?”

And Xan walked over and laid her cheek on Luna's cheek, and wrapped her arms around the swamp monster. Or, at least part of the way around. Glerk, after all, was very large.

“Are we hugging now?” Fyrian said, zooming back with the flower. “I love hugging.” And he shot into the crook of one of Glerk's arms and insinuated himself into the fleshy folds of his body, and was, once again, the happiest dragon in the world.

Luna sat very still, her mind racing at what her own memory had revealed to her. Her own unlocked memory.

Witch.

Enmagicked.

Thirteen.

Gone.

Luna pressed the heels of her hands to her brow, trying to keep her head from spinning. How many times had she felt a thought simply fly away, like a bird? And now here they came, crowding back inside. Luna's thirteenth birthday was very soon. And her grandmother was sick. And weak. And some day soon, she would be gone. And Luna would be alone. And enmagicked—

Witch.

It was a word that she had never heard before. And yet. When she searched her memories, she found it everywhere. People called it out in the market squares when they visited the cities on the other side of the forest. People said it when they visited homes. People called it when her grandmother's assistance was needed—in a birth, maybe. Or to settle a dispute.

“My grandmother is a witch,” Luna said out loud. And it was true. “And now I am a witch.”

“Caw,” said the crow. “So?”

She gave a narrowed eye to the crow, wrinkling her lips into a frown. “Did you know this?” she demanded.

“Caw,” said the crow. “Obviously. What did you think you were? Don't you remember how we met?”

Luna looked up at the sky. “Well,” she said. “I guess I didn't really think about it.”

“Caw,” said the crow. “Exactly. That is exactly your problem.”

“A scrying device,” Luna murmured.

And she could remember. Her grandmother had made them more than once. Sometimes with string. Sometimes with a raw egg. Sometimes with the sticky insides of a milkweed pod.

“It's the intention that matters,” Luna said out loud, her bones buzzing as she said it. “Any good witch knows how to build a tool with what's on hand.”

These weren't her words. Her grandmother had said them. Her grandmother had said them
while Luna was in the room
. But then the words flew away and she went blank. And now they were coming back again. She leaned forward and spat on the ground, making a small puddle of dusty mud. With her left hand she grabbed a handful of dried grass, growing from a crack in the rock. She dipped it into the spittle-­mud and started to wind it into a complicated knot.

She didn't understand what she was doing—not really. She moved by instinct, as though trying to piece together a song she heard once and could barely recall.

“Show me my grandmother,” she said as she stuck her thumb into the center of the knot and stretched it into a hole.

Luna saw nothing at first.

And then she saw a man with a heavily scarred face walking through the woods. He was frightened. He tripped on roots and twice ran into a tree. He was moving too quickly for someone who clearly didn't know where he was going. But it didn't matter, because the device obviously didn't work. She hadn't asked to see a man. She had asked to see her grandmother.

“My
grandmother,
” Luna said more deliberately, in a loud voice.

The man wore a leather jerkin. Small knives hung from either side of his belt. He opened the pouch on his jerkin and crooned to something nestled inside. A small beak peeked out of the leather folds.

Luna squinted. It was a swallow. And it was old and sick. “I already drew you,” she said out loud.

The swallow, as though in response, peeked its head out and looked around.

“I said, I need my
grandmother,
” she almost shouted. The swallow struggled, tittered, and squawked. It looked desperate to get out.

“Not now, silly,” the man in the device said. “Let's wait until we fix that wing. Then you can get out. Here. Eat this spider.” And the man shoved a wriggling spider into the swallow's protesting beak.

The swallow chewed the spider, a combination of frustration and gratitude on its face.

Luna grunted with frustration.

“I'm not very good at this yet. Show me my GRANDMOTHER,” she said firmly. And the device focused clearly on the face of the bird. And the bird stared through the scrying device, right into Luna's eye. The swallow couldn't see her. Of course it couldn't. And yet it seemed to Luna that the bird shook its head, very slowly, from side to side.

“Grandmama?” Luna whispered.

And then the device went dark.

“Come back,” the girl called.

The makeshift device stayed dark. The scrying device hadn't failed at all, Luna realized with a start. Someone was blocking it.

“Oh, Grandmama,” Luna whispered. “What have you done?”

37.

In Which the Witch Learns Something Shocking

It wasn't Luna,
Xan told herself again and again and again.
My Luna is safe at home.
She told herself this until it felt true. The man shoved another spider into her mouth. Despite how repellant she found the food, she had to admit that her birdish gullet found it delicious. It was the first time she had ever actually eaten while transformed. And it would be the last time, too. The slow vanishing of her life in front of her eyes did not make her sad in and of itself. But the thought of leaving Luna . . .

Xan shivered. Birds do not sob. Had she been in her old-­woman form, she would have sobbed. She would have sobbed all night.

“Are you all right, my friend?” the man said, his voice hushed and stricken. Xan's black, beady bird eyes did not roll as well as her human eyes rolled, and alas, the gesture was lost on him.

But Xan was being unfair. He was a nice enough young man—a bit excitable, perhaps. Overly
keen
. She'd seen the type before.

“Oh, I know you are just a bird and you cannot possibly understand me, but I have never harmed a living creature before.” His voice broke. Two large tears appeared in his eyes.

Oh!
Xan thought.
You are in pain.
And she nestled in a little bit more closely, clucking and cooing and doing her best in Bird to make him feel better. Xan was very good at making people feel better, having had five hundred years of practice. Easing sorrow. Soothing pain. A listening ear.

The young man had built a small fire and was cooking a piece of sausage he had taken from a package. If Xan had her human nose and her human taste buds, the sausage would have smelled delicious. In her birdish state, she detected no fewer than nine different spices and a hint of dried apples and crushed zirin petals. And love, too. Copious amounts of love. She had smelled it even before he opened the package.
Someone made that for him,
Xan thought.
Someone loves that boy very much. Lucky fellow.

The sausage bubbled and hissed on the fire.

“I don't suppose you'll be wanting any?”

Xan chirped and hoped he would understand. First of all, she wouldn't dream of taking the boy's food—not while he was lost in the forest. Second of all, there was no way her bird gullet would tolerate meat. Bugs were fine. Anything else would make her vomit.

The young man took a bite, and though he smiled, more tears came pouring down his face. He looked down at the bird, and his cheeks turned bright red with embarrassment.

“Excuse me, my winged friend. You see, this sausage was made by my beloved wife.” His voice choked. “Ethyne. Her name is Ethyne.”

Xan chirped, hoping to encourage him to continue. This young man seemed to have so many feelings stuck inside him, he was like a pile of kindling, just waiting for that first, hot spark.

He took another bite. The sun had vanished completely and the stars had just begun to show themselves in the sky's deepening dark. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Xan could feel a little rattle, deep inside the young man's chest—the precursor to loss. She chortled and cheeped and gave his arm an encouraging peck. He looked down and smiled.

“What is it about you, my friend? I feel I could tell you anything.” He reached over and put another small bundle of kindling onto the fire. “Not too much,” he said. “This is just to keep us warm until the moon rises. And then we must be on our way. The Day of Sacrifice waits for no man, after all. Or, at least, it hasn't so far. But we'll see, little friend. Perhaps I'll make it wait forever.”

Day of Sacrifice,
she thought.
What is he talking about?

She gave him another quick peck.
Keep talking,
she thought.

He laughed. “My, you are a feisty thing. If Ethyne is not able to fix your wing, rest assured that we will make you a comfortable home and life for the rest of your days. Ethyne . . .” He sighed. “She is a wonder. She makes everything beautiful. Even me, and I am as ugly as they come. I loved her, you know, when we were children. But I was shy and she joined the Sisters, and then I was maimed. I had made my peace with loneliness.”

He leaned back. His deeply grooved face glowed in the firelight. He wasn't ugly. But he
was
broken. And not by the scars, either. Something
else
had broken him. Xan fixed her eyes on his heart and peered inside. She saw a woman with hair writhing like snakes perched in the rafters of a house with a baby clutched to her chest.

A baby with a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon.

Xan felt her heart go cold.

“You may not know it, my friend, but there is a witch in the woods.”

No,
thought Xan.

“And she takes our children. One every year. We have to leave the youngest baby in the circle of sycamores and never look back. If we don't, the Witch will destroy us all.”

No,
Xan thought.
No, no, no.

Those babies!

Their poor mothers. Their poor fathers.

And she had loved them all—of course she had—and they had had happy lives . . . but oh! The sorrow hung over the Protectorate like a cloud.
Why didn't I see it?

“I am here because of her. Because of my beautiful Ethyne. Because she loved me and wanted to have a family with me. But our baby is the youngest in the Protectorate. And I can't allow my child—Ethyne's child—to be taken away. Most people just carry on—what choice do they have?—but there have been those, tender souls like my Ethyne, who have gone mad with grief. And they get locked away.” He paused. His body shook. Or perhaps it was Xan who was shaking. “Our boy. He's beautiful. And if the Witch takes him? It would kill Ethyne. And that would kill me.”

If Xan had felt she could spare the magic, she would have transformed right then and there. Held the poor boy in her arms. She would have told him about her mistake. She would have told him about the countless children that she had carried across the woods. About how happy they were. How happy their families were.

But oh! The sorrow hanging over the Protectorate!

And oh! The tyranny of grief!

And oh! The howls of a mother driven mad by sorrow. The grief and pain that he had done nothing to stop it, even though he didn't know how. Xan could see the memory lodged in the young man's heart. She could see how it had taken root, calcified, inflamed by his own guilt and shame.

How did this begin?
Xan asked herself.
How?

As if to answer, she heard in the caverns of her own memories the padded footsteps of something quiet, predatory, and terrifying, coming closer and closer and closer.

No,
she thought.
It couldn't be.
Still, she was careful to keep her own sorrow inside. She knew, better than anyone, the damage that sorrow can do when it finds its way into the wrong hands.

“In any case, my friend, I have never killed anyone before. I have never harmed any creature. But I love Ethyne. And I love Luken, my son. And I will do what is necessary to protect my family. I am telling you this, my swallow, because I don't want you to be frightened when you see me do the thing I must do. I am not a wicked man. I am a man who loves his family. And because I love them, I will kill the Witch. I will. I will kill the Witch or die trying.”