A Nearer Moon (14 page)

After a time, Mama backed away and placed her hands on either side of her daughter's face. “Luna,” she said, “I can't believe how brave you were. I can't believe I let myself get so wrapped up in sadness that I couldn't see it—I couldn't see
you
.”

A pair of pelicans leaped from their perches and flapped, ungainly, steadily rising along the path of the newborn river.

With a gentle push between Luna's shoulder blades, Mama said, “Go on inside.”

Luna walked into the hut and around the paneled
screen at the back, her heart swelling until there wasn't room for anything else, not breath, not speech, not fear or worry. Willow sat up in bed, her arms outstretched, starbursts of pink on her cheeks and a wide smile breaking on her lips. The sheets all around her were speckled with black sludge where the curse had finally sweated out of her.

Like the river that had been hemmed and penned in and suddenly set free, Luna ran to throw her arms around her sister.

“Happy Perigee, Luna!” Willow beamed. “Isn't this just the best day ever?”

T
he river flows.

It begins as a trickle deep in the heart of the jungle, in the thick, secret heart of the jungle. It surges and swirls, gorging on the breath of a thousand streams.

The river, it bells, and it swells, and it flows, and a reed-thin girl in a skinny boat spins in slow circles. Her sister perches at the bow, calling directions and captaining the little craft. The pair of them hold paddles flat as porpoise tails, and the boat skims along an eddy where a swamp once covered everything in sight. The sound of their laughter winds like chimes through tree roots reacquainting themselves with the air. It bounces
off dirt drying in the midday sun and skips over the cool, clear ripples of water rushing past.

In another world separated from this one by a veil of whirling clouds, a second pair of sisters ride the currents of a different river just as silken, just as sweet. Arms outstretched, their fingers interlace, as if they cannot bear to be separated even for a breath. They are rocked in the wavelets while the fish below buoy them up on a pillow of bubbles. A thousand droplets leap away from the steady flow to kiss their tiny brows.

Mornings are born, evenings fade, and still the river slides by.

I am so grateful for my editor, Reka Simonsen, who is loyal and kind and so very wise! Many thanks to the wonderful team at Atheneum Books for Young Readers for welcoming me, and for turning this story into such a lovely book: Justin Chanda, Emma Ledbetter, Sonia Chaghatzbanian, Jeannie Ng, and Chava Wolin.

To my brilliant agent, writing partners, and early readers, thank you for your encouragement and faithful critique: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Meg Wiviott, Anna Jordan, Kristin Derwich, and Tiffany Crowder.

Finally, to my friends and family, thank you for understanding and embracing my near-constant state of daydreaming and plotting, and for making life in this real world so fantastic! I love you all.

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Melanie Crowder

Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Zdenko Basic

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OOKS FOR
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Jacket design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian; interior design by Irene Metaxatos

The text for this book is set in Adobe Caslon Pro and Dear Sarah.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Crowder, Melanie, author.

A nearer moon / Melanie Crowder. — First edition.

pages cm

Summary: Long ago the dam formed, the lively river turned into a swamp, and the wasting illness came to Luna's village, and now that her little sister is sick, Luna will do anything to save her, even offer herself to the creature that lives in the swamp on the day of the nearer moon.

ISBN 978-1-4814-4148-3

ISBN 978-1-4814-4150-6 (eBook)

1. Water spirits—Juvenile fiction. 2. Magic—Juvenile fiction. 3. Sisters—Juvenile fiction. 4. Families—Juvenile fiction. [1. Water spirits—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C885382Ne 2015

813.6—dc23

[Fic]  2014043590