The Girl Who Drank the Moon (8 page)

And here was this lunatic.
Wasting it.
Antain could hardly contain his shock.

And yet.

The birds were incredibly intricate and detailed. They crowded the floor; they heaped on the bed; they peeked out of the two small drawers of the nightstand. And they were, he couldn't deny it,
beautiful.
They were
so beautiful
. Antain pressed his hand on his heart.

“Oh, my,” he whispered.

The prisoner lay on the bed, fast asleep, but she stirred at the sound of his voice. Very slowly, she stretched. Very slowly, she pulled her elbows under her body and inched her way to a small incline.

Antain hardly recognized her. That beautiful black hair was gone, shaved to the skin, and so were the fire in her eyes and the flush of her cheeks. Her lips were flat and drooping, as though they were too heavy to hold up, and her cheeks were sallow and dull. Even the crescent moon birthmark on her forehead was a shadow of its former self—like a smudge of ashes on her brow. Her small, clever hands were covered with tiny cuts—
Paper, probably,
Antain thought—and dark smudges of ink stained each fingertip.

Her eyes slid from one end of him to the other, up, down, and sideways, never finding purchase. She couldn't pin him down.

“Do I know you?” she said slowly.

“No, ma'am,” Antain said.

“You look”—she swallowed—“familiar.” Each word seemed to be drawn from a very deep well.

Antain looked around. There was also a small table with more paper, but this was drawn on. Strange, intricate maps with words he didn't understand and markings he did not know. And all of them with the same phrase written in the bottom right corner: “She is here; she is here; she is here.”

Who is here?
Antain wondered.

“Ma'am, I am a member of the Council. Well, a provisional member. An Elder-­in Training.”

“Ah,” she said, and she slumped back down onto the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. “You. I remember you. Have you come to ridicule me, too?”

She closed her eyes and laughed.

Antain stepped backward. He felt a shiver at the sound of her laugh, as though someone was slowly pouring a tin of cold water down his back. He looked up at the paper birds hanging from the ceiling. Strange, but all of them were suspended from what looked like strands of long, black, wavy hair. And even stranger: they were all facing him. Had they been facing him before?

Antain's palms began to sweat.

“You should tell your uncle,” she said very, very slowly, laying each word next to the one before, like a long, straight line of heavy, round stones, “that he was wrong. She is
here.
And she is
terrible
.”

She is here,
the map said.

She is here.

She is here.

She is here.

But what did it mean?

“Who is where?” Antain asked, in spite of himself. Why was he talking to her?
One can't,
he reminded himself,
reason with the mad. It can't be done.
The paper birds rustled overhead.
It must be the wind,
Antain thought.

“The child he took? My child?” She gave a hollow laugh. “She didn't die. Your uncle thinks she is dead.
Your uncle is wrong
.”

“Why would he think she is dead? No one knows what the Witch does with the children.” He shivered again. There was a shivery, rustling sound to his left, like the flapping of a paper wing. He turned but nothing moved. He heard it again at his right. Again. Nothing.

“All I know is this,” the mother said as she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. The paper birds began to lift and swirl.

It is just the wind,
Antain told himself.

“I know where she is.”

I am imagining things.

“I know what you people have done.”

Something is crawling down my neck. My god. It's a hummingbird. And—OUCH!

A paper raven swooped across the room, slicing its wing across Antain's cheek, cutting it open, letting him bleed.

Antain was too amazed to cry out.

“But it doesn't matter. Because the reckoning is coming. It's coming. It's coming. And it is nearly here.”

She closed her eyes and swayed. She was clearly mad. Indeed, her madness hung about her like a cloud, and Antain knew he had to get away, lest he become infected by it. He pounded on the door, but it didn't make any sound. “LET ME OUT,” he shouted to the Sisters, but his voice seemed to die the moment it fell from his mouth. He could feel his words thud on the ground at his feet. Was he catching madness? Could such a thing happen? The paper birds shuffled and shirred and gathered. They lifted in great waves.

“PLEASE!” he shouted as a paper swallow went for his eyes and two paper swans bit his feet. He kicked and swatted, but they kept coming.

“You seem like a nice boy,” the mother said. “Choose a different profession. That's my advice.” She crawled back into bed.

Antain pounded on the door again. Again his pounding was silent.

The birds squawked and keened and screeched. They sharpened their paper wings like knives. They massed in great murmurations—swelling and contracting and swelling again. They reared up for the attack. Antain covered his face with his hands.

And then they were upon him.

14.

In Which There Are Consequences

When Luna woke, she felt different. She didn't know why. She lay in her bed for a long time, listening to the singing of the birds. She didn't understand a thing they were saying. She shook her head. Why would she understand them in the first place? They were only birds. She pressed her hands to her face. She listened to the birds again.

“No one can talk to birds,” she said out loud. And it was true. So why did it feel like it wasn't? A brightly colored finch landed on the windowsill and sang so sweetly, Luna thought her heart would break. Indeed, it
was
breaking a little, even now. She brought her hands to her eyes and realized that she was crying, though she had no idea why.

“Silly,” she said out loud, noticing a little waver and rattle in her voice. “Silly Luna.” She was the silliest girl. Everyone said so.

She looked around. Fyrian was curled up at the foot of her bed. That was regular. He loved sleeping on her bed, though her grandmother often forbade it. Luna never knew why.

At least she
thought
she didn't know why. But it felt, deep inside herself, that maybe once upon a time she
did
. But she couldn't remember when.

Her grandmother was asleep in her own bed on the other side of the room. And her swamp monster was sprawled out on the floor, snoring prodigiously.

That
is
strange,
Luna thought. She couldn't remember a single other time when Glerk had slept on the floor. Or inside. Or un-­submerged in the swamp. Luna shook her head. She squinched up her shoulders to her ears—first one side, and then the other. The world pressed on her strangely, like a coat that no longer fit. Also, she had a terrible pain in her head, deep inside. She hit her forehead a few times with the heel of her hand, but it didn't help.

Luna slid out of bed and slid out of her nightgown and slipped on a dress with deep pockets sewn all over, because it is how she asked her grandmother to make it. She gently laid the sleeping Fyrian into one of the pockets, careful not to wake him up. Her bed was attached to the ceiling with ropes and pulleys to make room in the small house during the day, but Luna was still too small to be able to hoist it up on her own. She left it as it was and went outside.

It was early, and the morning sun had not yet made it over the lip of the ridge. The mountain was cool and damp and alive. Three of the volcanic craters had thin ribbons of smoke lazily curling from their insides and meandering toward the sky. Luna walked slowly toward the edge of the swamp. She looked down at her bare feet sinking slightly into the mossy ground, leaving footsteps. No flowers grew out of the places where she stepped.

But that was a silly thing to think, wasn't it? Why would something grow out of her footsteps? “Silly, silly,” she said out loud. And then she felt her head go fuzzy. She sat down on the ground and stared at the ridge, thinking nothing at all.

X
an found Luna sitting by herself outside, staring at the sky. Which was odd. Normally the girl woke in a whirlwind, rousting awake all who were near. Not so today.

Well,
Xan thought.
Everything's different now.
She shook her head.
Not everything,
she decided. Despite the bound-­up magic curled inside her, safe and sound for now, she was still the same girl. She was still
Luna
. They simply didn't have to worry about her magic erupting all over the place. Now she could learn in peace. And today they were going to get started.

“Good morning, precious,” Xan said, letting her hand slide along the curve of the girl's skull, winding her fingers in the long black curls. Luna didn't say anything. She seemed to be in a bit of a trance. Xan tried not to worry about it.

“Good morning, Auntie Xan,” Fyrian said, peeking out of the pocket and yawning, stretching his small arms out as wide as they would go. He looked around, squinting. “Why am I outside?”

Luna returned to the world with a start. She looked at her grandmother and smiled. “Grandmama!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I feel like I haven't seen you for days and days.”

“Well, that's because—” Fyrian began, but Xan interrupted.

“Hush, child,” she said.

“But Auntie Xan,” Fyrian continued excitedly, “I just wanted to explain that—”

“Enough prattling, you silly dragon. Off with you. Go find your monster.”

Xan pulled Luna to her feet and hurried her away.

“But where are we going, Grandmama?” Luna asked.

“To the workshop, darling,” Xan said, shooting Fyrian a sharp look. “Go help Glerk with breakfast.”

“Okay, Auntie Xan. I just want to tell Luna this one—”

“Now, Fyrian,” she snapped, and she ushered Luna quickly away.

L
una loved her grandmother's workshop, and had already been taught the basics of mechanics—levers and wedges and pulleys and gears. Even at that young age, Luna possessed a mechanical mind, and was able to construct little machines that whirred and ticked. She loved finding bits of wood that she could smooth and connect and fashion into something else.

For now, Xan had pushed all of Luna's projects into a corner and divided the whole workshop into sections, each with its own sets of bookshelves and tool shelves and materials shelves. There was a section for inventing and a section for building and one for scientific study and one for botany and one for the study of magic. On the floor she had made numerous chalk drawings.

“What happened here, Grandmama?” Luna asked.

“Nothing, dear,” Xan said. But then she thought better of it. “Well, actually, many things, but there are more important items to attend to first.” She sat down on the floor, across from the girl, and gathered her magic into her hand, letting it float just above her fingers like a bright, shining ball.

“You see, dearest,” she explained, “the magic flows through me, from earth to sky, but it collects in me as well. Inside me. Like static electricity. It crackles and hums in my bones. When I need a little extra light, I rub my hands together like so, and let the light spin between my palms, until it is enough to float wherever I need it to float. You've seen me do this before, hundreds of times, but I have never explained it. Isn't it pretty, my darling?”

But Luna did not see. Her eyes were blank. Her face was blank. She looked as though her soul had gone dormant, like a tree in winter. Xan gasped.

“Luna?” she said. “Are you well? Are you hungry?
Luna?
” There was nothing. Blank eyes. Blank face. A Luna-­shaped hole in the universe. Xan felt a rush of panic bloom in her chest.

And, as though the blankness had never happened at all, the light returned to the child's eyes. “Grandmama, may I have something sweet?” she said.

“What?” Xan said, her panic increasing in spite of the light's return to the child's eyes. She looked closer.

Luna shook her head as though to dislodge water from her ears. “Sweet,” she said slowly. “I would like something sweet.” She crinkled her eyebrows together. “Please,” she added. And the Witch obliged, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a handful of dried berries. The child chewed them thoughtfully. She looked around.

“Why are we here, Grandmama?”

“We've been here this whole time,” Xan said. She searched the child's face with her eyes.
What was going on?

“But why though?” Luna looked around. “Weren't we just outside?” She pressed her lips together. “I don't . . .” she began, trailing off. “I don't remember . . .”

“I wanted to give you your first lesson, darling.” A cloud passed over Luna's face, and Xan paused. She put her hand on the girl's cheek. The waves of magic were gone. If she concentrated very hard, she could feel the gravitational pull of that dense nugget of power, smooth and hard and sealed off like a nut. Or an egg.

She decided to try again. “Luna, my love. Do you know what magic is?”

And once again, Luna's eyes went blank. She didn't move. She barely breathed. It was as if the
stuff
of Luna—light, motion, intelligence—had simply vanished.

Xan waited again. This time it took even longer for the light to return and for Luna to regain herself. The girl looked at her grandmother with a curious expression. She looked to her right and she looked to her left. She frowned.

“When did we get here, Grandmama?” she asked. “Did I fall asleep?”

Xan pulled herself to her feet and started pacing the room. She paused at the invention table, surveying its gears and wires and wood and glass and books with intricate diagrams and instructions. She picked up a small gear in one hand and a small spring—so sharp at the ends it made a point of blood bloom on her thumb—in the other. She looked back at Luna and pictured the mechanism inside that girl—rhythmically ticking its way toward her thirteenth birthday, as even and inexorable as a well-­tuned clock.

Or, at least, that was how the spell was
supposed
to work. Nothing in Xan's construction of the spell had indicated this kind of . . .
blankness.
Had she done it wrong?

She decided to try another tactic.

“Grandamama, what are you doing?” Luna asked.

“Nothing, darling,” Xan said as she bustled over to the magic table and assembled a scrying glass—wood from the earth, glass made from a melted meteorite, a splash of water, and a single hole in the center to let the air in. It was one of her better efforts. Luna didn't seem to even see it. Her gaze slid from one side to the other. Xan set it up between them and looked at the girl through the gap.

“I would like to tell you a story, Luna,” the old woman said.

“I love stories.” Luna smiled.

“Once upon a time there was a witch who found a baby in the woods,” Xan said. Through the scrying glass, she watched her dusty words fly into the ears of the child. She watched the words separate inside the skull—
baby
lingered and flitted from the memory centers to the imaginative structures to the places where the brain enjoys playing with pleasing-­sounding words.
Baby, baby, b-­b-­bab-­b-­b-­eeee,
over and over and over again. Luna's eyes began to darken.

“Once upon a time,” Xan said, “when you were very, very small, I took you outside to see the stars.”

“We always go outside to see the stars,” Luna said. “Every night.”

“Yes, yes,” Xan said. “Pay attention. One night, long ago, as we looked at the stars, I gathered starlight on my fingertips, and fed it to you like honey from the comb.”

And Luna's eyes went blank. She shook her head as though clearing away cobwebs. “Honey,” she said slowly, as though the word itself was a great burden.

Xan was undeterred. “And then,” she pressed. “One night, Grandmama did not notice the rising moon, hanging low and fat in the sky. And she reached up to gather starlight, and gave you moonlight by mistake. And this is how you became enmagicked, my darling. This is where your magic comes from. You drank deeply from the moon, and now the moon is full within you.”

It was as though it was not Luna sitting on the floor, but a picture of Luna instead. She did not blink. Her face was as still as stone. Xan waved her hand in front of the girl's face, and nothing happened. Nothing at all.

“Oh, dear,” Xan said. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

Xan scooped the girl into her arms and ran out the door, sobbing, looking for Glerk.

It took most of the afternoon for the child to regain herself.

“Well,” Glerk said. “This is a bit of a pickle.”

“It's nothing of the kind,” Xan snapped. “I'm sure it's temporary,” she added, as though her words alone could make it true.

But it wasn't temporary. This was the consequence of Xan's spell: the child was now unable to learn about magic. She couldn't hear it, couldn't speak it, couldn't even know the word. Every time she heard anything to do with magic, her consciousness and her spark and her very soul seemed to simply disappear. And whether the knowledge was being sucked into the kernel in Luna's brain, or whether it was flying away entirely, Xan did not know.