The Girl Who Drank the Moon(44)

She didn’t get up for another hour. She assured Luna this was perfectly normal.

“Of course it is, Grandmama,” Luna said, not looking her grandmother in the eye. “Everything is perfectly normal.” And grandmother and granddaughter faced one another with thin, brittle smiles. Each lie they told fell from their lips and scattered on the ground, tinkling and glittering like broken glass.



Later that day, when her grandmother announced that she would like to be alone and left for the workshop, Luna pulled her journal from her satchel and paged through it, looking at the drawings she had done while she was dreaming. She always found she did her best work when she had no memory of what she had done. It was annoying, actually.

She had drawn a picture of a stone tower—one that she had drawn before—with high walls and an observatory pointing at the sky. She had drawn a paper bird flying out of the westernmost window. Another thing she had drawn before. She also had drawn a baby surrounded by ancient, gnarled trees. She had drawn the full moon, beaming promises to the earth.

And she had drawn a map. Two of them, actually. On two pages.

Luna flipped back and forth, stared at her handiwork.

Each map was intricate and detailed, showing topography and trails and hidden dangers. A geyser here. A mud pot there. A sinkhole that could swallow a herd of goats and still groan for more.

The first map was a precise rendering of the landscape and trails that led to the Free Cities. Luna could see each landform, each divot in the trail, each stream and clearing and waterfall. She could even see the downed trees from their recent journey.

The other map was another part of the forest altogether. The trail began at her tree house in one corner, and it followed the slope of the mountain as it tumbled toward the north.

Where she had never been.

She had drawn a trail—all twists and turns and clearly identified landmarks. Places to make camp. Which streams had good water, and which needed to be avoided.

There was a circle of trees. And in the center of it, she had written the word “baby.”

There was a town behind a high wall.

And in the town, a Tower.

And next to the Tower, the words, “She is here, she is here, she is here.”

Very slowly, Luna pulled the notebook close, and pressed these words next to her heart.





24.


In Which Antain Presents a Solution





Antain stood outside of his uncle’s study for nearly an hour before working up the courage to knock. He took several deep breaths, mouthed paragraphs in front of his reflection in the pane of glass, attempted an argument with a spoon. He paced, he sweated, he swore under his breath. He mopped his brow with the cloth that Ethyne had embroidered—his name surrounded by a series of skillful knots. His wife was a magician with a needle and thread. He loved her so much, he thought he’d die of it.

“Hope,” she had told him, tracing the many scars on his face tenderly with her small, clever fingers, “is those first tiny buds that form at the very end of winter. How dry they look! How dead! And how cold they are in our fingers! But not for long. They grow big, then sticky, then swollen, and then the whole world is green.”

And it was with the image of his dear wife in his mind—her rosy cheeks, her hair as red as poppies, her belly swollen to bursting under the dress she had made herself—that he finally knocked on the door.

“Ah!” his uncle’s voice boomed from inside. “The shuffler has decided to cease his shuffling and announce his presence.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle—” Antain stammered.

“ENOUGH WITH YOUR APOLOGIES, BOY,” roared Grand Elder Gherland. “Open the door and be done with it!”

The boy stung a bit. Antain had not been a boy for several years now. He was a successful artisan, a keen businessman, and a married man, devoted to his wife. Boy was a word that no longer fit.

He stumbled into the study and bowed low before his uncle, as he always did. When he stood, he could see his uncle look upon his face and flinch. This was nothing new. Antain’s scars continued to shock people. He was used to it.

“Thank you for seeing me, Uncle,” he said.

“I don’t believe I have a choice, Nephew,” Grand Elder Gherland said, rolling his eyes to avoid looking at the young man’s face. “Family is family, after all.”

Antain suspected that this wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t mention it.

“In any case—”

The Grand Elder stood. “In any case nothing, Nephew. I have waited at this desk for close to an eternity, anticipating your arrival, but now the time has come for me to meet with the Council. You do remember the Council, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Uncle,” Antain said, his face suddenly bright. “That is the reason I am here. I wish to address the Council. As a former member. Right now, if I may.”

Grand Elder Gherland was taken quite aback. “You . . .” he stammered. “You wish to what?” Ordinary citizens did not address the Council. It wasn’t done.

“If that’s all right, Uncle.”

“I—” the Grand Elder began.

“I know it is a bit unorthodox, Uncle, and I do understand if it puts you in an uncomfortable position. It has been . . . ever so many years since I wore the robes. I would like, at long last, to address the Council and both explain myself and thank them for giving me a place at their table. I never did, and I feel that it is a thing I owe.”