The Girl Who Drank the Moon(52)

Anger buzzed through Luna’s body, from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. This is how a tree must feel, she thought, as it is hit by lightning. She glared at the torn-up note, wishing that it would reassemble itself so that she might tear it up again.

(She turned away before she could notice the pieces begin to quiver slightly, inching toward one another.)

Luna gave the crow a defiant look.

“I’m going after her.”

“Caw,” the crow said, though Luna knew he meant, “That is a very stupid idea. You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“I do, too,” Luna said, sticking out her chin and pulling her journal from her satchel. “See?”

“Caw,” the crow said. “You made that up,” he meant. “I once had a dream that I could breathe underwater like a fish. You don’t see me trying that, now do you?”

“She’s not strong enough,” Luna said, feeling her voice start to crack. What if her grandmother became injured in the woods? Or sick? Or lost? What if Luna never saw her again? “I need to help her. I need her.”

(The bits of paper with the “Dear” and the “Luna” fluttered their edges together, fusing neatly side by side, until no evidence of their separation remained. So too did the shred bearing “By the time you read this” and “there are things I must explain” underneath. And underneath that was, “you are ever so much more than you realize.”)

Luna slid her feet into her boots, and packed a rucksack with whatever she could think of that might be useful on a journey. Hard cheese. Dried berries. A blanket. A water flask. A compass with a mirror. Her grandmother’s star map. A very sharp knife.

“Caw,” the crow said, though it sounded more like, “Aren’t you going to tell Glerk and Fyrian?”

“Of course not. They’d just try to stop me.”

Luna sighed. (A small, torn scrap of paper scurried its way across the room, as nimble as any mouse. Luna didn’t notice. She didn’t notice it creeping up her leg and along the back of her cloak. She didn’t notice it burrow its way into her pocket.) “No,” she said finally. “They’ll figure out where I’m going. And anything I say will come out wrong. Everything I say comes out wrong.”

“Caw,” the crow said. “I don’t think that’s true.”

But it didn’t matter what the crow thought. Luna’s mind was made up. She tied on her hood and checked the map that she had made. It looked detailed enough. And of course the crow was right, and of course Luna knew how dangerous the woods were. But she knew the way. She was sure of it.

“Are you coming with me or what?” she said to the crow as she left her home and slid into the green.

“Caw,” the crow said. “To the ends of the earth, my Luna. To the ends of the earth.”



“Well,” Glerk said, looking at the mess in the house. “This is not good at all.”

“Where is Auntie Xan?” Fyrian wailed. He buried his face in a hankie, by turns lighting it on fire and then dousing the flames with his tears. “Why wouldn’t she say good-bye?”

“Xan can take care of herself,” Glerk said. “It’s Luna who worries me.”

He said this because it seemed like it must be true. But it wasn’t. His worry for Xan had him tied up in knots. What was she thinking? Glerk moaned in his thoughts. And how can I bring her back safe?

Glerk sat heavily on the floor, his great tail curled around his body, reading over the note that Xan had left for Luna.

“Dear Luna,” it said. “By the time you read this, I will be traveling quickly across the forest.”

“Quickly? Ah,” he murmured. “She has transformed.” He shook his head. Glerk knew better than anyone how Xan’s magic had drained away. What would happen if she became stuck in her transformation? If she was permanently ensquirrelled or enbirded or endeered? Or, even more troubling, if she could only manage a halfway transformation.

“Things are changing in you, dearest. Inside and out. I know you can sense it, but you have no words for it. This is my fault. You have no idea who you are, and that is my fault, too. There are things that I kept from you because of circumstance, and things that I kept from you because I didn’t want to break your heart. But it doesn’t change the facts: you are ever so much more than you realize.”

“What does it say, Glerk?” Fyrian said, buzzing from one side of Glerk’s head to the other, like a persistent, and annoying, bumblebee.

“Give us a moment, will you, my friend?” Glerk murmured.

Hearing Glerk use the word “friend” in relation to himself made Fyrian positively giddy with happiness. He trilled his tongue against the roof of his mouth and turned a backflip and a double spin in the air, accidentally knocking his head against the ceiling.

“Of course I’ll give you a moment, Glerk, my friend,” Fyrian said, shrugging off the bump on his skull. “I’ll give you all the moments in the world.” He fluttered down to the armrest of the rocking chair and made himself as prim and still as he possibly could.

Glerk looked closer at the paper—not at the words, but at the paper itself. It had been torn, he could see, and had been knit back together so tightly, most eyes would not have caught the change. Xan would have seen it. Glerk looked even closer, at the threads of the magic—each individual strand. Blue. A shimmer of silver at the edges. There were millions of them. And none of them originated from Xan.