The Girl Who Drank the Moon(56)

“Is—” Her voice cracked. It was rusty and creaky from lack of use. She cleared her throat again. “Is anyone here?”

No one answered.

She tried again.

“I do not remember my name.” This was true. The truth, she decided, was the only thing she had. “But I had a name. Once. I am looking for my child. I do not remember her name, either. But she exists. My name exists, too. I lived with my daughter and my husband before everything went wrong. She was taken. She was taken by bad men. And bad women. And maybe also a witch. I am not certain about the Witch.”

Still no one answered.

The madwoman looked around. The only sounds were the bubbling swamp and the rustle of paper wings. The door in the belly of the enormous tree was slightly ajar. She walked across the yard. Her feet hurt. They were bare and uncalloused. When was the last time they had touched the earth? She could hardly remember. Her cell was small. The stone was smooth. She could go from one side to the other in six short steps. When she was a little girl she ran barefoot whenever she could. But that was a thousand lifetimes ago. Perhaps it happened to someone else.

A goat began to bleat. And another. One was the color of toasted bread and the other was the color of coal. They stared at the madwoman with their large, damp eyes. They were hungry. And their udders were swollen. They needed to be milked.

She had milked a goat, she realized with a start. Long ago.

The chickens clucked in their enclosure, pressing their beaks to the willow walls, keeping them inside. They gave their wings a desperate flap.

They were also hungry.

“Who takes care of you?” the madwoman asked. “And where are they now?”

She ignored the animals’ piteous cries and went through the door.

Inside was a home—neat and tidy and pleasant. Rugs on the floor. Quilts on the chairs. There were two beds pulled up to the ceiling through a clever construction of ropes and pulleys. There were dresses on hangers, and cloaks on hooks. One bed had a collection of staffs leaning against the wall just under it. There were jams and bundles of herbs and dried meats studded with spices and cracked salt. A round of cheese curing on the table. Pictures on the wall—handmade pictures on wood or paper or unrolled bark. A dragon sitting on the head of an old woman. A strange-looking monster. A mountain with a moon hovering over it, like a pendant off a neck. A tower with a black-haired woman leaning out, reaching her hand to a bird. “She is here,” it said on the bottom.

Each picture was signed with a childlike script. “Luna,” they said.

“Luna,” whispered the madwoman. “Luna, Luna, Luna.”

And each time she said it, she felt something inside her clicking into place. She felt her heart beat. And beat. And beat. She gasped.

“My daughter is named Luna,” she whispered. She knew in her heart it was true.

The beds were cold. The hearth was cold. No shoes sat on the rug by the door. No one was here. Which meant that Luna and whoever else lived in this house were not here. They were in the woods. And there was a witch in the woods.





32.


In Which Luna Finds a Paper Bird. Several of Them, Actually.





By the time Luna regained consciousness, the sun was already high in the sky. She was lying on something very soft—so soft that she thought at first she was in her own bed. She opened her eyes and saw the sky, cut by the branches of the trees. She squinted, shivered, and pulled herself up. Took her bearings.

“Caw,” breathed the crow. “Thank goodness.”

First she assessed her own body. She had a scratch across her cheek, but it didn’t seem particularly deep, and a lump on her head that hurt to touch. There was dried blood in her hair. Her dress was torn at the bottom and at both of her elbows. Other than that, nothing seemed particularly broken, which itself was fairly remarkable.

Even more remarkable, she lay atop a bloom of mushrooms that had grown to enormous size at the edge of a creek bed. Luna had never seen mushrooms so large. Or comfortable. Not only had they broken her fall, but they had prevented her from rolling directly into the creek and possibly drowning.

“Caw,” said the crow. “Let’s go home.”

“Give us a minute,” Luna said crossly. She reached into her satchel and pulled out her notebook, opening it to the map. Her home was marked. Streams and knolls and rocky slopes were marked. Dangerous places. Old towns that were now in ruins. Cliffs. Vents. Waterfalls. Geysers. Places where she could not cross. And here, at the bottom corner.

“Mushrooms,” the map said.

“Mushrooms?” Luna said out loud.

“Caw,” said the crow. “What are you talking about?”

The mushrooms on her map were next to a creek. It didn’t lead to her route, but it lead to a place where she could safely traverse across mostly stable ground. Maybe.

“Caw,” the crow whined. “Please let’s go home.”

Luna shook her head. “No,” she said. “My grandmother needs me. I can feel it in my bones. And we are not leaving this wood without her.”

Wincing, she staggered to her feet, replaced her notebook in her satchel, and tried her best to hike without limping.

With each step her wounds hurt a little less and her mind cleared a little more. With each step her bones felt stronger and less bruised, and even the dried blood in her hair felt less heavy and crusty and sticky. Soon, she ran her hand through her hair, and the blood was gone. The lump was gone, too. Even the scratch on her face and the tears in her dress seemed to have healed themselves.