The Girl Who Drank the Moon(75)

Glerk regarded his friend. The growing had slowed, but it had not stopped. At least now Fyrian seemed to be growing more evenly.

“I don’t know. I can only hope for the best.” Glerk curled his great, wide jaws into a grin. “And you, dear Fyrian, are one of the best I know. Come. To the top of the ridge! Let us hurry!”

And they rushed through the undergrowth and scrambled up the rocks.



The madwoman had never felt so good in her life. The sun was down. The moon was just starting to rise. And she was speeding through the forest. She did not like the look of the ground—too many pitfalls and boiling pots and steamy depths that might cook her alive. Instead, in the boots she ran from branch to branch as easily as a squirrel.

The Head Sister was following her. She could feel the stretch and curl of the Sister’s muscles. She could feel the ripple of speed and the flash of color as she loped through the forest.

She paused for a moment on the thick branch of a tree that she could not identify. The bark was deeply furrowed, and she wondered if it ran like rivers when it rained. She peered into the gathering dark. She allowed her vision to go wide, to hook over hills and ravines and ridges, to creep over the curve of the world.

There! A flash of blue, with a shimmer of silver.

There! A glow of licheny green.

There! The young man she had hurt.

There! Some kind of monster and his pet.

The mountain rumbled. Each time it did so it was louder, more insistent. The mountain had swallowed power, and the power wanted out.

“I need my birds,” the madwoman said, turning her face to the sky. She leaped forward and clung to a new branch. And another. And another. And another.

“I NEED MY BIRDS!” she called again, running from branch to branch as easily as if she was running a footrace across a grassy field. But so much faster than that.

She could feel the magic of the boots lighting up her bones. The growing moonlight seemed to increase it.

“I need my daughter,” she whispered as she ran even faster, her eye fixed on the shimmer of blue.

And behind her, another whisper gathered—the beating of paper wings.



The crow crawled out of the girl’s hood. He arranged his fine feet on her shoulders and then snapped his shiny wings out, launching himself into the air.

“Caw,” the crow called. “Luna,” his voice rang out.

“Caw,” again. “Luna.”

“Caw, caw, caw.”

“Luna, Luna, Luna.”

The ridge became steeper. The girl had to grab on to the spindly trunks and branches clinging to the slope to keep from falling backward. Her face was red and her breath came in gasps.

“Caw,” the crow said. “I am going up ahead to see what you cannot.”

He darted forward, through the shadows, onto the bare knoll at the top of the ridge, where large boulders stood like sentinels, guarding the mountains.

He saw a man. The man held a swallow. The swallow kicked and fluttered and pecked.

“Hush now, my friend!” The man spoke in soothing tones as he wrapped the swallow in a measure of cloth and bound it inside his coat.

The man crept toward one of the last boulders near the edge of the ridge.

“So,” he said to the swallow, who struggled and fussed. “She has taken the form of a girl. Even a tiger can take the skin of a lamb. It doesn’t change the fact that it is a tiger.”

And then the man took out a knife.

“Caw!” the crow screamed. “Luna!”

“Caw!”

“Run!”





42.


In Which the World Is Blue and Silver and Silver and Blue Luna heard the crow’s warning, but she couldn’t slow down. She was alive with moonlight. Blue and silver, silver and blue, she thought, but she did not know why. The moonlight was delicious. She gathered it on her hands and drank it again and again. Once she had started she could not stop.

And with each gulp, the scene on the ridge became clearer.

That lichen-green glow.

It was her grandmother.

The feathers.

They were somehow connected to her grandmother.

She saw the man with scars on his face. He looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t place him.

There was kindness in his eyes and kindness in his spirit. His heart carried love inside it. His hand carried a knife.



Blue, the madwoman thought as she streaked through the trees from branch to branch to branch. Blue, blue, blue, blue. With each loping step, the magic of the boots coursed through her body like lightning.

“And silver, too,” she sang out loud. “Blue and silver, silver and blue.”

Each step brought her closer to the girl. The moon was fully up now. It lit the world. The light of the moon skittered along the madwoman’s bones, from the top of her head to her beautiful boots and back again.

Stride, stride, stride; leap, leap, leap; blue, blue, blue. A shimmer of silver. A dangerous baby. A protective pair of arms. A monster with wide jaws and kind eyes. A tiny dragon. A child full of moonlight.

Luna. Luna, Luna, Luna, Luna.

Her child.

There was a bare knoll on the top of the ridge. She raced toward it. Boulders stood like sentinels. And behind one of the boulders stood a man. A licheny green glow showed through a small spot on his jacket. Some kind of magic, the madwoman thought. The man held a knife. And just over the lip of the ridge, and nearly upon him, was the other glow—the blue glow.