The Girl Who Drank the Moon(8)

Glerk cleared his throat.

“The Poet,” he said with emphasis, and narrowed his eyes on the baby, “says nothing about Witches and babies.”

“Well then,” Xan said, touching her nose to the baby’s nose and making her laugh. She did it again. And again. “I suppose we don’t have to worry, then. Oh no we don’t!” Her voice went high and singsong, and Glerk rolled his tremendous eyes.

“My dear Xan, you are missing the point.”

“And you are missing this babyhood with all your huffing and puffing. The child is here to stay, and that is that. Human babies are only tiny for an instant—their growing up is as swift as the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. Enjoy it, Glerk! Enjoy it, or get out.” She didn’t look at him when she said this, but Glerk could feel a cold prickliness emanating from the Witch’s shoulder, and it nearly broke his heart.

“Well,” Fyrian said. He was perched on Xan’s shoulder, watching the baby kick and coo with interest. “I like her.”

He wasn’t allowed to get too close. This, Xan explained, was for both of their safeties. The baby, full to bursting with magic, was a bit like a sleeping volcano—internal energy and heat and power can build over time, and erupt without warning. Xan and Glerk were both mostly immune to the volatilities of magic (Xan because of her arts and Glerk because he was older than magic and didn’t truck with its foolishness) and had less to worry about, but Fyrian was delicate. Also, Fyrian was prone to the hiccups. And his hiccups were usually on fire.

“Don’t get too close, Fyrian, dear. Stay behind Auntie Xan.”

Fyrian hid behind the crinkly curtain of the old woman’s hair, staring at the baby with a combination of fear and jealousy and longing. “I want to play with her,” he whined.

“You will,” Xan said soothingly, as she positioned the baby to take her bottle. “I just want to make sure that the two of you don’t hurt one another.”

“I never would,” Fyrian gasped. Then he sniffed. “I think I’m allergic to the baby,” he said.

“You’re not allergic to the baby,” Glerk groaned, just as Fyrian sneezed a bright plume of fire onto the back of Xan’s head. She didn’t even flinch. With a wink of her eye, the fire transformed to steam, which lifted several spit-up stains that she had not bothered to clean yet from her shoulders .

“Bless you, dear,” Xan said. “Glerk, why don’t you take our Fyrian for a walk.”

“I dislike walks,” Glerk said, but took Fyrian anyway. Or Glerk walked, and Fyrian fluttered behind, from side to side and forward and back, like a troublesome, overlarge butterfly. Primarily, Fryian decided to occupy himself in the collection of flowers for the baby, a process hindered by his occasional hiccups and sneezes, each with its requisite dollops of flame, and each reducing his flowers to ashes. But he hardly noticed. Instead, Fyrian was a fountain of questions.

“Will the baby grow up to be a giant like you and Xan?” he asked. “There must be more giants, then. In the wider world, I mean. The world past here. How I long to see the world beyond here, Glerk. I want to see all the giants in all the world and all the creatures who are bigger than I!”

Fyrian’s delusions continued unabated, despite Glerk’s protestations. Though he was about the same size as a dove, Fyrian continued to believe he was larger than the typical human habitation, and that he needed to be kept far away from humanity, lest he be accidentally seen and start a worldwide panic.

“When the time is right, my son,” his massive mother had told him in the moments before she plunged herself into the erupting volcano, leaving this world forever, “you will know your purpose. You are, and will be, a giant upon this fair earth. Never forget it.”

Her meaning, Fyrian felt, was clear. He was Simply Enormous. There was no doubt about it. Fyrian reminded himself of it every single day.

And for five hundred years, Glerk continued to fume.

“The child will grow as children do, I expect,” Glerk said evasively. And when Fyrian persisted, Glerk pretended to take a nap in the calla lily bog and kept his eyes closed until he actually slept.



Raising a baby—magical or not—is not without its challenges: the inconsolable crying, the near-constant runny noses, the obsession with putting very small objects into a drooling mouth.

And the noise.

“Can you please magic her quiet?” Fyrian had begged, once the novelty of a baby in the family had worn off. Xan refused, of course.

“Magic should never be used to influence the will of another person, Fyrian,” Xan told him over and over. “How could I do the thing that I must instruct her to never do, once she knows how to understand? That’s hypocrisy, is what.”

Even when Luna was content, she still was not quiet. She hummed; she gurgled; she babbled; she screeched; she guffawed; she snorted; she yelled. She was a waterfall of sound, pouring, pouring, pouring. And she never stopped. She even babbled in her sleep.

Glerk made a sling for Luna that hung from all four of his shoulders as he walked on all sixes. He took to pacing with the baby from the swamp, past the workshop, past the castle ruin, and back again, reciting poetry as he did so.

He did not intend to love the baby.

And yet.

“ ‘From grain of sand,’ ” recited the monster.