فصل 23

23.

In Which Luna Draws a Map

Luna left a note for her grandmother saying that she wanted to go out and collect berries and sketch the sunrise. In all likelihood, her grandmother would still be sleeping when Luna returned—she slept so much lately. And though the old woman assured the girl that she had always slept like that and nothing had changed nor would it ever change, Luna knew it was a lie.

We are both lying to each other, she thought, a great needle piercing her heart. And neither of us knows how to stop. She set her note on the plank table and quietly closed the door.

Luna slung her satchel across her shoulders and slid on her traveling boots and took the long, crooked way across the back of the swamp before following the slanted trail that led between the two smoking cinder cones at the southern side of the crater. The day was warm and sticky, and she realized with creeping horror that she was starting to stink. This sort of thing had been happening a lot lately—bad smells, strange eruptions on her face. Luna felt as though every single thing on her body had suddenly conspired to alter itself—even her voice had turned traitorous.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

There had been . . . other kinds of eruptions, too. Things that she couldn’t explain. The first time she’d noticed it, she had tried to jump to get a better look at a bird’s nest, and found herself, quite suddenly, on the topmost branch of the tree, hanging on for dear life.

“It must be the wind,” she told herself, though the idea was clearly ridiculous. Who had ever heard of a gust of wind propelling a person to the top of a tree? But since Luna really didn’t have any other explanation, It must be the wind seemed as good as any. She hadn’t told her grandmother or her Glerk. She didn’t want to worry them. Also, it felt vaguely embarrassing—like perhaps there was something wrong with her.

Besides. It was just the wind.

And then, a month later, when Luna and her grandmother were gathering mushrooms in the forest, Luna had noticed yet again how tired her grandmother was, how thin and how frail and how her breath rattled painfully in and out.

“I’m worried about her,” she said out loud when her grandmother was out of earshot. Luna felt her voice catching in her throat.

“I am, too,” a nut-­brown squirrel replied. He was sitting on the lowermost branch, peering down, a knowing expression on his pointy face.

It took a full moment for Luna to realize that squirrels are not supposed to talk.

It took another moment for her to realize that it wasn’t the first time an animal had spoken to her. It had happened before. She was sure of it. She just couldn’t remember when.

And later, when she tried to explain to Glerk what had happened, she drew a blank. She couldn’t recall the incident for the life of her. She knew something had happened. She just didn’t know what.

This has happened before, said the voice in her head.

This has happened before.

This has happened before.

It was a pulsing certainty, this knowledge, as sure and steady as the gears of a clock.

Luna followed the path as it curled around the first knoll, leaving the swamp behind. An ancient fig tree spread its branches over the path, as if welcoming all who wandered by. A crow stood on the lowest branch. He was a fine fellow, feathers shining like oil. He looked Luna straight in the eye, as though he was waiting for her.

This has happened before, she thought.

“Hello,” Luna said, fixing her gaze on the crow’s bright eye.

“Caw,” the crow said. But Luna felt sure he meant “Hello.”

And all at once, Luna remembered.

The day before, she had retrieved an egg from the chicken coop. There was only the one egg in all the nests, and she didn’t have a basket, so she simply held it in her hand. Before she reached the house, she realized that the shell of the egg was wiggling. And that it was no longer smooth and warm and regular, but sharp and pointy and ticklish. Then it bit her. She let go of the egg with a cry. But it wasn’t an egg at all. It was a crow, full-­sized, spiraling over her head and alighting on the nearest tree.

“Caw,” the crow had said. Or that is what the crow should have said. But it didn’t.

“Luna,” the crow cawed instead. And it didn’t fly away. It perched on the lowest branch of Luna’s tree house, and followed her wherever she went for the rest of the day. Luna was at a loss.

“Caw,” cawed the crow. “Luna, Luna, Luna.”

“Hush,” Luna scolded. “I’m trying to think.”

The crow was black and shiny, as a crow ought to be, but when Luna squinted and looked at it aslant, she saw another color, too. Blue. With a shimmer of silver at the edges. The extra colors vanished when she opened her eyes wide and looked straight on.

“What are you?” Luna asked.

“Caw,” said the crow. “I am the most excellent of crows,” the crow meant.

“I see. Make sure my grandmother doesn’t see you,” Luna said. “Or my swamp monster,” she added after considering it. “I think you’ll upset them.”

“Caw,” said the crow. “I agree,” it meant.

Luna shook her head.

The crow’s being did not make sense. Nothing made sense. And yet the crow was there. It was sure and clever and alive.

There is a word that explains this, she thought. There is a word that explains everything I don’t understand. There must be. I just can’t remember what it is.

Luna had instructed the crow to stay out of sight until she could figure things out, and the crow had complied. It truly was an excellent crow.

And now, here it was again. On the lowest branch of the fig tree.

“Caw,” the crow should have said. “Luna,” it called instead.

“Quiet, you,” Luna said. “You might be heard.”

“Caw,” the crow whispered, abashed.

Luna forgave the crow, of course. As she walked on, distracted, she tripped on a rock, tumbling hard to the ground and falling on her satchel.

“Ouch,” her satchel said. “Get off me.”

Luna stared at it. At this point, though, nothing surprised her. Even talking satchels.

Then a small, green nose peeked out from under the flap. “Is that you, Luna?” asked the nose.

Luna rolled her eyes. “What are you doing in my bag?” she demanded. She threw open the flap and glared at the shamefaced dragon climbing out.

“You keep going places,” he said, without looking her in the eye. “Without me. And it isn’t fair. I just wanted to come.” Fyrian fluttered upward and hovered at eye level. “I just want to be part of the group.” He gave her a hopeful, dragonish smile. “Maybe we should go get Glerk. And Auntie Xan. That’s a fun group!”

“No,” Luna said firmly, and continued her ascent to the top of the ridge. Fyrian fluttered behind.

“Where are we going? Can I help? I’m very helpful. Hey, Luna! Where are we going?”

Luna rolled her eyes and spun on her heel with a snort.

“Caw,” the crow said. He didn’t say Luna this time, but Luna could feel him thinking it. The crow flew up ahead, as though he already knew where they were going.

They followed the trail to the third cinder cone, the one on the far edge of the crater, and climbed to the top.

“Why are we up here?” Fyrian wanted to know.

“Hush,” Luna said.

“Why must we hush?” Fyrian asked.

Luna sighed deeply. “I need you to be very, very quiet, Fyrian. So I may concentrate on my drawing.”

“I can be quiet,” Fyrian chirped, still hovering in front of her face. “I can be so quiet. I can be quieter than worms, and worms are very quiet, unless they are convincing you not to eat them, and then they are less quiet, and very convincing, though I usually still eat them because they are delicious.”

“I mean, be quiet right now,” Luna said.

“But I am, Luna! I’m the quietest thing that—”

Luna snapped the dragon’s jaws shut with her index finger and her thumb and, to keep his feelings from getting hurt, scooped him up with her other arm and cuddled him close.

“I love you so much,” she whispered. “Now hush.” She gave his green skull an affectionate tap and let him curl into the heat of her hip.

She sat cross-­legged on a flat-­topped boulder. Scanning the limit of the land before it curved into the rim of the sky, she tried to imagine what sorts of things lay beyond. All she could see was forest. But surely the forest didn’t go on forever. When Luna walked with her grandmother in the opposite direction, eventually the trees thinned and gave way to farms, and the farms gave way to towns, which gave way to more farms. Eventually, there were deserts and more forests and mountain ranges and even an ocean, all accessible by large networks of roads that unwound this way and that, like great spools of yarn. Surely, the same must be true in this direction. But she couldn’t know for sure. She had never traveled this way. Her grandmother wouldn’t let her.

She never explained why.

Luna set her journal on her lap and opened it to an empty page. She peered into her satchel, found her sharpest pencil, and held it in her left hand—lightly, as though it was a butterfly and might fly away. She closed her eyes, and tried to make her mind go blank and blue, like a wide, cloudless sky.

“Do I need to close my eyes, too?” Fyrian asked.

“Hush, Fyrian,” Luna said.

“Caw,” said the crow.

“That crow is mean,” Fyrian sniffed.

“He’s not mean. He’s a crow.” Luna sighed. “And yes, Fyrian, dearest. Close your eyes.”

Fyrian gave a delighted gurgle and snuggled into the folds of Luna’s skirt. He’d be snoring soon. No one could get comfortable quicker than Fyrian.

Luna turned her attention to the point at which the land met the sky. She pictured it as clear as she could in her mind, as though her mind had transformed to paper, and she need only mark upon it, as careful as could be. She breathed deeply, allowing her heart to slow and her soul to loosen its worries and wrinkles and knots. There was a feeling she would get when she did this. A heat in her bones. A crackling in her fingertips. And, strangest of all, an awareness of the odd birthmark on her forehead, as though it was, quite suddenly, shining—bright and clear, like a lamp. And who knows? Maybe it was.

In her mind, Luna could see the horizon’s edge. And she saw the lip of the land begin to extend, farther and farther, as though the world was turning toward her, offering its face with a smile.

Without opening her eyes, Luna began to draw. As she sat, she became so calm that she was hardly aware of anything—her own breathing, the heat of Fyrian pressed close to her hip, the way he was beginning to snore, the crush of images coming so thick and fast she could hardly focus on them, until they all passed by in a great, green blur.

“Luna,” a voice came from very far away.

“Caw,” said another.

“LUNA!” A roar in her ear. She woke with a start.

“WHAT?” she roared back. But then she saw the look on Fyrian’s face, and she was ashamed. “How—” she began. She looked around. The sun, only barely warming the world below when they had arrived on the crater, was now straight up above. “How long have we been here?”

Half the day, she already knew. It’s noon.

Fyrian hovered very close to Luna’s face, pressing nose to nose—green to freckles. His expression was grave. “Luna,” he breathed. “Are you sick?”

“Sick?” Luna scoffed. “Of course not.”

“I think you might be sick,” he said in a hushed voice. “Something very strange just happened to your eyeballs.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Luna said, closing her journal with a snap and tying the leather straps tightly around the soft covers. She slid it into her satchel and stood up. Her legs nearly buckled under her. “My eyes are regular.”

“It’s not ridiculous at all,” Fyrian said, buzzing about from Luna’s left ear to her right. “Your eyes are black and sparkly. Usually. But just now they were two pale moons. That isn’t regular. Or, I’m pretty sure it isn’t regular.”

“My eyes were no such thing,” Luna said, stumbling forward. She tried to right herself, hanging on to a boulder for balance. But the boulders gave her no assistance—they had, under the touch of her hands, become as light as feathers. One boulder began to float. Luna grunted in frustration.

“And now your legs won’t work,” Fyrian pointed out, trying to be helpful. “And what is going on with that boulder?”

“Mind your business,” Luna said, summoning her strength to leap forward, landing hard on the smooth, granite slope on the eastern side.

“That was a far jump,” Fyrian said, staring openmouthed from the place where Luna had been just a moment ago and arcing over to where Luna now was. “You usually can’t jump that far. I mean it, Luna. It almost looked like—”

“Caw,” said the crow. Or it should have been Caw. But to Luna, it sounded more like Shut your face. She decided she rather liked the crow.

“Fine,” Fyrian sniffed. “Don’t listen to me. No one ever listens to me.” And he buzzed down the slope in a blur of petulant green.

Luna sighed heavily and trudged toward home. She’d make it up to him. Fyrian always forgave her. Always.

The bright sun cast sharp shadows on the slope as Luna hurried down. She was filthy and sweaty—from the exercise or the blank drawing time? She had no idea, but she stopped by a stream to wash off. The lake inside the crater was too hot to touch, but the streams that flowed out of it, while unpleasant to drink, were cool enough to splash on a muddy face, or to wash the sweat from the back of the neck or under the arms. Luna knelt down and proceeded to make herself more presentable before facing her grandmother and Glerk—both of whom would likely want answers about her absence.

The mountain rumbled. The volcano, she knew, was hiccupping in its sleep. This was normal for volcanoes, Luna knew—they are restless sleepers—and this restlessness was usually not a problem. Unless it was. The volcano seemed more restless than usual lately—getting worse by the day. Her grandmother told her not to worry about it, which just made Luna worry more.

“LUNA!” Glerk’s voice echoed off the slope of the crater. It bounced off the sky. Luna shaded her eyes and looked down the slope. Glerk was alone. He waved three of his arms in greeting and Luna waved back. Grandmama isn’t with him, she realized with a clench in her heart. She couldn’t possibly still be sleeping, she thought, her worry tying knots in her stomach. Not this late. But even at this far distance, she could see a blur of anxiety swirling around Glerk’s head like a cloud.

Luna headed back to her house at a run.

Xan was still in bed. Past noon. Sleeping like the dead. Luna woke her up, feeling tears stinging in her eyes. Is she sick? Luna wondered.

“My goodness, child,” Xan murmured. “Why on earth are you rousting me at this insane hour? Some of us are trying to sleep.” And Xan turned onto her side and went back to sleep.

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.