فصل 42

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.

The girl.

Her daughter.

Luna.

She lived.

The man lifted the knife. He fixed his eyes on the approaching girl.

“Witch!” he shouted.

“I am no Witch,” the girl said. “I am a girl. My name is Luna.”

“Lies!” the man said. “You are the Witch. You are thousands of years old. You have killed countless children.” A shuddering breath. “And now I shall kill you.”

The man leaped.

The girl leaped.

The madwoman leaped.

And the world was full of birds.