فصل 44

44.

In Which There Is a Change of Heart

Luna threw herself to her knees, scooping her grandmother in her arms.

And oh! How light she was. Just sticks and paper and a cold wind. Her grandmother who had been a force of nature all these years—a pillar, holding up the sky. Luna felt as though she could have picked her grandmother up and run home with her in her arms.

“Grandmama,” she sobbed, laying her cheek on her grandmother’s cheek. “Wake up, Grandmama. Please wake up.”

Her grandmother drew in a shuddering breath.

“Your magic,” the old woman said. “It’s started, hasn’t it?”

“Don’t talk about that,” Luna said, her mouth still buried in her grandmother’s licheny hair. “Are you sick?”

“Not sick,” her grandmother wheezed. “Dying. Something I should have done a long time ago.” She coughed, shuddered, coughed again.

Luna felt a single sob wrench its way from her guts to her throat. “You’re not dying, Grandmama. You can’t be. I can talk to a crow. And the paper birds love me. And I think I found—well. I don’t know what she is. But I remember her. From before. And there’s a lady in the woods who . . . well, I don’t think she’s good.”

“I’m not dying this second, child, but I will in good time. And that time will be soon. Now. Your magic. I can say the word and it stays, yes?” Luna nodded. “I had locked it away inside you so you wouldn’t be a danger to yourself and others—because believe me, darling, you were dangerous—but there were consequences. And let me guess, it’s coming out all up, down, and sideways, yes?” She closed her eyes and grimaced in pain.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Grandmama, unless it can make you well.” The girl sat up suddenly. “Can I make you well?”

The old woman shivered. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m so, so cold. Is the moon up?”

“Yes, Grandmama.”

“Raise your hand. Let the moonlight collect on your fingers and feed it to me. It is what I did for you, long ago, when you were a baby. When you had been left in the forest and I carried you to safety.” Xan stopped and looked over to the woman with the shaved head, crouched on the ground. “I thought that your mother had abandoned you.” She pressed her hand to her mouth and shook her head. “You have the same birthmark.” Xan faltered. “And the same eyes.”

The woman on the ground nodded. “She wasn’t abandoned,” she whispered. “She was taken. My baby was taken.” The madwoman buried her face in her knees and covered her stubbled head with her arms. She made no more sounds.

Xan’s face seemed to crack. “Yes. I see that now.” She turned to Luna. “Every year, a baby was left in the woods to die in the same spot. Every year I carried that baby across the woods to a new family who would love it and keep it safe. I was wrong not to be curious. I was so wrong not to wonder. But sorrow hung over that place like a cloud. And so I left as quickly as I could.”

Xan shuddered and pulled herself to her hands and knees, and slid closer to the woman on the ground. The woman didn’t raise her head. Xan gingerly laid her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Can you forgive me?”

The madwoman said nothing.

“And the children in the woods. They are the Star Children?” Luna whispered.

“The Star Children.” Her grandmother coughed. “They were all like you. But then you were enmagicked. I didn’t mean to, darling; it was an accident, but it couldn’t be undone. And I loved you. I loved you so much. And that couldn’t be undone, either. So I claimed you as my own dear grandchild. And then I started to die. And that, too, can’t be undone, not for anything. Consequences. It’s all consequences. I’ve made so many mistakes.” She shivered. “I’m cold. A little moonlight, my Luna, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Luna reached up her hand. The weight of moonlight—sticky and sweet—gathered on her fingertips. It poured from her hands into her grandmother’s mouth and shivered through her grandmother’s body. The old woman’s cheeks began to flush. The moonlight radiated through Luna’s own skin, too, setting her bones aglow.

“The moonlight’s help is only temporary,” her grandmother said. “The magic runs through me like a bucket with holes in it. It’s drawn toward you. Everything I have, everything I am, flows to you, my darling. This is as it should be.” She turned and put her hand on Luna’s face. Luna interlaced her fingers with her grandmother’s and held on desperately. “Five hundred years is an awful lot. Too many. And you have a mother who loves you. Who has loved you all this time.”

“My friend,” the man said. He was weeping—big ugly tears down a blotchy face. He seemed harmless enough now that he didn’t have that knife. Still, Luna eyed him warily. He crept forward, extending his left hand.

“That’s far enough,” she said coolly.

He nodded. “My friend,” he said again. “My, er, once-­was-­a-­bird friend. I . . .” He swallowed, wiped his tears and snot with the back of his sleeve. “I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but, ah . . .” His voice trailed off. Luna could stop him with a rock, though she quickly waved the thought away when a rock rolled near and started hovering menacingly.

No hitting, she thought at the rock with a glare. The rock fell to the ground with a dejected thud and rolled away, as though chastened.

I’m going to have to be careful, Luna thought.

“But, are you the Witch?” the man continued, his eyes pinned on Xan. “The Witch in the woods? The one who insists that we sacrifice a baby every year or she will destroy us all?”

Luna gave him a cold look. “My grandmother has never destroyed anything. She is good and kind and caring. Ask the people of the Free Cities. They know.”

“Somebody demands a sacrifice,” the man said. “It isn’t her.” He pointed to the woman with the shaved head and the paper birds roosting on her shoulders. “I know that much. I was with her when her baby was taken away.”

“As I recall,” the woman growled, “you were the one doing the taking.”

And the man hung his head.

“It was you,” Luna whispered. “I remember. You were only a boy. You smelled of sawdust. And you didn’t want . . .” She paused. Frowned. “You made the old men mad.”

“Yes,” the man gasped.

Her grandmother began to pull herself to her feet, and Luna hovered, trying to help. Xan waved her away.

“Enough, child. I can still stand on my own. I am not so old.”

But she was so old. Before Luna’s eyes, her grandmother aged. Xan had always been old—of course she had. But now . . . Now it was different. Now she seemed to desiccate by the moment. Her eyes were sunken and shadowed. Her skin was the color of dust. Luna gathered more moonlight on her fingers and encouraged her grandmother to drink.

Xan looked at the young man.

“We should move quickly. I was on my way to rescue yet another abandoned baby. I have been doing so for ever so long.” She shivered and tried to take a single, unsteady step. Luna thought she might blow over. “There’s no time for fussing, child.”

Luna looped her arm around her grandmother’s waist. Her crow fluttered onto her shoulder. She turned to the woman on the ground. Offered her hand.

“Will you come with us?” she said. Held her breath. Felt her heart pounding in her chest.

The woman on the ceiling.

The paper birds in the tower window.

She is here, she is here, she is here.

The woman on the ground lifted her gaze and found Luna’s eyes. She took Luna’s hand and rose to her feet. Luna felt her heart take wing. The paper birds began to flap, flutter, and lift into the air.

Luna heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the far side of the knoll before she saw it: a pair of glowing eyes. The muscled lope of a tiger. But not a tiger at all. A woman—tall, strong, and clearly magic. And her magic was sharp, and hard, and merciless. Like the curved edge of a blade. The woman who had demanded the boots. She was back.

“Hello, Sorrow Eater,” Xan said.