In the Time of Dragon Moon

by Janet Lee Carey

  Vazan was kneeling, waiting for me to climb on. I wavered, unsteady on my feet. The tearing pain in my heart was almost unbearable now.

  “Uma,” Jackrun said fiercely. “Tell me what you want.” He took my arms again, gripping them harder than he had before as if to squeeze an answer out of me.

  “I want to be the first female Adan of my tribe. And I want you.” I couldn’t have both. Saying it aloud only drove the pain deeper.

  “Why did you make me say it?” My tears blurred his face; I saw a smile in the watery sheen. He still held my arms, but gently.

  “What,” I said with a sniff.

  “You only had to say it, Uma.”

  “But you can’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do, Uma Quarteney.” He kissed me, softly, quickly, and turned back to Vazan. “I’ve already said my good-byes inside in case Uma asked me to come south. Our castle physician shouldn’t have to return to Devil’s Boot alone. I’ll escort her home.”

  Vazan lowered her head and gave a low hiss. “Do not expect to be welcomed in Devil’s Boot, king’ssss nephew.”

  “It is an honorable thing for Jackrun to escort Uma home,” Babak said.

  Vazan flattened her ears. “She needs no escort!”

  “She is a lady, is she not?”

  “She is a healer. A woman of power.”

  “Babak, could you and Vazan stop arguing for once?” Jackrun said. “It’s going to be a long journey as it is.”

  Vazan narrowed one silver eye on Jackrun, the other still firmly on Babak. “If you come, you will not only enter Euit tribal territory, you will also enter mine.”

  “As your guest, I hope, rivule,” Jackrun said.

  “As a guest?” She shook her head, her neck scales crackling. “I cannot speak for the other reds back home. They have their own teeth and fire. I will be flying very fast,” she added, both eyes swerving to Babak.

  I wanted to hold on to the joy that was bubbling up inside of me, but I was worried. “Vazan is right. You won’t be welcome in Devil’s Boot.”

  “I don’t expect to be. Not after my aunt and uncle abducted you and your father and left a garrison down there. If you could withstand living with the English, I can withstand whatever awaits me.”

  He was leaving so much behind. A chance to train his fire with the dragons in Dragonswood, and there was another thing. “Jackrun, you are the heir.”

  “I am, that is unless the king weds again and has another child. But King Arden has years of rule left in him. And if I’m to rule Wilde Island, I intend to see the whole of it first. A future king should know his people.”

  “But—”

  He put his fingers on my lips. “Uma, I’ve made up my mind.” He kissed my forehead, one cheek, then the other, the tip of my nose, as if his lips were searching out the right place until I thought I would go mad, until at last he found my mouth.

  My earlier sorrow fell away as an old flower falls from the stem giving room for a new bud, opening to the sunlight that is warm and rich and full of life. His life, my life. Beginning now.

  Epilogue

  Two and a Half Years Later

  Devil’s Boot

  Fox Moon

  May 1213

  I KINDLE FIRE to cook breakfast in our cave. Jackrun could easily light it, but I do not want to wake him yet. We flew to the south side of the volcano with Babak and Vazan yesterday to gather herbs. Jackrun sat up late with his documents, studying a civil dispute King Arden has asked him to settle. He can sleep a little longer.

  I flip the spicy griddle cake and watch the batter bubble. I used to pick herbs here with my father in the spring. I grew up in his shadow, reading his Herbal, learning his secrets, revering the strong healing ways of men. In those years I buried my womanhood, my Englishness among the willow roots. Back then I didn’t believe I could belong to my tribe just as I was. I buried much, hid much, just as Jackrun smothered a vital part of who he was when he hid his fire.

  Things have changed, but they did not change quickly. The chieftain didn’t want a female healer when we flew home more than two years ago. Nothing I said or Jackrun said changed his mind. He and the elders followed tribal law. They wanted things done as they had always been done. Even Vazan, who stood proud and vehement beside me, hissing words of praise over how I’d healed her wing, did not sway him.

  But there are other ways: the slow-growing ways of plants, the ways of song, the ways of touch. The women who wanted children were hungry for my medicine. As the months passed, the men began to come to the healer’s hut with their complaints. And I cured them. In winter, in the time of Cardinal Moon, the chieftain limped in with an inflamed foot. The Adan-duxma—physician’s creed—says: All people suffer. All people feel pain. I suppose even the chieftain does. I treated him. When his foot healed and he walked easily upon it, he nodded sternly and called me Adan.

  He was not the first one to call me that. Jackrun saw me both as a woman and a healer before I could join the two together. He saw it as far back as our time in Dragonswood. At first I did not understand how to use the softer part of my being that Jackrun opened up—the part that loved as a woman loves, and healed as a woman heals. But in those last hours with the queen, I was forced to look to my womanly powers.

  Queen Adela was so lost in the end. Father would not have fed her, bathed her, rubbed her sore back. He wouldn’t have sung to her the night before she died. I’m glad I was there to sing her to sleep, to give her those last hours of care and peace before she was poisoned. Wicked as she was, she was human and she was suffering.

  Joy and sorrow are songs women have long known. For women are healers.

  I kneel down by Jackrun and say his name like a chant. He awakens, stretches, and gives me a loud kiss that makes me laugh before he goes outside to wash in the stream.

  A year after Queen Adela died, King Arden sailed to Dragon’s Keep and met Bianca again. His love for her rekindled. They married on Dragon’s Keep. Jackrun attended the wedding and saw them happy. I hope King Arden will not turn on her someday and blame her for his losses. I hope he will always remember her innocence. Bianca has given him a son—a child with dragon, human, and fairy blood—so the fey have their wish fulfilled in another. And Jackrun is free.

  Free to explore what it means to be the Son of the Prophecy, the firstborn of his kind. Free to live the life he chooses. He trains up his fire with the red dragons here, gaining mastery of his power. He hunts with our warriors, preferring the wilderness to walled castles. He answers King Arden’s requests and travels north to south, east to west, settling island disputes as he once did for his father. I hum the last two verses of the fairy song as I wait for him to come back inside.

  And when these lovers intertwine,

  Three races in one child combine.

  Dragon, Fey, and Humankind,

  Bound in one bloodline.

  O Bring this day unto us soon,

  And forfeit weapons forged in strife.

  Sheath sword, and talon, angry spell,

  And brethren be for life

  These words speak of a man with power. Not a king so much as someone who is free to travel place to place, communicate for all, settle conflicts so that sword and talon and angry spells are set aside. Jackrun has just begun this challenging ambassador’s work, the work of a lifetime that might take him to other islands, even other countries if it’s necessary or if it pleases him. He loves to travel. He’s not a man who can stand still for long.

  Jackrun steps back inside and looks down at me, tucking his thumbs under the red dragon belt Mother gave him as a wedding gift. Mother and I both cried when he looped the Adan’s belt around his waist.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t take it,” he’d said, awkward at our tears.

  “No,” Mother said. “It’s perfect for you.” And it was. It is.

/>   Jackrun squats by the fire. “How is my queen of the May?”

  I smile. He’d heard Mother’s song. “Do you call me that because it’s May or because I am your queen?”

  “Both,” he says, leaning down and kissing the back of my hand. He eats a spicy griddle cake, drinks the brew I seethed, and frowns.

  “You’ll get used to the bitter taste,” I say. “It’s good for the stomach.”

  He laughs. “I don’t have to like it, do I?”

  “No. You just have to drink it.” The scar on his lip gleams under a drop when he pulls the cup away. He wipes it off with his little finger, and stares at me across the fire. His smallest finger is the length of my fox mark. I know because he likes to rest it there.

  “Where do you want to hunt for herbs today?”

  “In the valley six or seven miles from here.” We’ll bring home more kea and huzana this month. Three women gave birth the first year we were home. Five more our second year, including Ashune. Melo has a little sister. Mother helps me in the birth hut, beaming as she passes on her midwife’s knowledge. A widow now, she finds joy in midwifery. I hold the wriggling newborns in my arms, males and females, tiny but strong. They are our future.

  This year I’ll treat more women, and though we will be away up north for a while on Jackrun’s business with the king, I plan to fly home in time to cradle the precious little ones a moment before I give them to their mothers. This is a small price I demand.

  Jackrun finishes his last griddle cake. He likes the spicy food I prepare. It would be difficult if he did not. I don’t know how to cook anything else.

  “Shall we walk or fly today?” he asks.

  “Fly if Babak and Vazan don’t mind taking us.”

  Jackrun gives me a wicked smile. We watched their mating dance in Dragon Moon. I never would have thought Vazan would choose such a colorful male, but they love to fight and she is fierce in her love for him.

  “We’d better wait a little longer before we ask them,” Jackrun says. He knows if he disturbs them in their den before they are ready, he’s likely to be scorched by Vazan’s ferocious fire. Jackrun leans closer. “Uma.”

  The way he says my name stirs the secrets of my origin, the dreams the earth feeds me down in the dark underneath. Some people say my name and do not hear the sound; they do not know who they are calling, what they might awaken. He awakens the heart, the memory of my beginning in the stream, deep waters, sun, wind; he awakens my powers.

  He kisses me, and we stay in our cave longer to shed our clothes, touching skin to skin, entangling like roots, searching for the darker places where we are fed with joy.

  Author’s Note

  The Moon, Medicine, and More

  THIS BOOK’S DEVELOPMENT began with cliff jumping, magic, dragons, and murder, before it focused back on the primary character of Uma and her Euit culture. The moon entered somewhere along the way, setting a strict lunar timeframe, enhancing the drama as it orbited the story.

  As the animal moons rooted themselves into the story with greater force, I was inevitably drawn to research. I found ancient peoples that named various calendar moons after plants, weather, or animals. I discovered moon stories in the Hawaiian, Native American, African, Asian, and European cultures. The most commonly known moon names still used today are: September’s Hunter’s Moon, October’s Harvest Moon, and the occasional Blue Moon. Both Native Americans and medieval Europeans called January the Wolf Moon.

  The Euit Moon Months entered this story not only as tribal tradition but as an integral part of the healing approach of the Adan who seeks to balance the elements of earth, air, fire, and water within the human being. He also pays close attention to the dangerous and enhancing animal power released each Moon Month.

  Tribal and medieval medicine also played another vital role. I created the Adan’s medicinal approach from many sources starting with books about medieval medicine, and expanding to books and articles on tribal medicine, preferably written by indigenous healers themselves. I was also privileged to listen to firsthand accounts of traditional healing practices. All these influences quickened my imagination and helped me create the Adan’s close relationship with plants, and his healing philosophy. The Adan’s cures mirror some of the herbal remedies I studied, but I changed them and guised them with Euit names. Thus all the remedies are from my imagination and have an implied “don’t do this at home” disclaimer. There were a few exceptions to this. Yarrow, for example, was made into a highly valued wound ointment in ancient times, and went under such names as soldier’s wound wort or knight’s milfoil.

  I was with two wise women healers, Lei’ohu Ryder and Maydeen Iao, on the Maui Immersion when I first heard about Peruvian healer Eda Zavala Lopez. I’d already written the first draft of this book and was taking a breather (note: Writers never really stop working. When not writing we “sit around plotting and scheming,” so says my husband). I felt that familiar tingling sensation as I learned Eda’s story. Eda is a descendent of the Wari people of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest who comes from a lineage of native women healers. She travels the world as a healer and educator with an ongoing mission to save the indigenous healing plants and healer’s knowledge that are quickly passing away in her homeland. From her website:

  The beautiful and pristine sacred forests, the head waters of the river basin where pure, crystalline waters feed the waterways and woods, the incredible biodiversity of plant and animal life where scientific observations have identified medicinal plant species yet to be documented and studied . . . will be forever and irrevocably changed if the plundering of the Peruvian rainforest continues.

  In the course of writing this book, I learned more about the ways so many plants vital to curing human diseases are being destroyed. Research often leads to action.

  Readers who would like to join me to help save the plants in the Amazon Basin can visit the “giving back” page on my website: http://www.janetleecarey.com. Or go directly to Nature Conservancy and join in their effort to preserve the Amazon rainforest: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/brazil/placesweprotect/amazon.xml.

  Thank you, and as Uma says: Ona loneaih—be you well.

  Euit Moon Months Chart

  Euit Moon Month calendar beginning spring 1210

  SPRING

  Seal Moon (Water)—March: affects skin

  Falcon Moon (Wind)—April: affects arms and feet

  Fox Moon (Earth)—May: affects ears and legs

  SUMMER

  Snake Moon (Fire)—June: affects spine and tongue

  Whale Moon (Water)—July: affects chest and lungs

  Egret Moon (Wind)—August: affects throat and neck

  FALL

  Wolf Moon (Earth)—September: affects nose and teeth

  Dragon Moon (Fire)—October: affects head, heart, and hands

  Salmon Moon (Water)—November: affects mouth

  WINTER

  Owl Moon (Wind)—December: affects eyes

  Bear Moon (Earth)—January: affects stomach and bowels

  Cardinal Moon (Fire)—February: affects blood

  Acknowledgments

  MAYA ANGELOU SAID, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” The same can be said for any book that passes through countless stages from gawky to glorious. And though the author works alone in her darkened chrysalis, no book achieves flight all on its own. I have many people to thank.

  I’m indebted to the people at NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) http://www.nami.org/ for support in understanding brain disorders and mental illness. Their education classes helped our family, and provided needed information for Queen Adela’s condition.

  Warmest thanks to Lei’ohu Ryder, and Maydeen Iao http://www.leiohuryder.com/; Hawaiian spiritual leaders, visionaries, and
advocates for the indigenous soul in all people, who gave their love and knowledge so generously on the Maui Immersion retreats. Lei’ohu and Maydeen introduced me to Patrick O’Rourke, who told me the inspiring story of his encounter with the indigenous healer Eda Zavala Lopez. Thanks, Patrick, for putting up with the scratchy older-than-Moses tape machine we used to interview you. The story you told about Eda Zavala Lopez’s journey from her home in the Peruvian rainforests, and the remarkable healing practices she generously shared at Blue Deer Center and across the U.S., strengthened Uma’s story.

  This book would not be in readers’ hands without my critique group the Diviners: Peggy King Anderson, Judy Bodmer, Katherine Grace Bond, Dawn Knight, Roberta Kehle, Molly Blaisdell, and Nancy White Carlstrom. Thank you all for bearing with me during the far from cuddly caterpillar stage. Heartfelt thanks to Justina Chen and Sofia Headley for hauling a four-hundred-page manuscript along on their mother-daughter trip to Alaska and returning it with priceless insights; and to my former agent, the Lioness, Irene W. Kraas, and current agent, the Incandescent Ammi-Joan Paquette.

  Deepest thanks to my richly talented editor, Kathy Dawson, whose vision and tireless work gave this book wings. And to all the people at Kathy Dawson Books and Penguin who release finished books like butterflies to brighten our world: assistant editor, Claire Evans; copy editor, Regina Castillo; jacket designer, Tony Sahara; and interior designer, Jenny Kelly, to name only a few.

  Last but not least, thanks to my husband, Thomas, for his generosity, patience, and travel savvy as we adventured to different destinations researching this book.

  About the Author

  JANET LEE CAREY was born in New York and grew up in California. She is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, most notably her epic fantasy novels set on Wilde Island—Dragon’s Keep, Dragonswood, and In the Time of Dragon Moon. Dragon’s Keep was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, while Dragonswood made the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Janet lives near Seattle with her family, where she writes and teaches writing workshops.