A Nearer Moon

by Melanie Crowder

  “And let me guess,” the doctor continued, “it’s a wasting sickness, come on suddenly, lasting three weeks to the day. And none of the normal remedies will help?”

  Luna nodded again, a wiggle of unease moving through her belly.

  “Child,” the woman said through a deep sigh, “do you really think you are the first soul to come to me to fix what clearly has not a thing to do with medicine?”

  Luna swallowed. What was she saying? That she couldn’t help? That Luna had come all this way for nothing? “But the sign in front of your door says ‘first-rate.’ It says ‘medicine maker.’ Make me a medicine!”

  “Medicine is no good where magic has been worked.”

  “But I have money.” Luna’s voice climbed high as the cobwebs dangling from the rafters.

  The doctor only shook her head.

  “You’re a liar, that’s what you are!” Luna yelled, and her face flamed with heat. The ground seemed to sway and buckle beneath her feet, though she knew that so many barges lashed together were steady as a plot of land. “You’re nothing but a liar!”

  The doctor closed Luna’s fingers over her coins and stood, waving the girl through the clattering curtain. “I can’t help you or anyone else within reach of that cursed swamp. I am sorry, child. But that’s that. You’d best get home and spend what time you have left with your sister.”

  The doctor backed her out of the shop, but Luna held the old woman’s eyes until the weathered door closed in her face.

  “I don’t believe in curses.”

  8

  Perdita

  Perdy was high in the branches of an old seraya tree when the first of three tones sounded, low and resonant. It skimmed along the top of the water, through the clouds, and between mossy tree trunks. For a breath, nothing moved. And then suddenly the air was full. Sprites ducked under low-lying branches and dove out of passing clouds. They bobbed up to the surface of the river, water draining from their hair and limbs and staining their footprints. All the sprites converged on the door in the air that hung wide open, a gauzy whiteness filling the space between this world and the next.

  Perdy was in a tree because she could no longer hold back her curiosity about the wood sprites and their easy dance at the top of the canopy, skipping from treetop to treetop like stones across the surface of the water. What she had discovered, though, was that her legs, so well-suited to frog kicks through the water and to skating from wavelet to wavelet without breaking through the surface, didn’t know the way a twig bends under pressure and snaps back once it has been released, the way some leaves hold a body up, while others drop out of the sky at the slightest touch. She could make her way up easily enough; like a squirrel, she had hugged the ridges of bark all the way to the top. But coming down was another thing altogether. She could only manage slowly, stepping timid as a kitten from one branch to the next beneath it.

  The first bell tolled, and Perdy looked to where the door hung in the air. Gia would be there, right at the opening, clutching the locket and waiting for her to draw near so they could step through the door together.

  Perdy eyed the cage of branches leading downward. Why had she climbed so high? Why hadn’t she just stayed in the river, where she could sprint from one end to the other as fast as a wink? Maybe Gia would call her now. Maybe she knew Perdy would have gotten herself in some kind of trouble and she wouldn’t bother to wait, she’d just call her back. Perdy opened the locket and peered inside, searching for her sister’s face. Only white, swirling clouds swam within.

  Snapping the locket shut, Perdy gritted her teeth and jumped, skidding downward from leaf to leaf, falling more than anything, skimming beside limbs strong enough to squash her like a flea if she put one foot out of place. Her arms pinwheeled to keep her balance and her legs skittered beneath her, fighting to keep her body upright.

  The second bell tolled.

  Faster—she had to go faster. Perdy leaped from the twig where she had landed, leaped to the trunk and slid straight down, her arms and legs splayed out, grasping for whatever grip they could get. She cried out as the bark burned against her skin and tore the soft flesh of her inner arms and thighs. When she was nearly through the tumble of branches, with a view of the ground and the sweet, sweet river below, the raised scar of a limb lost long ago knocked Perdy out of her downward slide and sent her spinning through the air. The sky and then the ground, and then the sky and then the ground flashed at her as she spun, out of control, away from the safety of the trunk.

  With a terrible jerk, Perdy was yanked out of her fall, and she swung wildly from a jagged branch. She dangled in the air, held up only by the slender links of the necklace Gia had made for her. Perdy thrashed at the end of the chain. The locket dangled just above her chin—if she could only flick the clasp open, Gia could call her. Surely she would call her now that the third bell would toll at any moment.

  Perdy reached, but just as her fingers were about to grasp the gleaming pewter surface, the chain snapped and she plummeted to the ground. She fell, and the locket fell too. They tumbled through the air, together for a quarter of a second, and then the distance between them opened wider and wider until Perdy could no longer see the sparkling chain. The locket, more precious than any unexplored cave or undiscovered treetop, tumbled out of view.

  9

  Luna

  It was late afternoon before Luna and Benny climbed back into their little boat and left the floating city behind. This time Luna didn’t need to fight against the wind-whipped ripples on the water. The lake itself seemed to feel her sorrow, seemed to want to lie flat and let her pass.

  The lake spilled into the river, and the river wound through the jungle, turning in switchback curves into the heart of the wood. The river, too, seemed to know the sadness that had taken hold of her, and it carried them like babes in a basket all the way home.

  Luna’s arms were sore from pushing upriver all morning, and more often than not, they hung limply at her sides on the way home, her pole trailing in the wake behind the boat. Every few minutes, she halfheartedly lowered it down to the riverbed and shoved.

  She had been so sure the doctor would help—would do something for Willow. Maybe Mama was right. Maybe there really was nothing to be done.

  Benny hadn’t said a word since they’d untied from the docks and drifted out onto the lake. But his shoulders hung a little lower than usual, his breath rising and falling in heavy sighs.

  “She didn’t even try,” Luna said, startling herself when the words broke into the muggy evening air.

  Benny swiveled in his seat to look at her.

  “She didn’t even try,” Luna repeated softly. “Said it wasn’t a sickness medicine could do anything about. She called our swamp cursed.”

  “Of course it is,” Benny said with a twitch of his eyebrow. “Poppa says so all the time.”

  “Well, I don’t believe in curses.”

  Benny pushed a slow breath through his teeth. “Is it so terrible to believe in something?”

  Luna shoved her pole against the riverbed. “Mama spends half of her day in that chapel when she could be with Willow. When she could be with me. Granny Tu is always checking her moon charts and going on about curses and sprites. And for what?”

  Benny shrugged. “Maybe it makes them feel better to have something to blame, and somewhere to place their hope.”

  “Well, none of it does any good. It didn’t do any good for Daddy, and it won’t do any good for—” Luna bit down on her lip and raised her eyes to the sky, blinking rapidly. “Willow isn’t just going to get better one day because we all wish she would. If we don’t find a way to make her better, no one and nothing will.”

  Crickets chirped and marsh warblers trilled as the two children drifted homeward. The sun floated toward the ground, winking through the trees and slinking over the horizon as if even it couldn’t wait to be done with the day. The sky turned to silver, and motes of dust caught and held the last bits of light, dancing on the
air like tiny winged beings.

  Benny shifted his weight, his knee bumping against a bundle that rustled and clanked.

  “What’s that?” Luna asked. “What do you have?”

  “Spinners and fireballs and a whole packet of comets for the Perigee festival. I got them while you were snoring away in the waiting room.”

  “Was not!”

  “Were too.” A smile flashed across Benny’s face and faded just as quickly. “Don’t tell Poppa.”

  “How can you think about firecrackers at a time like this?”

  Benny flinched. “Nobody loves watching the firecrackers more than Willow. I thought at least I could get something to make her smile.” He worried the frayed edge of his shirt. “Maybe that’s all anybody can do for her now.”

  Luna stuck her pole in the mud. She shoved harder than she needed to, and she flailed for a moment, swinging her arms wide to right herself again.

  10

  Perdita

  We can’t leave without her!” Gia cried. The door hung in the air, the white clouds swirling faster and faster within. Sprites stepped through in pairs, their forms dissolving like chalk in a rainstorm as they passed into the next world.

  “Call her. Quickly,” Mother urged. She gripped the handspun bag that held everything they would take with them. Her face was pale, drained of its color.

  Gia slipped her coronet onto her head and opened the locket, where the same white clouds swirled.

  “Perdy,” she whispered.

  “Perdita!” their mother cried.

  Nothing happened. No contrite face swam to the surface of the clouds. If Perdy was stuck somewhere, if she was lost, she should know to open her locket. She should know Gia would be calling her.

  “Perdy, answer me!” Gia said, louder this time.

  Nothing, still.

  “Pelagia, we can’t wait any longer,” Mother said, her eyes scanning the hardwood jungle as if she still believed, even as the words left her lips, that Perdy would prove her wrong, would come sprinting toward them at any moment.

  “We have to go now. We can’t hold the door open for her, and we can’t wait. The door will close when the third bell tolls, and we won’t be able to open it again.” Mother pulled Gia into the stream of sprites that flowed into the open doorway. Swaths of white swirled in front of their eyes, over their skin as they stepped through, a veil of fog between them and the world they were leaving behind.

  “If we don’t go now, then all three of us will be left behind. Perdita wears your locket around her neck. You can call her from the other side.”

  “Perdy!” Gia shouted as the locket fell against her chest, open and waiting. She allowed herself to be pulled through, but only barely, so she would be right there when Perdy tumbled, breathless, through the door at the last minute, as she always did.

  Perdy, where are you?

  11

  Luna

  When at last Luna and Benny floated across the swamp and the little boat bumped against the stilts below Luna’s hut, the children swayed where they stood, tired from the long day and from the way sadness, like clouds dragged low by the weight of water, hung heavy over them. They climbed up the ladder on wobbling arms and legs.

  Across the walkway, someone peered out of the shadowed doorway to Benny’s hut. A shout rang out over the swamp and doors swung open, torches flaring into a web of small fires.

  Luna winced. “So much for sliding home without anyone noticing.”

  Benny’s poppa dashed across the walkway and lifted his son into his arms. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that again!”

  The news was carried from hut to hut until it reached the chapel at the highest point in the village. The door opened a crack and then was flung wide. The walkways tipped from side to side, trembling as Mama ran toward them. She slowed from a run to a panting, rail-gripping walk as she pushed through the crowd that hovered around the children.

  “Where were you?” Mama whispered when she was close enough to see the purple shadows under her daughter’s eyes. She gripped Luna by the shoulders, her whole body taut as a hooked line.

  “I went to the floating city to get some medicine for Willow.”

  Mama stepped back, her hands falling away. “Well?” she said, thoughts rippling across her face like water in a slack tide, pulled in two directions at once. She extended a cupped hand. “Let’s have it.”

  Luna dragged her lower lip through her teeth. “The doctor said she couldn’t help us.”

  Mama’s outstretched hand smacked against her thigh. “I told you it wouldn’t do any good. Why can’t you just listen?”

  A hollow, hot feeling cracked open Luna’s chest. “Because you just sit there in the chapel and Granny Tu just stares at her moon charts, and none of it does any good. We’ve got to do something, Mama!”

  Benny wiggled out of his poppa’s arms and slid his hand into Luna’s.

  “Luna.” Mama sighed. “Don’t you think I would help Willow if I could?”

  She didn’t wait for her daughter to answer. She walked into the hut, her movements stiff, her shoulders tight as if she felt the eyes of the village bearing down on her.

  Luna slid her hand out of Benny’s, and his poppa hefted him up again and held him tight.

  “See you tomorrow, Benny,” Luna said.

  Inside the hut, Mama bent over Willow and pressed the back of her hand against her younger daughter’s forehead and cheek. Luna followed, backing into the shadow cast by the wooden screen, her eyes trailing Mama as she left the bedroom again without a word. Left and sank to her knees beside her own bed, clicking her prayer beads around and around again.

  With a puff of tired breath, Granny Tu rose out of her rocking chair. The joints groaned, the wood creaking against the floor that held the hut up above the swamp. She draped an arm around Luna’s slumped shoulders and led her over to the bed, lifting the blanket so Luna could climb in beside her sister. Her wrinkled hands tenderly smoothed wisps of hair back from Luna’s forehead.

  “I should’ve known better than to talk about the floating city with you in the room. Should’ve known what a brave girl like you would do with that kind of information,” Granny Tu said, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Promise me you won’t go off again like that?”

  Luna nodded.

  “There’s a good girl.” Granny Tu’s voice was low and rumbling. “Your mama is just frightened now, that’s all. She doesn’t mean the things she says.”

  Luna blinked back the hot tears that threatened to spill down her temples and sink in her hair.

  “Truly, Luna, she doesn’t.”

  But the words slid off Luna’s skin. She managed a wobbly smile and rolled over, curling as close as she could to Willow’s side.

  Luna woke late that night to the sound of whispered voices coming from the main room. Harsh whispers. Outside, the moon was thin as a fallen eyelash, waiting for its wish. Luna crept out of bed, across the patch of light that lay like a rug over the floor and peered through a crack in the screen.

  “. . . too hard on her. This is not her fault, you know it’s not.” Granny Tu pointed straight at Mama, her hand shaking as she held it in the space between them.

  “I just—I look at her, and I see her father. I see the day he—”

  Was Mama crying?

  “I look at her, and all I can think is that I’m being punished. I know I am. First their father, and now Willow—”

  “Hush, now.” The voices faded as Granny Tu ushered Mama up from the table and into their bedroom. Long after they were both asleep, Luna stood there, her fingers looped through the holes in the screen and her forehead pressed against the chiseled wood.

  12

  Perdita

  Perdy landed on her back in a pillow of moss, trumpet blooms rising into the air above her. The breath had been thrust from her lungs so that she could not cry for help, could not cry out for her sister, who wouldn’t be more than a hundred steps away from her. Still
gasping for air, Perdy rolled onto her hands and knees, her fingers searching through the pillows of moss for a hint of gleaming pewter.

  Panic bloomed in her mind as her throat closed again and again without drawing in any air. Finally, her lungs obeyed and pulled in a great gulp of air. Perdy’s searching hands stilled. The locket was gone, but if she could breathe, she could run. If she could run, she might make it to the door in the air before it closed and sealed the way to the other world, before it shut her out for good.

  Perdy leaped down from the bed of moss. Just as her feet touched the ground, the third bell tolled. She ran, pumping her arms and thumping her sore, scraped feet against the dirt. She could see the door now through the trees, wide open and only just beginning to close. Perdy thought she could see a figure in the mist, a figure whose form matched hers exactly, whose heart beat in echo of her own.

  “Gia!” she cried.

  But the figure did not respond. Instead her head dropped into her hands and her tiny shoulders shook.

  “Gia!” Perdy sprinted toward her, but the door was closing fast.

  She ran even as the door shut on the air, the edges burning as it sealed the space between. Then the door and everyone who had stepped through it were gone. Perdy crashed to the dirt where a faint line of ash marked the ground. Only a hazy wrinkle of air betrayed that any magic had been done in that place or that anyone had passed through at that spot, passed through from one world into another.

  13

  Luna

  Luna leaned over the railing outside her hut, chin in hand. Every so often, a breeze kicked up, spinning pollen and leaf litter above the black water and banging Luna’s boat mournfully against the stilts below. The boat spun in idle arcs and collected spiderwebs; one or two daring creatures stretched their silk all the way from the charm tacked at the bow to the wide stern.