I groan and shake my head. There’s no way a stick would keep a monster away. Even Honor Tumbrel’s stupid sword won’t keep the monsters away. When the Guardians are all together, they seem to be able to intimidate the monsters enough to keep them far off. But I’m no Guardian, and neither is Adam.
Leo trots across the roof to me, nickering happily.
“Shhhh,” I hiss. “Stop with the walking! You’ll wake Mama and Papa!”
Adam beams. “Oh, good! Leo’s here! I had an idea that I came to tell you about. Now I can show you.”
He puts one boot on the lowest ladder rung, and I’m waving my arms wildly.
“No! That’s too many of us on the roof. I’ll come down to you. Leo”—I make eye contact with my horse—“stay.”
So, of course, Leo launches. He jumps off the rooftop, pops his wings open like a parachute, and sails to the ground. He’s waiting for me when I get there.
“Wanna take a ride?” Adam asks, bobbing up on his toes in excitement.
“That’s your idea?” I shake my head. “We have work tomorrow and a mission in the evening. I can’t be riding tonight.”
Adam shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He can’t stop fidgeting tonight. It’s like we’re little kids again and he’s convincing me to skip my chores and go play. “It’s just …” His voice stumbles over the words. “You looked like you needed a little help today.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’m doing just fine.”
“I don’t mean it as an insult! But you weren’t even there for practice. I was. I can show you what I learned. And what I figured out on my own up there.”
“How are we going to ride if your horse isn’t here?”
“We can both ride Leo.”
“Ride him … together?”
“Sure. I brought a rope; I was going to show you my plan on that fallen tree over there. But we can make it into a halter and reins for Leo.” Adam works quickly. Then he gives me a boost, and I sling my leg over Leo’s back.
“What you have to learn to do,” Adam says, “is guide him with your body. Lean forward to go. Lean back to stop. Maybe you could just keep the reins in your left hand—don’t worry about hooking the right arm through. Lift to the left or right from the center—but don’t pull too hard.”
I raise an eyebrow. Sure, I feel connected to Leo. But I feel off balance on his back, and trying to guide him with my body—when my body feels so shaky—doesn’t make sense. Still, I try pulling the reins toward the middle with my left hand, pivoting my body so I can steer Leo with all of me and not just my arms.
“And when you need to grab gold powder,” Adam says, “you can loop your right arm through the slack, just above your Popsnap. It’ll take a little practice, maybe. But Iggy says it takes practice for everybody.”
“She hates me,” I mumble. I let the reins slide through my left hand until I’m holding on in the middle. Lean forward to go. Lean back to stop. Tug left. Tug right.
“I think she’s just … matter-of-fact. And I think we’ll like her a lot once we get to know her.”
It’s a valid point, as much as I hate to admit it. I think it’s easy to pretend you know all about a person when you’ve met them once. And who knows what was going on in that person’s heart and mind when you had that first chance meeting.
“Iggy’s smart about horses,” Adam says. “She said the trick is you hold on with your legs. Steer with your body. And with your voice. She says to speak with authority, but that doesn’t mean shouting.”
He gently taps Leo’s side. My horse trots through the dark woods, and his footsteps are all I hear. Mama keeps a lantern burning all night in our cottage. It’s a tiny flicker and barely illuminates anything out here.
“First of all,” I say quietly, “how does Iggy know how to ride a Starbird? I bet we know as much as she does. Second, I tried all of that and it didn’t help!”
“Not really. You told Leo what to do like you were asking him a question.”
“I was doing better at the end. I think I almost had the hang of it, but I didn’t have enough time.” My shoulders slump. “My confidence is pretty shot after today.”
“Everybody had a hard time on their horses today.”
“You didn’t! You got a thousand Feathersworth!”
“I barely got enough gold powder to fill that sack,” Adam says. “You just couldn’t tell because you were focused on your own ride. Some of those horses were trying to buck guys off.”
My heart warms at this. “Even Honor?”
He chuckles. “Honor was being bucked all over the sky. He managed to scrape some gold powder, but he looked as silly as everybody else doing it.”
I sigh happily. “Music to my ears.”
“Tell Leo to go straight,” Adam says.
As Leo trots ahead, the cottage light gets farther away. I can’t see my arms, my horse. I can’t see what’s ahead of us or around us. I feel invisible, like a shadow. I wonder if this is how mountain people felt when the stars went away, when the light was snuffed out. I turn my head to look back at the lantern light—so small, barely visible. It’s a pinprick. A firefly. But it is light. The dark can never take it all away. “We shouldn’t go too far,” I tell Adam. “The monsters—”
“Leo will get us out of here if monsters come,” Adam says. “I have a feeling a horse could stomp down a monster any day.”
I remember back to the night I met Leo in the woods. “I think so, too.”
“So,” Adam says after a time, “want to try flying again?”
A hard knot of anxiety settles in my stomach. “Now? We’re not supposed to be out at night.”
“Who’s going to know?”
“Somebody will see,” I say. “And even if the monsters are afraid of horses, they might still attack me and you.”
“There are no monsters in the sky,” he says. “Don’t you want to learn how to do this? So when we ride again, you can actually get paid?”
“I’ll kill us both, probably,” I say.
“Probably.”
Adam laughs a little, and it’s warm on my neck. He wraps his arms around my waist. And that feeling of anxiety—plus something else, a whole new kind of nervous—climbs up into my throat. Steals my voice away. I don’t think Adam’s been this close to me before. Ever.
And I don’t think I mind.
I nudge Leo’s sides gently with my heels, and we trot into the dark woods.
As much as I hate to admit it, Iggy is right: If I hold on tight with my legs, I don’t feel all shook up. My whole body doesn’t rattle anymore; I’m right in stride with Leo.
“Want to try it in the air?” Adam says after a while.
“Yes!”
“All right, so Iggy says horses need a good run to take off,” Adam says, an edge of excitement in his voice. “They accelerate faster. Earlier, they basically just launched off the cliffs—which is okay. But they launch easier with a run.”
“Leo.” I say his name with authority. Gentle authority. I change my posture, shoulders back, legs tight, eyes straight ahead. I lean forward, smile, and say: “RUN.” Leo gallops into the woods, hooves slamming against the ground. The distance stretches out greater between each stride.
Leo,
leaping.
Trees,
blurring.
Wind,
a western wind,
warm in the cold night,
and full on our faces as Leo jumps …
and he never hits the ground.
He soars, up and up.
Stomach swirling.
Breath catching.
I lean forward, keeping my legs tight against Leo’s sides, like Adam said to do. “Steady on,” I say. “Steady on toward the sky.” His flight is smooth, solid. Adam lifts his arms and shouts, “Woo-hooo!” into the night.
“Try to steer him left,” Adam yells over the wind. “Just lift the reins—gently—to the left.”
Gently, just like Mama said. She’d
probably be a natural with Starbirds, I think.
I lift the reins and speak to Leo at the same time. And he swoops to the left in a motion so fluid that I barely feel it.
I shriek with happiness. And then … I’m the one laughing. “Leo did it!”
“You did it, Freckles! You and Leo.”
“You did it,” I tell him sincerely. “You taught me how.”
I hear a smile in his voice when he says: “We’re a good team, I guess.”
“It’s a fact,” I agree. “I would fly anywhere with you.”
And I mean that. I really would. It’s easy to stand beside someone when the world is safe, when you’re both sure-footed on solid ground. But I believe there are only a handful of people who make you feel like you could ride out a storm cloud. Face the darkest night. Battle a monster. Withstand the Dust. Survive anything. Make you feel brave and wanted, simply because they’re right there with you.
I curve Leo toward the river. I see his shadow on the water—my beautiful night bird, backlit by the lantern lights hung on tall posts along the shore. His shadow stretches over the water. He sails so low that the tips of his hooves trace the surface, sending a silver slash across the sea.
“UP!” I yell. And we’re skyward again, sailing over the pine trees, circling the North Woods.
With every turn, I feel stronger on Leo’s back. I adjust easy now when he moves, hold tight with my legs as he flies. Now I’m ready for the next mission. And not just ready, I’m excited. I want them to see what I can do. Soon, I’ll walk into our bright little cottage and give my parents the thousand Feathersworth that I earned. Worry will lift from their shoulders, as easy as fog lifting from the mountains. I’ll be their hero.
I know I have to get home. But I don’t want this night to end. “Land him easy, Mallie,” Adam reminds me. We’re still above the treetops—fifty feet at least. Looking down makes my stomach swirl a little, but then I remember what I’ve learned.
“Easy, Leo …” I say. “Go down.” Leo’s moving too fast toward the ground. Treetops are closer, sharper. I imagine hitting them at this speed. The ground that was miles below me seems to be spreading, speeding toward our faces. “Easy!” I shout.
“Oh!” Adam says, reaching around me to tug on the reins. “Sit back and say land! SITBACKANDSAYLAND!”
But he says it at the same time that Leo slams down onto the forest floor. Adam and I both bounce off his back and thump onto the ground. A little bruised, but otherwise fine, we lie in the damp leaves laughing. Leo helps himself to a spray of eucalyptus leaves dangling from a tree.
Adam’s laugh—I’ve missed that so much. His laugh is a guffaw that always makes me laugh, too.
“We’ll work on landings some other time,” he says, standing up. He reaches for me—one hand holding mine—the other gently bracing my right elbow.
“Thank you,” I say, dusting off my pajamas. “For everything, thank you. See you tomorrow? At the mission?”
Adam nods, tips his hat, and meanders away into the woods, down toward his house over the hill. Swinging his stupid monster stick.
“Walk him home?” I whisper to Leo. “Make sure he gets there safe?” I kiss my horse’s soft muzzle. Leo trots off as sweetly as an old dog, wings pinned to his sides.
“Hey, Freckles,” Adam calls when he’s up ahead in the darkness, so far gone in the trees that I can’t see him anymore. “I’d fly anywhere with you, too.”
My heart—which I sometimes think is as Dust-covered as everything else on this mountain—shivers like a Starpatch.
The next afternoon, Honor Tumbrel has sword practice, so nothing stops me from dashing out of the Tumbrel house as soon as my chores are done. Honeysuckle chirps short little bursts in my ear, cheering me onward to the mission ahead. There’s less than a week left before the Guardians come back and no Feathersworth to show for it. All of that changes today.
Down in the valley, nobody’s talking about the horses. But when I get off the train at the mountain, there’s an excited buzz all along the platform like I’ve never heard before.
People tip their hats to me as I pass by.
A little girl runs up to me and gives me a bloom from a pinkberry tree. When I reach out to take it, I see that she’s chalked a green stripe in her hair—just like mine.
Maybe my own mama’s not proud. But other people are. There’s a quiet kind of hope stirring on the mountain now. I tuck the flower in my hair and decide: This time, I’m not just going to fill my Keep. I’m going to overflow it. I’ll collect more gold powder for Mr. Good than he’s ever dreamed.
I have to. Every time I see boys limp off the train and toward home—their heads bowed, eyes inky-black, I know: I have to.
Adam and Greer are waiting for me at the end of the platform. And so is Ms. Marcia. She’s chatting with the boys, holding a big, steaming crate in her arms. I can tell by the cinnamon smell—and the smile on the boys’ faces—exactly what it is. Apple puffs—a giant, steaming crateful of apple puffs. Normally, I would be excited, too. Today, I have no time to stop and make small talk. I have to get to the clearing.
“Hold on a second, Mallie!” Ms. Marcia calls out. She’s one of the brightest things on this dusty mountain, besides Granny Mab and the Dustflights. She makes clothes out of old curtains the valley people throw out, clothes that look better than anything they wear. She stains her lips with pinkberries and has a parasol made of quilt scraps. It’s not like there’s any sunlight she needs to shield her face from. She just misses color, she says.
“I wish I could talk, Ms. Marcia,” I tell her. “But I—”
“I made apple puffs for all of you sweet kids riding today,” she says, carrying on like I’ve said nothing. “And for your horses, too. Everything in here is safe for a horse to eat.”
“That’s so kind of you. But I have to—”
“Relax, Mallie,” Adam says, shoving a puff in his mouth. “We have plenty of time.”
Ms. Marcia leans down and whispers, “I used to ride Starbirds when I was a girl.”
Granny Mab rolls her cart up beside us, chewing a long green pipe. “So did I! But my mother wouldn’t let me fly.”
“Neither did mine,” Ms. Marcia says, “but I did anyway. I hope they stay. I hope they’re back to stay. There’s talk, you know. Talk in town about how, if the Starbirds are back … maybe the stars will be back someday, too. That’d be something, wouldn’t it? If the stars shined again in our lifetime?”
I nod. “It would.”
Ms. Marcia gives me a steaming apple puff, wrapped in waxy brown paper. “Eat this and remember better days,” she says. Starpatches used to be particularly clingy in apple trees, and some people believe you still get a little bit of starlight inside you when you eat them. You still feel happy like people did back then. I don’t know if that’s true. I just think taste has a memory sometimes—and our memory of starlight is a fine feast.
“I have something for you, too, Mallie,” Granny Mab says, fishing through the goods in her cart. She passes me a package wrapped in old newspaper.
“I don’t have money to buy anything …”
Granny Mab waves the notion away. “Consider it a gift.”
I tear the package open and unfold a pair of gray long-sleeved coveralls. They’re exactly my size.
“That’ll make it much easier to ride!” Granny Mab says. “Ms. Marcia painted the wording on the back.”
Green swirling letters—the same green as the stripe in my hair—spell out Mallie over the Moon from shoulder to shoulder. Bright silver stitches seam the sides. I touch the thread and my heart jolts.
“I saved that thread for something special,” Ms. Marcia says. She and Granny Mab are both smiling big, eyes alight with the joy that comes when you know you’ve given someone the perfect gift.
And I do mean perfect.
“This,” I tell her sincerely, “is wonderwow.”
“Go try it on, then,” Granny Mab says, shooing me off into the woods.
“Hurry. You have a mission to get to.”
When I come back, Granny Mab and Ms. Marcia are applauding in delight. Greer is smiling, and Adam is … staring
“Does it look … weird?” I ask him.
He swallows visibly and shakes his head. “Not weird. Not even a little bit. You’ll look like the toughest rider in the sky.”
Mab pulls a cracked mirror from her cart and spins me around—thankfully—before Adam sees how red my face is. She holds up the mirror so I can see myself.
Pretty. It’s such a weird word because it means so many things. I’ve heard some girls say they felt pretty—beautiful, even—when they look at themselves in a fluffy dress. That used to be a tradition in Coal Top—ordering dresses for our fourteenth birthdays, made in our favorite colors, decked out with charms of our favorite flowers. But that ended when the Dust came. There was no time for frivolous fun anymore. And really, I didn’t mind that I would never experience it. I’ve never felt great in a dress—just awkward and itchy.
But I feel beautiful in this. It’s just gray—gray as the sky and the Dust in the mines. But it does look tough on me. Strong. Strong like the Dust smudged on my face. The green stripe shining in my hair, bright as spring trees after the rains. I don’t cuff the sleeves, like I’ve seen other boys do when they ride, because I don’t want my Popsnap to be obvious.
Before I realize what I’m even doing, I twirl.
Ms. Marcia giggles, and Granny Mab chuckles.
“Now you look ready to ride,” Granny Mab says. “Now you look like Mallie over the Moon.”
We do get to the clearing in plenty of time, so Adam and I distribute apple puffs to the rest of the boys getting ready to ride. I even offer one to Honor, because my silver-stitched coveralls are making me so darn happy. But he rolls his eyes.
“Nice outfit,” he says with a smirk. “Looks like the clothes boys are given when they go work in the mines. Wonder if Denver will have a matching one soon?”
I clutch an apple puff in my hand and prepare to throw it directly at the center of his giant forehead, when Greer grabs my hand and pulls me away.
Over the Moon Page 9
