A Nearer Moon (7 page)

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.

P
erdy 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.

L
una 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.

Inside the hut, Granny Tu tipped the rungs of her rocking chair back and forth, back and forth in a slow rhythm that could put the fussiest babe to sleep. She stared into the empty corner of the room, her moon
charts open on her lap, a date less than two weeks away circled carefully to mark the coming Perigee festival.

Luna sat beside Willow's bed, wishing her sister would wake, whole and healthy. But Willow's eyelids were still, and only the slight rising and falling of the bedsheet showed she breathed at all. Mama had left early that morning, taking her frightened fury up to the chapel where it wouldn't lash out like a bent branch and strike Luna's already bowed back.

Willow whimpered as she slept, as if the very weight of her skin against the mattress was too much to bear. The tiniest things bothered her now; she who had never been one for complaining before. If Luna lifted the curtain to let a little air into their bedroom, the breeze set Willow to shivering. If Luna was too excited or too loud, Willow's head would start pounding, the hurt pinching the skin around her eyes. And when they slept, Luna could never lie still enough so the mattress didn't tip and sway and wake her sister.

Shouts rang out from the swamp just below the window, and Willow's eyelids fluttered open. Her arms splayed, turned weakly up. She winced away from the light shining through the open window. Her lips relaxed into a tired smile when she saw Luna, who scooted closer to block the light from her sister's eyes.

“Where did you go yesterday?” Willow asked, her voice thick with sleep.

Luna lifted a cup of water to her sister's lips. “Benny and I went to the city on the lake.”

“You did?” Willow winced as she swallowed, her eyebrows creeping together in a scowl. “Hey, Granny Tu was going to take us together. You weren't supposed to go without me.”

“I know, I know. I'm sorry, Willow. I wouldn't have done it if you weren't sick. I went to try to help you.”

“Mama was
mad
.”

“Yeah. I know.” Mama could go ahead and be mad. Luna would do it again. She would do something twice as risky if there was even a chance Willow would get better.

“Luna,” Willow said, her eyes skittering away, “did you find anything—any medicine?”

A fly landed on the window and knocked itself against the shutters again and again, trying to find a way outside. Luna shook her head in tight jerks. “But I'm not done looking. I'm not giving up.”

“I wish I could go outside with you.” Willow let her eyes fall closed. “Tell me what you saw today, out there. Tell me everything.”

“A big gust of wind sent a thousand seraya blooms
spinning out over the swamp. I watched a line of ants carry off a round of flatbread, one nibble at a time, while Benny's ma and auntie bickered over whose recipe for coconut pie should be used for Perigee.” Luna laughed, for Willow's sake, though it didn't sound like a real thing, like a laugh that had any teeth to it.

“I saw a pair of squirrels in a standoff. They were staring each other down like a serious fight was brewing. Then one of them would jump up in the air and the other one would scamper off. Ten minutes later, they'd be back under the same tree and the whole thing would start all over again.”

Willow laughed softly, her head lolling weakly against the pillow. Her cheeks began to sag, the sides of her mouth relaxing as her eyes closed. The sound of Willow's laughter soothed the raw edges of Luna's guilt, her sadness, but it opened up a fresh ache, knowing that sound would slip out on the air all too soon and never come back again.

Luna knew she should let Willow sleep, but she had so little time left with her. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Luna knew she should back away so she didn't bump or bother her sister. But instead she leaned forward. “Willow?”

“Hmm?”

“I didn't mean to dunk you under. I'm so, so”—her voice caught and she swallowed, blinking hard—“so sorry.”

Willow forced her eyes back open. “It wasn't your fault, Luna. It wasn't.”

The wind moaned through the trees outside the window.

“I promise I won't stop,” Luna whispered. “I won't ever stop trying to find a way to make you better.” She smoothed the blanket over Willow's shoulders.

Luna wasn't afraid of getting sick. She wasn't afraid of dumping her boat in the rapids up the river. But living without Willow—imagining a life where her sister didn't get better—that grabbed hold of Luna and tumbled her under like a water lizard wrestling its prey.

She stumbled outside, running, her steps skidding and sliding as the walkways tipped and rippled beneath her. She ran up the hill, veering into the jungle where the noise of insects chirruping and birds chattering took over. The canopy muted the sun and dripped dew onto her shoulders and hair and cheeks, dew that mingled with the tears sliding over her chin and soaking into the fabric of her shirt.