“I know what you people have done.”
Something is crawling down my neck. My god. It’s a hummingbird. And—OUCH!
A paper raven swooped across the room, slicing its wing across Antain’s cheek, cutting it open, letting him bleed.
Antain was too amazed to cry out.
“But it doesn’t matter. Because the reckoning is coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. And it is nearly here.”
She closed her eyes and swayed. She was clearly mad. Indeed, her madness hung about her like a cloud, and Antain knew he had to get away, lest he become infected by it. He pounded on the door, but it didn’t make any sound. “LET ME OUT,” he shouted to the Sisters, but his voice seemed to die the moment it fell from his mouth. He could feel his words thud on the ground at his feet. Was he catching madness? Could such a thing happen? The paper birds shuffled and shirred and gathered. They lifted in great waves.
“PLEASE!” he shouted as a paper swallow went for his eyes and two paper swans bit his feet. He kicked and swatted, but they kept coming.
“You seem like a nice boy,” the mother said. “Choose a different profession. That’s my advice.” She crawled back into bed.
Antain pounded on the door again. Again his pounding was silent.
The birds squawked and keened and screeched. They sharpened their paper wings like knives. They massed in great murmurations—swelling and contracting and swelling again. They reared up for the attack. Antain covered his face with his hands.
And then they were upon him.
14.
In Which There Are Consequences
When Luna woke, she felt different. She didn’t know why. She lay in her bed for a long time, listening to the singing of the birds. She didn’t understand a thing they were saying. She shook her head. Why would she understand them in the first place? They were only birds. She pressed her hands to her face. She listened to the birds again.
“No one can talk to birds,” she said out loud. And it was true. So why did it feel like it wasn’t? A brightly colored finch landed on the windowsill and sang so sweetly, Luna thought her heart would break. Indeed, it was breaking a little, even now. She brought her hands to her eyes and realized that she was crying, though she had no idea why.
“Silly,” she said out loud, noticing a little waver and rattle in her voice. “Silly Luna.” She was the silliest girl. Everyone said so.
She looked around. Fyrian was curled up at the foot of her bed. That was regular. He loved sleeping on her bed, though her grandmother often forbade it. Luna never knew why.
At least she thought she didn’t know why. But it felt, deep inside herself, that maybe once upon a time she did. But she couldn’t remember when.
Her grandmother was asleep in her own bed on the other side of the room. And her swamp monster was sprawled out on the floor, snoring prodigiously.
That is strange, Luna thought. She couldn’t remember a single other time when Glerk had slept on the floor. Or inside. Or un-submerged in the swamp. Luna shook her head. She squinched up her shoulders to her ears—first one side, and then the other. The world pressed on her strangely, like a coat that no longer fit. Also, she had a terrible pain in her head, deep inside. She hit her forehead a few times with the heel of her hand, but it didn’t help.
Luna slid out of bed and slid out of her nightgown and slipped on a dress with deep pockets sewn all over, because it is how she asked her grandmother to make it. She gently laid the sleeping Fyrian into one of the pockets, careful not to wake him up. Her bed was attached to the ceiling with ropes and pulleys to make room in the small house during the day, but Luna was still too small to be able to hoist it up on her own. She left it as it was and went outside.
It was early, and the morning sun had not yet made it over the lip of the ridge. The mountain was cool and damp and alive. Three of the volcanic craters had thin ribbons of smoke lazily curling from their insides and meandering toward the sky. Luna walked slowly toward the edge of the swamp. She looked down at her bare feet sinking slightly into the mossy ground, leaving footsteps. No flowers grew out of the places where she stepped.
But that was a silly thing to think, wasn’t it? Why would something grow out of her footsteps? “Silly, silly,” she said out loud. And then she felt her head go fuzzy. She sat down on the ground and stared at the ridge, thinking nothing at all.
Xan found Luna sitting by herself outside, staring at the sky. Which was odd. Normally the girl woke in a whirlwind, rousting awake all who were near. Not so today.
Well, Xan thought. Everything’s different now. She shook her head. Not everything, she decided. Despite the bound-up magic curled inside her, safe and sound for now, she was still the same girl. She was still Luna. They simply didn’t have to worry about her magic erupting all over the place. Now she could learn in peace. And today they were going to get started.
“Good morning, precious,” Xan said, letting her hand slide along the curve of the girl’s skull, winding her fingers in the long black curls. Luna didn’t say anything. She seemed to be in a bit of a trance. Xan tried not to worry about it.
“Good morning, Auntie Xan,” Fyrian said, peeking out of the pocket and yawning, stretching his small arms out as wide as they would go. He looked around, squinting. “Why am I outside?”
Luna returned to the world with a start. She looked at her grandmother and smiled. “Grandmama!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I feel like I haven’t seen you for days and days.”
“Well, that’s because—” Fyrian began, but Xan interrupted.
“Hush, child,” she said.
“But Auntie Xan,” Fyrian continued excitedly, “I just wanted to explain that—”
“Enough prattling, you silly dragon. Off with you. Go find your monster.”
Xan pulled Luna to her feet and hurried her away.
“But where are we going, Grandmama?” Luna asked.
“To the workshop, darling,” Xan said, shooting Fyrian a sharp look. “Go help Glerk with breakfast.”
“Okay, Auntie Xan. I just want to tell Luna this one—”
“Now, Fyrian,” she snapped, and she ushered Luna quickly away.
Luna loved her grandmother’s workshop, and had already been taught the basics of mechanics—levers and wedges and pulleys and gears. Even at that young age, Luna possessed a mechanical mind, and was able to construct little machines that whirred and ticked. She loved finding bits of wood that she could smooth and connect and fashion into something else.
For now, Xan had pushed all of Luna’s projects into a corner and divided the whole workshop into sections, each with its own sets of bookshelves and tool shelves and materials shelves. There was a section for inventing and a section for building and one for scientific study and one for botany and one for the study of magic. On the floor she had made numerous chalk drawings.
“What happened here, Grandmama?” Luna asked.
“Nothing, dear,” Xan said. But then she thought better of it. “Well, actually, many things, but there are more important items to attend to first.” She sat down on the floor, across from the girl, and gathered her magic into her hand, letting it float just above her fingers like a bright, shining ball.
“You see, dearest,” she explained, “the magic flows through me, from earth to sky, but it collects in me as well. Inside me. Like static electricity. It crackles and hums in my bones. When I need a little extra light, I rub my hands together like so, and let the light spin between my palms, until it is enough to float wherever I need it to float. You’ve seen me do this before, hundreds of times, but I have never explained it. Isn’t it pretty, my darling?”
But Luna did not see. Her eyes were blank. Her face was blank. She looked as though her soul had gone dormant, like a tree in winter. Xan gasped.