He looked at the birthmark on the madwoman’s forehead.
He slid his gaze to Luna. He was looking at her identical birthmark. And her identical wide, black eyes. A lump in his jacket struggled and pecked. A black beak peeked from the rim of his collar. Pecked again.
“Ouch,” the man said
“I’m not a witch,” Luna said, drawing up her chin. “Or, at least, I wasn’t. And I never took any babies.”
The crow hopped across the bare rock and leaped upward, arcing toward the girl’s shoulder.
“Of course you aren’t,” the woman said. She still couldn’t keep her eyes on Luna. She had to look away, as though Luna were a bright light. “You are the baby.”
“What baby?”
A bird struggled its way out of the man’s jacket. That lichen green glow. The bird squawked and worried and pecked.
“Please, little friend!” the man said. “Peace! Calm yourself. You have nothing to fear.”
“Grandmama!” Luna whispered.
“You don’t understand. I accidentally broke this swallow’s wing,” the man said.
Luna wasn’t listening. “GRANDMAMA!” The swallow froze. It stared at the girl with one bright eye. Her grandmother’s eye. She knew it.
Inside her skull a final gear slid into place. Her skin hummed. Her bones hummed. Her mind lit with memories, each one falling like an asteroid, flashing in the dark.
The screaming woman on the ceiling.
The very old man with the very large nose.
The circle of sycamores.
The sycamore that became an old woman.
The woman with starlight on her fingers. And then something sweeter than starlight.
And somehow, Glerk was a bunny.
And her grandmother tried to teach her about spells. The texture of spells. The construction of spells. The poetry and artistry and architecture of spells. They were lessons that Luna heard and forgot, but now she remembered and understood.
She looked at the bird. The bird looked at Luna. The paper birds quieted their wings and waited.
“Grandmama,” Luna said, holding up her hands. She focused all her love, all her questions, all her care, all her worry, all her frustrations, and all her sorrow on the bird on the ground. The woman who fed her. The woman who taught her to build and dream and create. The woman who didn’t answer her questions—who couldn’t. That’s who she wanted to see. She felt the bones in her toes begin to buzz. Her magic and her thinking and her intention and her hope. They were all the same thing now. Their force moved through her shins. Then her hips. Then her arms. Then her fingers.
“Show yourself,” Luna commanded.
And, in a tangle of wings and claws and arms and legs, her grandmother was there. She looked at Luna. Her eyes were rheumy and damp. They flowed with tears.
“My darling,” she whispered.
And then Xan shuddered, doubled over, and collapsed onto the ground.
44.
In Which There Is a Change of Heart
Luna threw herself to her knees, scooping her grandmother in her arms.
And oh! How light she was. Just sticks and paper and a cold wind. Her grandmother who had been a force of nature all these years—a pillar, holding up the sky. Luna felt as though she could have picked her grandmother up and run home with her in her arms.
“Grandmama,” she sobbed, laying her cheek on her grandmother’s cheek. “Wake up, Grandmama. Please wake up.”
Her grandmother drew in a shuddering breath.
“Your magic,” the old woman said. “It’s started, hasn’t it?”
“Don’t talk about that,” Luna said, her mouth still buried in her grandmother’s licheny hair. “Are you sick?”
“Not sick,” her grandmother wheezed. “Dying. Something I should have done a long time ago.” She coughed, shuddered, coughed again.
Luna felt a single sob wrench its way from her guts to her throat. “You’re not dying, Grandmama. You can’t be. I can talk to a crow. And the paper birds love me. And I think I found—well. I don’t know what she is. But I remember her. From before. And there’s a lady in the woods who . . . well, I don’t think she’s good.”
“I’m not dying this second, child, but I will in good time. And that time will be soon. Now. Your magic. I can say the word and it stays, yes?” Luna nodded. “I had locked it away inside you so you wouldn’t be a danger to yourself and others—because believe me, darling, you were dangerous—but there were consequences. And let me guess, it’s coming out all up, down, and sideways, yes?” She closed her eyes and grimaced in pain.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Grandmama, unless it can make you well.” The girl sat up suddenly. “Can I make you well?”
The old woman shivered. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m so, so cold. Is the moon up?”
“Yes, Grandmama.”
“Raise your hand. Let the moonlight collect on your fingers and feed it to me. It is what I did for you, long ago, when you were a baby. When you had been left in the forest and I carried you to safety.” Xan stopped and looked over to the woman with the shaved head, crouched on the ground. “I thought that your mother had abandoned you.” She pressed her hand to her mouth and shook her head. “You have the same birthmark.” Xan faltered. “And the same eyes.”
The woman on the ground nodded. “She wasn’t abandoned,” she whispered. “She was taken. My baby was taken.” The madwoman buried her face in her knees and covered her stubbled head with her arms. She made no more sounds.
Xan’s face seemed to crack. “Yes. I see that now.” She turned to Luna. “Every year, a baby was left in the woods to die in the same spot. Every year I carried that baby across the woods to a new family who would love it and keep it safe. I was wrong not to be curious. I was so wrong not to wonder. But sorrow hung over that place like a cloud. And so I left as quickly as I could.”
Xan shuddered and pulled herself to her hands and knees, and slid closer to the woman on the ground. The woman didn’t raise her head. Xan gingerly laid her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Can you forgive me?”
The madwoman said nothing.
“And the children in the woods. They are the Star Children?” Luna whispered.
“The Star Children.” Her grandmother coughed. “They were all like you. But then you were enmagicked. I didn’t mean to, darling; it was an accident, but it couldn’t be undone. And I loved you. I loved you so much. And that couldn’t be undone, either. So I claimed you as my own dear grandchild. And then I started to die. And that, too, can’t be undone, not for anything. Consequences. It’s all consequences. I’ve made so many mistakes.” She shivered. “I’m cold. A little moonlight, my Luna, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Luna reached up her hand. The weight of moonlight—sticky and sweet—gathered on her fingertips. It poured from her hands into her grandmother’s mouth and shivered through her grandmother’s body. The old woman’s cheeks began to flush. The moonlight radiated through Luna’s own skin, too, setting her bones aglow.
“The moonlight’s help is only temporary,” her grandmother said. “The magic runs through me like a bucket with holes in it. It’s drawn toward you. Everything I have, everything I am, flows to you, my darling. This is as it should be.” She turned and put her hand on Luna’s face. Luna interlaced her fingers with her grandmother’s and held on desperately. “Five hundred years is an awful lot. Too many. And you have a mother who loves you. Who has loved you all this time.”
“My friend,” the man said. He was weeping—big ugly tears down a blotchy face. He seemed harmless enough now that he didn’t have that knife. Still, Luna eyed him warily. He crept forward, extending his left hand.
“That’s far enough,” she said coolly.