Moon Chosen

by P. C. Cast

  Before she could speak the command, Rigel padded swiftly and silently back inside the burrow and crouched just inside the door.

  “Good job! I’m so proud of you!” Mari squatted beside him, petting and kissing him while his tail tapped a drumlike beat against the door and he licked her face.

  Sweet girl, don’t keep joy from him, Mari could almost hear her mother’s voice as she took up the staff and began to lead Rigel through the bramble thicket. Mari shook herself. She needed to concentrate on reality. Daydreaming was dangerous. She needed to save the dreaming part of her life for when she and Rigel were safely tucked into bed with their door barred against the dangers of their world.

  As always they paused just inside the edge of the brambles. Mari looked and listened carefully, but even more carefully she watched Rigel. The pup always knew before she did if there were dangers near. When he showed no sign of being concerned, Mari stepped out of the thicket, held her arms out, and called “Up!” Rigel jumped neatly into her arms and she shifted him around so that most of his weight rested over her left shoulder, leaving her right arm and hand free. “You’re really getting heavy,” she told him, and he licked her ear. “Don’t! I’ll drop you and you’ll splat like a watermelon.” The pup put his wet nose against her neck and Mari almost giggled, but squatting to get the snare, and struggling with it and her half-grown pup, had her groaning with effort instead.

  “Seriously, Rigel. I’m going to start lifting you in the burrow. Lifting you and putting you down. Lifting you and putting you down. I have to keep building my muscles, or you have to stop eating and growing—and I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Mari stepped out into the red cedar grove that edged their burrow, refusing to think about what she would do when Rigel was fully grown and weighed more than she did.

  The morning was still foggy and cool, but by the time she was far enough away from the burrow that she could put Rigel down, Mari was sweating and breathing hard. “Uphill. The ash grove is downhill, but we have to climb up to get to the down part.” She shook her head and wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. “Next time I’m going to be smarter about this. I’ll carry you far enough away from the burrow downhill, then we’ll circle around to start our climb. Okay, it’s just around that far curve in the trail and over the top of the ridge.” She wiped her face again and gestured for Rigel to follow her. “Let’s go trap some fat, fertile rabbits and find a bunch of mushrooms for dinner.”

  As they made their way to the ash grove, Mari practiced sending Rigel images of tasks she wanted him to perform. First, and most important, was the hide command. Since Leda’s death, Rigel seemed to truly understand the importance of hiding. He’d stopped his puppyish scampering about, and the chewing and digging he used to do when he was supposed to be silently blending into the forest. So Mari tried more commands with him. She imagined him lying down, sent him the image she sketched in her mind, and then was pleased when the Shepherd immediately dropped to his belly.

  “Good boy, Rigel! Good boy!” Mari smiled, petting the pup, who wriggled and huffed joyously. From then on, whatever Mari sketched in her mind, Rigel did—if it made her smile.

  “You’re kind of like a little blackmailer,” Mari told him, stroking his face. “And I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me be happy, and I love you for it.” She kissed his nose then and hugged him close to her, hoping for his sake, if not for hers, that someday she would be happy again.

  They came to the bend in the path, and Mari automatically sent Rigel the hide command. He ducked into the foliage inside the curve where he was hidden from anyone coming or going on the path, but he could still keep Mari in his eyesight.

  She rounded the curve and was just about to release the pup when she heard the cry of relief above her.

  “There you are!”

  Mari froze and stared up into the branches of a mighty maple. There was a frantic rustling, muffled cursing, and Sora half dropped, half fell, from the tree.

  “Finally. I’ve been trying to find you for days.” Sora glared at her as she tried to smooth her dirty shift and pulled leaves out of her long, tangled hair.

  “I told you if you followed me I would kill you.”

  “I know very well what you told me, and that’s why I didn’t follow you—though that was a very mean thing to say to me. But I forgive you because you were carrying your dead mother.”

  “I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t want anything from you,” Mari said.

  “Well, I want something from you!” Sora paused, obviously trying to compose herself. When she began again the frantic edge in her voice had calmed, and she spoke slowly and rationally. “What I meant to say was we want something from you.”

  “No,” Mari said. She pushed by Sora, glancing surreptitiously at the place in the underbrush where Rigel was hidden. Mari could just see the glint of his amber eyes.

  Sora stepped in front of her, blocking her way and grabbing her wrist. Mari heard the warning growl that began deep in Rigel’s throat. She shook off Sora’s touch, speaking quickly and loudly, trying not to sound as frantic as she felt. “Good-bye, Sora. I’m not helping anyone. I’m mourning my mother.”

  “It’s because of your mother that you have to help.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “The Clan needs you. They’re going mad, Mari, especially the men. Without a Moon Woman to Wash them, the Night Fever stays with them, just like it stays with the women of the Clan, making them sadder and sadder every day.”

  “You don’t seem too sad,” Mari said. Studying Sora she added, “But I have seen you look much better.”

  “This,” Sora pointed at herself, making a sweeping gesture that took in her dirty clothing and disheveled hair, “is how I look because I’ve been living in this Goddess be damned tree for the past five nights.”

  “Well, then, I suggest you go home.”

  “I can’t! I don’t have a home anymore!” The words exploded from Sora, followed by sobs that shook her shoulders. “The men know where I live. They destroyed my burrow during their madness. I—I have nowhere to go.”

  “Sora, I’m sorry about your burrow, but I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can! Only you can fix things—make them the way they used to be.”

  “I’m not a Moon Woman,” Mari said.

  “You’re the closest thing we have to one.”

  “Then I’m sorry for you.” Mari moved past Sora, sending Rigel a mental image of him following her off the trail, silently and hidden. But instead of staying by the maple tree, Sora fell into stride beside her. “Where are you going?”

  “That’s not your business. And you can’t go with me. Stay here, Sora. Or don’t. Go anywhere, just not with me.” Mari stopped and looked back at the tree. “Why did you pick this place anyway?”

  “I already told you. I was hiding and waiting for you.”

  “But why here?”

  “This is the last place I saw you. You were carrying Leda’s body. I assumed that this isn’t far from your burrow, so when the men destroyed my home I made my way back here and I waited for you.”

  “Sora, make a new burrow like Leda told you to do. Someplace hidden. Keep it secret. And practice drawing down the moon. Mama believed in you. She saw your power, and since you don’t seem mad—or at least not more so than usual—and you’re obviously not depressed, Mama was right. Only Moon Women don’t need to be washed of Night Fever. It’s you the Clan needs, not me.”

  “I don’t know how to do it! I’ve tried. I’ve tried every night. I can feel the energy of the moon. It’s cold. It scares me. I can’t make it do what I want it to do.”

  Mari sighed. “You have to focus, and that takes practice. Lots of practice.”

  “But how? I think I am focusing, and then that coldness fills me, and it’s like I’ve broken through the ice in a frozen pond and there’s no way out. I feel like I’m drowning. It’s terrifying.”

  Mari nodded. “Yeah, I know.
I’ve felt it, too. You just have to ignore the cold. Okay, you say it’s like a frozen pond, then imagine the pond unfreezing and washing through you.”

  “All right, I’ll try that. Then what?”

  “Then you channel that energy into someone or something else,” Mari said.

  “Will you meet me tonight? Will you show me what you mean? Please, Mari.”

  “No, Sora. You’ll have to figure this out yourself. I watched you at the last Full Moon Gathering. You should have been studying Mama, but you thought flirting with Jaxom was more important. You were wrong.” Mari paused and then added, “Remember, you were Mama’s first choice as her successor—not me.”

  “We all know Leda chose me over you only because there’s always something wrong with you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m different from the rest of you, that’s all. Different doesn’t mean wrong or sickly or less than. It just means different!” Mari realized she was shouting at about the same time she realized how good it felt to say what had been bothering her for years.

  Then Sora spoke, and Mari wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Different? What do you mean? I thought you were sickly.” Sora studied Mari. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  Mari stifled the urge to lift the hood of her cloak and cover her hair.

  “Nothing is wrong with my hair. What’s wrong with yours? It looks terrible.”

  Sora put her hands on her curvy hips. “Mari, I have been hiding in a tree for days! What’s your excuse?”

  “My mother died,” Mari said flatly as she walked away.

  “Wait, Mari! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Sora said.

  “I’m done with this conversation. Do not follow me.”

  “Or what, you’ll kill me? I don’t believe you’re a killer.”

  Mari turned to look at Sora. “There were only two people in this world I cared about—my mother and Jenna. Mama is dead. Jenna is worse than dead. I have nothing left to lose. Don’t doubt that I will kill you.” Then Mari kept walking, quickly, as she sent Rigel the release image.

  As soon as Mari rounded the bend and was out of Sora’s sight, she left the path, cutting down the ridge. Rigel burst through the underbrush beside her.

  “Stay with me. Let’s put some distance between us. Sora’s never been much for physical exertion. No way will she catch us, even if she is stupid enough to try to follow me.”

  Mari clutched the rabbit snare and they ran, weaving a sinuous, convoluted path. It was a simple thing for Mari to make her way through the forest she knew so well, eventually entering the low-lying ash grove from the southern, instead of the northernmost edge of it, where she finally collapsed on a bed of moss with Rigel panting beside her. She petted and made a fuss over the pup, telling him how clever he’d been, staying hidden so well. Rigel whined and sniffed her all over, especially where Sora had touched her.

  “Don’t worry. We’re not going to have anything to do with her—or with any of the Clan. We’re our own Clan now. We’re all each other needs.”

  After they’d rested for a little while, Mari went to the stream, which bubbled musically through the grove, and after she and Rigel drank deeply she began to seek the best place to set her live trap.

  “Yes! I knew I remembered right. Look at this, Rigel—spring watercress, lots and lots of it.” Excited, Mari moved quickly along the edge of the stream. “And see these,” she pointed, even though Rigel was busy tossing a stick in the air and catching it. “The two little tracks, one right after another, and the two bigger ones next to each other? Those are definitely rabbit tracks. And here are more, and more! This is the perfect place to get our rabbits.” Humming to herself, Mari set about pulling handfuls of wild grasses, which she rubbed all over the woven trap, hoping to dilute her scent. Then she placed it facing the watercress, backed to a hedgerow-like line of young blackberry bushes.

  Wiping her hands on her cloak, she called to Rigel, who galloped to her, stick in mouth. He skidded to a halt in front of her, sat, and, wagging his tail enthusiastically, offered her the stick, obviously hoping to lure her into a game of catch and toss.

  “All right, but just for a little while. Mushrooms are waiting to be found, and you—my sharp-nosed boy—are going to help me find them.” Mari took the stick from the pup and threw it across the stream so that Rigel had to leap over it. She watched him with pride as he easily found the stick, and then vaulted over the stream again, returning to sit in front of her.

  Mari gazed down at him. He was getting so big! Sure, his paws still seemed awkwardly large for his growing body, and his face still had a puppyish look to it, but he must weigh fifty pounds—he sure felt like he weighed at least that much. Mari could see him changing, turning into a Shepherd who was majestic and handsome—smart and loving. She could see the adult canine he would become, and suddenly overwhelmed by the future vision of Rigel, she went to her knees, pulling him into her arms.

  “I love you! I’m sorry it’s just me, and that I’m not like I was when Mama was alive. But I’ll try harder, Rigel. I’ll try to make us happy.” The young Shepherd dropped the stick and crawled onto her lap, though a good portion of him wouldn’t fit. He lay his head against her shoulder, filling Mari with a flood of unconditional love.

  “Get away from her you monster!” Sora’s voice echoed through the grove. “Run, Mari! Run!”

  Rigel reacted before Mari. He spun out of her lap to face the young woman, who was holding a stick over her head and brandishing it at him. He backed protectively against Mari, lifting his lips in a ferocious snarl, growling low and deep, and sounding nothing at all like a pup.

  “Great Goddess! He’s your monster!” Sora’s voice was tinged with hysteria. Her gray eyes had gone huge. She dropped the stick and started to back away, but Rigel’s growling increased, freezing her in place.

  Mari felt numb. When she spoke her voice was utterly normal.

  “He isn’t a monster, but he is mine, and I am his.”

  Sora’s wild-eyed gaze went back and forth between the canine and the girl. “Goddess be damned, that’s what’s wrong with you. You’re a Companion!”

  22

  “Actually, that’s not accurate. I’m only half Companion. The other half is Earth Walker,” Mari said.

  “I—I have to sit down. Don’t let him eat me,” Sora said.

  “He wouldn’t eat you. He definitely would bite you, though, so sit slowly and don’t try to run.”

  “I’d like to run, but my legs aren’t working.” Sora sat heavily where she was, unable to take her gaze from Rigel. “He’s huge. Look at his teeth! Are his eyes always so buggy? Are you sure he won’t eat me?”

  Mari stroked Rigel affectionately. “I’m sure. Well, unless you try to run. Or try to hurt me. Then he’ll bite you, and it’ll be with my blessing. And he doesn’t have buggy eyes.”

  “Are you always so unpleasant?”

  Mari frowned. “I’m not unpleasant. You’re the one who followed me. I told you not to.”

  “And now I know the truth about why. Did Leda know about this—this—” Sora broke off, gesturing at Rigel with a nervous shake of her hand.

  “He’s a canine. A Shepherd. His name is Rigel. And of course Mama knew about him. He lives with us.” Mari paused, and then corrected herself sadly. “Well, now he lives with just me.”

  “Mari, how by all the levels of hell did this happen?”

  “How did Rigel come to be with me, or how am I half Companion, half Earth Walker?”

  “Why are you so calm?” Sora almost shrieked, and then when Rigel began to growl again she pressed her hand against her breast, as if to keep her heart from exploding, drew a deep breath, and said. “I cannot stand it when he shows his teeth at me and makes that terrible noise.”

  “Then don’t yell at me.”

  “I’m trying not to!” Sora yelled, and then clamped her lips closed.

  Mari sighed. “Okay, well, I don’t k
now why I’m calm. I shouldn’t be. You just discovered the secret Mama and I have been hiding for my entire life.” She stopped, considering, and then continued as if she was reasoning aloud more than actually conversing with Sora. “It’s a relief that you know—that someone finally knows. And since the day Mama died life hasn’t been normal. You being here—seeing Rigel with me—that’s just one more piece of kindling in the pile that is my life on fire.”

  “How did this thing find you?”

  “Sora, don’t call him a thing. Call him by his name.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s just so strange.” She drew a deep breath and began again. “So, how did Rigel find you?” Sora was staring at the Shepherd again, and Rigel lifted his lips, showing her his teeth. “Can’t you make him stop doing that?”

  “Yeah, I can. But I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Well then I’ll just sit here and be terrified,” Sora said, trying to smooth her hair.

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  When Mari didn’t say anything else Sora made a small, exasperated sound that had Rigel cocking his head and looking at her as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. “Mari, are you going to answer my question or not?”

  “I suppose I might as well. The truth is I don’t know how Rigel found me. He came to the burrow on the night of the last Full Moon Gathering. He was hurt pretty bad. I helped Mama draw down the moon, and healed him. That was the first time I was successful drawing down the moon.”

  “Just before Leda died she told me that she was going to announce that you would be apprenticing with her also, because you Washed Xander and Jenna.”