by Richard Due
“It has to have something to do with Curse. Maybe Curse was originally a real person who was a lunamancer?” Lily liked this idea, but there was too much speculation in it to make it useful.
Jasper went on. “But let me finish. The triplets’ names are Meeri, Jin, and Min. Meeri does most of the talking. The others are kinda like scouts, constantly drawing in things and reporting to Meeri, like extra sets of eyes. Jin, for example . . . or maybe it was Min . . . she can see through walls.”
“No peerin?”
“Nope. She just . . . looks—like through a window.” Jasper thought about what Meeri had said to him, and a chill went up his spine. “She said something weird to me. It was right after Teague had run from the room. She said, ’the unbound are among us’ and something like ’they have arrived.’ I think she meant us. Have you heard anything about ’the unbound?’ I don’t remember anything like that from the bedtime tales, do you?”
Lily shook her head.
Then Jasper remembered what Min had said (or was it Jin?): “Is it the one who lives?”, followed by her sister: “Or the one who dies?” The hair on Jasper’s arms rose just thinking about it. Jasper knew Lily would really want that little piece of information, but somehow, now didn’t feel like the best time. Maybe later. Maybe a whole lot later. So he skipped it and went on naming all the children he’d met. Lily bombarded him with questions as to their age, lineage, and what they looked like, all the while furiously jotting down notes on her little notepad.
Knowing how much Lily would have enjoyed the dragon fair, Jasper lingered over his account of the dragon-inspired masks, clothes, and treats. When he got to the part about Annora and Bree’s bout with the Lintel brothers, Lily was on the edge of her seat. Jasper watched his sister’s face as the tale built: Meeri again using magic without a peerin; the black spot; secreting away Annora and Bree; and finally, Tavin’s encounter with Dyre. Telling it, Jasper finally understood the thrill that Ebb felt in the telling of his tales. He glossed over his poor sword-wielding performance later that night in the courtyard at Cora’s.
The second day of events took less time to recount. He described how quickly the sword fights had ended, and what great archers Penryn and his brothers were. And then he mentioned the odd man, Jaynus.
“Rinnjinn!” said Lily incredulously. “He actually said Rinnjinn?”
“Yes. And he wanted my vest after that, but the excitement was too much for him. I had to leave, but we should try and talk to him.”
“Do others know about Rinnjinn? On Barreth he’s considered just a myth.”
“Ridley hadn’t heard of him. I didn’t think to ask the others.”
Lily jotted something down in her notebook.
“You know, Lily, if Mom or Dad finds that notebook—”
“Don’t worry,” she said, still scribbling, “I’ll be careful.”
“So what do we do tonight?” asked Jasper.
“Easy. One of us goes back.”
“After last night, Mom and Dad will be watching us.”
“You mean they’ll be watching you. That makes it my turn.” Lily held out her hand.
“But, if they check on me, they’ll check on you.”
“Not if you’re in your room. In fact, I don’t think they’ll check at all. They know we aren’t stupid enough to sneak out twice in a row, especially after being caught. They’ll take a breather for at least a week. Count on it.”
“That’s the kind of logic that can come back and bite you, Lily.”
Lily extended her palm further.
Jasper chewed his lower lip. “All right,” he said, pulling the gold necklace from his jeans pocket.
“But wait until after midnight, and make sure you lock your door. I’ll leave mine open. At least that way, I’ll hear them if they knock on yours.” Jasper gave Lily a somber look. “Be careful, Lily. And remember: we’re not in one of Uncle’s bedtime tales. The danger in the Moon Realm is real. We need to stay close to those who can protect us. Fortunately, we’re following in Ebb’s footsteps. Meeting the people he knew, people he trusted. But as we venture beyond his inner circle . . . who knows what we’ll find?”
“I’ll be careful.”
After Jasper left, Lily gathered some clothes from her dresser. This time, she would pack more sensibly. She gathered some food, a water bottle, a small flashlight, matches, and her notebook and pencils, rolling everything into a bundle and stowing it on a shelf in her closet.
To fill the time before leaving, she retrieved the purple bandana filled with the bits of plants and stone that she’d removed from Barreth and Dain and spread it out on her desk. From the shelf above, she removed one of what she called her museum books. She owned six of them, all meticulously crafted in wood, leather, metal, glass, and paper by Mr. Phixit’s miraculous metal digits.
This one had never been used. From the exterior, it looked like an eight-inch-wide book. Once opened, however, all pretense of bookishness quickly vanished. Inside, it looked more like an empty, six-story natural history museum stuffed in a box. Endless layered sections folded out, revealing tiny wooden-framed windows, pullout drawers, little glass specimen bottles, leaves of paper, pens—all ready to be filled, written on, and sealed back up again as perfect and tight as a Japanese puzzle box.
Lily undid the lock, pocketed the key, and placed the book on the desk next to the bandana. Carefully, she peeled back and delved into the museum book’s many complicated layers—opening, shifting, unfolding—until she’d reached its deepest recesses. She spent the next hour classifying each leaf, blade, twig, cone, and stone, securing them carefully in their proper compartments. She spent most of her time trying to remember which items had come from which moon. In the end, there were far too many question marks and blanks for her liking. After sealing up the book, she replaced it on the shelf. To her knowledge, neither of her parents had ever gone digging in her museum books, and sometimes, the best hiding place was right out in the open—besides, she alone bore the key.
Lily spent the next forty-five minutes surfing the internet on her laptop. Isla had sent an email saying she was looking forward to movie night.
At one point, Lily heard what sounded like a mouse scratching on a wall in her closet, but when she slowly opened the door, the noise stopped. She pulled out her notepad and wrote set mousetrap. She ruled out enlisting Tarzanna, the family house cat, to do the job; she simply couldn’t be trusted in Lily’s closet. For one thing, the beads and tassels on the ladder rungs drove the cat into mad swatting fits. And yet, Lily mused, she would be efficient once she heard the thing. The thought of a mouse weeing on her clothes or nibbling on her riding gear infuriated Lily. Maybe Tarzanna wouldn’t be such a bad option.
A little after midnight, the Winter house as quiet as Pharaoh’s tomb, Lily slipped from her bed, locked her door, and groped through the darkness into her closet. She stuffed a bathrobe under the door crack and flicked the switch for a long string of track lights mounted on the ceiling, creating little hotspots of light on this shelf or that.
Methodically, she dug out her gear. Many mornings, Lily had fancied herself a stage performer while getting dressed under these lights. And in a way, she felt much the same readying herself for the Moon Realm. She donned the riding cloak from the Tomb of the Fallen last of all, palmed the moon coin, and flipped open the fob. The little gold circles, each representing one of the moons in the Moon Realm, flickered to a silvery white.
Uncle Ebb, she thought, is probably on one of these moons. Was he convalescing? Was he in trouble? Was he starving, or injured? What if he needed help right now? Lily slowly spun the coin’s inner wheel.
Click . . . click . . . click.
If he was on Taw, he’d be safe. If he’d been on Barreth or Dain, then he had moved from where the moon coin had sent him and was hiding, which didn’t seem
likely. Lily let the pointer sweep over Darwyth. Click. Wrengfoul’s home. Can’t go there, too dangerous. Click. Dik Dek . . . Pearl of Dik Dek in oceans deep, mer-made all for the taking. . . . What if Ebb had left Dik Dek from the deck of a boat? Did she really want to risk materializing in the middle of an ocean? . . . Not good. Min Tar . . . Kormor’s work, hammer and anvil, giants of Min Tar she forged. If the dragons of Dain were truly bad—unlike in the bedtime tales, where they were intelligent and brave—what of the Giants of Min Tar? What if they weren’t friendly, either? And why would Uncle Ebb change the tales? It wasn’t like him to change facts. Uncle Ebb loved telling his tales, and he never changed them. Lily and Jasper had never caught him telling one incorrectly. He remembered them so well because he knew them, because he’d lived them. Click . . . click. Rel’ Kah . . . Terrible beauty Faerathil, in Rel’ Kah her dreams she poured. Surely the Faerie Queen would still be around. Lily would have to be careful with her. Faerathil wasn’t some cute little fairy. No. Faerathil was a wild thing of terrible beauty, easily crossed, and more than willing to seek retribution on anyone she felt had wronged her. The moons continued their orbit. Click. The Secret Moon . . . Tinker’s Secret? None to tell. The Tinkers would be useless. They were so secretive they didn’t even tell each other their own names! Although maybe the bedtime tales had that wrong too. Click. The Lazy moon . . . Lazy lives the long life in twain, keying a lone memory . . . the only moon that keeps its distance from the others, rarely crossing over. What if going there affected how long it took to get back to Earth, or to one of the other moons? Too risky.
Lily spun the wheel around again, thinking, wondering. Where could he be?
She ached to explore. She wanted to go to new moons and see new places. She wanted to learn. But she had time for just the one visit. Where to go? Barreth needed her help the most; that much was obvious. But what help could she give to Barreth?
Lily let the small silver circle that represented Dain come to rest under the fob’s pointer. Click. She hesitated, staring at the little crab-claw pincer that would seal her fate. What was she waiting for?
She thumbed the fob shut just as she heard a knock. Lily attempted to pry open the fob, but it was fused tight. In the space of a heartbeat, she thought about ripping off the necklace, but feared it might vanish by itself. Was that how Ebb had sent it back? Just as the first effects of the moon coin kicked in, the knocking came again. Was it really coming from the door? It sounded so close, and not so much like knocking as like little mouse claws tapping or scraping on wood.
And then Lily was gone.
Chapter Ten
The Blackmage
Lily hit the floor hard and rolled into something, coming to rest flat on her back. Lying still, fighting back the fog in her head, she felt stupid for not having had the forethought to ask Jasper exactly where in Cora’s house he was when he left, and if he had been sitting or standing. She was determined not to make the same mistake twice.
The only light was coming from above—a small window, perhaps. Lily felt disoriented. Had she rolled under a piece of furniture? She was definitely on her back, looking up at something.
The quiet was disturbed by a sound from above. Suddenly, a little girl’s head, framed by long locks of tangled hair, popped into view and peered down at her. A second little girl’s head appeared next to the first, and then a third one appeared on her other side.
“I told you,” said the second head to the first.
“And I believed you,” said the first.
“Didn’t,” said the second.
“Did too,” said the first.
“It’s her, isn’t it,” said the third, sounding despondent.
The little girl in the center, who couldn’t have been more than three, gave Lily a long, unhappy look. “You have a lot to do,” she said, in a disturbingly adult-like voice.
Lily pulled herself gingerly into a sitting position and stared at the little girl in the center. “You’re Meeri, aren’t you?” she said.
“She’s quick,” said the second girl to Meeri. “That’s good.”
“And you,” said Lily to Jin, “you’re Min?”
Jin frowned.
“I mean Jin.”
Jin smiled.
“Not quick enough,” said Min.
Then Jin looked up and away, as though something had just caught her eye. “Mother is coming,” she whispered.
Instantly, all three heads disappeared, and Lily heard the children thump onto a mattress before everything went still. A second later, the door opened and a woman peered in inquisitively. Her eyes swept the room at eye level several times before glancing down and noticing Lily.
Feeling like an intruder, Lily hastened to apologize. But before she could get any words out, the woman smiled, looking as though she’d been expecting Lily’s visit all along.
“Oh good!” the woman said. “You’re finally here.” She offered Lily a hand up. “I thought I heard a bump,” she said cheerfully. “You must be Lily.”
“And you must be . . . Cora?” said Lily.
“I told you she was quick,” whispered Jin, a little too loudly.
The corners of Cora’s eyes crinkled. “And those three, pretending to be asleep, are my three small ones, Meeri, Min, and Jin,” she said proudly.
Lily smiled. “We’ve just met.”
“Can you bake?” asked Cora encouragingly.
No sooner had Lily assented than she found herself hard at work in a hot, smoky kitchen.
“Normally, I’d have Annora and Bree helping,” Cora explained, handing a heavy pan to Lily and pointing to the lower oven. “But I’ve had to do without them this week.”
This week! thought Lily.
“Of course, that is two fewer mouths to feed.”
Cora talked fast and was very accommodating. Still, Lily worried about asking her too many questions, like “How do I set the temperature on this oven?” or “Where’s your faucet?” But when Lily asked Cora for measuring spoons, and Cora held up her cupped hands, Lily decided they were going to get along just fine.
The two of them had been working for almost an hour, filling basket after basket with loaves of bread, eggs, fruits, muffins, and pies when Lily asked, “Are we feeding an army?”
“Busy day today,” answered Cora. “We’re going to Raewyn’s. Well, not all of us, just you and me, really. Everyone else will be at old Pym’s homestead. Pym’s not living there year round now, but the fields are planted during the growing season, and the barns and bins are available to neighbors.”
“Are there animals there?”
“At times.”
Lily knew the name Raewyn. Keegan had talked about her. “My Raewyn,” he had said. Lily wanted to verify and record the familial relationship between Keegan and Raewyn, but instead she heard herself say, “You’re going out into the wastes?”
Cora nodded, keeping an eye on Lily to gauge her reaction.
Lily shifted nervously on her feet. “You’re not . . . taking Tavin there, are you?”
Cora smiled the way a mother does when a child perceives a danger that isn’t really there.
“No,” she said. And then Cora placed a hand to her side and her face tightened in pain, as though she’d just experienced an intense cramp. Just as fleetingly as it had arrived, the pain subsided, and she straightened back up again.
“Are you all right?” asked Lily.
“Just a little prick, nothing more,” said Cora, letting out a long breath. “And don’t you worry about Tavin. He won’t be traveling with us today.” A flash of sadness passed over her face.
Lily tried not to let her relief show, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Cora knew all about Tavin tricking her into untying him, and all that followed.
Ridley, his unkempt hair shooting o
ut in all directions, was the first to stumble into the kitchen. He took a seat at the big kitchen table across from Cora and Lily as they assembled the food for the trip.
“Do I have to go to—” Ridley stared up at Lily. “Are you Jasper’s sister?”
“Yes,” answered Lily, smoothing down her apron and pushing her hair out of her eyes.
Ridley continued to stare.
“This is my Ridley,” said Cora. “He’s studying to become a lunarithmatist.”
“Oh, Mother,” said Ridley.
Lily turned away from the table and felt a blush growing on her cheeks. Thinking fast, she ducked down and opened one of the oven doors, pretending to check on something while lingering long enough for the heat of the oven to soak in and mask her reddened face. While she took in the yeasty smell of the bread, she wondered how it was that such a young boy could make her blush. It made her feel stupid, which wasn’t helping. He must have been a full foot shorter and several years her junior. He was a little boy! There weren’t any boys back home who had ever made her do that.
Lily stood up and looked at Ridley, trying to put her finger on it. But when she looked at him this time, he was just a little boy, piling food on his plate.
“What’s that?” asked Lily.
“It’s the study of lunarithmancy,” said Cora.
Lily gave Cora a puzzled look.
“Predicting crossovers. It’s very complicated work.”
Ridley rolled his eyes. “I’m not any good at it.” Then Ridley’s eyes settled again on Lily’s and down back to the oven she had to go. They were not a child’s eyes.
Lily pulled out a tray of muffins and emptied them into a nearby basket, briskly brushing out the crumbs from the empty cavities before placing the pan next to the batter to be refilled. As she scooped batter into the tins, Lily attempted to steal a glance at Ridley, but he looked up at her as though he sensed her stare. His eyes were like a grown man’s eyes—eyes that had seen a lot more than any ten-year-old’s in Pennsylvania. Lily felt herself blushing again. Ridley smiled innocently while tearing away at a muffin and chewing loudly with his mouth open.