by Octavia Cade
The faces were back, shining and damp above her as the moon after a rainstorm, split through a kaleidoscope into a forest of moons, secure on their stalks, bobbing and weaving about her amidst the wonder of her library of things.
“Moon,” she said, and giggled.
Discomfort surrounded her, bemusement and fear and pity that sent arrows into her body and found their source in the eyes of those who watched her, and the shafts of horror splinting their too-straight backs. But beyond them there was a wider world that glowed and dimmed about her, a swirling mass of fragmented expectation and disconnected impressions, and the contrast between the wonder of her new experiences and the dismay on the countenances of those above her overcame pain and confusion and she could no longer contain, no longer retained enough of Rosemary to want to contain, the deep glad laughter that bubbled from the depths of her body and delighted, embraced the endless excitement of her new life . . .