The Moon Coin (The Moon Realm Series)

by Richard Due

  She jiggled the latch. Maybe it was just stuck. And then the answer became clear: she couldn’t lock it because it was already locked. But why? Were they preserving her room like a crime scene?

  Lily switched into damage-control mode. She needed a plan—a good one. She would face her parents in the morning. They would be apoplectic with rage. How was she going to handle them? Jasper would have told them something, but what? He probably knew less than they did about what was going on. Still, what would he have told them? They must know about the pendant. Did he tell them about the secret room? She needed answers and she needed them now. Lily sighed. She would have to wake Jasper. That would go badly—he never woke well. But desperate times called for desperate measures. As Uncle Ebb always said, if you want to make good plans, then you have to build them on good information—or, when he was in a hurry—good information, good plans.

  Jasper could wait a little longer, though. First, there were tracks to cover. Lily tossed everything she’d brought back from the Moon Realm on the bed: the helmet, greaves, and vambraces. The slim ring, the riding cloak, the strange wooden orb with the carved runes, the beautiful boots. Only the necklace around her neck remained. She eyed the pile. What was she missing? Inspecting the contents of her jeans, she noticed nearly every pocket was bulging with the kinds of things she loved to collect: odd leaves, twigs, moss, pieces of bark, unusual stones. She stared at them, unable to remember picking them up.

  “By the moons,” she whispered, “I’m a kleptonaturalist.”

  She folded them all into a purple bandana, hoping that when she catalogued them, she might somehow remember which moons they’d come from.

  She stepped out of her dirty jeans, leaving them where they lay, and stripped off her t-shirt. She wanted a shower, but that would mean leaving her room. She wasn’t ready to risk that yet. From a pile next to the bed, she plucked out a nightshirt that, compared to her Moon Realm garb, felt and smelled like it had just come out of a field of daisies and honeysuckle.

  Lily crawled across the bed, retrieved her laptop, and settled down into the pillows. The screen was bright at first, but once her eyes adjusted, she read the computer’s clock: Mon 3:26 AM. Monday? But she’d left on Sunday. She knew she’d been gone for a long time . . . but a whole week?

  Was there something wrong with her laptop? Lily closed its lid, opened it. She yawned. It still said Monday. She yawned again. She’d spent an awful long time in the saddle since she’d left home, and while saddle time was always exhilarating in the moment, it was also exhausting after the fact.

  Lily clicked on the calendar program in the Dock and stared. The highlighted date was the very next day after she’d left . . . making her total time in the Moon Realm a little over six hours. But that wasn’t possible. It had been days. She had distinct memories, and she had not been dreaming. She had brought things back! They’re at my feet, right? You can’t do that in dreams! Slowly, Lily tipped down the screen of her laptop and peered at the pile of clothes and objects she’d brought back from the Moon Realm. They were still there. Good. Not even the most realistic dreams can create piles of clothing. Lily pulled up her browser and googled time est. Her first hit was The official U.S. time clock. She clicked on it. Its date and time were the same as her computer’s: she’d been gone for a little over six hours.

  This changed everything. It didn’t make any sense, but it changed everything. For one, it meant that unless her parents had come to check on her, which was highly unlikely . . . then she was totally free and clear. They wouldn’t know she’d gone anywhere. They wouldn’t know anything! Relief and excitement flooded through her.

  What had her last actions been on Earth? She remembered kissing both her parents goodnight. It hadn’t been super late. Would they have checked on her? Of course not. There would be no reason for it. And it explained the locked door. Was it possible? Had she really gotten away with visiting the Moon Realm?

  Lily’s mind reeled. New plan! No confession—no difficult explanations. The only lies would be lies of omission—a personal strong suit. She would still need to hide everything, of course, but after that . . . she could even squeeze in a shower. This was just too good.

  Lily set to work.

  The riding cloak, being the largest item, would be the hardest to hide. There wasn’t a huge amount of room in the cedar chest at the foot of her bed, but after moving around the winter blankets and fiddling with the sweaters, she was finally able to get the lid closed again. That would buy her the rest of spring and all of summer. She wouldn’t need to think about a different hiding place until fall.

  Lily walked into her closet, surveying the possibilities. It was so cavernous that she’d wondered, when she was growing up, if it had once been a small bedroom. But on her ninth birthday, as a surprise, her father and uncle had transformed it into a closet paradise: shelves, nooks, pullout drawers, the works. A tall cedar-lined cabinet, with a full-length mirror on the door, held her winter things. A rolling ladder swiveled on a curved rail, giving her full access to all the top shelves. The next year, she had asked for pegs to be attached down its sides. There she hung all manner of beaded necklaces and feathered boas from her dress-up days.

  On the longest rod—one of four—hung the bulk of her clothing, compulsively grouped by type of garment and organized within garment type by color: white to black then yellow, orange, red, green, blue, and purple in strict order. Underneath the racks, however, existed a world populated by the once-loved and prematurely mangled. She would yield neither of these to the laundry basket of judgment. If she did, the once-loved would vanish, consigned to the endless hunger of the thrift store donation bag that lurked next to the washing machine. And the prematurely mangled? Lily shuddered to think. This nether area would be the perfect hiding place. Only Tarzanna, the family cat, was brave enough to venture here.

  Sad that she wasn’t able to recall a prayer for an occasion like this, Lily knelt down and began excavating. The first item she pulled out was a blouse she’d received that Christmas. It had lasted approximately two hours before she tore it nearly in half. If only she hadn’t worn it into the barn to show Hello Kitty her new bridle. Freak accident. Or so she would have sworn, although the truth was slightly completely different. She buried her face in the blouse. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The second item was a gift from Uncle, a yellow sundress. Smeared across the front was a big dark stain. I don’t deserve nice things. Why do they give me nice things? The next was a pair of white dress boots her mother had given her for nationals. They were missing a heel and looked like they’d been chewed on by a teething wirtle. I’m blind! I’m blind!

  Lily concentrated hard after that on seeing objects only for what they were, not how they looked. She dug out a prized jacket (both pieces), a dozen lonely socks, leggings, orphaned halves of outfits, old dress-up clothes. She gasped as a long-lost pair of jeans surfaced. They were unscathed. After hugging them for ten minutes, and crying a little, she decided that maybe, just maybe, she could use a good night’s sleep. Ten minutes later, she’d burrowed a narrow passageway stretching all the way to the wall.

  Dragging herself to the bed, fighting a wave of exhaustion, she sorted through the remaining items from the Moon Realm. The purple bandana full of stones and plant matter she set aside. Eventually, every seed, stone, and leaf would need to be categorized and filed in one of her museum books, but that could wait until tomorrow. The boots were another thing altogether. The boots would be trouble. She’d want to clean them. She’d want to wear them. A good pair of boots should never be wasted, and these were the handsomest pair she’d ever slipped her toe in. If she made a mistake and left them lying around, her mother would grill her. Wistfully, she scooped up everything and deposited it at the mouth of her recent excavation. She removed the purple bandana and pushed the rest of the jumble to the back of the passageway. The entombing took no time. Turned out Lily was a respectable e
ntomber.

  She leaned back on her heels. She needed a good place for the necklace. After several minutes, she slid open a drawer and withdrew a pair of very old black riding boots. Cracked and worn, and stuffed with purple tissue paper to help them keep their shape, they were much too small now. She’d worn them to her first horse show, and she doubted if she would ever be able to throw them away. Lily emptied the stuffing from one, and gently inserted the bandana into the foot, followed by the necklace, followed by all the tissue paper. She placed the boots back in the drawer and admired her handiwork. Her closet looked just as it always had.

  Lily surprised herself by deciding not to take a shower, vowing instead to change her bed linens in the morning. The flannel sheets, covered with dancing purple penguins wearing ice skates, were cool as she slipped between them, but warmed up quickly. With the lights out at last, she buried her head in her softest pillow and relished the comfort of her own bed. Outside, the wind picked up and died down. On her dresser, the dim display on her alarm clock read 3:45. Her eyelids dipped. What would she tell Jasper? she wondered.

  When she opened her eyes again, the clock read 4:05. Her brain felt sluggish and confused; her memories, suspect. Had she dozed off? Tomorrow, she thought. I was thinking about tomorrow. When I show Jasper the pendant. . . . Tomorrow I’ll explain my adventures. He’ll listen . . . he’ll laugh . . . and then he’ll make me give the moon coin to . . . to Dad.

  Lily patted her chest groggily, feeling for the shape of the pendant. It wasn’t there. Had she dropped it? She groped about her neck for the chain. Nothing. Her pulse quickened, and the sleepiness that had been weighing her down lifted like a leaf kicked up in a storm wind. She sat bolt upright, surveying her room. Now her heart was pounding. She’d been asleep—had she been dreaming? The room was dark, but there was plenty of moonlight.

  Dark outlines of model horses pranced atop her dresser. On the bookcase, more figures balanced, fantastic birthday gifts from Uncle Ebb: a black unicorn; a seahorse dragon; a mermaid with three children; a Dain lunamancer riding a Rinn; Kormor the giantess, complete with hammer and anvil; and her favorite, Faerathil the Faerie Queen, currently posed with her arms reaching upward and her wings fully extended. The wings were like something Da Vinci would have dreamed up. Even after nine years, Faerathil’s first flight, with Morgoroth chasing her around the bedposts, remained a vivid, much-loved memory.

  Lily gazed uneasily at her closet door. The curtains billowed, and the riding ribbons attached to the tops of her bedposts fluttered, casting their large, twirling shadows against the doors and walls. The aquarium by the window was empty and quiet: no visitors for Hotel Lily tonight. Her room looked exactly the same. Everything was the same. Nothing had changed.

  Her breathing was ragged. Could she have dreamed it? It wouldn’t have been the first time. But no. This time she’d really been there. Nimlinn was real—no one would ever convince her otherwise. Lily whipped back the covers and leapt from the bed, yanking open the closet door and retrieving the old riding boot. Just for a moment, she wondered, wouldn’t it be easier if the moon coin wasn’t in there?

  Picking her steps carefully, she cradled the boot like a five million dollar Ming vase containing a sleeping Djinn of unknown sympathies. Tree shadows swayed across the room. Sitting at her desk, with the boot upright in her lap, she hesitated. Just a boot. She screwed up her courage and tugged out a piece of purple tissue paper, then another, and another until her desk was covered. Something I should have let go of a long time ago. An old riding boot, too small to fit.

  And those tales? Just stupid bedtime stories told by an uncle with an overactive imagination and way too much time on his hands. . . .

  Lily tilted the dark opening of the boot up to her face. It was big and black and seemed surreally larger than it should be. Strange feelings loomed in her mind: the hole was growing larger and larger, threatening to swallow her up, and then she was falling, falling down some endless rabbit’s hole. Just stories?

  Lily ran her index finger around the top of the boot, took a deep breath, and plunged in. The back of her hand brushed worn leather, but her fingers closed around something cold and metallic. She drew out a long gold chain and dangling pendant, fitted with an odd coin: Uncle Ebb’s moon coin. Well, at least she hadn’t imagined that. Lily lowered the necklace onto her desk. The chain clinked softly as it piled up on itself. And now, she thought, for Wonderland.

  She thrust her hand into the boot and grasped the balled-up bandana. It felt very light in her nervous hands, but when she unfolded it, even in the moonlight, Lily could make out the proof she was looking for: little stones, leaves, and seeds that she had brought back from the Moon Realm. See all the trouble you started?

  Tomorrow, she thought, Jasper would give the necklace to their father. And what would he do with it?

  Her mind raced. What would happen to her new friends in the Moon Realm? What would Nimlinn and Roan do without her? What if her father stored it away for months? Nimlinn and Roan needed help now. How would she get back to Barreth? “That option for returning to Barreth is closed to you,” Ember had said. “The Blight Marsh is far too dangerous.” But crossovers between Dain and Barreth didn’t happen every day, and they were hard to predict. How would she know what time to go back?

  Lily thought of her last moments on Barreth, as the moon coin drew her away. Nimlinn knew their time was short. She’d said something: eel, the number eight, and ear. Lily rolled the sounds around inside her brain. Eel couldn’t have been right, though she would have been surprised if there weren’t lots of eels in the Blight Marsh, along with much worse things. Eight could refer to a particular moon. Could Nimlinn have been referring to the next moon to cross over with Barreth? Ear. Ear? She must have misheard that one. And if she’d misheard that one. . . . Lily returned to eel and ran through the alphabet, trying on letters. It seemed hopeless, and then, near the very last, eel became we’ll. Instantly, the number eight became wait. We’ll wait . . . ear? . . . We’ll wait fear . . . gear . . . HERE!

  Nimlinn was waiting!

  The Queen of the Rinn was waiting in the Blight Marsh for her return! But how long would Nimlinn wait? And with time flowing differently on Earth and in the Moon Realm, how long had they already waited? Lily furrowed her brow. The fire-breathing dragonflies had originally come from the Blight Marsh. Would they return there out of instinct? How would Nimlinn protect herself? Surely, Aleron would be no match for fire-breathing dragonflies!

  Lily flicked open the fob. The moons remained dark. Ember had said it took very little time for the moon coin to replenish on Earth. But how did she know that? Had Ember been to Earth, to Ebb’s mansion? Had Ember been on the farm, in this house? Did she know Lily’s parents? And just what was Ember to Ebb, anyway, if he was showing her how the coin worked and traveling to and from the Moon Realm with her?

  Lily pressed the fob closed. If it only took an hour or two to replenish, there would be time for one more trip before sunrise. If it took longer, she would have to wait until tomorrow night. But how would she get Jasper to believe her?

  Lily stepped into her bunny slippers, unlocked her bedroom door, and padded down the hall to her brother’s room.

  He would need clothes. A warm jacket wouldn’t hurt, and shoes, and socks . . . and food! Lily ran back to her dresser, grabbing a handful of LUNA Bars and her iPod before returning.

  Jasper’s door was ajar. The trees outside his window grew closer to the house, making it darker in his room. She could hear the branches scraping against the outside brick. Lily activated her iPod and flashed it into the darkness like a mini flashlight. Tarzanna, curled at the foot of the bed, was not amused. Jasper’s dresser creaked noisily each time she opened or closed a drawer. Sadly, there were no actual clothes in any of the drawers. “Boys are such heathens,” she hissed under her breath.

  By the end, she collected all the
clothing from his floor, clicking the iPod repeatedly to keep the light going. When she finally found a jacket, she stuffed its pockets with the LUNA Bars, filled the body of it with the rest of the clothes, and rolled the whole thing up like a log.

  Even under the best of circumstances, rousing Jasper was not advisable. He was a grumpy waker and generally stayed grumpy for long periods of time afterwards. Staring at his limp form, she realized she had another problem: her brother would remember little to none of what she was going to tell him. She decided to write a note with the key points he’d need to know and put it in his pocket.

  Lily shined her iPod at Jasper’s desk. Unlike her own, his was neat as a pin. Seizing a pen she quickly jotted down the names of those she thought could be trusted. She made a few calculations and scribbled wild guesses about how long it might take for the moon coin to recharge in the Moon Realm, and then, in big letters, she noted which moons not to visit. Lily had to hold the coin in a patch of moonlight in order to copy down the symbols of the safe ones: Earth, Barreth, Dain, Taw. Lastly, she dashed down the coin’s basic operation, as she understood it, and explained that time-wise, he couldn’t afford going to ANY other moons before coming back to Earth. It was a bit of a jumble, she realized as she re-read the note, but he was smart—he’d figure it out. Lily folded the paper and slipped it in amongst the LUNA Bars. It was time.

  Lily took a position at the head of the bed. A simple nudge would be a waste of time. Bears hibernated less soundly. A good shake to the shoulder? Useless. Lily placed a hand on each of her brother’s shoulders and shook him so violently his whole body bounced off the bed.

  “Wake up!” she hissed. “Wake up!”