The Moon

Chapter 1-2

Taking a piece of hay from the stack behind him, he scoots to loft’s edge. He drops his muddy boots over, swinging them, and leans back on his bare hands. The Mounding is a big deal. He’ll have his chance to ask a very important question. This here, though, this has him wondering how together Sarah is. Is this a game to try and get out of the ceremony? Is she trying to seem mental?

Sarah moves away, crossing her legs, and looks at Peter sitting silent. What could he be thinking? She doesn’t speak either, letting a silence settle between them. He’s probably thinking she’s mental. She doesn’t care. She knows what she saw, and as for The Mounding, to Heremm with that. She shivers, looking over at Peter’s bare forearms. As cold as it is outside, Sarah can’t help but stare at his rolled-up sleeves. He isn’t wearing a cloak either. How can he be out here like that? She pulls her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

Peter clears his throat, cutting into the silence.

Sarah looks at her thumbs, picking at her cuticles. “I know it sounds like one of my T’lucco tales, but you have to believe me.” She looks up at him.

Peter turns, meeting her big green kitten eyes. No matter how much he tries to fight it, he can never resist them. He watches her thick, black curly hair surround her small tanned face. She tilts her head, and her braid falls, flooding her shoulder. The light breeze brings with it the scent of lilac. He breathes her in as best he can.

Sarah moves a bit closer to him, eyes never wavering. “Peter, please?” She tucks her feet under her butt, wrapping her arms around herself.

Peter sighs, scooting back to the wall, bending his right leg, and leans on his left elbow again while playing with another piece of straw. “Have you told your parents?” He looks up at her, not moving his head.

The lilac in her hair hits his nose again. While she isn’t looking, he breathes in deep. Closing his eyes, he takes her in and flits his eyes open with a hard exhale. He loves it when she washes with lilac. It’s been one of his favorite scents for as long as he can remember. He’s never known why.

Sarah looks to the barn floor and resumes picking at her cuticles. She shrugs her right shoulder, tilting her head into it. “I wanted to tell you first.” She looks up at him, raising both eyebrows. “I thought you would believe me.” She shrugs, turning to the loft’s edge

Peter sighs, and Sarah puts her crossed feet over the edge, letting them swing. Sitting straight, she puts her hands in her lap and looks across the barn at the hay and horses. Shadow stands in his stall, swishing his black tail. His shining black head bobs, shaking his mane about, and he stomps up dust. He wants to be out into the pasture with Chess. He and Chess have been inseparable since Hadley gave birth to them only a few years ago. She knows how he feels to be stuck in one place, caged, and expected to be of one use and one use only. She sighs.

Peter adjusts himself on his elbow and puts his hand on his knee. “Well, if this rose, if you can even call it a rose, is real, then why wasn’t there a bush? Or another rose like it nearby? That would’ve made me believe you more.” He shrugs, looking down into the void between him and the loft.

A breeze blows through, picking up and moving bits of hay across the wood. Peter grabs a piece. Breaking the straw into littler pieces, he throws them through a hole, watching them land in the empty stall below them. When all the pieces are on the floor, he looks at her, offering his crooked grin.

Sarah looks over her right shoulder at him, shrugging, and looks at the floor, forcing herself to ignore his always charming grin. “I don’t know, Peter, but I’m telling you the truth, take it or leave it.” She gets up, holding her skirts and cloak, and descends the ladder.

Peter moves next to the ladder, lying on his stomach. He props himself on his elbows, looking down at her with the same grin, and watches her stop at the bottom. She holds onto the third rung of the ladder, never once looking up at him.

Peter whistles when she takes a step towards the door. “If you go to find another, bring me with you to see it!” His grin broadens to a smile, eyes glistening.

Sarah looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Without a word, she storms out of the barn. Getting halfway to the house, she looks up, almost running into her father.

Luke glowers down at her. “Your chores aren’t finished, young lady. Get to the kitchen and help your mother, now.” He throws a thumb back to the cottage and stares at her, frowning.

Sarah nods, not making eye contact, and walks into the house. How long had she and Peter been in the loft?

Her mother waits for her in the family room, not the kitchen. She stands by a large stack of clothes in need of repairs.

The rest of the day, they mend tears and holes. The whole time, Sarah tries to think of a way to tell her parents about the rose and not have them think she’s mental. Or, as her mother puts it, nunjam. She thinks the entire time she mends on into the evening.

At supper, she even tries to think of something while also trying to ignore Peter’s go-ahead-and-tell-them-already stares, but nothing comes, so she remains silent.

The next day is shrouded in a grey-filled mess. Snow swarms for the better part of the day. Sarah and Peter finish their chores hours ahead of time, despite the flurry and chilling wind, and head out into the woods to look for the rose.

They walk through the new snow, leaving deep prints. Peter walks behind Sarah, using her small frame to block the pelting and stinging snowflakes, and makes himself walk slower for her short stride. Around them, the mingling evergreens and bare trees are dark against the snow. Sarah’s hair blows back in his face, and he now dodges it with the snow, even darker with the ever-greying sky.

Peter looks at Sarah’s short legs trudge through the ankle-high snow and half yells over the wind. “What makes you think you’ll find it again if it’s wilted?” He scratches his bare arm, looking away from the stinging flakes.

His eyes move back to Sarah working her feet through the snow. They both drag them through the thick white sea of flakes. They better not have to run. If they do, he will undoubtedly have to carry her. That will be interesting.

Sarah glances at him over her shoulder with a grin. “I believe it had chimke to keep it glowing. If so, maybe it has it to come back.” She points ahead of them. “It’s not much farther past that boulder.” She tucks her arm back into the folds of her cloak, hugging it to her warm body.

Peter huffs. “Sarah, there is no such thing as chimke!” He crosses his arms, trudging forward.

Sarah ignores him. She keeps her eyes ahead. No, he’s wrong. There is chimke in this world. There has to be.

They walk for another hour before getting to the spot where she found the rose, and then stop. She looks everywhere near the spot, but the ever-darkening sky makes it hard for her to see anything. If it was there, she wouldn’t have missed it.

Sarah shakes her head. “I don’t understand. It was here.” She puts her hand out to the tree roots where it bloomed. “It was right here in these roots.” She continues to search each tree in the dark of the night.

Peter puts both hands on her shoulders, looking down at her, and raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you imagined it out of fatigue. I mean, that was a pretty big deer. I still can’t believe you dragged it all the way home, and then skinned the whole thing by yourself.” He shrugs, scratching his nose, and crosses his arms.

Sarah shakes her head again, looking at the snow. “No, I know what I saw. Maybe it takes a few days to come back.” She looks around him at each tree’s roots, then back into his eyes.

Peter shrugs, keeping his shoulders scrunched. “Or.” He points at her with both first fingers. “Let’s just consider the possibility that… it’s gone for good.” He tousles his curls, putting both hands on either side of his neck, and watches Sarah as she looks around them.

Sarah steps in a circle. Her boots leave a jumbled mess of prints and snow clumps. She bites a knuckle. Turning so much, so fast, she gets dizzy and stumbles on her skirts.

Peter catches her before she hits the snow. Holding her by her shoulders, he waits until she can stand on her own. Looking at her face, he watches small tears roll down her cheeks. Nodding, he takes her by the arm, leading her from the woods. She follows in a tear-filled daze. Peter walks close to her the whole time they trek back home. Every now and then, she falls to the ground, and he must pick her up.

Sarah can’t look at him as they go home. She just stares off into the distance. Once home, neither of them speaks past ‘pass this’ and ‘pass that’.

Sarah keeps the same stare locked on the supper table, keeping quiet until they go to bed.

Sarah swaps certain chores with Peter for the next, maybe, two weeks, she’s unsure, and looks for the rose in secret. Every day, she comes out shorthanded. Maybe Peter’s right. Maybe it is a figment of her imagination. An obsession she should be rid of. Her second-guessing lasts until the eve of Winter Celebration. Late that afternoon, she walks through the forest gathering fire wood.

Picking up a stick, she stops. There it is. The familiar glow she thought she had dreamt lights up the woods. Only this time, it’s much closer to home. She runs to it, hitting her knees, and almost slides past it. It glows brighter. The petals are fuller, lusher. The stem stands taller, thicker, and is flooding with thorns and leaves. She sits on her knees, staring at it. Putting out her hand, she stops, curling her fingers. Instead, she digs through the snow, down to the muddy roots. Bringing up her hand too fast, a thorn pricks her fingertip. Wincing, she watches as a drop of blood blossoms. She puts her fingertip in her mouth, sucking on it. The taste of metal and mud washes over her tongue. She pulls it out with a smack, then proceeds to dig all around the rose, sending snow and mud in all directions.

Standing, she puts the rose in her bag on top of the wood. With velvet hands, she puts the flap of her bag over the top of the rose, latching it. Small beams of light shine through the cracks. Running through the woods, she makes it home sooner than expected. In a hurry, she puts away the wood and goes to her and Peter’s room, seeing the door closed. A rarity.

Sarah taps on the door, pace hastening, and waits for a reply after about the seventh tap. “Peter, are you in there?” She puts her ear to the door, resting her hand next to her chin, and listens over her heavy breathing.

A shuffling of boots, and what sounds like papers, precedes a clearing throat. “Yea! I’m in here. I’ll, uh, I’ll be out in a, uh, just a second!” More shuffling and – is that jingling?