My Daughter, the Moon

The king doesn't ask what's in the parcel. He looks at your face, then at the handwriting, and says, "Bohdan will walk you to your room. Nobody will knock on your door until you open it."

"You don't have to."

"I know." He's pulling on a shirt, wincing as it goes over the shoulder you closed on the pass. "Go."

Bohdan walks you back without a word, and plants himself outside your door like a piece of the architecture. You hear him settle against the wall. You hear him decide to stay there.

You sit on the narrow bed with the parcel in your lap for a long time.

Inside the oilcloth there's a small tin, the kind loose tea comes in, and an envelope of heavy cream paper sealed with green wax. On the back, in different handwriting, shaky and old: Kept as promised. Forgive me for the waiting. E.Q.

Elsbeth.

You break the seal.

My darling Ava,

If you are reading this, Elsbeth has decided you are safe, which means you have finally left Marrowfen, and I am so proud of you I could cry. I suppose I am crying. The ink will survive it.

I have to tell you three things, and I have to tell them plainly, because I may not get another chance.

The first is what you are.

You were born to a line of women called moon-healers. Your grandmother was one, and hers, as far back as anyone wrote things down. We draw sickness out of wolves with our hands. Fever, rot, poison, and above all silver. Silver can't hurt us. It's afraid of us. Under the full moon, with our wolves awake, there is almost nothing a moon-healer cannot pull out of a body.

That is why we are almost gone. Packs used to fight wars over us. Lords bought us and kept us like hunting falcons. Your grandmother was taken by a Lycan lord when I was a girl, and I never saw her again. When you were born and I saw the light in your little hands, I ran south with you to the one place nobody would look for us: a swamp pack with no money, no silver, and no ambition.

Old Alpha Lucian Ardell gave us shelter. In return I healed his wolves and kept quiet. He swore to protect our secret. I believed him.

The second thing is what was done to you.

You turn the page. Your hands are already trembling.

You never shifted. You thought something was wrong with you. Darling, there was never anything wrong with you.

After your mating, I noticed you were growing dimmer. Your hands used to warm when you touched a sick wolf; you never noticed, but I did. By your first winter as Luna, they were cold. I went to your house when you were out and found the tea Bastien makes you every night.

It is nightbane. Bark of the black alder, ground fine and steeped with chamomile to hide the bitterness. It doesn't harm the body. It puts the wolf to sleep. Taken every night, for years, it puts her so deep that she forgets she was ever there. And when the wolf sleeps, the gift sleeps with her.

I have put a tin of it in this parcel, so you'll have proof when you need it. Don't drink it. Never drink it again.

You stare at the tin on the quilt beside you. Plain. Green paint, chipped at the corners. The same tin that sat on the shelf above your stove for four years. You've opened it a thousand times. You've breathed in that bitter, sweet smell every night of your married life and thought: he cares about me. He's trying to help.

You keep reading because you can't stop.

The third thing is the hardest.

Bastien knows. He has always known. Lucian told him what we are before he died, and Bastien courted you because of it. He didn't want a Luna. He wanted a moon-healer of his own, kept quiet and small and grateful, whose hands only worked when he needed them, for him. He wanted you weak enough that you'd never leave, and never wonder why.

I confronted him tonight. He smiled at me. He told me I was a tired old woman imagining things, and that if I said one word to you, you would never believe me over him. Then he said something that frightened me more. He said there are people far north of here who would pay a great deal to know a moon-healer exists, and that a careful man might sell that knowledge someday.

I am going to try to get you out. If I can't, Elsbeth will keep this letter until you are free. She is the only one I trust.

Listen to me now, my love. When you stop drinking the tea, she'll come back. It will hurt. You'll burn with fever for a few days, and you'll feel something huge turn over inside you, like a fish under ice. Don't be frightened. That's her. That's you. She has been waiting so long.

And remember: Bastien Ardell has always known exactly what you are. That is why he married you.

I love you more than the moon, Ava.

Mama

You read it twice. Then a third time, because the words keep sliding away from you like water off oilcloth.

Three years ago your mother died of a fever in the space of a week. Bastien held you at the funeral. He cried. He arranged everything. He told you that grief can make a body tired and brought you your tea every night after, with honey in it, because you were sad.

You put your hand flat over the letter so you can stop seeing it.

You think about the four years of moons on the porch with the blankets. About Lidia laughing on the steps. About Bastien's calm face as he said, You're good with herbs. So is a book. He knew. The whole time he stood up in that hall and told two hundred wolves you were broken, he knew exactly who had broken you and how.

And last night, you didn't drink the cup on the nightstand.

Last night, for the first time in four years, your hands lit up.

A sound comes out of you that isn't crying, not quite. It's lower. It comes from somewhere under your ribs, and for one second, very faintly, you feel something answer it. A turn. A shift. Like a fish under ice.

You press both hands against your mouth.

Outside your door, Bohdan's boots scrape as if he heard it too. He doesn't knock. The king said nobody would knock.

On the quilt beside you, your phone buzzes.

You'd forgotten it still worked. You'd been sure he would cut it off. You turn it over, and the name on the screen is the one you saved four years ago with a little heart after it, because you were twenty and in love.

Bastien.

Where are you, Ava? Come home. You took something that's mine.