Backwards Moon Read online

  Traveling by a Lesser Passage Tree, the Woodfolk man explained, was a risky venture. You might think it was an ordinary Passage Tree, the kind that Woodfolk often took to get from place to place. “But once you step through, you’re in another world. And there’s no going back.”

  Bracken looked at Nettle. “So that’s what happened,” she said quietly.

  They knew now for certain their fathers hadn’t left them on purpose. A weight lifted and was gone.

  By now there was no path that Nettle could see, but the Woodfolk man loped on and on, sometimes resting one big hand against a tree as though it were a particular friend. “As old as rocks, these trees are,” he said as they walked. “You’ve come to a good place.”

  At last he stopped. “There is it is,” he said, pointing down a slope. “That little flat place.”

  There was no sign of trampled grass or chopped trees or left-behind tent pegs lying around, but with Woodfolk there never was.

  Bracken made a silver spell mark and left it shimmering on a tree where she could find it again, and where the Woodfolk would see it when they returned. Then there was nothing more to do but wait.

  “How many moons until midwinter here?” asked Nettle.

  “Three,” said the Woodfolk man.

  Bracken said it wasn’t so long, really.

  Every night Nettle and Bracken watched the moon out of their sleeping loft window. It was Nettle who noticed that the moon here was different.

  Here, the new moon’s crescent of pale silver faced the same way as the rim of her right thumbnail. And surely in the valley, the new moon had faced the other way? Nettle showed Bracken with her thumbnail. “The moon goes backwards here. It’s a backwards moon.”

  “Hmm,” said Bracken, looking up at it. “I think you’re right.”

  “I wonder what Ben and the others are doing right now,” Bracken said.

  Nettle wondered about Elizabeth too, but there was no way of telling.

  “Maybe when the Woodfolk come, they’ll know where some other witches are,” she said. “Ones our age, even.”

  Bracken nodded. “Maybe they will.”

  “You know, tomorrow we could go find some ravens. We could play the raven game. If they don’t already know it, we could teach them.”

  “Maybe there are marmots here,” said Bracken. “Or we could try talking to some sea lions, maybe.”

  “Otters,” said Nettle. “I think otters would be way more interesting than sea lions.”

  They were still arguing when they went to bed, but it didn’t matter, really. They had lots of days ahead of them.

  And tomorrow would be a fine one for flying.