(Did she notice how heavy the light felt on her fingers? Did she notice how sticky it was? How sweet?)
She waved her fingers above her head. She pulled her hand down when she couldn’t hold it up anymore.
(Did she notice the weight of magic swinging from her wrist? She told herself she didn’t. She said it over and over and over until it felt true.)
And the baby ate. And ate. And ate. And suddenly she shuddered and buckled in Xan’s arms. And she cried out—once. And very loud. And then she gave a contented sigh, falling instantly asleep, pressing herself into the softness of the Witch’s belly.
Xan looked up at the sky, feeling the light of the moon falling across her face. “Oh dear me,” she whispered. The moon had grown full without her noticing. And powerfully magic. One sip would have done it, and the baby had had—well. More than one sip.
Greedy little thing.
In any case, the facts of the matter were as clear as the moon sitting brightly on the tops of the trees. The child had become enmagicked. There was no doubt about it. And now things were more complicated than they had been before.
Xan settled herself cross-legged on the ground and laid the sleeping child in the crook of her knee. There would be no waking her. Not for hours. Xan ran her fingers through the girl’s black curls. Even now, she could feel the magic pulsing under her skin, each filament insinuating itself between cells, through tissues, filling up her bones. In time, she’d become unstable—not forever, of course. But Xan remembered enough from the magicians who raised her long ago that rearing a magic baby is no easy matter. Her teachers were quick to tell her as much. And her Keeper, Zosimos, mentioned it endlessly. “Infusing magic into a child is akin to putting a sword in the hand of a toddler—so much power and so little sense. Can’t you see how you age me so, girl?” he had said, over and over.
And it was true. Magical children were dangerous. She certainly couldn’t leave the child with just anyone.
“Well, my love,” she said. “Aren’t you more troublesome by half?”
The baby breathed deeply through her nose. A tiny smile quivered in the center of her rosebud mouth. Xan felt her heart leap within her, and she cuddled the baby close.
“Luna,” she said. “Your name will be Luna. And I will be your grandmother. And we will be a family.”
And just by saying so, Xan knew it was true. The words hummed in the air between them, stronger than any magic.
She stood, slid the baby back into the sling, and began the long journey toward home, wondering how on earth she’d explain it to Glerk.
4.
In Which It Was Just a Dream
You ask too many questions.
No one knows what the Witch does with the children she takes. No one asks this. We can’t ask it—don’t you see? It hurts too much.
Fine. She eats them. Are you happy?
No. That’s not what I think.
My mother told me she ate their souls, and that their soulless bodies have wandered the earth ever since. Unable to live. Unable to die. Blank-eyed and blank-faced and aimless walking. I don’t think that’s true. We would have seen them, don’t you think? We would at least have seen one wander by. After all these years.
My grandmother told me she keeps them as slaves. That they live in the catacombs under her great castle in the forest and operate her fell machines and stir her great cauldrons and do her bidding from morning till night. But I don’t think that’s true, either. Surely, if it was, at least one of them would have escaped. In all these years, surely one person would have found a way out and come home. So, no. I don’t think they are enslaved.
Really, I don’t think anything at all. There is nothing at all to think.
Sometimes. I have this dream. About your brother. He would be eighteen now. No. Nineteen. I have this dream that he has dark hair and luminous skin and stars in his eyes. I dream that when he smiles, it shines for miles around. Last night I dreamed that he waited next to a tree for a girl to walk by. And he called her name, and held her hand, and his heart pounded when he kissed her.
What? No. I’m not crying. Why would I cry? Silly thing.
Anyway. It was just a dream.
5.
In Which a Swamp Monster Accidentally Falls in Love
Glerk did not approve, and said so the first day the baby arrived.
And he said so again, on the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
Xan refused to listen.
“Babies, babies, babies,” sang Fyrian. He was utterly delighted. The tiny dragon perched on the branch extending over the door of Xan’s tree home, opening his multicolored wings as wide as he could and arching his long neck toward the sky. His voice was loud, warbled, and atrociously off-key. Glerk covered his ears. “Babies, babies, babies, BABIES!” Fyrian continued. “Oh, how I love babies!” He had never met a baby before, at least not that he could remember, but that did not stop the dragon from loving them all to bits.
From morning till night, Fyrian sang and Xan fussed, and no one, Glerk felt, would listen to reason. By the end of the second week, their entire habitation had been transformed: diapers and baby clothes and bonnets hung on newly strung clotheslines to dry; freshly blown glass bottles dried on recently constructed racks next to a brand-new washing station; a new goat had been procured (Glerk had no idea how), and Xan had separate milk jugs for drinking and cheese making and butter churning; and, quite suddenly, the floor became thoroughly strewn with toys. More than once, Glerk’s foot had come down hard on a cruel-cornered wooden rattle, sending him howling with pain. He found himself shushed and needled out of the room, lest he wake the baby, or frighten the baby, or bore the baby to death with poetry.
By the end of the third week, he’d had quite enough.
“Xan,” he said. “I must insist that you do not fall in love with that baby.”
The old woman snorted, but she did not answer.
Glerk scowled. “Indeed. I forbid it.”
The Witch laughed out loud. The baby laughed with her. They were a mutual admiration society of two, and Glerk could not bear it.
“Luna!” Fyrian sang, flying in through the open door. He flitted about the room like a tone-deaf songbird. “Luna, Luna, Luna, LUNA!”
“No more singing,” Glerk snapped.
“You don’t have to listen to him, Fyrian, dear,” Xan said. “Singing is good for babies. Everyone knows that.” The baby kicked and cooed. Fyrian settled on Xan’s shoulder and hummed tunelessly. An improvement, to be sure, but not much.
Glerk grunted in frustration. “Do you know what the Poet says about Witches raising children?” he asked.
“I cannot think what any poet might say about babies or Witches, but I have no doubt that it is marvelously insightful.” She looked around. “Glerk, could you please hand me that bottle?”
Xan sat cross-legged on the rough plank floor, and the baby lay in the hollow of her skirts.
Glerk moved closer, leaned his head near the baby, and gave her a skeptical expression. The baby had her fist in her mouth, leaking drool through the fingers. She waved her other hand at the monster. Her pink lips spread outward into a wide smile around her wet knuckles.
She is doing that on purpose, he thought as he tried to force his own smile away from his wide, damp jaws. She is being adorable as some sort of hideous ruse, to spite me. What a mean baby!
Luna gave a giggly squeal and kicked her tiny feet. Her eyes caught the swamp monster’s eyes, and they sparkled like stars.
Do not fall in love with that baby, he ordered himself. He tried to be stern.
Glerk cleared his throat.
“The Poet,” he said with emphasis, and narrowed his eyes on the baby, “says nothing about Witches and babies.”
“Well then,” Xan said, touching her nose to the baby’s nose and making her laugh. She did it again. And again. “I suppose we don’t have to worry, then. Oh no we don’t!” Her voice went high and singsong, and Glerk rolled his tremendous eyes.