The Girl Who Drank the Moon Read Online Free PDF

to
never
do, once she knows how to understand? That’s hypocrisy, is what.”
    Even when Luna was content, she still was not quiet. She hummed; she gurgled; she babbled; she screeched; she guffawed; she snorted; she yelled. She was a waterfall of sound, pouring, pouring, pouring. And she never stopped. She even babbled in her sleep.
    Glerk made a sling for Luna that hung from all four of his shoulders as he walked on all sixes. He took to pacing with the baby from the swamp, past the workshop, past the castle ruin, and back again, reciting poetry as he did so.
    He did not intend to love the baby.
    And yet.
    â€œ ‘
From grain of sand,
’ ” recited the monster.
    â€œ ‘Births light
    births space
    births infinite time,
    and to grain of sand
    do all things return.’ ”
    It was one of his favorites. The baby gazed as he walked, studying his protruding eyeballs, his conical ears, his thick lips on wide jaws. She examined each wart, each divot, each slimy lump on his large, flat face, a look of wonder in her eyes. She reached up one finger and stuck it curiously into a nostril. Glerk sneezed, and the child laughed.
    â€œGlerk,” the baby said, though it was probably a hiccup or a burp. Glerk didn’t care. She said his name. She
said
it. His heart nearly burst in his chest.
    Xan, for her part, did her best not to say,
I told you so
. She mostly succeeded.

    I n that first year, both Xan and Glerk watched the baby for any sign of magical eruption. Though they could both see the oceans of magic thrumming just under the child’s skin (and they could feel it, too, each time they carried that girl in their arms), it remained inside her—a surging, unbroken wave.
    At night, moonlight and starlight bent toward the baby, flooding her cradle. Xan covered the windows with heavy curtains, but she would find them thrown open, and the child drinking moonlight in her sleep.
    â€œThe moon,” Xan told herself. “It is full of tricks.”
    But a whisper of worry remained. The magic continued to silently surge.
    In the second year, the magic inside Luna increased, nearly doubling in density and strength. Glerk could feel it. Xan could feel it, too. Still it did not erupt.
    Magical babies are dangerous babies,
Glerk tried to remind himself, day after day. When he wasn’t cradling Luna. Or singing to Luna. Or whispering poetry into her ear as she slept. After a while, even the thrum of magic under her skin began to seem ordinary. She was an energetic child. A curious child. A naughty child. And that was enough to deal with on its own.
    The moonlight continued to bend toward the baby. Xan decided to stop worrying about it.
    In the third year, the magic doubled again. Xan and Glerk hardly noticed. Instead they had their hands full with a child who explored and rummaged and scribbled on books and threw eggs at the goats and once tried to fly off a fence, only to end up with two skinned knees and a chipped tooth. She climbed trees and tried to catch birds and sometimes played tricks on Fyrian, making him cry.
    â€œPoetry will help,” Glerk said. “The study of language ennobles the rowdiest beast.”
    â€œScience will organize that brain of hers,” Xan said. “How can a child be naughty when she is studying the stars?”
    â€œI shall teach her math,” Fyrian said. “She will not be able to play a trick on me if she is too busy counting to one million.”
    And so, Luna’s education began.
    â€œ ‘
In every breeze exhales the promise of spring,
’ ” Glerk whispered as Luna napped during the winter.
    â€œ ‘
Each sleeping tree
    dreams green dreams;
    the barren mountain
    wakes in blossom.
’ ”
    Wave after wave of magic surged silently under her skin. They did not crash to the shore. Not
yet
.

6.
    In Which Antain Gets Himself in Trouble
    During Antain’s first five years as an Elder-­in-­Training, he did his