Two Moons of Sera Read Online Free PDF Page A

shore,
bringing the sea closer.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Huh,” he huffed.
    “Sorry.”
    “No. I... I tell you. It mean all things. No word things.”
He struggled to put the words together, but he was talking and his voice was
less stilted.
    “Things you don’t have words for?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, are there a lot of things you don’t have words for?”
    “Yes. Now more words. You tell words.” He unfolded his arms
and gestured to me, stepping closer.
    “You’re learning from talking to me?”
    He nodded.
    “That’s how I learned. I could read the Erdlander books and
understand, but I never spoke it, and then one day when I was about nine, my
mother found a melodisk of a book being read. It was amazing. All of a sudden,
all of the words I’d read had sounds and it was like—”
    “Stop,” Tor interrupted.
    “Stop what?” I asked, startled.
    “Too much words. Too fast!”
    “Sorry.” I looked down at my feet, embarrassed.
    “No sorry. Talk... more slow.” He leaned down to catch my
eyes. “Please.”
    “Okay, I’ll try.” I finally had someone to talk to and I was
making a fool of myself. It reminded me of that fairytale Mother used to tell
me about how the dolphin sang so fast all anyone could hear was a high scream.
Now all the dolphin can do is squeak, never to sing again.
    “Sera make?” Tor gestured toward the basket I clutched in my
hands.
    “Yes, I made it. I was going to go get eggs. Are you hungry?”
    “Eggs?” Tor turned his body, scanning the beach, looking for
something to attach the word to.
    “The birds are in a pen. Come on, I’ll show you where they
are and then we can make something to eat.”
    “Sera make?”
    “Yes, I’ll make you breakfast.” I stepped away from him,
toward the path leading to the chicken pen. “They’re stupid birds. I caught
them one at a time, and now the free ones will peck at the fence to get in with
the others. Sometimes I can just scoop them up and put them inside, without
having to chase them with a net.”
    Sparse undergrowth lined the edges of the sandy path. The
trees nearest the water were tall and thin—easy to maneuver around, unlike the
dense foliage of the forest. This was where I came when I wanted time alone,
away from Mother’s constant presence. I spent hours inventing friends and games
in my mind.
    “Birds?” Tor asked as we walked. His gait was long, and his
body moved with lithe grace across the changing terrain of sand and dirt.
    “You know, they fly.” I stopped walking and pointed to the
sky. “That’s a gull. They eat the fish we catch, but there are a lot of
different ones.”
    “Birds take.”
    “Right, they take our food. Sometimes they are food.
Do you hunt? You must, I mean, otherwise you couldn’t eat.”
    Tor shrugged nonchalantly; we had surpassed his vocabulary
for now. We rounded the growth of trees, which separated the chicken pen from
the path. The noisy birds were clucking, excited to have me visit. Little did
they know I was only here to steal their eggs.
    “Fly out?” Tor asked, inspecting the pen I had built.
    “No, the chickens can’t fly, so they can’t get out.”
    “Good,” he announced, patting the fence and stepping back.
If he was complimenting the construction or just glad his food wouldn’t escape,
I wasn’t sure. Knowing he liked something I had done filled me with joy.
Mother, content to live on fish eggs and plants, never noticed these kinds of
things. She ate when I cooked but never understood why I spent so much time at
it instead of just eating what I needed to survive.
    Opening the gate, I stepped into the pen with my basket. “Shoo,
shoo, shoo,” I cooed to the birds as I walked through, passing out grains from
the basket. They flocked around me, hopping in the air for whatever treat I,
their benevolent enslaver, had brought. While they were occupied with eating, I
passed through the flock to the lean-to holding their nests.
    Over the fence, I asked, “Do you