Moonthread, Prelude Chapter

The Beginning of a New Fantasy Saga

Moonthread
by Anthony Lee Phillips

If you see stars, it’s because there’s music.

* * * * / * * * *

I’ll tell the tale,
as it’s been told to me…
Just listen close…
and picture Purple Trees…

* * * * / * * * *

Hhhh…

Hhhh…

Hhhhalf dreaming, half awake, she sees

A boy. She—

No, she thinks. No. Not sees.

She is.

She is the boy, like always. Dry twigs crunch.

It’s his heart, beating in her ears. Hhhh…

Another true dream, shhhe can feel the pull,

The painful tug of each quick breath

He breathes. He’s… Hungry. He’s

Hunting. He runs. Tonight, hhhhe’s playing Hunter.

In the near distance, a mountain looms,

And tilts its crater Westward, like an ear.

He, he, he hhhears her think—

Wait, wait: is that Mount Wraithwood? I think I—

HHHH, another voice hisses, shrill,

And (like a thick fog) the searing voice pushes out Nala’s little one.

Then something moves!

…

…He turned too quick, and loses sight of it.

He grips his dagger tight, so as not to let it slip

Out of his sweaty, slick grip. He sprints.

Dry birch leaves flit, until he comes upon the creek.

He stops, and….

Hhhh….

….listens for it.

Hhhh, shuka-shuka-shhhh!

A rustle in the brush!

His eyes pursue it!

(That’s another way she knows it’s true. His eyes, she thinks. She sees the world through his eyes, not through her own. He’s colorblind, and she is not.)

He scans ’til bushes move.

Nnnn! hisses the dagger, and (wincing) he goes after,

Into the bramble, shins singing when stung.

Not fast enough, the girl that dreams of hhhim

Hears him think. He gives a groan, to which

The dagger hisses, harmonizing with the chilly spring wind.

Hhhh! Nnnn!

“Too fast!” the boy whines to the dagger, angry, weathered, fumbling, hungry. Hands on his knees, she feels the weird rib burning of running too hard. (Why does that happen? she thinks.)

“Dunno,” mutters the boy, but then—

Nnnn! the red voice insists. His eyes grip closed. He winces and…

Retreats.

His belly grumbles, and the Red Truth taunts him.

Sssso, so so hungry, feet blistered.

He was.

Sssside burning, it says.

The constant hissing in his head… The ssspirit’s trapped within it, and losing patience fast in real time.

Nala hates dreaming in real time.

Hhhh, the dagger insists, in and a shiver of fear emanates from the dagger, into his hand, into his mind, and then into the dreamer’s.

The dagger glows, red as quenched revenged.

“Fine,” he says, finally. “Fine, fine I said!”

The voice inside the dagger smiles.

Hhhh? Wind’s even warmer now.

“Go ahead,” the boy says through dry lips. He speaks to the dagger.

The dagger.

The bone dagger.

It answers.

The wind flushes a blood-and-oil red all around him. Nala (wake up, she pleads) can’t tell what’s real and what’s just (stop) a figment of the boy’s imagination.

Slow motion fall as it (hhhhhhh) as it (hhhHHHhhhh…)…

…The strangest kind of dream, the form so strong, then disappearing. No gravity; just heat. And noise. He seems to hang suspended in the air, even as the boy she dreams of stands, just standing, so still, just there.

The boy grips both fists, half resisting. But the dagger is at the gate of his mind. When it speaks, it’s with the boy’s raspy little voice.

“…Hhhhere we… are…”

Almost by instinct, the boy resists the spirit. The spirit knows why, but acts like it doesn’t mind.

“Hehhhh? I thhhought you…?”

“Fine,” he says, “fine.”

His voice feels so small when it’s just his own.

“Go ahead,” says the boy, and tries to soften.

The dagger seethes with joy.

The boy, defeated now, lets

(No, Nala thinks)

The spirit (Don’t)

In.

HhhhhhHHH!

He moves with new speed, so fast he gets lightheaded, and so does the dreamer. The world leans red. Each shadow seems to recoil away from red day’s touch. Within a dozen hateful, hobbled breaths, he

(No, she thinks again)

he pins some furry (Don’t do it)

howling creature

(Please) and as the dagger flays—

* * * * / * * * *

Nala’s eyes snapped open.

She lay there in the dark, safe on her back, in bed. Her heart was beating fast, but all around her, the day was peaceful.

Day, she thought. It had been day in her dream.

She shook it off and clenched her eyes shut. Just a dream, thought Nala. The last thing she had seen was the doomed creature’s eyes, and it had been…

Just a dream.

Nala was an orc, and just a kid. Last winter she’d turned eleven.

Nala had green skin, and bright yellow eyes with a slit in the middle, more like a cat’s eye than a snake’s. Her tusks were finally beginning to come in, which was more painful than she’d expected it to be; her gums were always sore.

But at least now, they were more like tusks. Before, they’d just been long, thin teeth. Like cat fangs— wimpy, at least in her case.

She listened to her heart thump as she looked at the ceiling. Nala’s black hair fanned out around her like tendrils of a dark halo, like bottomless shadows, keeping her safe from sun and suffering and daylight and bad dreams.

Hhhh…!

The warm wind nudged the curtains, rolling off of Mount Wraithwood. The heavy curtains billowed a little, just enough to let rays of light dance over the empty beds.

The sleeping hut was empty, but for her grandma’s small snoring. Only two of the nine beds were occupied while her family was away.

The hungry day pried at the edges of the cottage’s tall windows. But the meat of day’s harshness was held at bay by three huge curtains, old curtains, almost as old as she was.

Nala had always loved those curtains.

In the safety of the darkness, Nala half remembered, half made up a memory: of watching Mama and Gran embroider those curtains together, long ago, long ago…

They had spent three long evenings, embroidering each of the three tall curtains by hand. Nala had always wondered why they did things by hand when they could use magic.

The symbol was their family’s symbol: Sister Moons, one full and one empty, side by side but not touching.

For the full moon, they had used moonthread, which is colorless grey in the day but cycles through every color when it’s touched by the moon.

The empty moon was simply sewn in thread of darkest black, but even that was not as dark as Nala’s hair was. Nala’s hair was in fact so black that it seemed to drink all the light that tried to touch it.

Her heart was still racing.

Just a dream, Nala thought.

Mmmm, hummed the darkness.

Nala took a deep breath. She was safe. The curtains kept the sinking shadow, and the shadow kept them safe.

Hhhh, the wind kept hissing.

But it was distant now.

Mmmm…

Nala closed her eyes.

Just a dream…

and let herself get heavy…

Just a…

and hoped she wouldn’t…

…dream…