Page 12 of In an Absent Dream

“I . . .” Moon paused. “It might be.” Carefully, she reached out and took a pie, closing her impossible eyes as she brought it to her hardened mouth.

Her first bite was more of a nibble than anything else, like she could no longer stretch her lips properly. Her second bite was more enthusiastic. By the end of the pie, she was gobbling, and she was smiling, her lips softening back into something ordinary, somethinghuman. She opened her eyes and beamed at Lundy.

“It was enough!” she crowed. “It was enough to give fair value! Thank you, thank you,thankyou!”

Lundy held out the second pie, trying not to wonder what part of Moon’s changed body represented her second debt. She had agreed, on that first dizzying visit, to take a debt for Moon, but she hadn’t known what she was agreeingto. Shame came immediately on the heels of the thought. The debt was hers. If Moon wanted her to carry it, she could.

Besides,she thought.Her eyes were orange before, but they weren’t so big. Maybe every debt matters more when you’re already carrying so many.

As if she had read Lundy’s thoughts, Moon asked, shyly, “Do you want to take that debt for me now?”

No,thought Lundy, and, “Yes,” said Lundy, and Moon slipped her hand into Lundy’s. Her skin was cool, like it no longer regulated itself quite right. Like she needed a coat of feathers to protect her.

There was a tingling sensation that moved through Lundy’s hands like a shiver. When Moon pulled away, her fingers were shorter, once more almost ordinary. Lundy looked at her own hand. Her nails were sharper, pointed like claws.

She looked up at Moon. Moon smiled at her hopefully.

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “You can pay that off, easy.”

“Then let’s get started,” said Lundy.

7

FLY AWAY, FLY AWAY HOME

MOON WASbird enough that she was perfectly comfortable sleeping in a tree, with only the night air to wrap around herself. Lundy, being still almost entirely a human girl, had other ideas about bedding. As the sun went down she found herself standing in front of the Archivist’s shack, one hand raised in the beginning of a knock, unable to quite finish off the gesture.

She had sliced her own skin repeatedly with her sharp new nails, forgetting they were there when she went to brush her hair away from her face or scratch at a bug bite. If she slept outside where the mosquitos were, she would wake up flensed. But if the Archivist wanted fair value for sleeping on her floor . . .

The Goblin Market had seemed like a beautiful adventure on her first visit, a place where the rules made sense and the penalties were fair. Then it had become something terrible, a place where friends could die and not come back. Maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle of those two things, but now she understood how much there was to lose, and she was afraid.

Her hand was still raised to knock when the door opened and the Archivist looked at her. First at her face; then at her fingernails. A smile tugged at the corners of the Archivist’s mouth.

“I see you found your friend,” she said. “I assume you’re looking for a place to sleep.”

Afraid of questions she couldn’t pay for, Lundy nodded silently.

“I have books that need to be organized. It will take some time. If you’re willing to work an hour each night, I can give you a warm spot by the fire. Does that seem like fair value?”

An hour a night would leave plenty of time to go to the Market with Moon and look for ways to pay off her debt, to ease her closer to humanity. It might even leave time for Lundy to buy her own blunt fingernails back. She nodded enthusiastically. “That seemswonderful,” she said.

“Excellent,” said the Archivist, and beckoned her inside.

The books were in no particular order, and Lundy found the process of sorting them remarkably soothing, involving, as it did, a strange sort of scavenger hunt through the entire shack. Books had been used to prop up tables and level out shelves; they were piled on surfaces where books had no business being and tucked under the edge of the thin mattress of the Archivist’s bed. In the case of books that had become load-bearing, Lundy used her school ruler to carefully note their heights and went searching for rocks or pieces of scrap wood that would do the job as well, if not better. In the case of books left too near to water or exposed to the air, she rolled her eyes and whisked them away to literary safety.

The books under the mattress gave her pause. She was standing there, trying to decide what should be done with them, when she heard a footstep behind her. Lundy turned. The Archivist looked at her kindly.

Lundy took strength from that expression, stood a little straighter, and asked, “What should I do with these?”

“Leave them. They have bad dreams, and I’m trying to help them tell themselves a little better.”

After everything else she’d seen in the Goblin Market—centaurs who baked pies, children who turned into birds, fingernails that sharpened into talons—Lundy had no trouble with the idea of tucking books into bed to soothe them. “Oh,” she said, and turned to go.

“No.” The Archivist put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Fair value means you’re done for tonight, and should sleep. Children need their rest.”

Lundy hesitated. “I’ve given fair value?”

“You have.” The Archivist glanced at Lundy’s clawed fingers. “Tomorrow, will you be looking for other ways to give fair value?”

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