Page 13 of In an Absent Dream

“I left Moon alone when she was sad, and she got lost. I promised her I’d help her find the way back.”

“Promises are their own form of fair value, as long as they’re kept.” The Archivist let go of Lundy’s shoulder. “If you and Moon travel to the Market’s edge, you’ll find a man doing laundry by the stream. He’s always looking for help, and few people offer it. Laundry is hard, sweaty work. But he pays well, because of its difficulty, and might be willing to clear a debt.”

Lundy, who was used to debts being things owed to individuals, and not to entire communities, bit her lip and nodded. “May I ask a question?”

“You may, and if answering it would require payment, I will decline to answer.”

“Why . . . why is Moon so deeply in debt, if it’s that easy to clear debts away?”

“Come to the fire with me.”

The Archivist turned and walked away, speaking as she went, so that Lundy had to follow or miss her words.

“You don’t live here yet, if you ever will,” said the Archivist. “You’re a tourist, a summer person, coming through and moving on. That gives you a certain flexibility where the rules are concerned. People will be eager to find ways for you to clear any debts you acquire, because they don’t want you carrying them with you into the wider world.”

“Moon is the same age I am,” said Lundy. “Why isn’t she a summer person?”

“Moon was left here by her mother, who was once of ours, but who chose to leave us for a summer world, like yours,” said the Archivist. “I don’t know how she persuaded the door to open one last time. The door should not have opened. I have to believe she paid for it, somehow. But she left the child, and Moon took the oath of citizenship when she was barely higher than my knee. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been allowed to do so. Perhaps she should have stayed a tourist, at least until she was old enough to see if the door to her mother’s world would open for her. We were all she had. When she asked if we were going to send her away, what could we say but ‘no’ and ‘never’? The rules make no exemptions for age. Once a citizen of the Goblin Market, always a citizen, and you’ll pay as anyone else does. Everyone pays.”

Lundy worried her lip between her teeth as she watched the Archivist lay out a pallet on the floor in front of the fire, creating a rough but serviceable bed. Finally, she asked, “What’s the citizenship oath?”

“It is a promise you make to the Goblin Market, when you’re sure you want to stay. A promise you make to yourself.” The Archivist gave her a sidelong look. “Are you sure?”

Lundy—who had returned, despite the promise she’d already made, because she was angry and hurt and sad and couldn’t imagine spending one more minute among people who said one thing and meant another, who lied and cheated and looked down on her for not being gregarious, and soft, and kind, and all the things they believed a girl should be—shook her head, fast and fierce. “No,” she said. “I’m not sure. I didn’t think . . . when I left before, I thought I was leaving for always. I didn’t think I was coming back.”

“Because you were sad.”

“Because I was sad.” Lundy looked at the Archivist with a child’s innocent confusion, and asked, “Why did Mockery have to die?”

“All things die, child. It’s part of giving fair value. Eventually, even the Market will die, and this world will become one more piece of the great graveyard that fills the walls between worlds. Your friend was very brave, and very clever, and she was cheated when she died too soon. But you and Moon were able to slay the Wasp Queen, even though she was older and wiser and more powerful than you were, weren’t you?”

Lundy nodded silently, trying not to remember the way the brittle, terrible beast had screamed.

“That was the world trying to give fair value for something that shouldn’t have happened so terribly soon. In the world you come from, unfair things can happen without consequences. Here, as soon as the Wasp Queen slew an innocent, she was doomed to lose.”

“That doesn’t seem fair either,” said Lundy. “Mockery didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sometimes ‘fair’ is bigger than just you,” said the Archivist. She handed Lundy a pillow. “Sometimes ‘fair’ has to think about what’s best for everyone. You don’t have to be sure yet, Lundy. Remember the curfew. You still have time.”

She turned and walked back to her own bed, lying down without undressing or brushing her teeth. That left Lundy unsure as to whether she should do those things, or whether the rules were different in the Goblin Market. She was older now. It seemed more important to have clean pajamas and a clean mouth before she went to sleep, like the Sandman—if he existed—might judge her for poor hygiene.

There was nothing to be done for it. She wasn’t going to stay long. She had only come because she’d been angrier than her lingering sorrow over the loss of Mockery; she’d been intending to run away for a little while, to cool down and calm down and go back to school apologetic, after Mr. Holmen had had time to learn his lesson about treating girls like they were less than boys were. But Moon needed her here, and she couldn’t run out on a friend, especially not a friend whose troubles were partially the result of Lundy’s own mistakes.

And it wouldn’t matter if Moon told her to go, anyway, because she couldn’t leave at all, not while her fingernails were still claws, impossible things that had no place on a little girl’s hands, that would mark her as a monster and worse outside the Goblin Market. Her father would weep if he saw them, would break down and cry as she had only seen him do once, the first time she’d returned. Her mother would never understand. Even Diana would shy away from her and scream. So no: she didn’t have a choice.

Lundy stretched out on the blankets, her head resting on the pillow, which smelled like barley and lavender, and let the crackle of the fire soothe her into sleep.

***

WHEN SHE WOKE, the shack was bright with sunlight streaming through the cracks in the walls. Lundy stretched luxuriously, trying not to grimace at the foul taste in her mouth. Shehadto find a way to brush her teeth if she was going to sleep here again. There was simply no way around it.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” said a voice.

Lundy screamed, sitting bolt upright and whipping around. Moon, who was crouched on the low table just inside the front door, blinked.

“You have some lungs on you,” she said. “I bet you’d be a mockingbird. Or maybe one of those big parrots that can still talk no matter how big their beaks get. Not everybody gets to be a parrot. I always hoped I’d be one, until my first feathers came in brown.” She plucked at one of the feathers tangled along her hairline.

Lundy’s stomach sank as she realized that the feathers she’d naively assumed were some kind of fashion affectation were actually growing from Moon’s scalp. No wonder Mockery had laughed when Lundy had asked her to braid a band of them into Lundy’s own hair; no wonder her father had reacted so badly when she’d come home from the Goblin Market with them brushing against her shoulders. He must have thought that she’d already gone into debt.

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