Page 16 of In an Absent Dream

The last time she’d been here, she had been eight years old and perfectly content to bathe in the chilly stream, laughing and splashing at Moon as they scrubbed themselves clean. Later, Mockery had joined them, older and wilder and bringing a measure of obedience in her wake. Now, though . . . even at ten, her body was beginning to do things she wasn’t sure she appreciated, widening in places and narrowing in others, while her chest ached at odd hours and in ways that she didn’t have the proper words for. Her mother said she was growing up. Lundy was fairly sure there was no bargain in the world that could give her fair value forthat.

So no, she didn’t want to bathe in the stream, naked and exposed to anyone who came along. But she remembered seeing a bathhouse on the far side of the Market, with tubs of hot water and soap for the asking. It seemed like something worth exploring further. She considered Moon for a moment before nudging the other girl with her toe.

“I want a bath,” she said. “Wake up.”

Moon grumbled.

“I want a bath, and youneeda bath. Do birds not bathe? You smell like a henhouse. Wake up.”

Moon rolled over and cracked open one owl-orange eye. Lundy found herself obscurely glad that even though Moon’s fingers were now of an ordinary length, and Moon’s eyes were now of an ordinary size, they were still orange. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to see her friend looking out of any other color.

“You’re mean,” Moon said. “I’m not a chicken.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’tsmelllike one,” said Lundy primly. “Come on. Let’s go get baths.”

“Don’t wanna pay for a bath.”

It was becoming clearer how Moon was able to keep getting herself into debt. If she didn’t seek out baths on her own, someone would eventually chuck her into a lake to stop the smell, and then there was every chance the Market would punish her for not giving fair value to the noses around her. Lundy rolled her eyes. “I have my whole schoolbag still, and it’sfullof things,” she said. “I can buy you a bath. But then you have to do something to get me back. I don’t care what. We have to give fair value to each other.”

“I’ll show you where the best berry bushes are,” said Moon, climbing to her feet, suddenly interested now that the bill would be going to someone else. “They weren’t blooming last time you came, but they’re so good now, we can even pick and bring them back and sell them for something to drink with our dinner.”

“It’s a deal,” said Lundy. She beamed at Moon, and Moon beamed back, and she couldn’t remember why she had ever thought leaving this wonderful place was a good idea. She’d been sad, yes, but she’d been sad at home, too, and no one there had understood why. Here, at least, she was among people who couldseeher. Who might listen.

They left the Archivist’s shack and took each other’s hand, running side by side down the path that ringed the Market, Lundy’s schoolbag banging against her hip with every step, Moon pulling her onward. Lundy allowed herself to be led, paying attention to everything around her for the day when she would be making her own way.

In a distant way, she realized she was making plans for the future. A futurehere,in the Goblin Market. Maybe that would change. Maybe she would remember the husband she had always assumed would one day come along, would remember the library she had imagined herself organizing, would find something to love and live for in the world where she’d been born . . . but more and more, none of those things felt likely.

“I have to go home soon,” she said, and her words were hollow, obligations spoken where the wind could hear them, and not things that lingered in the chambers of her heart.

“Soon isn’t now,” said Moon, and hauled her onward, onward, ever onward.

Two buttons and a spool of thread bought them all the hot water and soap and privacy they could want. Moon stripped without shame once they were in their shared room, letting Lundy—who was still a little shy about the idea of being naked in front of someone else—do the same. Feathers grew out of Moon’s shoulder blades, a long row of white and gold that pressed close down against the skin but fluffed out when she settled down into the water of her tub.

“Ah,” said Moon, sinking deeper and closing her eyes. “That’s good. You’re smart, Lundy. You have good ideas.”

“Thank you,” said Lundy primly, and stepped into her own tub. The water was so hot it stung her skin, leaving it tingling. She sank slowly onto her butt, letting her legs float up until her ankles were almost level with her knees. What would it be like, to have feathers, to get them wet? Did Moon feel trapped by the knowledge that she couldn’t fly away, or did she feel free because she was more human than she’d been? “Can I ask you something?”

“You paid for the baths,” said Moon. “You can ask me anything.”

It was a grand offer, one that made the air feel as tingly as the water. Lundy shifted a little, uncomfortable. How was it that Moon couldlivehere, could feel the power of a Market debt tugging and transforming her skin, but not understand how big an answer that was? It didn’t seem right.

“Do you ever wish you hadn’t chosen the Market?”

Moon opened one eye, looking thoughtfully at Lundy. “You mean because of the feathers?”

“Yes.” The feathers, and other things. She thought of Moon’s bleak eyes, of her saying that the only fair value left would be the kind that flew away. “You were . . . you were so sad, and you looked so strange, like you were forgetting who you were.”

“It was the fingers.” Moon held her ordinary hands up for Lundy to see. “I’ve been pretty tapped out before, but I was always young enough that the Market left me with hands. I think it doesn’t want to make birds out of the reallylittlekids, because they might forget to be human and just fly away. These days, there’s enough for me to care about that I don’t want to fly off and be an owl forever. That happens sometimes, with people who go too deep into debt. The Market dresses them in feathers, and they forget they were ever anything else, and they can be happy. It only happens tolittlekids if they’re so sad being people that being birds is better. The rest of us get feathers in our hair, and maybe mouths that don’t move right, and we try harder, because it’s not fun to have a beak when you don’t want to. This was the first time I was old enough for the Market to start taking away my hands.”

She pulled them back into the water with the rest of her, sighing.

“You were gone, and Mo . . . Mockery was gone, and I wanted to pretend I was special, I guess,” she said, stumbling over their lost friend’s name. “That I was the one the Market loved so much that it would let me bend the rules more than it let anyone else. The one it would take care of and protect. It was silly of me? But I don’t have any parents to tuck me in or tell me to brush my hair, and I wanted to believe the Market loved me. The Market does love me. It loves us all. It just . . . loves the rules more. It doesn’t let any of us break them. It punishes us when it has to, because the rules have to be for everyone if they’re going to be for anyone.”

“Even for kids,” said Lundy.

“Even for kids and tourists,” said Moon. “I’ll work off the rest of my debt, and then we can practice not going into debt together, you and me. Soon isn’t now. Soon doesn’t have to be ever. You’re going to stay this time, right? I feel like we’d be best friends, if you stayed.”

“I’m going to stay,” said Lundy, and she was lying, and neither of them knew it then, but both of them would know it soon enough.

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