Page 20 of In an Absent Dream

“Curfew is almost here, my pretty love,” said the Archivist. “But no matter now: you must be tired. I’m willing to accept two hours of cataloging tomorrow night in lieu of an hour tonight and an hour then, if you wanted a place to sleep.”

Lundy, who had always understood the purpose of chores—even before she’d been sent away to the Chesholm School, where the things that were asked of her in exchange for the room and board that someone else had already paid for had been far from easy, and even further from reasonable—nodded slowly. “I am tired, and that would be very kind of you,” she said. “But I want to see Moon before I sleep. Please, where is she? Do you know?”

The Archivist hesitated, and in that pause, Lundy heard everything she needed to know.

“How long ago?” she asked.

“Almost a year,” said the Archivist. “She didn’t pine for you, but she was still grieving dear Mockery, and with you gone as well, she lost a certain faith in the world’s ability to be fair. She thought if it could steal her closest friend, it could steal anything. She stopped believing in fair value, because how could there be fair value when nothing stayed? And when someone doesn’t believe in fair value . . .”

The Archivist’s silence spoke worlds. Lundy swallowed heavily.

“Is she in the wood?”

“Yes.”

Lundy looked toward the trees, which seemed darker and denser than they had only a few short years before. “Could I find her, if I looked?”

“Yes. But without the credit to buy back her heart, it would do you no good at all. She’s a wild thing because she chose to be. If she’s too far gone to choose to come back again, that isn’t your fault. She wouldn’t be the first.”

“Do the ones who chose feathers over fairness ever come back?”

“Sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.”

Lundy felt her pocket, filled with pencils and erasers and ribbons; filled with bits of chalk and golden rings stolen from the locked lost-and-found box in the headmistress’s office. She had thought to pay for a lifetime. Now, it seemed, she might pay for a life instead. “Is there a place I can go to buy credit?”

“Yes,” said the Archivist. “But first, sleep, and wake to a new morning. Fill your belly and negotiate its continued fullness. You can’t save anyone if you neglect yourself. All you can do is fall slowly with them. Come to bed.”

Lundy bit her lip and nodded, and followed the Archivist inside.

The shack had never been large, not even when Lundy herself was much smaller. Despite that, none of its dimensions felt like they had changed. The walls pressed in as much as they ever had; the ceiling was as far above her head as it had ever been. The whole thing seemed to have grown along with her, remaining too small for comfort, remaining large enough to house both her and the Archivist without piling them atop each other.

The fire crackled invitingly. Lundy moved toward it as if in a dream, stretching out on the warm brick of the hearth and closing her eyes. She thought she couldn’t possibly fall asleep, not with the Goblin Market all around her, familiar and strange and welcoming her home.

She fell asleep in an instant.

***

WHEN LUNDY WOKE, the Archivist was standing by the table, chopping some long, thin-leaved herb that smelled sharp, bitter, and beguiling at the same time. Lundy sat up and yawned, stretching, feeling the knots in her back from sleeping on the stone.

“You’ll need a proper bed if you’re to stay here,” said the Archivist. “You’re not a child anymore.”

“I suppose not,” said Lundy. She touched the patch of feathers on her neck. They remained smooth and real as ever, anchoring her in her skin, in the moment. “I didn’t sort my books the last night I slept here. I thought I’d sort them when I got back.”

“Then you owe me three hours,” said the Archivist mildly.

“Did you know?” That was the question she had carried with her for two years and more in the “real” world.

The Archivist shook her head. “I had no idea. We have a bargain: unless we’ve discussed modifying it, like we did last night, I trust you to take care of your side of things.”

“If you didn’t know, how did the Market know? I was tired. I forgot.”

“That’s why it was a small debt,” said the Archivist. “A few feathers? That’s practically a reminder. A string around the thumb. It’s not until your toes go webbed or your eyes change colors that you have a lot to pay off. If you had decided your freedom to do as you liked mattered more than keeping your word to me, you might have received more than a few feathers. It’s the intent and the size of the debt that matters, as much as anything else.”

Lundy frowned. “So the Market did it.”

“Yes,” the Archivist agreed. “The people who live here learned long ago that enforcing debts against one another only leads to inequality. An indulgent parent thinks it isn’t right to make their precious children pay their fair share, even though everyone else’s children pay. A cruel husband makes his wife bear his debts and runs about free of care while she goes draped in feathers. But if the Market, which knows everything done within its boundaries, wishes to keep the rules, there can be no cheating, no imbalance. Only the knowledge that all must contribute.”

“It still feels . . .” Lundy paused, struggling with the concept, and finally said, “It feels wrong.”

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