TCTE Short Fiction Contest

 Once in a You Moon

  by Ezri Wyman

     It’s a cloudless night. The darkness is complete, despite the fact that the moon should be full, “should” being the operative word.

    You’re uneasy, so you do what anyone would. You close the curtains and sit in the kitchen with all of the lights on.

    You’re wondering if you locked the front door. Should you check?

    You hear three slow knocks.

    You get up and walk to the door. Is it safe to answer at this hour?

    You open it.

    Across the threshold from you is a man with eyes the purple of spring crocuses. His features are crisp and symmetrical. He’s not handsome, exactly, but he’s delicately, inhumanly beautiful. Those strange eyes glow in the moonlight, the moon itself shining from his outstretched hands.

    He holds it out to you.

    You take it, hesitantly, and notice the night feels a little colder than it did a moment ago.

    He flashes you a smile, then sprints away, disappearing into the dark, moonless night without a word.

    No, it isn’t quite moonless.

    You stand there, paralyzed, with the moon in your hands, waiting for something to happen.

    You realize that something just did. You’re on your own from here.

    You grab a coat and lock the door behind you as you step outside. You forgot your phone in the kitchen and, alarmingly, this doesn’t bother you.

    Your footsteps echo in the dark street. Soon you reach a park that you played in as a child. Rusty playground equipment sits by an open stretch of grass and a thicket of trees.

   Before the trees there is a gate. It’s tied shut by a piece of twine and surrounded by empty grass. You feel compelled to go through rather than around it, so you awkwardly untie the twine with one hand. Walking through the gate, you find a path that stretches into the trees. You don’t remember a path here, but then again you didn’t remember a gate either. Is your memory going? The trees cast it into deep shadow, which could also explain why you haven’t seen it before.

    As you walk along the path, the terrain becomes stranger. You should have reached the fence and the end of the trees by now, but the forest only thickens ahead of you. Prismatic shards poke up through damp, marshy ground. They grow taller as you continue walking, until the forest itself has become crystalline. You pass pools of water in which small glowing fish dart about.

    Your own familiar life seems distant and lost behind you. Your breath catches in your throat. You continue forward.

    The moon’s light sparkles on the crystals all around you. You’re holding onto it with white knuckles. You debate dropping it into the depths of one of the pools and ending this... quest? Is that what this is? But you decide against it.

    You hear a deep thrumming song, and follow it to a lantern-lit clearing in the crystals.

    The open space is full of light and merriment. There are deer, raccoons, coyotes, dogs, the odd lizard, others you don’t recognize, but mostly there are frogs. The frogs are huge, and they dance about and sing that strange song you followed here.    

    You think  you see the  cat that ran away from your childhood home, leaving you heartbroken.  She winks at you.

    In the center of the clearing, facing you, stands a high-backed, gold-gilt, honest-to-goodness throne. Sitting on it, with a crown on his slimy green head is the largest frog of them all.

    “What is your quest, traveller?” he asks. His voice is gravelly.

    “I have to return the moon,” you say, your surety surprising you.

    “To whom?” asks the frog king.

    “A... beautiful man with purple eyes. Have you seen him?”

    The frog king looks at you with what might be pity in his swampy eyes.

    “I have,” he says, “but to find him will be your quest alone. For that I am sorry. I must also ask you to take this to him, and to tell him my debt is paid.”

    Two frogs approach you carrying an ornate sword, and before you can think, you’ve taken it. It feels strange in your hand. You’re not even accustomed to carrying a pocket knife, and holding any blade feels strange. You know that you want to be rid of it as soon as you can.

    “And hide that,” the frog king says, pointing to the moon, still clutched in your other hand. “There are those who would wish to take it from you.”

    You attempt to wedge the moon into your coat pocket, but it doesn’t quite fit and it shines clear through the thin fabric.

    You hear froggy laughter, and feel a tug on your coat. A frog slightly too short for the task is removing it. The frog reaches up and lays a rich purple cloak around your shoulders. It’s the exact colour of those eyes. The cloak has deep pockets, into one of which, you slip the moon.

    You think to ask where you should go from here, but you somehow know that the answer will be unsatisfying. You give your thanks, and walk on.

    With the moon in your pocket, the night seems very dark indeed as your eyes adjust from the clearing’s light. Once they do, you realize that the crystals making up the forest glow faintly themselves.

    The cloak is heavy, but you’re grateful for the warmth as a cold wind begins to blow.

    You find another clearing in the crystals, but unlike the last, this one is dark and quiet.

    In the center of the clearing is an even darker patch. You tell yourself that it’s just a fallen branch, but there are no trees here. Perhaps it’s a hole, or a small hill.

    “Here to kill me, are you?” says the hill.

    “No,” you reply.

    “Most people who want to be friends don’t carry swords,” says the hill.

    It has a point.

    “It isn’t mine,” you say.

    The hill rears up and it becomes clear that it is a great black dragon.

    Oh boy.

    “You think I haven’t heard that one before?”

    Its breath is an icy knife against your face and you shiver even through the cloak.

    “I eat heroes like you for supper,” says the dragon.

    You aren’t a storybook hero, and you’re not going to fight a dragon.

    You say as much.

    “I think you’ll find,” it growls, “that you are whatever story you tell yourself.”

    There’s a pause, as though neither of you can quite decide what to say next.

    You break the silence: “What’s with the icy breath? Aren’t dragons supposed to breathe fire?”

    The dragon drops back onto its hind legs. You can’t see its eyes in the darkness, but you’re pretty sure it’s glaring daggers at you.

    “That isn’t any business of yours,” it says.

    Silence fills the clearing. You tense up, ready to run.

    “I’ve lost my spark,” says the dragon. “But I still have sharp claws and pointy teeth and I’m still going to eat you.”

    This thing is huge. If it wants to eat you, there isn’t much you can do about it. Sure, you have a sword, but you have no idea what to do with it in a fight.

    You get a crazy idea.

    “What if I can get your spark back?” You pull a cigarette lighter from your jeans pocket and flick the flame to life. “Look, spark.”

    It dances in the icy breeze of the dragon’s breath.

    The dragon has gone stone still.

    You toss the lighter towards it.

    The dragon snatches it from the air and spends a moment fumbling with claws too large for the cheap plastic trinket.

    It tosses it, catches it in its mouth, and swallows it.

    There’s a clicking sound, then the clearing is awash in flame.

    You cover yourself with your cloak and drop into a crouch.

    “Thank you for this. I do enjoy my meat better when it’s cooked,” says the dragon.

    Oops.

    You jump to your feet, sword drawn, and face down the dragon.

    ‘Education is useful,’ they said. ‘It’ll help you in the real world,’ they said. Well, school didn’t bloody well prepare you for this.

    You lower the sword and lunge forward, inside the reach of the dragon’s fire. Startled by your attack, the dragon mostly misses you with its claws. You ram your shoulder into its chest, trying to dislodge the lighter, but no such luck.

    The dragon grabs you in a clawed fist.

    “So many like you have come to slay me, and so many have failed. You are no different, fool.”

    You shout, “Goddammit, I’m just passing through. I’m trying to return something. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?”

    “What is it that you carry?”

    “The moon,” you say. Your thoughts and your heart are racing to keep up with each other.

    Claws scrape the fabric of your cloak and the dragon’s eyes widen as it sees faint light glowing from inside the lining of your pocket.

    “And to whom does it need be returned?”

    “To the purple-eyed bastard who got me into this mess.”

    The dragon drops you to the ground. Hard.

    “You dare refer to the Lord of Winter's Deep in such a way?” it asks. You think there might be fear in its voice.

    “I don’t know who he is, and to be honest, I don’t care. He’s making my life difficult.”

    “I have no quarrel with the foes of the Lord of Winter's Deep. He prefers to kill them himself. Now go, before I change my mind and decide to put you out of your misery.”

    You scrabble to your feet and run.

    Firelight flickers off the crystals of the forest. You apologize silently to anything that lives here.

    It begins raining.

    Ahead of you, the towering crystals thin out, and the forest opens into a field.

    At the far edge grows a stand of trees so tall that they seem to reach upwards forever. Lights twinkle around their colossal trunks.

    You begin running towards them through the field. You’re so sodden and cold that you barely notice the brambles that tear at your clothes and skin.

    Soon you stand amongst the trees. Lights glimmer in their low-hanging branches. You seem to have dropped into the midst of a formal event. Beautiful people in formal livery mill about, carrying on perfunctory conversations, sheltered from the rain by the leaves overhead.

    You find yourself feeling, of all things, underdressed.

    Your t-shirt and jeans are torn beneath the soaked purple cloak. You realize belatedly that you’re covered in blood from your encounter with the dragon and mud from your trek through the forest and field.

    You’re shivering and you can’t feel your toes, though the people around you seem undisturbed by the cold.

    “Hello, love,” says an unfamiliar voice behind you.

    You whip around and there stands the Lord of Winter’s Deep.

    “What the hell?” You’re tired, you’re miserable, and you want answers.

    The people around you stop their conversations. Even the smooth, perfect lord seems taken aback.

    You might be too, a little.

    “You have something of mine,” he says.

    “The fuck I do,” you reply, clutching your pocket protectively. You don’t know what you’re going to do with the moon, but there’s no chance you’re letting this guy have it after all he put you through tonight.

    “That isn’t what I meant.” He gestures to the sword in your other hand. “If you don’t return it, you choose Summer’s side in a fight larger than you can know.”

    You throw it to the ground at his feet, happy to be rid of the weight. This isn’t your fight.

    “What the hell?” you repeat.

    “Some things needed... dealing with.”

    “The dragon?”

    “Well,” he wrinkles his nose. “I was hoping you would fare better with that, but mainly the sword. I couldn’t venture into Summer to retrieve it, and it is rather dear to me.”

    “So you just threw me into… whatever this is… to run an errand for you?!”

    He looks vaguely apologetic. “You have done all that I required. You may go.”

    “Home?” you ask.

    “Yes. Keep walking past the trees and you’ll find a gate. Walk through it, and you’ll find yourself back at home before you know it. Don’t forget to close the gate behind you.”

    You walk away, too tired to argue.

    You walk through the dark woods, seeing the familiar pools reflecting the starlight from above. You pull the moon from your cloak pocket and pause a moment. You remember a folk tale about a girl who caught the moon in a barrel of water. Maybe you could do the reverse. You toss the moon into the nearest pool. Fish dart this way and that as it breaks the surface. The moon doesn’t sink. It stays suspended at the surface as the ripples settle. You look up, and there it is, reflected back in the sky.

    That was all it took.

    You pass through the gate, closing it behind you and retying the twine latch, and the landscape resolves itself into the park at the end of your street.

    Your keys were in your coat pocket, so you dig up the spare buried beside the rosebush in your front yard as the sun rises.

    You wake up on the couch in your living room.

    You had the most vivid dream. Like a story from your childhood.

    Your wounds sting as you roll over. And you’re wearing a royal purple cloak.

    It was all real.

    Oh.

    You run to the window through which you can see the moon, just past full, peeking over the horizon.

    You hear a knock at the door.

    You ignore it and go to the kitchen to get something to eat.

    There you find the Lord of Winter's Deep, leaning on your counter.

    He’s wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, totally incongruous with the sword strapped to his hip.

    “I knock to be polite,” he says.

    You sit down at the table and drop your head into your hands, “What do you want?”

    “It has been brought to my attention that I owe you. For collecting my debt from the King of Summer, and for facing the dragon. Though it may not have seemed that way, he is in better temper now that he has his fire back.”

    “His spark,” you mumble into your hands.

    The Lord of Winter's Deep runs a hand through his hair.

    “No matter, you proved yourself a worthy ally, and… Winter’s Deep does get lonely sometimes.”

    “No,” you say, “I don’t need the company of anyone who would take the moon from my sky and drag me through the mud.”

    He can’t tell your story anymore, only you can do that.

    That scares you a little.

    He looks taken aback.

    “Go away,” you tell him.

    And then he’s gone. Just. Gone.

    You go to the front door and lock it.