Luna's Arc

Chapter 18 of 29

The children crouched in the trees. Luna watched the yellow door. Hours passed. The cat curled against her leg and slept. Luke sat beside her, chewing his thumbnail. Nobody came. Luna stared at the swept steps and the clean windows and could not tell who lived behind them. A friend? The person who wrote her name? The harvest itself? One wrong guess and she walked twenty children through that door and into a trap. So she waited. She would not move until she knew. "We have to go in sometime," Luke whispered. "The little ones are cold." "Not yet," Luna said. "Not until I know who's home." Then a woman burst out of the trees on the far side of the clearing. She ran flat out, brown hair loose, a purple cardigan flapping. She was not sneaking. She was afraid. She hit the steps and flung the yellow door wide. "Luna?" she screamed into the house. "Luke? Anyone?" Luke went stiff beside her. Luna felt her own breath stop. The woman ran room to room. Her voice cracked on their names. No one answered. She came back out to the empty porch, empty-handed, and stood there shaking. Then her legs folded. She sat on the top step and dropped her face into her arms and cried. Luna knew that face. She had held it a hundred times in a small metal locket. She had watched it move on a video tape, warning her about the harvest. The woman on the steps was the same woman. Same brown hair. Same silver necklace catching the light. It was her mother. Her mother, who had left her in these woods with nothing. Who had trained her to fight and then wiped it from her mind. Who had written her name in a note weeks before she arrived. And now she sat crying on the steps, calling those names into an empty house like she was terrified of being too late. Luna's hand tightened on the multitool. Every part of her screamed to stay hidden. This woman was the reason the children were out here starving. This woman might be the harvest. But the crying was real. The panic was real. She was calling for Luna. She was calling for Luke. Beside her, Luke made a small broken sound. "That's her," he breathed. "That's Mom." Before Luna could stop him, he stood. He stepped out of the trees into the open clearing. "Mom," he said. Then louder. "Mom!" The woman's head snapped up. She saw him. Her whole face broke open. Luna's plan was ruined. The choice was made for her now. She could not pull Luke back into the dark and pretend they were not here. She stood too, gripping the multitool, and stepped out where her mother could see her. Her mother rose from the steps, staring at both of them, one hand pressed to her mouth.