Luna's Arc

Chapter 26 of 29

Luna kept the album on her lap while the other children slept. The page with the strange building would not leave her alone. Her father had marked it for a reason. She looked up at Harper, who sat against the metal wall of the hangar, her steel tools laid out beside her. Her mother knew this place. Luna could see it in the way she avoided the page. "You've been holding something back," Luna said. "Every time I turn to this one, you look away." Harper did not answer at first. She picked up a coat and folded it, then unfolded it again. Luna had learned to read her mother's hands. They moved when Harper was deciding how much to give. "You told me the harvest," Luna said. "You told me about the training. About Dad. Why stop now?" She kept her voice low so she would not wake the little ones. But she leaned closer. "I found this myself. I'm not a baby you can leave in the woods anymore." The last words landed hard. Harper's eyes filled. Luna almost took them back. She feared she had pushed too far, that her mother would close up and hand her nothing. For a moment neither of them moved. Then Harper set the coat down. "Why, Mom?" Luna asked. "Why us? Why did you and Dad have to be the ones who saved all these children? Why did Luke and I have to pay for that?" Harper looked down at her daughter. "Because we were the only ones willing to risk our lives for all of theirs." The Ghost Kids lay quiet in their heap by the supply wall. The oldest one had one eye half open, listening. None of them spoke. "That building," Luna said, touching the photo. "You know what it is." "It's where it started," Harper said. "The writing on it is your father's. He hid what we learned about the harvest inside. How it began. How it might be stopped." She pressed her hand flat on the page. "I didn't want you to go there. It's the last thing he left, and it's the most dangerous." Luna understood now. Her mother had not been hiding a secret to protect herself. She had been hiding a door. "We have to find that building, don't we?" Luna asked. "Yes," Harper said. "But tomorrow." Luna closed the album. She had pressed, and the trust had held. Her mother had given her the last piece. She looked at the sleeping children, at Luke curled against the blankets, at the tall boy watching from the dark. She had a place now, and a name for it. Her father's building. The answer to everything, waiting to be read. She lay down beside Luke and set the album under her arm. Outside the tall open front of the hangar, the night held still. They all fell asleep.