Moon's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The red camera light held on Moon above the rainbow arch. He waited for the speaker to threaten him. Instead a small shape stepped out of the tunnel below. A fox in a starred wizard hat, purple hair falling over blue eyes, a golden bell at the collar. She looked up at Moon and did not run. Most things in this building ran. "You woke the old system," the fox said. "That was loud. It hears singing." She tapped the bell at her throat, and it matched the one on his cap. "I'm Starshine. I've watched you crawl these ceilings for three nights." Moon dropped one arm toward her. His memory of the child had thinned to scraps. He knew the blanket, the drawing, the lullaby. He no longer knew where she went. "The child who slept here," he said. "I need to find her. You know this place. Tell me where the children went." Starshine climbed the third slide easy as walking. She pulled a soft brown teddy bear from behind the stuffed fox. The bear had a stitched heart on its chest. "They came for the beds," she said. "Trucks, months ago. They took the nap furniture to a new playroom across the city. Whatever kids still came, they follow the beds." She held the bear out. "She left this. Kids don't leave a bear like this by accident." Moon took the bear in his silver hands. He remembered it now, tucked under her arm while he sang the sixth verse. The last real memory clicked into place. "Which playroom?" "The Neon Dream," Starshine said. "Bright signs, glass walls. Her bed's there if it's anywhere. A little one with rainbows and stars painted on the frame. She wouldn't sleep in any other." The speaker below crackled again. It spoke Moon's old show name, slow and wrong. The camera whirred and swung toward the fox. Starshine flinched. "It doesn't like company," she said. "Go now, while it watches me instead of you." Moon hooked a wire and pulled himself toward the far exit. He clutched the bear and the star blanket to his chest. At the mouth of the tunnel he stopped. "Come with me. You know the beds. You knew hers." Starshine glanced at the red light, then back at him. She climbed onto the wire beside him, quick and sure. "I know every bed they hauled out of here," she said. "You'd never find the right one alone." They slipped into the dark hall together. Behind them the speaker died. Moon no longer stared at an empty room with no next step. He had a place to go, the Neon Dream Playroom, and a guide who had watched him longer than he knew. The child had left the building. So had her bed. Moon would follow both.