Moon Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Moon Wanderwood had passed the same split oak three times, and her atlas still showed a blank page. She wanted to map every hidden cottage in this forest and bind them into one traveler's book. But the forest would not hold still. The path she walked curled back on itself. Now she stood in the same mossy clearing again, with the same crooked stump and the same red mushrooms she had already sketched an hour ago. She planted her boots and crossed her arms. Her bracelets slid down her wrist. "Fine," she told the trees. "You win this round." The paths had been rearranging since dawn. Every time she picked a direction, the trail bent and delivered her here. Her linen dress had snagged twice on brambles that moved. She could not map a forest that refused to stay mapped. Moon sat on the stump and opened her leather satchel. She needed a fixed point, something the forest could not shuffle. Her gaze landed on the colored blankets strapped to the back of her home. The old caravan wagon sat where she had left it that morning, lanterns dark, wheels sunk in soft earth. It was the one thing in this whole forest that had not moved. The wagon was her anchor. She had been measuring the wrong thing. She kept tracking the paths. Instead, she should track the wagon. Moon tore a fresh page from her atlas. At the center she drew the caravan, every panel and wheel. From it she stepped ten paces north and marked a tree. Ten paces back to the wagon. Then ten paces east, and back again. Each time she returned to the one thing that stayed put. The method was slow. Her legs ached. But the page filled with lines that did not lie. When the path tried to twist her sideways, she simply counted her steps back to the wagon and started fresh. The forest could rearrange the trails. It could not move her home, and it could not make her forget how many steps lay between. By the time the lanterns flickered on at dusk, Moon held a real map. Not of the whole forest, but of the clearing and three paths leading out. One path showed something new, something the looping trail had hidden from her all day. A thin curl of smoke rose above the far trees. Smoke meant a chimney. A chimney meant a cottage. Moon grinned and tucked the atlas against her chest. She had beaten the first trick the forest played. Her wagon stayed behind her, safe and fixed. Ahead, through branches that no longer fooled her, the smoke kept rising. Her first hidden cottage was waiting. She shouldered her satchel and walked toward it, counting every step.