Moon Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Moon counted her steps toward the smoke. Her new map held only one way to the cottage: numbers, remembered in her head. Three hundred steps north from the wagon, her atlas said. She whispered each one as her boots pressed the moss. The paths twisted around her, but the count kept her straight. The chimney smoke grew closer above the trees. Then a wisteria vine brushed her face. She stopped to push aside the hanging purple flowers, heavy and sweet. A cluster of blossoms caught in her curls. She tugged it free, laughing. When she walked on, her tongue stumbled. Two hundred forty? Two hundred sixty? The number slipped away. She picked one and kept going. The smoke drifted left, then faded. Moon walked faster. The trees grew thicker here. Brambles she had never sketched snagged her dress. The ground sloped down into a hollow she did not know. She turned in a circle. No chimney. No clearing. No wagon behind her. The miscount had carried her past the cottage into forest her map had never touched. "Alright," she said. Her voice shook. "Find the wagon. Count back." But she could not count back from a number she had lost. She pulled out her brass compass. The glowing needle spun, then pointed every way at once. The forest scrambled it too. She snapped the lid shut. Something rustled in the ferns. A fox stepped out, russet fur bright against the green. A tiny crescent pendant hung at its throat. It watched her with warm amber eyes, head tipped, as if it had been waiting. It did not run. Moon crouched slow. "You know your way out of here, don't you?" The fox flicked its white-tipped tail and trotted three steps, then looked back. It wanted her to follow. She had no better plan. She went. The fox wove through the thick trees. It never paused to choose. Branches that fooled Moon all day did not fool it. She followed its tail like a lantern, ducking vines, climbing over roots. The slope rose again. The air smelled of woodsmoke. Then the trees opened. There stood a cottage, small and crooked, smoke curling from its chimney. A pink butterfly drifted past its door. The fox sat on the step and curled its tail over its paws, pleased with itself. Moon stared. She had wanted to reach this cottage by counting. Instead she had lost her count and nearly lost herself. The fox had brought her here, not her map. She knelt and opened her atlas. The page showed the wagon and three paths. It did not show this hollow, or the way back. "You found it," she told the fox. "But I don't know where we are." The cottage stood before her. The wagon lay somewhere behind, uncounted. She had reached her first hidden cottage and could not yet mark it. Her memory had failed. She needed a count that would not break.