Moon Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Morning came. Moon sat on her wagon step with the atlas open. One cottage sat pinned to the page. The rest was blank. She had a method now, but no new smoke to chase, no tail to follow. The forest held more homes. She had no sign of where. She tried her brass compass first. The turquoise needle spun, then wandered, then stopped at nothing. She knew it would fail inside the trees, but she had hoped. She pocketed it and stood. "I need something that points," she said. "The compass won't. I will have to look harder." A pink butterfly drifted past her face. Moon brushed it away. It circled back and settled on the atlas, on the blank corner of the page. She watched it rest there. Then it lifted and flew a few feet into the trees. It hovered. It waited. Moon felt a small, warm light near her shoulder. A pink fairy hung in the air beside her, no taller than her hand. Her wings caught the sun. She did not speak. She only pointed, one small arm stretched toward the butterfly, then toward the deep trees beyond. "You want me to follow," Moon said. The fairy smiled and rose higher. The butterfly flew. Moon grabbed her pocket of jewels and ran after them both. She knew the trap. Last time she had followed a guide and reached a place she could not map. She would not make that mistake again. She counted ten steps and pressed a red stone into the moss. The butterfly waited. Ten more steps, a pearl on a root. The fairy hovered, patient, while Moon marked each gap. The paths twisted. The butterfly never lost its way. The fairy glowed ahead like a small pink lamp. Moon kept her count short and laid her trail bright behind her. Then the trees opened. A second cottage stood in the clearing. Smoke curled from its chimney. A window glowed. Moon stopped and stared. Her breath came fast. She had not found it by smoke from the wagon. She had been led. But this time she had marked the way. She turned and counted her stones back in her head. Forty steps. Fifty. The line of jewels ran clear through the trees, each ten steps from the last. She opened the atlas against the cottage wall. She drew the clearing. She drew each dot, counting the gaps she had just walked. A curl of smoke. A second square. Two cottages now sat on the page, each tied to her wagon by stones she could walk again. The fairy settled on the cottage roof. The butterfly rose and drifted deeper into the forest, past the clearing, into trees Moon had never seen. It hovered there, waiting again. Moon looked at her atlas, then at the butterfly. Her guide was not done. Neither was she. She tucked the atlas under her arm and reached for more stones.