Selene Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Selene lowered her arms. The pale woman held the moon above the ridge, still and cold. For the first time in eighteen years, Selene's palms faced the sky with nothing in them. She flexed her fingers. They shook. Not a small tremor. A hard, useless shake that ran up to her elbows. She tried to close a fist and her knuckles would not lock. She turned east. The sky there was still black, but she knew where the sun slept. Four hours. She lifted her hands to begin the working she had rehearsed in her head since she was a child. A pull. A smothering. A drawing down of light into her own cold weight. Her fingers would not hold the shape. They splayed and dropped. She tried again and her thumb would not meet her palm. Eighteen years of one grip had taken the rest. The ghost girl was watching from the wall. Bare feet, black eyes, torn hem. She hopped down and crossed the moonflowers without bending a stem. "Your hands don't work," she said. "They will." "When?" Selene did not answer. She braced her wrists against each other and tried to force the tremor still. It got worse. A moonflower near her boot closed as her focus slipped. She could feel the moon above her, held by someone else, and her own power sloshing around inside her with nowhere to go. The ghost girl stopped an arm's length away. "I need something," she said. "You need hands that work. Trade." "What." "A deed. Paper. My name is on it. It's in a room I can't enter. Door handle goes through me." She held up her fingers and wiggled them. "Get it out. I'll steady your hands while you work." "You can do that." "I'm dead. I know what a held thing feels like." She tilted her head. "Do you want the sun or not?" Selene looked at the pale woman. The pale woman looked back and said nothing. The moon did not move. Three hours and some minutes now. Selene's own working needed both hands and a full hour of stillness she did not have. "Where is the room," Selene said. The ghost girl pointed past the animal graveyard, past the low vine-covered wall, down the slope to the taller wall beyond, and past that to a pair of dark spired towers rising against the stars. "There. Top floor. West side. The family that lives there took my ground. They sleep through anything." Selene lowered her shaking hands. She could not kill the sun tonight. She had traded the moon for four hours and spent the first on learning that. "Lead," she said. The ghost girl was already walking. Selene followed, hands trembling at her sides, the sun still under the world, the night still hers for a little longer.