A Nearer Moon by Melanie Crowder

up.”
    â€œI wish I could go outside with you.” Willow let her eyes fall closed. “Tell me what you saw today, out there. Tell me everything.”
    â€œA big gust of wind sent a thousand seraya bloomsspinning out over the swamp. I watched a line of ants carry off a round of flatbread, one nibble at a time, while Benny’s ma and auntie bickered over whose recipe for coconut pie should be used for Perigee.” Luna laughed, for Willow’s sake, though it didn’t sound like a real thing, like a laugh that had any teeth to it.
    â€œI saw a pair of squirrels in a standoff. They were staring each other down like a serious fight was brewing. Then one of them would jump up in the air and the other one would scamper off. Ten minutes later, they’d be back under the same tree and the whole thing would start all over again.”
    Willow laughed softly, her head lolling weakly against the pillow. Her cheeks began to sag, the sides of her mouth relaxing as her eyes closed. The sound of Willow’s laughter soothed the raw edges of Luna’s guilt, her sadness, but it opened up a fresh ache, knowing that sound would slip out on the air all too soon and never come back again.
    Luna knew she should let Willow sleep, but she had so little time left with her. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Luna knew she should back away so she didn’t bump or bother her sister. But instead she leaned forward. “Willow?”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œI didn’t mean to dunk you under. I’m so, so”—her voice caught and she swallowed, blinking hard—“so sorry.”
    Willow forced her eyes back open. “It wasn’t your fault, Luna. It wasn’t.”
    The wind moaned through the trees outside the window.
    â€œI promise I won’t stop,” Luna whispered. “I won’t ever stop trying to find a way to make you better.” She smoothed the blanket over Willow’s shoulders.
    Luna wasn’t afraid of getting sick. She wasn’t afraid of dumping her boat in the rapids up the river. But living without Willow—imagining a life where her sister didn’t get better—that grabbed hold of Luna and tumbled her under like a water lizard wrestling its prey.
    She stumbled outside, running, her steps skidding and sliding as the walkways tipped and rippled beneath her. She ran up the hill, veering into the jungle where the noise of insects chirruping and birds chattering took over. The canopy muted the sun and dripped dew onto her shoulders and hair and cheeks, dew that mingled with the tears sliding over her chin and soaking into the fabric of her shirt.

14
Luna
    A week slid by, a week given to sadness and regret Maybe because Mama couldn’t face the guilt and grief brimming in Luna’s eyes, or maybe because she couldn’t find space around her own guilt and grief, she and Luna may as well have been strangers—not speaking, not even meeting each other’s eyes.
    Things had been different once. Granny Tu said so. Before Daddy died, Mama had been the first out on the water every day, quick to share a grin and a kiss, to snatch up one of her daughters and spin her around and around, high in the air, until the laughter of little girls pealed like bells across the swamp.
    But sorrow can spread inside a person, blocking out any light that might find its way in to heal the hidden hurts. And so Mama went more and more often to the chapel at the end of the walkways, and spent more and more of her time at home wreathed in her pious quiet, in her grieving silence.
    There were small things that could be done to make the sick person’s time a little easier. So when Willow closed her eyes for her morning nap, Luna tiptoed outside. She passed Benny’s hut and tramped along the walkways past the school, past the chapel where Mama had been since early that morning, and over the long bridge that led from the huts to the garden.
    The