A Nearer Moon by Melanie Crowder Page A

trail zigzagged up the hill, and Luna put her hands out to either side to brush the tops of the ferns that lined the path and tickled her shins with every step. A solitary butterfly wafted out of the trees to settle on a cluster of orchids, while honeybees dipped in and out of the cascading blooms.
    At the top of the hill, Luna opened the garden gate and fastened it behind her before stepping carefully between tidy rows of crops. Uncle Tin was in the far corner, kneeling beside a flowering cucumber plant and delicately nudging the spiraling tendrils onto the lattice behind it.
    â€œMorning, Uncle Tin,” Luna said, and she knelt down beside him, digging her fingers into the warm, dark soil.
    â€œWell, good morning to you, Luna,” Uncle Tin said in his leisurely way. “What’ll it be today?”
    â€œWillow’s still sweating like she has a fever. She doesn’t say it, but her eyes are all squinty, so I think her head hurts a lot.”
    Uncle Tin nodded as he listened, sifting through the soil with his weathered hands.
    â€œAnd she still grimaces when she turns over, like it hurts to move at all.”
    â€œMmm-hmm,” Uncle Tin said. “Fever, headache, body aches. That sounds about right.” He tilted his head to give Luna a sad smile.
    Of course it sounded about right. Everybody, since the swamp first settled over the land, had shown the same symptoms. The same three weeks. The same helpless slow slide. Luna fixed her eyes on the ground in front of her, where a beetle struggled across the uneven soil. The dirt crumbled beneath him, and he fell onto his back, legs flailing as he struggled to right himself and turn his armored back once again to face the world.
    â€œSo, feverfew, right? For the fever? And basil for the body aches? And peppermint for the headaches?”
    â€œMy, but you’re a quick learner.” Uncle Tin dusted offhis hands and grasped the polished knot at the end of his walking cane. “Let’s go look in the herbal to see if there’s something I’m forgetting.”
    Luna helped her great-uncle lumber to his feet and walked with him to the garden shed where he kept his book of plants and herb lore. Inside, a small table was cluttered with jars of sprouting seeds and spools of twine. Spades and shovels were stacked in the corner, and rows of dusty shelves climbed to the ceiling.
    Uncle Tin leafed delicately through the pages. “This book has been in our family for seven generations. It’s got notes on tending the garden and taking care of the jungle. It’s got warnings for how to keep from angering the sprites, from before they left, of course. There’s even a little of the sprite’s magic at the back,” he added with a grin, “if you believe in that sort of thing.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, magic?”
    â€œOh, I wouldn’t know. You’d have to see a sprite to ask it. And no one I know has ever seen so much as one’s shadow.”
    â€œIf you’ve never seen them, how did you know they were ever there at all?”
    â€œYou just knew. You got the feeling, sure as a body knows anything, that you were walking on land in their care. Anyway, the air is quieter now without the soundof their tiny feet rustling up the clouds. And sometimes I think the jungle itself is a little lonely.
    â€œWhat do I know? I just tend to my garden. But some keepers of this book knew plenty about the sprites and their ways. Maybe if we had learned more about them, they wouldn’t have left. Maybe, I don’t know—”
    â€œWhat is it, Uncle Tin?”
    â€œMaybe they would have known how to help your sister.”
    Luna didn’t want to say that he was talking pure nonsense. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “We should have been the ones who left.”
    â€œOh, a few families did when the sickness first came. But something went wrong every time, and they always came