A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic by Lisa Papademetriou Page A

moth.”
    The night was a revelation for Kai. It would be an exaggeration to say that she had never been outside at night, but it would not be a huge exaggeration. She had certainly never been outside at night without an adult. She had never been allowed to roam about the neighborhood once darkness fell, and now it was as if she were full of helium, like shemight float away at any moment, right up to the stars. Her fingers brushed the trunk of a tree as she walked past, feeling the rough, ridged bumps and the smooth moss.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Doodle asked.
    â€œJust . . . just feeling the bark.” It had looked different in the dark. Although everything looked different in the dim light, Kai was surprised at how much she was able to see, and she found herself noticing things she had not paid attention to before. She and Doodle each had a flashlight, but the beams only illuminated a small patch of ground before their feet. It made the darkness around them seem blacker, somehow. Kai had never before realized that there are a thousand shades of shadow between gray and black.
    The moon was not full, but it hung low, fat and yellow, looking close enough to step onto. It seemed like a different moon entirely from the sick, pale thumbnail that she often glimpsed through her bedroom window back home. “The moon is huge here,” Kai said.
    â€œIt’ll get smaller as the night goes on.” A twig snapped beneath Doodle’s foot. “When it’s higher in the sky.”
    â€œBecause it’s getting farther away?”
    â€œNo—it’s called the moon illusion. When it’s low on the horizon, you see it next to trees and telephone poles, and stuff, so it looks bigger. When it’s up in the sky, there’s no—” Doodle’s feet kept moving, but her words stopped.
    â€œComparison?”
    â€œYeah. When it’s by itself, you can’t tell how huge it really is.”
    Now that the sun had set, everything seemed to breathe again. Around Kai, insects chirped. She tried to follow the tune. It reminded her of something—the opening bars of a Haydn sonata, maybe? The digits of her left hand tapped against her thigh, remembering the fingering of the opening bars. She didn’t even notice herself doing it, but I did, and that meant she was concentrating on the strangeness around her.
    A white cat darted across a yard. A small light flickered. Then another. “Fireflies!”
    â€œWe could catch some, if you want,” Doodle said.
    â€œNo, that’s okay.” Kai hadn’t meant to sound so excited, but the flashes had taken her by surprise. She just had never seen lightning bugs in real life before, and it made her both happy and a little sad as she wondered howlong it had been since her mother had seen one. “How are we going to find these moth things?”
    â€œThey’re bioluminescent. Like the fireflies, only not as bright.” Doodle took a sharp turn, and Kai nearly danced after her, swinging her great-aunt’s silver net. Over on the other side of the iron fence, gravestones hulked, casting long, eerie shadows. “Here we are,” Doodle said.
    Well, now that they were here , Kai did not like the look of the place very much. But she didn’t want to say that to Doodle. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the building hulking on the far side of the fence.
    â€œAmerican Casket, of course. Home of the famous Eternal Casket. Guaranteed to stay in perfect shape for two hundred years.”
    â€œWow,” Kai said. “How would anyone know?”
    â€œExactly,” Doodle replied.
    â€œSo—uh, what now?”
    â€œWe go inside.” Doodle had already slipped through the gate, which—though chained—gaped wide enough to let a middle schooler through.
    Now, as I’ve already mentioned, Kai was a planner. But in all of Kai’s years of planning, she had never beforecome up