Backwards Moon by Mary Losure

in her pocket. “Cool! Very cool. So, this is my room.”
    â€œIt’s . . . nice,” said Nettle, blinking.
    Everything seemed to be a very bright color. Pink, purple, yellow, green . . . Heaps of clothing were scattered all over the floor. Books and papers nearly covered the bed.
    â€œAre you tired?” Elizabeth asked. “You look pretty tired.” She rummaged underneath the bed. “I have a sleeping bag for when friends stay over, but if my mom comes and it looks like someone’s in it and no one’s there, she might start wondering. So if you hear anything, get out quick and shove the sleeping bag under the bed, okay? Do you want some pajamas? Or a nightgown?”
    â€œI need to keep my dress on, and my hat right near.” Nettle paused. “It’s our dresses and hats that make us invisible.”
    â€œOkay,” said Elizabeth. “The bathroom’s down the hall.I’ll show you the way, but be really, really quiet. Did you bring a toothbrush?”
    Nettle looked at her blankly.
    The sleeping bag was soft and very comfortable. And the bathroom was a wonder: an amazing invention.
    Elizabeth shoved a cascade of stuff from the bed and climbed in. “Tomorrow is Saturday,” she whispered.
“Yes!”
    â€œSaturday,” said Nettle drowsily, trying to remember what Saturday was. Some kind of human something or other. . . .
    And in another moment, she was asleep.

chapter eleven

    All day as the sun passed over the aspen grove, Bracken slept uneasily, waking often. Then at last it was night again. She sat up in her hammock.
    She ate some of her journey bread and drank a bottle of blackberry juice, then took a last glance around her. The aspen leaves rustled lightly in the night breeze. Already the grove seemed a sheltered place that a part of her—the tight, afraid part—didn’t want to leave. But she got on her broomstick anyway. “Go,” she told herself and lifted off.
    She flew until the snow-topped mountains that had once encircled her world were only a distant glimmer in the moonlight, low on the horizon.
    Now on the flatlands, human lights appeared, and some of them moved.
Roar
they went, followed by the silence of the wide night. Then
roar
, silence, and another roar.
    Sometimes she passed over long rows of tall poles. The wires that ran between them whined faintly.
    Now and then she saw whole clusters of lights, twinkling on the dark plain, and she knew they were human towns.
    After what seemed like many, many hours, the night began to fade. Bracken’s heart tightened in her chest. She scanned the plain for a hiding place. But the only cover anywhere, the only places to hide in this vast, flat land seemed to be a few scattered clusters of trees.
    She flew toward one, slowed, and hovered.
    â€œWho goes there?” said a voice like a wolf’s. Then it began to bark.
    A dog, Bracken realized. It barked furiously, with mindless hatred. Bracken sped away.
    She tried another grove, but there among the trees sat a human house, its windows staring. Another dog bayed. And every moment, the sky grew lighter! Bracken’s hand crept to the Woodfolk bead necklace. But Toadflax had told her to use it only in direst need.
    Far ahead, a river glittered in the sun’s first rays. Bracken sped toward it, then slowed above the cottonwoods that grew along its banks. She landed in a treetop. She stowed her broom but lingered, watching through the screen of leaves as the red sun rose and the sky filled with light.
    A bank of clouds lay low in the east, and now, gradually, its underside was lit in brilliant pink, then gold, then orange. “Oh!” breathed Bracken. Sunrise in the mountains was only a glow in the sky—never like this. The distant horizon circled all around. The edge of the sky met the earth.
    It seemed, suddenly, that it might be all right to be out in the wide world. Bracken