The Timekeeper's Moon Read online

  THE TIMEKEEPER’S MOON

  JONI SENSEL

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Thunder Moon Madness

  Chapter 2 Death Moon Disturbing

  Chapter 3 Thunder Moon, Full on the Map

  Chapter 4 Thunder Moon Midnight

  Chapter 5 Thunder Moon Waning

  Chapter 6 Thunder Moon Gone

  Chapter 7 Moonless Welcome

  Chapter 8 Moonless Day

  Chapter 9 Moonless Judging

  Chapter 10 Moonless Night

  Chapter 11 New Dog Moon, Invisible

  Chapter 12 Dark Dog Moon and Tides

  Chapter 13 Dog Moon and Decisions

  Chapter 14 Dark Dog Moon’s First Night

  Chapter 15 Dog Moon, Slender Crescent

  Chapter 16 Dog Moon and Secrets

  Chapter 17 Dog Moon at First Quarter

  Chapter 18 Dog Moon and Legend

  Chapter 19 Dog Moon Over Tattler

  Chapter 20 Dog Moon, First Quarter Spilled

  Chapter 21 Dog Moon, Waxing Bright

  Chapter 22 Dog Moon Speaks Up

  Chapter 23 Dog Moon, Gibbous

  Chapter 24 Dog Moon and Sleep

  Chapter 25 Dog Moon and Luck

  Chapter 26 Dog Moon and a Loan

  Chapter 27 Dog Moon and Lightning

  Chapter 28 Dog Moon, Thirteen Days Old

  Chapter 29 Dog Moon and Fire

  Chapter 30 Dog Moon, One Day Shy

  Chapter 31 Dog Moon and Strife

  Chapter 32 Dog Moon and Grace

  Chapter 33 Dog Moon Over the Spillway

  Chapter 34 Dog Moon and Good-byes

  Chapter 35 Dog Moon, Full

  Chapter 36 Dog Moon Dream

  Chapter 37 Dog Moon, Spilled

  Chapter 38 Moon in the Well

  Chapter 39 Moon Out of Time

  Chapter 40 Dog Moon, Waning

  Chapter 41 Waning Moon, Waxing Hearts

  Coda

  Also by Joni Sensel

  Imprint

  For the writing friends

  traveling the path with me

  CHAPTER 1

  Thunder Moon Madness

  The moon refused to hush or come down, so Ariel Farwalker was forced to climb up.

  She kicked aside her blankets and abandoned her straw mattress. Ariel slipped through the dim hallways of Tree-Singer Abbey to its great wooden door, the cool flagstones soothing the itch in the soles of her bare feet. Lifting the latch, she pulled the door open, soundlessly this time. She didn’t want to disturb her friends’ sleep. Not again.

  Arise, walker. Hither. The full moon kissed Ariel’s face, but its silvery voice needled her. Arise. Hasten. Late, late. Despite its name, Thunder Moon shone from a sky free of clouds, and rather than growling, it hissed. Its voice, stealthy and barbed as a porcupine quill, pierced her thoughts, caught there, and pulled. Dragged from her bed by that moon, Ariel thought she knew how the tide felt.

  She hurried outside and along the stone wall to a corner. Her nightgown fluttered in the brisk mountain breeze, which was cool even though it was summer. Moonlight drenched Ariel and gleamed on the abbey. Although she did not have the talent for speaking with trees, the Tree-Singers’ grand hall had become her home over the past year. Tonight, instead of shelter, the rough-hewn stone building could serve as her stairway to the moon.

  She fitted her strong fingers and toes into the quoins’ deep mortar joints and hoisted herself up. Her muscles complained, but she pushed them. Although she was only thirteen, Ariel was a Farwalker—the sole member of a trade once thought extinct—and she’d endured a great deal more strain in earning that name than she could face climbing a familiar stone building. The danger would never have stopped her, but if she hadn’t been so desperate to quiet the moon, she would have recognized the folly in her risky ascent.

  The moon whined and wheedled, urging Ariel to hurry. Hear, walker. Heed. Each word tugged at her feet, which throbbed restlessly even as she crept up the wall. Although usually friendly, the stones of the abbey nipped, too, their sharp edges biting into her soles.

  Ignoring the sting, Ariel gained the cornice. The overhang stymied her for only a moment. She gripped the stone gutter and hung there from both hands, her feet dangling. With a kick, she swung them up onto the slate tiles. As they so often did, her feet found a way of their own, and her sturdy legs levered her onto the roof.

  She huddled there briefly, catching her breath, and then rose unsteadily to her feet. The slant made her teeter. Emptiness yawned between Ariel and the earth, twenty-odd feet below and swirling with moon shadows. A pine scent wafted over the meadow to tickle her stubby nose and twine in her dark, blunt-cut hair. Her soles, slick now with blood, slid on the smooth slate with each step. But Ariel’s attention fixed again on the moon.

  That round, silver face looked almost as far away as before. It leered at her failure to reach it.

  Half only, half only. Unripened. Undone. The syllables circled and blurred, their insistence more clear than their meaning. Hurry.

  “I’m trying!” Ariel scanned for the best route to the peak of the roof. As a Farwalker, she was accustomed to letting her feet lead her wherever she needed to go, without thinking too much about it. Her skills did not seem to be helping now, though. Of course, her farwalking usually took place on earth.

  As she searched for firm footing, a glimmer below caught her eye. She eased toward the end of the roof and looked down.

  The moon also shone below her.

  One full moon taunted her from above, in the southeastern sky, but another swam on the surface of the abbey’s stone well. With an insight twisted by exhaustion and moonlight, Ariel realized she could reach her goal that way instead. A few running steps and a leap would plunge her into that wavering light. The moon’s sly face would burst as it received her, silver droplets a balm for her aching head and stinging feet. The moon, which had tormented her all spring, would shut up—and Ariel might finally sleep.

  “That’s better,” she murmured. “I’ll meet you.”

  She gauged the distance to the well and backed along the gutter, working out the angle and how many steps she could take before launching herself off the edge. Four long strides and a good kick should do it.

  Running feet pounded below. Zeke Stone-Singer burst into the abbey’s dirt yard. Despite the darkness, Ariel could tell it was her friend not only by his lanky silhouette, but also by his speed.

  “Ariel!” Zeke whirled and peered up. “What are you doing on the roof? You might fall!”

  An exasperated grunt escaped her. “I was trying so hard to be quiet! I didn’t mean to wake you, Zeke. Sorry.”

  “You didn’t. The stones woke me. They’re worried about you. Now come down!”

  Ariel scowled. No one but Zeke could have heard such a warning from stones. It wasn’t always convenient to have a best friend with his unique talent.

  To her greater dismay, another dark figure joined Zeke. Her friend must have roused Scarl, the man who served as guardian to them both. Scarl’s limp had prevented him from arriving so swiftly, but he’d not come empty-handed. He clutched a dark bundle.

  Zeke pointed her out. “There,” he said, as if Scarl Finder couldn’t have found her quickly enough by himself. Few things eluded a Finder who sought them.

  “It’s okay,” Ariel called down to them. “Go back to bed. I’ve just got to hush the moon, that’s all. And then I can—”

  “Ariel, hear me.”

  She flinched at the snap in the Finder’s usually muted voice.

  “Stop right where you are,” Scarl ordered. “Sit down.”

  Distant trees
murmured. Something wasn’t right, Ariel knew. It wasn’t just that she’d disturbed her friends’ rest yet again. Scarl sounded upset. Ariel hadn’t heard that tone from him in a year, not since they’d discovered the Vault and its treasures hidden there at the abbey. She’d almost forgotten how sharp Scarl’s voice could be when he raised it.

  Still, his command echoed dully compared to the whisper slicing down to her from the sky: Half done, whole undone… done undone … and die. She didn’t have to understand for the last word to scare her. It wasn’t the first time the moon’s whisper had threatened.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Scarl,” she said faintly. “Please. But I can’t.”

  “She’s sleepwalking or something.” Zeke’s moon shadow jittered behind him, drawing Ariel’s attention upward again.

  “I don’t think so. Ariel!” Scarl cursed when she didn’t respond.

  “What should we do?” asked Zeke. “Should I ask the stones to help somehow, or—?”

  “Here, take this. Quick.”

  Their frantic voices drifted to Ariel from a distance. She was caught in the moon’s skewed stare, one of its round eyes looking on from the sky while the other stared up from the well. Her feet didn’t just itch now, they burned—and only reaching one moon or the other could cool them. Neither moon was quite right. One was too distant, the other too wet. But—

  Heed now. The moon pulled harder than uncertainty, harder than pain. To silence it, Ariel shoved herself into a run.

  Zeke cried out below. A rush of the babble he sang to stones followed. As if moved by his voice, the roof—the whole world—slipped sideways. Ariel’s bloody feet skidded from beneath her before she could jump. Her legs pumped, but only on air. Her left side slammed against slate, cold and unyielding against her temple and cheek, and tears sprang to her eyes. Her body slid toward the edge of the roof. The view around her rushed sideways, a blur of shadows on darkness. Thunder Moon whirled, flitting beside her like a bright butterfly.

  As it danced in her peripheral vision, that light traced a pattern, stark white on black. Too complex to be chance, the pattern struck a chord of recognition deep inside her—a note even louder than the siren call of the moon.

  She didn’t have time to consider its meaning. Every nerve shrieked of danger. A mountain lion might survive such a drop, but even a sturdy girl like her would not escape without broken bones—or much worse. Ariel’s hands and legs fought for purchase, but the roof was too steep, the slate tiles and her own feet too slick.

  Zeke’s singing grew louder, and—almost too late—the stones of the abbey responded. They set loose a dozen slate tiles, which slid under Ariel like a sled down a snowbank. At the gutter, the tiles caught on the lip, jammed, and backed up in a pile. The jumble halted Ariel’s skid, but only for a moment. As her hands swept for a grip, any grip, on the roof, the mound of slates shifted beneath her and came unstuck to flip over the brink.

  Ariel nearly tumbled down with them, but by then she’d found the gutter herself. She clung with one hand and the crook of an elbow as her legs and torso swung into space.

  Her screech split the night. Slates struck below her and shattered.

  “Hang on!” Scarl shouted. His advice seemed both unneeded and hopeless.

  “I don’t think I—” Ariel’s bent arm gave way and slipped off. The clenched fingers of one hand trembled with effort while the other scrabbled to regain a hold—and failed.

  Ariel dropped through black dread. Perhaps she passed out for an instant. When the night steadied around her, she blinked, surprised to see Scarl’s face over hers.

  “—okay?” he asked. “What hurts?”

  She raised her head. Her backside and one thigh ached, and her soles still burned, but no part of her howled. Her arms and legs were all tangled in Scarl’s, though, with both of them sprawled on the ground.

  “You caught me?” She began to sort out her limbs.

  “I’d call that a stretch.” Scarl sat up and shoved a tangle of blanket out from between them. “But you dangled just long enough for us to get beneath you with a blanket. That broke your fall.”

  “And all of my fingers, I think,” Zeke said. Standing nearby, he nursed both curled hands to his chest.

  “And nearly my heart,” said a thin voice. Ariel turned. Ash Tree-Singer, the abbey’s grizzled master, hobbled closer. The noise must have awakened him, too, and he’d come out in time to see Ariel plummet. “I was sure you or Scarl would be terribly hurt.”

  “I don’t know yet that I’m not,” Scarl said. He folded and unfolded his legs, stretched his long back, and ran a shaky hand through his nutmeg brown curls. “Whew.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ariel whispered, aware now of what she’d done. The ground beneath her pressed hard on her bones. “I know it was dumb to climb up there.” She didn’t mention her impulse to jump. Her friends might not have noticed the gleaming reflection in the well. More than her climb, that imposter moon and her urge to reach it confirmed just how crazy her thoughts had become.

  Zeke toed shards of slate scattered around them. They clinked cheerfully.

  “Oh, tell them I’m sorry, too, Zeke!” Ariel said. “Tell them I—” She fought a surge of ridiculous tears.

  He shrugged. “Rocks like to slide. And they don’t really mind breaking. You would mind. I’m sure glad they warned me.”

  “Were you dreaming?” Ash asked Ariel. “I know you’ve been struggling to sleep.”

  “No.” Blinking hard, she tipped her head to stare up at the moon.

  Scarl caught her chin in his fingers and drew her gaze back toward his. “Enough moon fever, Ariel,” he said. “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose!”

  “I realize that. But that’s why we need to get to the bottom of it. And I can tell you’ve been keeping something from me. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. Spill it. Anything—anything—you think might be the problem. We’re not going back inside until you do.”

  Ariel yearned to unload some of her burden on Scarl. More than twice her age, the tall, taciturn Finder was the nearest thing she had to a father. They’d certainly faced other trials together. But his temper sometimes surprised her, and she couldn’t bear to have it directed at her. Fear stuck the words in her throat.

  He snapped his fingers. “I mean it.”

  “It … it started this spring.” Ariel gulped. “Promise you won’t hurt me or send me away?”

  “You know better,” Scarl said. “I won’t promise not to tie you to your bed, though. Not until I hear a better idea.”

  Nausea churned in Ariel’s stomach. She’d heard stories of lunatics being bound, buried, and bled in attempts to cure them. The worst cases were sometimes set adrift on the sea in the fear that their madness might otherwise spread.

  Her queasiness must have shown on her face. Scarl touched her arm. “Forget I said that. We’ll work it out. What started in spring?”

  Ariel mumbled into her lap. “The moon started gnawing on me.”

  “Gnawing?” Zeke hunkered closer to hear.

  “Not just any moon, though,” Ariel whispered. “March’s moon. Full. Back home, we had a name for March full moon.”

  Zeke sucked in a breath. Ariel peeked up. Scarl’s narrowed eyes told her that he, too, knew which name she meant.

  Death Moon.

  CHAPTER 2

  Death Moon Disturbing

  Hesitantly, Ariel told her friends how she came to be moonstruck. At first, the March moon had only kept her awake. It pried around the edge of her window to shine in her eyes, and it glowed behind her eyelids when she closed them. Even after Death Moon began waning, the thought of it troubled Ariel’s mind. It didn’t matter if clouds masked the sky. It didn’t help to close her eyes before the dwindling moon rose. She tossed under her blanket for longer and longer each night before sinking, exhausted, into darkness.

  At last, that sinister moon died of starvation. Thaw Moon started growing, but it didn’t brin
g Ariel any relief. Her feet started tingling, especially when she lay awake. Soon the sensation grew to an itch. She recognized it then as an impulse to walk, but her restless legs did not seem to know which way to go. Sometimes they wanted to pace in the Great Room. Other times, she circled the abbey and gazed toward the south, watching for birds and wishing summer would come. She rubbed her feet with herbs from the Tree-Singer’s garden and hid them under thick socks, ashamed of how raw she had scratched them. Soon Ariel haunted the hallways at night and stumbled around groggy all day. Ash brought her warm goat milk on many evenings, but it never helped.

  As soon as the weather grew kind, Ariel had talked Scarl into a farwalking trip. They’d headed west to the coast because she had a message to share with Fishers there. Not even those with the most seaworthy boats ventured far beyond their own harbors; travel had become a lost art that few besides Ariel dared. Last fall, though, she’d inspired a few brave Fishers to try it. They needed to know that their boats would be given safe haven, and they offered the same in return. Bearing that message, Ariel had set forth with purpose. A long string of seaside villages welcomed and heard her before she and Scarl came home. The journey eased her itching soles, as she’d hoped, and strengthened her confidence in her new trade. It did little, however, to improve her sleep.

  She began hearing the moon’s voice immediately upon their return to the abbey in May. Sssow, walker, the Planting Moon had called in a sly, somehow threatening whisper. Sow seeds, sow, hole, heed … halves and whole. Ariel had helped plant the vegetable garden, but the moon had not been appeased. Berry Moon followed in June, the name sweeter but the slithering voice just the same.

  “Nothing stops it,” Ariel moaned, confessing now to her friends under the July Thunder Moon’s baleful eye. “Not stuffing my head in my pillow, or plugging my ears, or… or crying. I have tried and tried to sing to the moon, like Zeke does with the stones. I listen and ask questions and beg. Nothing changes. I hear it now even during the day.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Scarl asked. “I just thought growing pains were keeping you up.”