And so it came to pass that there was a man who fell in love with the moon. Night after night he would go to the hill outside of the town and watch her swell and dwindle, and on the nights she was enshrouded in cloud, he would sit as one struck dumb, waiting in vain for a chance glimpse of her reappearance.
Fool, the people of the town called him, fool and madman, and perhaps that is precisely what he was. For what is a lover but a fool and a madman? And so he paid them no heed, as lovers are wont to do, and continued to go to the hill and look upon his love and there is nothing to suggest that he was anything but happy.
And then one day there came a peddler to the town, and a strange little woman she was, with peering pale eyes and a hopping sort of walk and a way of hunching in her shawl that made her look older than she was. But then, that may have been her age in truth. Old woman, the people of the town called her, and perhaps that is precisely what she was.
She heard tales of the madman in love with the moon, and so she watched him for three nights, and then on the fourth she went up the hill, her odd hopping gait shifting the leaves and warning him of her presence.
"You there boy," she said, when he turned his eyes from the moon to meet hers, "I have heard stories of a boy in love with the moon, are you he of whom they speak?"
"I am," he replied, suspiciously, for he too had heard stories, of strange old women and the wares they offered.
At this she settled upon a rock and peered at him in silence until his patience began to wear thin. At last she spoke; "I have, in my travels, heard many a tale and learned many a thing. Came me one night, dark and blustery, upon a traveler who claimed to know the secret ways, rites and spells long forgotten. He told me, in exchange for what goods I could provide him, of some of them."
The man's interest was peaked in spite of himself, but he allowed no inkling of it to pass across his features, knowing as he did of the ways of strange old women, who were not at that time always what they appeared. "And what has this to do with me?"
"What, indeed," and her pale eyes shone in the moonlight. "What would you say if I were to tell you, boy, that there is a way to call down the moon?"
"I would say you are a madwoman," he replied, but there was now no disguising his interest.
"And what is the opinion of a madman to me? For I know there is truth in what I say."
Then did the night grow quiet around them, and the moon seemed to be watching. The man looked up at her, met again the eyes of the peddler, and found nothing but honesty there, though sly. A strange sort of longing rose in him, and he said, "At what price?"
For of course, everyone knows there is always a price, and it is only a fool who would fail to ask. Fool in love he may have been, but fool in life he was not.
The woman rocked back on her perch and crowed a laugh that sent the nearby nightbirds to flight. "A wise and wary question!" Then she grew solemn again, for now was the time for bargaining, and that is no laughing matter. "As I said, I have been to many a place and seen many a thing, answered to many names, heard many tales. Though I be old and my feet weary, I continue to wander, for always there is a story untold to be found. I can call down the moon for you, boy, call her down and if she wills it, she will be yours. But it is not a lifetime I offer, for no spell lasts forever. A year and a day I offer you, and in exchange..."
"In exchange?"
"I ask for a story," she says, and a breeze stirred the grass around them. "One I've not heard before."
The man thought about this, and indeed there was much to think upon. The peddler seemed content to allow him time, and so they sat in silence upon the hill while the moonlight fell soft and white about them. It seemed no great thing to ask, then, a story unheard in exchange for even the slimmest chance of love. And so finally he agreed.
He did not remember afterwards quite how the old woman called down the moon; the words were strange to his ears, in a language he had never before heard, and they slipped like a breeze through his mind. The night held its breath, the world grew still, and the spirit of the moon was called down and given form. She gazed about her, and with eyes new-made and silver took in those who awaited her.
"Well-met, sister," said the spirit of the moon to the peddler. "You have called me, and here I am."
"Very well-met, I would say," the peddler replied, getting to her feet. "You know why you are called, and the bargain that has been made."
"I have seen it," and her eyes turned to the man who sat still, watching, as he had for many a day gone past. "I know you," she said to him, gently, for she saw all the moon saw and knew all the moon knew. She moved towards him and offered her hand, and when he thought again of the old woman, it was as if she had vanished into the wind.
What the villagers thought the next morning when the man came down off of the hill, hand in hand with a mysterious pale woman, is hard to say. Possibly most of them were too relieved to see him with a flesh-and-blood woman that they did not think to question further, or possibly the nature of the spell was such that their natural inquisitiveness was stifled.
Thus did time pass in relative happiness, and when the spirit of the moon began to swell as the moon did, it was for an entirely mortal reason; before the year and a day had passed, she gave birth to a daughter, a baby with more of her mother in her than not, though she had her father's dark eyes.
Still more time passed, and the spirit of the moon's eyes began to turn more and more often to the sky; she grew sadder, and thinner, and her feet lead her night after night to the hill outside of the town. The moon was singing her home, she explained, and she was no less capable of resisting its call than the rising tides. And though the man tried to stop her, she would only look at him with eyes strange and sorrowful and go anyway, and he would have no choice but to follow, newborn child cooing quietly in his arms. There they would sit atop the hill, in silence, feeling the time slip past and the spell wear thin.
And so came the evening at the end of the promised year and a day.
MORE LATER.
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