But he always delivered her back to their cottage and her grandmother before dark. Because, while Hansa had seen many things and imagined many more, there was one she couldn’t conceive of: Hansa had never seen the night.
Every evening as the sun lowered itself, her grandmother latched the doors and windows and drew the curtains tight. She made Hansa sit beside her till bedtime, unsnarling her knitting. On the nights Hansa’s sight went blurry with boredom and the whole onion-scented cottage seemed tight as a fist, she dreamed furious dreams of running away, as her father had, to sea. Perhaps her grandmother knew of these dreams, because she kept Hansa’s world as small as she could, bordered by their cottage walls and punctuated by chaperoned walks in the sun. “Children do not go out at night,” she said through tight lips, when Hansa pressed her on the subject. As her father had told her no differently, Hansa had no choice but to believe it.
Years passed before she learned, from the butcher’s boy, that not all children are kept from the night. Twelve years old and flushed with fury, she demanded an explanation.
“Is it wolves I have to fear?” she asked. “Highway robbers with stolen brides? Dead women with pointed teeth?”
“None of those,” said her grandmother, who had no imagination. She sighed and set down her knitting. “What you must fear is the Moon. I had it from your father the day he brought you home to me: the Moon will kill you as soon as look at you, and you must be kept from her sight.”
This was very interesting to Hansa. More than anything she wanted to know how she’d made such an enemy of this stranger, the Moon. She thought long on how she might escape her grandmother’s watchful eye, settling at last on a plan: she would, each night, serve the old woman tea with white honey, mixing it sweeter and sweeter until the honey could hide the flavor of the herb that cured sleeplessness.
On that night Hansa steeped the herb in the syrupy tea. She kept her face turned toward the fire as her grandmother drank it down. The old woman nodded her head, slowly, slowly, until it dropped to her chest and she was sleeping.
The moment her eyes blinked shut, a wind came down the chimney. It swept past Hansa and set all the curtains in the house to twitching. One moved aside just long enough for Hansa to spy something through it: a bright button pinned to the night sky like a medal to a general’s chest.
So this was the Moon, her enemy. Though Hansa had never seen her before, she recognized her at once: she knew the Sun had a sister, and a whole host of nieces that sugared the sky at night. Hansa ran to her room, peeled back the curtain, and used one of her grandmother’s knitting needles to pick the lock on her window.
Night air poured over the sill. It reached in like a hand with starry rings on every finger and scooped her up. She lay on the roof in her nightgown, gazing at the Moon and her daughters. Though she was not unafraid, she was the happiest she’d ever been.
Hello, Moon, she said in her mind. Why is it I must fear you?
Hello, granddaughter, the Moon replied. There is no need for fear. Indeed, I am your greatest friend.
Hansa was not surprised. In the endless, unfamiliar realm of night, it felt natural that the Moon should speak to her.
My grandmother is asleep downstairs, she said drowsily, without opening her mouth. Why do you call me granddaughter?
Your father’s mother sleeps inside, said the Moon, but I am the mother of your mother, and now is not my time to rest.
Hansa’s heart quickened. Nobody ever spoke of her mother, not even to curse her for her absence. Hansa had always felt as motherless as a tree.
But even a tree has roots, said the Moon. And the seed that births it. You’re young still, but old enough. If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you a tale of your mother.
It was a moonless night when your parents met, a night so calm and clear that the Stars, my daughters, could see themselves in the water. Because your mother is vain as a mermaid, she drew too close to the sea. Your father was looking into the water when he saw her face reflected over his shoulder. Her beauty was such that he caught her by a hand, and he caught her by a heel, and he pulled her onto his ship.
If I’d been close I would have stunned him with my light and sent him to the sea wolves. But the night was moonless, as I said, so he and my daughter had their foolish way with each other.
It was another such night, when he was homeward bound, that she stepped onto his deck and gave him a child wrapped in a blanket woven of storm clouds, bits of thunder trapped in its folds to soothe the little one’s sleep.
“Hide her from the night,” your mother told him, for it was you wrapped in that blanket. “Hide her from the Moon. If my mother learns of her, she’ll tell my husband of our congress. He’s a Tide, and in his jealousy will drown you both.”
Stars do not make good parents, nor do they make good wives, but your mother was trying to protect you. And sailors make their living by the tides, so your father was too fearful of their betrayal to risk your ever being seen. Foolish daughter, foolish man: I would no more give up a baby to a jealous Tide than rise in the morning. But Stars cannot keep a secret, and I learned of you soon enough. Long have I watched for you, long have I waited to tell you this tale.
Now, the Moon said. Now that you’re grown, and able, I must ask something of you.
Am I grown? Hansa asked. Her mind’s mirror was silvered over with storm clouds and sea voyages and tides.
You’re grown enough. Now I’ll tell you of the night another Star, silliest of my daughters, told your mother’s husband of her indiscretion. His rage roiled the seabed. It lifted shipwrecks and their ghosts and sent them sailing. It tilted the pan of the sky. The jealous Tide dragged your mother from her constellation and took her to the rim of the world.
She lives there still, his captive. I do not know the form of her imprisonment, for even the Moon cannot see what lies at the rim of the world. Will you go to her? Will you set her free?
The sea, Hansa thought. The way to the world’s rim lies by sea. She thought of the broken glitter the sea made of the sun’s light, and imagined what it might do with the coolness of the moon. It would, perhaps, make a road she could walk upon.
Not quite, the Moon said, sounding amused. You’ll go by ship.
She tilted her head over the girl and cried three tears. They shone in her lap like hard white eyes as the Moon gave her instructions:
Pack what you must and go to the harbor.
Ignore the first merchant who approaches you. Bow to the second. To the third, offer one of my tears in exchange for whatever they’ll give you.
Find a ship with a maiden’s name, and trade a second tear for passage.
Then the Moon gave her a cold kiss. All that night Hansa slept with her window open, in a pool of her grandmother’s light. When she woke between moonset and sunrise, three tears lay in her hand, and the Moon’s instructions were fresh in her head.
She rose and packed her cloak, a loaf of bread, two books, and the Moon’s three tears. She crept past her father’s mother, still asleep before the cold hearth, and slipped out into the day. When she reached the harbor, the first merchant to approach her was a man in shabby clothes, selling all manner of charms: dried seeds he called serpents’ tongues, a string of stones he claimed were the Moon’s own tears, which Hansa would’ve known for river pearls even if she hadn’t the proof of his lies in her pocket. She passed him without a look.