· Chapter One ·
In Which the Moon Grows Thin
At the bottom of Foxglove Meadow, where the grass leans toward the sea, there lived a small cream-colored moth named Etta. She was not the fastest moth in the meadow, nor the bravest. But she was the only one who kept a map collection under a toadstool — seventeen maps, borrowed from mice, mostly of pantries.
Every evening the other moths flew up to circle the great lamp of the lighthouse, which is simply a thing moths do, and not one of them can tell you why. Etta went too. But she had a habit of looking past the lamp — up, and further up — at the moon.
And the moon, Etta had noticed, was getting thinner. On Monday it had been round as a dinner plate. By Thursday, a slice of one. Tonight it looked like a paring of soap. She consulted all seventeen maps. Not one of them showed the moon at all.
“That’s it exactly,” she whispered. “Nobody has ever mapped it. And things that aren’t mapped get forgotten. And things that are forgotten—” She did not finish the sentence, because it frightened her.
So she packed. A length of spider silk, for measuring. A drop of dew, for thirst. A poppy seed, in case of hunger, and a second poppy seed, in case of making a friend. Then Etta of Foxglove Meadow opened her wings and flew straight up.
· Chapter Two ·
In Which a Lantern Makes Its Case
Up she went — past the foxgloves, past the owl’s oak, whose owl said “Hm,” in an educated way. Up, at last, level with the great glass eye of the lighthouse, where every moth she had ever known was turning in slow, happy circles.
“Little miller,” the lamp hummed, warm as a kitchen window, wide as a harvest sun. “Why strain your wings? I am a moon you can reach. I burn all night, every night, and I never once have waned.”
And oh, it was warm. Etta felt the old pull in her wings, the pull every moth is born already owing. She circled once. She circled twice.
Then she looked up — at the thin and patient moon, so far past the glass. “You are a very good lamp,” she said kindly. “But nobody needs a map of a thing they can reach.” And she flew on up, which is the hardest direction a moth can choose.
· Chapter Three ·
In Which the Sea Keeps a Second Moon
Above the lighthouse the wind had opinions. It took Etta by the wings and carried her out — out over the black glass of the sea, farther from the meadow than any of her seventeen maps had ever thought to go.
And there below her, floating on the water, was the moon. A second one. Silver, rippling, and much, much closer than the first. “Well,” said Etta, being sensible, “I shall map this one instead.”
She dipped down and began to measure it with her spider silk. But each time she got the edges right, the sea breathed, and the moon broke into a thousand silver pieces, and put itself back together slightly differently.
“Hold still,” Etta begged. “Can’t,” said the sea, not unkindly. “I’m a mirror, not a moon. You can’t map a reflection, little one. You can only love the thing it reflects.” Etta looked up. The real moon was thinner than ever. She flew higher.
· Chapter Four ·
In Which the Stars Are Named for Home
The air grew cold and quiet, and dark as the inside of a pocket. When her wings tired, Etta rested on the stars — which you can do, if you are light enough, and if it is late enough, and if the stars are in a good mood.
To keep from being lonely, she named them as she went, and strung her spider silk between them. Four stars leaning together: the Foxglove. A little ring of five: the Thimble. That crooked line, mid-pounce: the Keeper’s Cat. And two, close and bright, like a door left glowing: the Doorlatch.
She rested a while inside the Thimble, which fit her exactly, and ate the first poppy seed, and thought about the second.
Then she looked back at the silk shining behind her, star to star to star, all the way down toward home. “That’s funny,” said Etta. “I set out to map the moon, and I seem to be drawing the meadow.” The stars said nothing. Stars are excellent listeners.
· Chapter Five ·
In Which the Moon Explains Itself
And then there was no more up. The moon was there — enormous, silver-shouldered, worn smooth like a doorknob loved by many hands — and so thin now that Etta could see the dark of it. The part everyone forgets.
“I’ve come to map you,” Etta announced, holding out her spider silk, “before you’re forgotten all the way to nothing.” The moon was quiet for a moment, the way old things are quiet. Then it said: “Is that what you think is happening to me?”
“You wane,” said Etta. “Smaller every night. I’ve watched.” “I turn,” said the moon, gently. “The way a sleeper turns under a blanket. My whole self is here — you are simply seeing my dark shoulder. Little mapmaker, I have never once been less than round.”
Etta was quiet. The moon leaned closer, which moons can do at that hour. “Nothing loved is lost by going dark awhile. The meadow will go dark tonight; you will close your wings; and morning will find everything still whole and still round. Including you.”
“Then you don’t need a map,” Etta said, a little sadly. The moon laughed — a slow, silver laugh she felt in her feet. “Look behind you, small one. You have already made the only map worth making.”
· Chapter Six ·
In Which a Map Finds Its Use
And Etta looked. There behind her, strung in spider silk from star to star, was the way home: past the Doorlatch, down through the Thimble, along the Keeper’s Cat, to the Foxglove — and below the Foxglove, small and green and certain, the meadow. She had mapped it without meaning to. The love had leaked in, the way it does.
Before she went, she took out the second poppy seed — the one packed in case of making a friend — and set it down on the moon’s dark shoulder. “In case,” she said. Moons don’t eat. That isn’t the point of a gift.
Down she went, star to star, hand over hand along her own silver lines. The sea waved. The lighthouse lamp watched her pass and dipped its beam — which, from a lamp, is a bow.
By the time she reached Foxglove Meadow, the moon had gone all the way dark, the way it does one night a month. But Etta wasn’t afraid of that anymore. Under the toadstool, beside the seventeen, she pinned the eighteenth map: the one that starts at the moon and ends at home. Both of them fit on it. That is the whole trick of maps.
So if you are ever awake at the very edge of sleep, and the night looks like it might be getting thinner — it isn’t. It is only turning, like you, under its blanket. The moon is round. The meadow is mapped. And somewhere in the foxgloves, a small cream moth has folded her wings for the night.
The End
Good night, little mapmaker.
Sleep round. Sleep whole.