Other Earths by Jay Lake, edited by Nick Gevers Page A

glass.
    “Listen, then. I’m going to tell you a story. This happened long ago, on the shores of the Volga, a great river. Along the shores of this river grew groves of oak and alder, birch and willow. And among those groves lived the Daughters of the Moon.”

Hársfa’s Story
    “I wish we were dead,” said Ha’rsfa. She sat on a rock covered with moss and shaded by an oak tree. The river was green under the tree’s shadow, and it flowed so slowly that she could see its branches and leaves reflected. In a hundred years, those reflections would not have changed. The oak tree would still be there.
    “Hush,” said Ny’rfa, applying another wet leaf to H’rsfa’s forehead. “When you move, it begins bleeding again. And who would lead our sisters, if we were—” The words hovered in the air between them, like a dragonfly. Dead, like T̈lgy. Tölgy of the light foot, like foam floating on the water. T̈lgy of the wise words, as slow as the river and as filled with shining things: silver fish, stones with veins of crystal, laughter. Tölgy, the eldest and best. Lying at the center of the village with blood on her tunic, as though she were covered with leaves.
    Awkwardly, because Ny’rfa was still holding the leaf, Ha’rsfa wiped her cheeks with one hand. “Where would we lead them? We’ve never known anywhere but here.” Her fingers were pale green with blood and tears. “Why can’t things be the way they were before?”
    Ny’rfa sat down beside her. “Hold this now.”
    Ha’rsfa held the leaf to her temple. “Do you remember the milk?” Left by the villagers in hollow stones. When their mother was shining in the sky like a silver egg, all of the sisters would leave the forest to drink and dance in the pastures, among the silent sheep. Sometimes the villagers left wool, which the sisters spun on wooden spindles and wove into winter coats. In return they left walnuts and baskets woven from willow branches.
    Ny’rfa stared at the river. Was she also thinking of its permanence, its peace? “All I remember now is the village burning. The screams, Ha’rsfa. And the blood. And the swords of the Horsemen.” She sat so still that H’rsfa was afraid she had been injured and was bearing the pain in silence. But when H’rsfa touched her hand where it lay clenched on the moss, she said, “T̈lgy wasn’t the only one. I saw Boro’ka fallen, and Ibolya didn’t come back with us. There, I said if you moved, it would bleed again.”
    “I wish we had stayed in the forest! If we hadn’t been picking flax in the meadow and smelled the burning—”
    Ny’rfa put a hand on her shoulder. “I told you, you must stay still.”
    “T̈lgy was wrong to lead us into the battle. The villagers could have fought the Horsemen alone. They would have lost just the same. They’re not warriors, any more than we are.”
    “H’rsfa, you don’t mean that. How could we abandon them? Think of what they have given us, and some of them—are our children. Here, cry on my shoulder if you have to.”
     
    “Sometimes,” said Mrs. Mada’r, putting a damp cloth on her forehead, “when the Daughters of the Moon danced in the pastures, one found a shepherd sleeping among his sheep. If he was handsome in the way of the village people, with black lashes fluttering against his cheeks like wings, she would wake him and lead him into the forest, where she would lie with him on a bed of ferns and mosses. If a child was born with skin that was paler than the brown skin of the villagers, with hair as green as leaves and eyes like the pools of the forest, which reflect the leaves above, it was left at the edge of the village. The villagers would care for it, because it was considered fortunate to have a grandchild of the Moon. There, it would grow to become a poet or perhaps a prophet, which were much the same thing in those days. But it could never sew, or fish, or hunt, because the touch of needle or hook or knife would burn it like