The Half-a-Moon Inn by Paul Fleischman

1
    Aaron awoke to the sharp cry of sea gulls, suddenly remembered what day it was and burst out of bed as though the sheets were afire. He could hear that his mother was already up, hitching the horse to the wagon. He scrambled into his clothes, scooped up an armload of woolen cloth and shot out the door—for today they’d be traveling to Craftsbury!
    â€œWhoever you are behind all that wool—good morning to you!” called his mother. Aaron smiled and scurried by her, his arms piled high with the wool she’d washed and dyed and spun and woven into cloth. He felt as restless as a chipmunk on the first day of spring, for it was but once every month that they left the seacoast behind them and wound their way through the forest to Craftsbury, where all the world seemed to gather on market day.
    There’d be farmers and fortune-tellers, chandlers and capmakers, all shouting their wares at once. The smell of roasting chestnuts would drift through the air, above squealing pigs and bleating lambs and crowds of people swarming about. It was there that Aaron and his mother would sell their cloth, returning home the next morning with oats and lamp oil and more raw wool, to be dyed the colors of the ocean deeps and woven into cloth textured like the sea itself.
    â€œThere’s breakfast a-waiting for you,” called his mother, “if you can stay put in one place so’s to eat it.” Aaron darted in and out of the one-room house, fit the last load of cloth in the wagon and glanced out at the sea. The waters were still and speckled gold with the sun, and though the early November air was chilly, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the heavens. A fine day indeed for a journey.
    He dashed back inside and sat down to a bowlful of barley gruel. Then he pulled a stub of chalk from his pocket, took up his slate and wrote: “Couldn’t we leave now and eat later?” For Aaron had been born unable to speak.
    â€œWell now, I’ve my own question to ask of you first, my dove. Don’t you come due for a birthday tomorrow?”
    Aaron nodded his head.
    â€œAnd won’t you thereby arrive at a full twelve years of age?”
    He nodded again.
    His mother put down her spoon, and ran her fingers through her long brown hair.
    â€œYou see, my dove, I’ve been thinking.” Her voice was hesitant, her eyes scanning him. “And I believe it’s come time for me to let you learn to pull your own oars and steer your own rudder, like other boys of your age. And so I want to ask you, Aaron, if you’d be a-willing to do something even more adventuresome than traveling to Craftsbury.”
    Aaron looked puzzled. “What?” he wrote on his slate.
    â€œI want you to stay here while I’m gone.”
    A chill darted up his spine.
    â€œAlone?” he wrote.
    â€œYes, alone.”
    Aaron gazed at his mother. Never before had he been out of her sight for more than a few hours, much less overnight. With his father lost at sea, there’d been no one but his mother to raise him. And though she’d taught him to read and write as soon as he was able, she’d still feared to let him stray out into the world alone, afraid that he’d stumble into danger without a voice to call for help, or that he’d be mocked for his muteness or even stoned to death as being devil-possessed. Aaron had always been accustomed to having her near, and like the ocean itself, her presence was woven into the background of all of his memories. Yet he knew what she expected of him, and though a nervous dread tugged against him like an outgoing tide, he picked up the chalk, and wrote: “I’ll stay.”
    A smile rose into her eyes. “I’m proud of you, my dove.”
    But Aaron was too full of apprehensions to feel warmed by her pride. What if something went wrong—if the house caught fire or was struck by lightning or the waves washed in from the sea? Suddenly he