This is a story about the Moon. This is a story about the Half Moon. Not the Full Moon or the New Moon, but the Half Moon, the In-Between Moon, always shifting and changing, like stories do, like this story does, like people do. This is a story about a person, who was born as a girl.
The girl’s father took her, newly alive, he ripped her from her mother, left the torn-off-vessels of her heart draining away, and he took the girl out into the night, across the miles to a great mountain, and halfway up the side of it, and that was where he left her, with not even a blanket, so that she would die where no one would see, and where his wife would never find her or what was left of her, no matter how many wailing hours, days, she spent searching.
But the girl was not where no one would see.
This is a story about the Half Moon. Not the Full Moon, or the New Moon, who had many lovers and children of Their own. This is a story about the Half Moon, who had never taken a lover and would never take a lover, who had never had any children, but who longed for a daughter, yearned more than anything. The Half Moon gazed down, yearning for a daughter, and here was a daughter. What could it be but Fate? What did it matter, even, if it wasn’t Fate? The Moon was the Moon, and She would do as She pleased— who was there down on that Earth to stand against Her?
And so, the Moon, the Half Moon, declared that this newborn girl left on the mountainside would be the first of Her daughters.
She began by giving the girl three gifts. The first gift was a name. The Moon leaned down and whispered it into Her daughter’s ear, so that she would know what it meant.
“‘Balancing the Scales’,” whispered the Moon. “That is what it means to be you.”
The second gift was the chance to survive on this mountainside. The Half Moon reached inside the girl and drained away all of her blood— it was plain, dull blood, unworthy of Her daughter. And it would not give the girl she strength she would need to survive the darker world ruled by her new mother. Instead, the Half Moon filled the girl’s veins with Her own essence, Her love, liquid moonlight, shining, Her purest breastmilk, unmatched by anything else down on that Earth. Such a gift— the rare sort of gift that changes a person, more than just how they feel, but what they are. The girl was transformed. Her skin was still dark as the night, as dark as she’d been born with and abandoned in, but her hair shone now with soft, pale light, and the rings of her eyes as well, as though they were pools reflecting her mother’s face. This new blood was a blessing, a boon from a Goddess, a boon from a mother, and the Moon leaned down and whispered the blessing into Her daughter’s ear, so that she would know what it was.
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“I give to you My love and protection, always,” whispered the Moon. “You are more precious to Me than My own existence.”
The third gift was a second mother, to help raise the girl and teach her all the things that she would need to know here on the mountainside. The Moon’s eyes danced across all of the creatures here, young and old, large and small, until finally they settled on a quiet, melancholy she-bear, sitting alone in a clearing on the other side of the mountain, where the white flowers grew— sitting there tonight, last night, the whole week before, the whole year sitting there, every year for how long? It had been too long, too many nights wasted on misery. The Moon leaned down and whispered to the bear that she would be the third gift to Her first daughter, “And My first daughter shall be My greatest gift to you.”— and so She gave them to each other.
The old she-bear did not protest. She did not want any part of this, the torn-off vessels of the heart are not so easily regrown, but she did not protest because who was she to protest against the Moon? The Moon was the Moon, and She would do as She pleased, and if it made the Moon happy, truly, there was nothing the old she-bear would not do. So, she stood up from her clearing and made her way to the other side of the mountain where the baby lay waiting, alone. In the time it took her to get there, a death-black tailed she-wolf had come to investigate the child. The she-wolf’s nose twitched up and down the girl’s body— the silver light of her eyes and hair shined upon the she-wolf’s silver fur and gleamed upon her teeth as she opened her mouth— but the old she-bear arrived just then and with a great bellow and a charge into the scene, paws pounding across the dirt, claws ready, she chased the she-wolf back into the darkness. And so it was, that even before she’d laid her own eyes upon the girl, the she-bear had already fought for her, and so, and so, and so when she did lay her own eyes upon the girl, when she did carefully scoop her up into her paws and hold her up to her face to study the full measure of her, there was already the love of protection between them, and the bear was bewitched, and without a second thought, she became the girl’s second mother, and the girl became her second daughter. This is how it began.
