There is nothing truer about children than that they want to become. Every child wants to become, always. Not always the same thing, not always for very long, but always. First, a child wants to become what’s nearest to it, and so the first thing the girl wanted to become was a bear.
The old she-bear taught the girl how to walk, first on her fours, and then on both feet. Then how to walk quietly. Then how to run. Then how to run quietly. Then how to jump. Then how to climb. The old she-bear gathered nuts and berries, and caught fish in the river for the girl to eat. Then she taught the girl which nuts and berries were safe to gather for herself. Then she taught the girl how to trap fish. Then she taught the girl how to coat herself in mud to mask her scent and keep warm. Then she taught the girl how to bathe. Then she taught the girl how to swim. Then she taught the girl how to hide. Then she taught the girl how to play dead. She sat awake as late as she could into the morning to watch over the girl, sleeping against her leg, even after the Moon’s brother the Sun had already risen and started up His own duty of keeping watch, just at he’d begrudgingly promised. She woke up early, before the sunset. For the first two years, she never went back to that old clearing of hers, not even once. She stayed with the girl. She was always there. And so the first thing the girl wanted to become was a bear. She wanted to become what a bear seemed to be. She wanted to become huge and strong and fearsome. She wanted to stomp around the forest with her big paws, doing whatever she wanted, and nobody would ever dare get in her way. She wanted to be able to roar and send everyone running. She wanted big wicked claws and teeth. She would stalk around in circles, grawrling at everything she saw, especially the insects and the mice, because they would at least pretend to be frightened.
Time went on, and the girl grew and grew, but she was not growing enough to become a bear.
The second thing a child wants to become is what it sees the most, and so the second thing the child wanted to become was the Moon. Once the girl had learned how to jump, and once she’d stopped grawrling so much, she started trying to jump up to the Moon. She stood in the moonlight, and she jumped and she jumped, and it just wasn’t quite enough.
The Moon taught the girl how to speak, because there was no one else for her to speak to. And so, the girl learned to speak like the Moon spoke. The Moon taught the girl to dance. Then the Moon taught the girl to sing. Then the Moon taught the girl to cry. Except for two nights of the month, when Her sisters the New Moon and the Full Moon took her place, the Half Moon was always there, the in-between Moon. She was always there. Once the girl had learned how to climb, she would climb up to the tops of the trees, closer to the sky, and jump from there instead, trying to reach her mother— and the poor old she-bear would have to come rushing to catch her every time, the very moment she noticed her daughter was gone she would come rushing, rushing to catch her, and she always caught her, or caught enough of her that there wasn’t anything worse than some bruises and scratches to show for it, or just one broken ankle, once.
The Moon did the best She could to answer all of the girl’s questions. There is nothing truer about children than that they are always asking questions. The girl asked what clouds were, and who made them, and why they were so far away, why weren’t any of them down here? The girl asked the Moon why the old she-bear had started going off on her own, lately? Where was she going to? Why hadn’t she been going there before? What had changed? Did the old she-bear not love her anymore? Had she grown tired of her? Did she want to be away from her? Should she follow her and see where she was going? Why wasn’t she allowed to follow her and see where she was going? When would she be old enough? The girl asked where the trees came from and how come they never made any noise like the other creatures?— or was the rustling of leaves their noise?— was that how they spoke to each other? What were they saying? The girl asked why the Sun never talked to her like the Moon did? The girl asked why the New Moon and the Full Moon never talked to her like the Half Moon did? The girl asked why didn’t snakes and worms have any legs? The girl asked why the insects had so many legs? The girl asked if the snakes and worms had given the insects all their legs to use? The girl asked what the snakes and the worms had been given in return. The girl asked the Moon about those points of light in the sky— what were they called? Why were the stars so small? What made them shine?— were they shining like her hair and eyes were shining, like the Moon was shining? Or were they shining like the Sun was shining, harsh and grumpy? Why were they shaped like animals and people? Where were they coming from? Every night, there were more stars than the night before, why? The Moon answered carefully, always carefully, because She knew that answers mattered. The Moon thought well before answering.
“The stars are your family, like I am your family,” answered the Moon, finally. “They are gathering from all around the world to look down proudly upon you, like I look down proudly upon you. Every night, more and more of them arrive here to love you.”
The girl wanted to become like the Moon. That was what she wanted. She was already part of the way there, wasn’t she?— with her hair and her eyes? There was no one else in the whole of the forest with hair and eyes like hers, and so there was no one else nearly so close to being the Moon.
One night, a little more than six years since her birth, she decided that the treetops just weren’t high enough, and what she would have to do is climb to the very top of the mountain and jump from there, instead. Surely, that would be high enough to finally reach the sky. So she covered herself in as much mud as she could to keep warm, and up she went. Up and up and up, she walked on two feet, and then she crawled carefully on all fours over the uneven rocks, and then she climbed the sheer faces, up and up, until it became too cold, and she could go no further, and still, she was no closer to the Moon. She sat there, weeping, until the old she-bear finally found her and carried her back down into the warmer world below. But the girl wanted to become like the Moon. She wanted to be up there in the sky with the stars, to meet the rest of her family who had all come to see her. The next day, before her shivers had even stopped, she spied the Moon in a puddle and splashed herself into the water because maybe by jumping into the puddle just right she could cross over to the sky on the other side. The Moon seemed so much closer down through the puddle than up through the endless air. But no, no, she didn’t get any closer to anything. All she got was wet.
When the girl was a little more than eight years old, she watched a beautiful she-wolf with a death-black tail out hunting and decided that she wanted to become a wolf, too. So the Moon gave her a knife with a silver blade and a handle of pure moonstone, to hunt with. And the old she-bear taught her how to catch a scent, how to read animal-tracks in the dirt after rainfall, or notice broken twigs from something passing through not too long ago. And then the girl’s two mothers watched her go off alone to try it for herself.
It didn’t take long for the girl’s nose to catch the scent of a badger. She was a good student, she had learned well how to catch scents. It didn’t take long after that for her eyes to catch badger-tracks in the dirt. She was a good student. And she had learned well, too, how to walk silently. Through the nighttime forest she tracked, quickly but carefully. She kept herself upwind. She startled none of the other creatures of the mountainside, the birds or the mice that might have caused a stir and given her away. Closer, she came, closer and closer, the scent was getting stronger. She must have been very nearly there by now— and yes, she was very nearly there, and then she was there, there she was, there was the badger. A young badger, with one beautiful stripe down its long body, digging for bulbs.
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Closer, the girl snuck. Closer. Closer. As quietly as she could, she shuffled up a nearby tree, gave herself the advantage of height over her prey. Closer. Closer. From tree branch to tree branch, she moved. Closer. Closer. She kept upwind. She kept silent. She was close enough now to leap down and strike in one clean motion, probably. She stilled her breath. She narrowed her eyes. She tightened her grip on the moonstone handle of the knife.
And then she hesitated.
It was just like trapping fish, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? All she had to do was leap down and plunge this knife into that body, like scooping a fish up out of the water, it was just the same, wasn’t it? It was, she was sure, but she was hesitating. And not hesitating in the way that one hesitates for just a moment, just to make sure, just pausing to think about it for one last time before doing what there is to do. She was hesitating in the way that one hesitates when one isn’t sure at all, suddenly. She was hesitating like two of a person’s own muscles straining in opposite directions against each other, trembling, sending trembles, ripples out into the world— not as sounds through the air, but as low, thrumming, vibrations along the taut cords of the Earth’s tight-woven soul. The badger did not hear her. It did not smell her. But it felt vibrations in the soul of the Earth, and it knew that something near her was hesitating, straining hard against itself. It glanced around, searching for the source— nothing on the ground beside it, nothing between the tree trunks, a little further away— but up in the branches themselves, what was that, there? What was that light? What was that silver glow? The badger spied the shine of the girl’s hair glinting dimly off some of the higher leaves, distant to her, and from there it found closer leaves, glinting more brightly, and from there it found the girl herself, her moonlight hair cutting like a fire through the darkness. And from there, it saw the knife in her hand. And from there, everything was clear. The badger went running, scampering, racing off into the forest, and maybe the girl could have chased it and caught it, but she didn’t try to. That wasn’t what this was, anymore, and that would have just been all pretend. She slumped slowly back to the old she-bear, and she let herself drop limp to the dirt at her feet, and she cried and she cried and she cried, and she told the old she-bear everything that had happened, and the she-bear listened, calmly and closely, even though she had known all of it already. The Moon had seen it all as it had happened. The Moon had told her. The girl didn’t want to be a wolf anymore. She didn’t want to be a hunter.
“Shhh,” said the Moon. “Shhh, shhh, all will be well, shhh. Be calm, my daughter, and be patient. We will see what it is that you want to be or not, but right now, what you must be is patient. Wait here, in this pool of my light. Be patient, and be here with me.”
So the girl lay there in her first mother’s moonlight, the same moonlight as her own blood in her own veins, shining just the faintest bit through her skin with the night was dark enough around her, and the night was dark around this moonlight, dark in the shadows of all the trees as the girl’s second mother, the old she-bear, disappeared herself into the black, out of sight. For some time lay there, and lay there, calming herself down, quieting her tears, until finally the Half Moon spoke again.
“Rise to your feet, my daughter, and make your way down the mountainside. Follow the river. Bring with you your knife. Go.”
The girl, she had been taught to always do as her mother told, and so she rose to her feet, took up her silver knife from where she had dropped it, and followed the river down the mountainside— to where? It did not matter to where. Her mother had told her to go, and so she was going. She went and she went, through the same black that the old she-bear had travelled, down and down the mountain she went and she went, along the river, until she saw what she had been going to see. The old she-bear standing by the riverbank in another puddle of moonlight, with a young fawn pinned under her paw, trapped against the dirt. The fawn struggled, it writhed and squirmed to get out from under the she-bear’s weight, but it was for nothing. There was no escaping what was about to happen. And what was about to happen? The fawn had been ready for the bear’s claws to tear it open, or for her paw to crush its neck, but when it saw the girl slowly approaching, it realized all at once the full shape of the situation. And so did she.
The girl took a step closer. Closer, closer. Downwind. In plain sight. She stepped on a twig. It snapped, loud and sharp. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t what this was, anymore, and that would have just been all pretend. The girl stopped.
“You will have to be the one to do it,” said the Moon to her. “But I will help you, my beautiful daughter.”
For the first time in her life, suddenly, the girl learned the feeling of her first mother’s touch. So gentle, so soft, cool as the breeze on her wrists and ankles, nudging her forwards, forwards, a little bit, a little bit, raising her arms, raising the knife. The girl glanced this way and that way— where was her mother? Had the Moon come down to stand beside her?— but no, the Moon was above, always above. It was Her light, now, that urged her daughter forwards, forwards, until she was as close to the fawn as she’d been to the old she-bear’s leg every last morning as she’d fallen asleep. Close enough that she could feel its breath, and it could feel her breath, and they were just one thing breathing back and forth, giving and taking, giving and taking, dewdrops sliding along those taut cords of the Earth.
Again, the girl hesitated. The fawn simply stared. It wasn’t struggling any longer. That wasn’t what this was, anymore. What this was was the girl, the choice she would make, and it wasn’t about anything else other than that. If she could make herself kill it, it would die. If she could not, it would live. There was nothing it could do to change this, and so it simply stared at her, watched to see what she would choose. There was nothing fear could do for it, so it let itself be curious instead.
“I can’t,” whispered the girl to the Moon.
“You can,” whispered the Moon to the girl. “There is nothing you cannot do, in one shape or another. You have no ‘cannot’ inside you, no ‘cannot’ in the moonlight blood I gave to you,” whispered the Moon to the girl. “You have only ‘will’ and ‘won’t’,” whispered the Moon to the girl, who couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking. “Will you? Or won’t you?”
She did. One sharp motion. An end to things.
Her hands stopped shaking. The fawn stopped twitching. The blood stopped pouring. The torn-off vessels of the girl’s heart stopped draining away. It would be a long time before those torn-off vessels began to scab shut, but they would, now, it was a certain thing. The second thing she killed, whenever she killed it, she would not hesitate. Not for the shine of the blood in her veins, not for the shine of her eyes and her hair. A little sprig of death had been sprouted inside her now, and it would grow and it would grow and it would grow, leaves and shoots and petals, as it grows in everyone who faces it, leaves and shoots and petals, however much they might love it or hate it or crave it or fear it. It was growing already. Her first mother, the Moon, her second mother, the old she-bear, neither of them told her what she needed to do next, or how, all they did was watch together as their daughter began to carve up the fawn, separate the meat from the pelt, carve the skin and fur into a long shawl with which she could cover her pale-glowing hair the next time she went hunting, make herself as dark as the midnight, aside from her eyes. The fawn's beautiful spotted coat dangled down her back, its slender front-hooves draped upon her shoulders. Its head sat now neatly atop the girl’s, prim ears like the points of a crown, snout perked forwards over her brow, with the light of her hair spilling just the slightest bit from its own empty eye-sockets, like a phantom of her true self made solid, what she really was. She had learned how to kill, tonight, and she had learned the first thing about the shape that death asked her to become. There is nothing truer about children than that they want to become. The girl would not be spotted again in the treetops.
The Moon taught the girl to make a fire. The Moon taught the girl to cook the meat of the fawn, make it safe to eat. The old she-bear kept her distance from the crackling light and heat— for all of the light and the heat and the love and the pride for her daughter inside her, she was an old she-bear, that was what she was, and the fire didn’t belong to her anymore.
