could barely look at it—it had some kind of burn or chill about it—but she glimpsed within the baby-shape other shapes turning, moving, plumping and contracting; the vague attempts at form of whatever force had suspended her bab, had intervened and cut the connection between her act and its consequence. A vast power had had to be channelled—she was awed and hotly ashamedthat it must—through this small aperture so as to be tolerable to Liga’s senses, so as to handle the mortal scrap of her child without harming it, so as not to break either of them with its strangeness and strength.
What are your babbies’ names?
it said, direct into her mind.
Babbies? Babbies more than this one? Should Liga have named that stain in the snow? That little blue personage so quickly handed over to Da? ‘I have not given this one a name, not as yet,’ Liga said. ‘I had not really thought of it.’
No name?
it thought at her, astonished, and perhaps also offended. She had not known that she was accountable to such a thing.
‘Because, you see, we never—I have not taken her into the town,’ said Liga. ‘I have not met anyone with her. There has been no need for a name; she is the only other person in the world with me. She is ‘babby’, or ‘my little one’.’
There will be need, though
, the moonish matter thought, flesh or cloth or whatever it was.
To distinguish the one from the other
.
Part of it burst and laughed, the lightest, shortest bit of delight. From the bursting it thrust a luminous limb, much like a baby’s arm in shape, if not in movement. Whether the hand was tiny or vast Liga could not tell, but on its palm an immense clear jewel lay and glinted.
Liga was frightened to take it, but she was more afraid that the light, that the flesh, of the child-thing would touch her and burn her, or worse. So she took the stone, neither hot nor cold as it was, neither painful nor pleasurable nor yet entirely inert, into her own ordinary hand.
A second limb of light, opposite and yet not opposite the first, erupted from the mass, bringing another jewel, but a black one this time, which when Liga took it showed through its heart a gleam of this moon-child’s light, turned red by the gem’s internals.
‘But what am I to use these for?’ said Liga. ‘People will ask how I came by them. They will string me up for thieving. They will cut off my hands.’
Paff
, said the moon-baby.
This is not for selling. This is for planting. Plant the clear stone by the northern end of your doorstep; then the red
by the southern. Then sleep, child. Rest your sore heart and your insulted frame, and begin again tomorrow
.
‘But how shall I get home? I am quite lost here.’
A globe of light the size and shape, perhaps, of a ripe plum broke from the moon-child, moved towards the trees, and waited there at their fringe. Liga followed, and the globe went in among them, along the path she had arrived by. The moon-bab emitted something like a laugh, something like a sigh; it hovered there behind her at the cliff-edge, labouring to contain its glory. She glanced back many times as she went, watching the moon-child shrink and reappear among the accumulating trees, until at last they obscured it altogether.
3
The moon-plum dipped and skated ahead, lighting every crease and pock and root of the path, sinking to show the muddy places, bobbing higher to point out low-hanging branches. Liga began to recognise some of these branches, some of these knolls. Her spirits should be cast down, she thought, at coming back here when she had vowed to leave the place forever. But her returning seemed hardly related at all to her leaving, so distressed had she been and so calm was she now, and so companioned by the light of this plum-thing so confidently leading her.
Besides, she was tired from all her wandering, and injured and weak from the day’s events, so for a long while’s walking she did not have the spirit to think or feel anything
What are your babbies’ names?
it said, direct into her mind.
Babbies? Babbies more than this one? Should Liga have named that stain in the snow? That little blue personage so quickly handed over to Da? ‘I have not given this one a name, not as yet,’ Liga said. ‘I had not really thought of it.’
No name?
it thought at her, astonished, and perhaps also offended. She had not known that she was accountable to such a thing.
‘Because, you see, we never—I have not taken her into the town,’ said Liga. ‘I have not met anyone with her. There has been no need for a name; she is the only other person in the world with me. She is ‘babby’, or ‘my little one’.’
There will be need, though
, the moonish matter thought, flesh or cloth or whatever it was.
To distinguish the one from the other
.
Part of it burst and laughed, the lightest, shortest bit of delight. From the bursting it thrust a luminous limb, much like a baby’s arm in shape, if not in movement. Whether the hand was tiny or vast Liga could not tell, but on its palm an immense clear jewel lay and glinted.
Liga was frightened to take it, but she was more afraid that the light, that the flesh, of the child-thing would touch her and burn her, or worse. So she took the stone, neither hot nor cold as it was, neither painful nor pleasurable nor yet entirely inert, into her own ordinary hand.
A second limb of light, opposite and yet not opposite the first, erupted from the mass, bringing another jewel, but a black one this time, which when Liga took it showed through its heart a gleam of this moon-child’s light, turned red by the gem’s internals.
‘But what am I to use these for?’ said Liga. ‘People will ask how I came by them. They will string me up for thieving. They will cut off my hands.’
Paff
, said the moon-baby.
This is not for selling. This is for planting. Plant the clear stone by the northern end of your doorstep; then the red
by the southern. Then sleep, child. Rest your sore heart and your insulted frame, and begin again tomorrow
.
‘But how shall I get home? I am quite lost here.’
A globe of light the size and shape, perhaps, of a ripe plum broke from the moon-child, moved towards the trees, and waited there at their fringe. Liga followed, and the globe went in among them, along the path she had arrived by. The moon-bab emitted something like a laugh, something like a sigh; it hovered there behind her at the cliff-edge, labouring to contain its glory. She glanced back many times as she went, watching the moon-child shrink and reappear among the accumulating trees, until at last they obscured it altogether.
3
The moon-plum dipped and skated ahead, lighting every crease and pock and root of the path, sinking to show the muddy places, bobbing higher to point out low-hanging branches. Liga began to recognise some of these branches, some of these knolls. Her spirits should be cast down, she thought, at coming back here when she had vowed to leave the place forever. But her returning seemed hardly related at all to her leaving, so distressed had she been and so calm was she now, and so companioned by the light of this plum-thing so confidently leading her.
Besides, she was tired from all her wandering, and injured and weak from the day’s events, so for a long while’s walking she did not have the spirit to think or feel anything
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