Read Online The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill - Free Book Online

her, when she was still a child.
    â€œDon’t forget,” it said on one side of the stone.
    â€œI mean it,” it said on the other.
    Don’t forget what?
    You mean what, Zosimos?
    She wasn’t sure. Despite the spottiness of her memories, one thing she
did
remember was his tendency toward the obscure. And his assumption that because vague words and insinuations were clear enough for him, they must be perfectly comprehensible to all.
    And after all these years, Xan remembered how
annoying
she had found it then.
    â€œConfound that man,” she said.
    She approached the stone and leaned her forehead against the deeply carved words, as if the stone might be Zosimos himself.
    â€œOh, Zosimos,” she said, feeling a surge of emotion that she hadn’t felt in nearly five centuries. “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten. I didn’t mean to, but—”
    The surge of magic hit her like a falling boulder, knocking her backward. She landed with a thud on her creaking hips. She stared at the stone, openmouthed.
    The stone is enmagicked!
she thought to herself.
Of course!
    And she looked up at the stone just as a seam appeared down the middle and the two sides swung inward, like great stone doors.
    Not
like
stone doors,
Xan thought.
They
are
stone doors.
    The shape of the stone still stood like a doorway against the blue sky, but the entrance itself opened into a very dim corridor where a set of stone steps disappeared into the dark.
    And in a flash, Xan remembered that day. She was thirteen years old and terribly impressed with her own witchy cleverness. And her teacher—once so strong and powerful—was fading by the day.
    â€œBe careful of your sorrow,” he had said. He was so old then. Impossibly old. He was all angles and bones and papery skin, like a cricket. “Your sorrow is dangerous. Don’t forget that
she
is still about.” And so Xan had swallowed her sorrow. And her memories, too. She buried both so deep that she would never find them. Or so she thought.
    But now she remembered the castle—
she remembered!
Its crumbly strangeness. Its nonsensical corridors. And the people who lived in the castle—not just the wizards and scholars, but the cooks and scribes and assistants as well. She remembered how they scattered into the forest when the volcano erupted. She remembered how she put protective spells on each of them—well, each of them but
one—
and prayed to the stars that each spell would hold as they ran. She remembered how Zosimos hid the castle within each stone in the circle. Each stone was a door. “Same castle, different doors. Don’t forget. I mean it.”
    â€œI won’t forget,” she said at thirteen.
    â€œYou will surely forget, Xan. Have you not met yourself?” He was so old then. How did he get so old? He had practically withered to dust. “But not to worry. I have built that into the spell. Now if you don’t mind, my dear. I have treasured knowing you, and lamented knowing you, and found myself laughing in spite of myself each day we were together. But that is all past now, and you and I must part. I have many thousands of people to protect from that blasted volcano, and I do hope you’ll make sure they are ever so thankful, won’t you dear?” He shook his head sadly. “What am I saying? Of course you won’t.” And he and the Simply Enormous Dragon disappeared into the smoke and plunged themselves into the heart of the mountain, stopping the eruption, forcing the volcano into a restless sleep.
    And both were gone forever.
    Xan never did anything to protect his memory, or to explain what he had done.
    Indeed, within a year, she could barely remember him. It never occurred to her to find it strange—the part of her that
would
have found it strange was on the other side of the curtain. Lost in the fog.
    She peered into the gloom of the hidden castle. Her old bones ached, and her