Chapter Three:
The title page of Moon Children was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Like the rest of the book, it looked as if it came from somewhere in the tenth century, but it held such an intricate beauty that you couldn't look at it for any long period of time without getting lost in the many detailed ink pictures that adorned the borders. There was only the title there; decorated with full moons and what appeared to be strange wolf-people, with tails, ears and crazed, staring eyes. These miniature ink people freaked me out a bit, but even so I could not take my eyes away from the complex drawings. It looked as though the longer I stared, the more realistic and lifelike the figures seemed. They seemed almost to move, going about their daily businesses hunting and running through their drawn up forest, oblivious to the young teenage girl watching their every move.
But of course they weren't actually moving, it was just my imagination again, surely. I wrenched my eyes away and instantly felt as though I had woken from a sleep, awake and refreshed. With new vigour, I turned to the place where the first chapter would be, eagerly await the next new surprise. It's almost as though there's a spell on the book, I marvelled. The lack of author and inconspicuous cover makes it blend in, like a spell of invisibility, but when you open the cover the spell goes away and you have to keep reading, no matter what. I kept looking and flipping through the pages.
I looked at the borders of the pages, finding that every header and footer was decorated with the same mesmerising ink drawings, all different. On one page, a wolf man and woman were hunting prey deep in the forest, their hands and tails entwined in love. They ran as fast as the falcons above them were flying, and yet their attention was only on each other. On another page, children played in the bracken under the watchful eye of some elders. They tumbled over and over in the grass, play fighting and sweeping their dappled tails around in glee. The elders seemed to enjoy the children's laughter and their ears and tails almost twitched with happiness.
For the second time that day, I felt as though my life wouldn't have been wasted if I sat and watched them forever. Wait, I thought, stopping in my tracks. It's the spell working on me again. How am I going to read the words if all I can do is look at the pictures? With that thought urging me on, I tore my eyes away from the lives of the wolf people and flipped to the front of the book to begin chapter one. Excitement rose slowly inside me, like a balloon filled with helium, ever rising. I was eager to find out what the book had been keeping from me that I nearly ripped a page off, but finally I would find out, and that was all that mattered. I stared hard at the page where chapter one was.
But there was nothing there, only blankness where the words should be. I blinked, disbelieving. What had happened? Where were the words? Nothing has happened, silly, I chastised myself; I was just too distracted by the pretty pictures to notice that there were no words to go with them. Typical. My helium filled balloon burst abruptly, leaving only tatters of the former enthusiasm. I had thought that the illustrations were there to stop people seeing what secrets lay in the pages but I was wrong. There was nothing there, and my excitement had been for nothing. A deep disappointment sank in the pit of my stomach, and I closed the book, coughing as a cloud of dust rose from the pages.
Well, that was a failure. As the realisation that it was all wasted came to me in full force – for of course I couldn't look at the pictures now, I would be stuck for good – anger washed over me like a wave. I had gotten so hyped up, all for what? To be disappointed yet again. It felt like my life story, this endless rollercoaster of highs and lows, excitement and frustration. I wanted to hit the book that had caused this, to make sure it couldn't hurt anyone again. It was a needless overreaction and completely irrational, I knew, but I couldn't stop myself. I raised my fist above the symbol on the cover, the symbol I had puzzled over, and brought it down with a mighty thump.
The symbol took the blow, sinking into the cover and emitting an ominous clicking sound from somewhere deep inside. I withdrew my hand, startled and ashamed of my unintentional vandalism. What if the symbol never came out? That wasn't the way to treat priceless books, even if they had no words in them. I prised my finger into the gap where the symbol had been and waggled it around; trying to worm it out of the gap and into its rightful place, but it wouldn't budge.
Keeping my temper, I tried to do it again, and then finally banged it as hard as I could. My twisted logic was that maybe if it came in that way, it would go out that way too. Strangely enough, it worked, and the symbol flew out of the cover, trailing something long and black behind it. I caught it in midair as I sped past me, and saw that the once symbol was now a necklace, and a black cord had attached itself to the end.
The full moon and echo lines engraved in the bone shone with an inner ambience in the pale afternoon light and I felt a strange urge to hug the necklace, if that was possible. Acting on impulse, I undid the latch on the cord and slid it over my head and around my neck. It felt right there, as if it had been there all my life. The place where the necklace had been was still an ugly hole in the leather of the book, but at least I knew that I would always have a part of the book with me now, and that lessened the shame.
I turned to the flipside of the symbol and saw a single word engraved in the bone. It was done immaculately, like the rest of the book, in fancy curlicues and running writing but was still legible. Echo it read, like a strange proclamation to the century in which it belonged. The word echoed around my mind, and I wondered what it could possibly mean. Echo, echo, echo. . . . A slowly fading promise of greater things to come.