Chapter 6 Finn Feenbart and the Bridge of Moonlight

More about Chapter 6 Finn Feenbart and the Bridge of Moonlight

The day lingered, as if afraid of its own end. The moon came late, as if tired, but then it shone so brightly that every blade of grass was its own pointer and every ripple of wind like a soft tick. Finn stood at the edge of a ravine that during the day had been nothing but scree and shadows. Now there lay a bridge, as fine as the breath of a spider's web: an arch of moonlight, anchored at both ends in nothing, yet holding fast as if resting on the silent hand of an invisible giantess. "You may only cross if you wear nothing that makes noise," said a voice behind him. An owl sat there, gray and large, with a thin ribbon around its neck from which hung a tiny clock whose hands ran backward. "Noises travel through moonlight. You would fall with them." Finn nodded. He reached into his satchel. Inside was the remainder of the mushroom market—fragrant breadcrumbs, a thread of laughter that wrapped around his fingers, half a melody from the beetle's cap that tickled, and a piece of silence he'd received as change back then without realizing it. He took everything out, placed it on a stone, until only the silence remained. It was warm like a trouser pocket after a long day. "You can take this," the owl said. "Silence doesn't fall. It lifts." Finn stepped onto the bridge. The moonlight was soft, but beneath his soles it taut, as if it were serious. From the middle, he looked down into the gorge where mists swam like blind fish. On the other side, a figure waited—first just a shadow, then a dancer of thin smoke. She bowed, and Finn recognized the manner of the step: it was the dance of shadows he had once seen dance. "I'm looking for a word," she said, and her voice was the rustle of a curtain against the night air. “It’s not mine, but I owe it to someone.” Finn raised the silence to his ear. “Words come easily when you make room for them.” “Then give me room,” she asked. He nodded, and she stepped beside him in the middle of the bridge, right where the moonlight was thinnest. She raised her arms, and her shadow didn’t fall. Instead, a soft sound rose from the chasm, so delicate that Finn initially thought he heard the owl breathing. The sound grew, clinging like a thread to the edges of her movement, becoming a word that hadn’t been spoken but danced: “The day after tomorrow,” the dance said, and the chasm closed like a book. “Who do you owe it to?” Finn asked. “To Time,” she answered. “It lost it and has been running a little crooked ever since.” She smiled, and the moon placed a crown of light in her hair. “Take it. The day after tomorrow belongs to everyone who doesn’t yet know how to get from here to there, but believes they can.” Finn gently tucked the day after tomorrow into his satchel, silencing it.