She grabbed his hand again and yanked him from his seat on the tree trunk. “You’ll love it,” she declared and led him to the strip of muddy bank where treasure awaited them.
They spent the remainder of the day catching and releasing panicked frogs, outraged crayfish, and the occasional confused dragonflies whose pearlescent bodies and transparent wings shimmered in the sun. A makeshift lunch of wild plums and bitter dandelion greens subdued their growling bellies, and theywashed their hands in the creek only to dirty them again as they gathered empty snail shells and pink stones polished smooth by water onto a flat rock that jutted out from the banks.
As the sun sank in the west, it hurled a last volley of golden javelins across the creek. Disaris raised her face to the light, closing her eyes against the fading brightness. She opened them once more and spotted Bron nearby, watching her as he stood in the lengthening shadows cast by the palisade of trees around him.
“Come sit by me, Bron,” she called, gesturing to him.
He shook his head. “I can’t. The sun makes me turn red and gives me blisters if I’m in it too long.”
She shrugged and rose from her crouch. “Then I’ll come stand by you.” She skipped toward him, the wet hem of her frock dragging twigs along with it so she made a crackling noise as she approached. He didn’t pull away when she reached for his hand and gave him a wide grin. “See? You don’t have to stand alone.”
He didn’t grin back. “Aren’t you going to tease me about the sun?”
Disaris frowned, confused by the question. She’d considered teasing him when the first frog he caught almost jumped down the opening of his shirt, but thought better of it, afraid he’d give up and go home. She didn’t see what might be funny about getting sunburnt or blistered. “No. Midges make me itch when they bite. The sun makes you blister. It’s the same.”
He tilted his head to one side, considering her, expression still solemn. “You’re right.”
She squeezed his hand, noting the dried mud caked under his fingernails and smeared across his knuckles. Her hand looked just as dirty. A dreaded bath was surely in her future, but her afternoon with the moon boy made it worth that future torture. “I’m right a lot,” she boasted.
“Is that so?”
Bron’s doubtful tone and look didn’t sway her from her declaration. Even if he was two years older than she, she had learned much about the world at the great age of six. She knew things, including the fact it was time to go home, even if she’d be content to stay all night here with her new friend.
Disaris’s mother was the first to behold the evidence of their time at the creek. She blocked the entrance to the house, staring at both children with a frown as they stood before her, muddy, unkempt, and stinking of creek sludge. “You’re both a right mess,” she said, arms akimbo. “Did you catch frogs or have a mud fight?” Something in Disaris’s expression must have alarmed her because she didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind. That wasn’t a suggestion.” She waved them over to the well and the pair of buckets set nearby. “Neither of you is fit to come inside yet. Pull up water from the well and rinse off your faces, arms, and feet. Bron, I’ll bring you something clean to change into. Tell your mother I’ll wash your clothes and send Disa over to return them.” She pointed a finger at Disa. “You’re still getting a bath tonight.”
Disaris stomped her foot. “Awww, Amman!” She dragged the complaint out in a prolonged whine.
“No ‘buts.’ Get rinsed and come inside. Your eitan will take Bron home.”
Disaris clutched a startled Bron’s filthy shirt sleeve. “I want to go with them,” she begged her mother.
“No.”
When Gheza shortened her responses to single words, everyone in her household heeded the warning. Disaris dropped her argument with a quiet sigh and slouched toward the well, Bron beside her.
As they pulled up buckets filled with water and wiped off the mud with the drying cloths Gheza had left with them, Disaris barraged him with rapid-fire questions. “Can you come overtomorrow? Can I come to your house? Have you ever tasted honeysuckle nectar? Do you know how to climb trees? Can you fish?”
Bron stared at her, silent, until she finally ran out of breath and stopped to inhale. “I can fish, and I can swim,” he finally replied.
“You can swim?” He could have told her he could fly, and she wouldn’t have been more amazed. “Teach me! I want to learn!”
He frowned. “I don’t know. I have to ask my amman first.”
Once they had cleaned off most of the mud and Bron changed into an old shirt that belonged to one of Disaris’s cousins, Gheza sent him home with her husband. Disaris stood beside her mother, watching them leave and wishing she walked with them. “Come back tomorrow, Bron!” she bellowed, jumping up and down as she waved goodbye. She muttered a reluctant apology when her amman admonished her for waking the dead with her noise.
The next morning, she woke with the sun, wolfed down her bowl of porridge and finished her chores in half the time it normally took her. She then took up sentry duty in the front garden, praying Bron would visit, and they could hunt frogs again, or chase hummingbirds, or learn to swim.
He didn’t appear that day or the day after, and Disaris moped about, even when her friend Nazlen came over to play while Nazlen’s mother shared tea and gossip with Gheza. It wasn’t until the third day after their afternoon of frog hunting that Disaris’s gray world brightened again.
She’d finished her task of picking peas and squash to go with the turnips her amman planned to stew for their supper. Disaris hated turnips and trudged back to the house, basket under her arm, thinking up excuses for why she shouldn’t eat the world’s worst-tasting vegetable. Distracted by such weighty thoughts, she tripped over a stone in the walkway. The basket flew out ofher grasp as she pitched forward, peas and squash flying in every direction. She stretched out her arms to catch herself and ended up scraping skin off her palms for the effort.
Sad that her new friend hadn’t come to see her, dreading the supper awaiting her, and now having to pick up the scattered contents of her basket with abraded hands, Disaris sat in the middle of the walkway, threw the offending stone across the garden, and began to cry.
She was wiping her snotty nose across her sleeve when a voice spoke behind her that instantly halted her tears.
“Why are you crying?”
She leaped to her feet and spun about. Summer light, streaked with pink and orange from the westering sun, spilled across the sky, casting a nimbus of light around her visitor. Lit from without by the sun and from within by the moon, the lovely boy stared at her with a wary expression.
