Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“I tell you what,” she said, having an idea. “My name is Hanna. What’s your name?”
“You already said it—my name is Luna. But Mommy calls me ‘Little Luna,’” the little girl replied.
“Little Luna, it’s very nice to meet you.” Hanna put out her hand. The child looked at it for a long time, but finally she took it.
Hanna shook hands with her cheerfully and smiled.
“Look at that—we just got introduced to each other!” she said, laughing a little. “That means we’re not strangers anymore.”
“We’re not?” The little girl’s brow furrowed and then cleared. “Okay—I guess we’re not.” She smiled at Hanna. “So what should we do now? Do you want to be my friend and play in the sand with me? It’s almost like the beach…except there isn’t any ocean,” she added, sadly.
“We can play in a minute but first, can we go on a walk?” Hanna stood and held out a hand to her. “I think if we hurry, we can find the way back to your Mommy. Wouldn’t you like to see her again?”
“Oh—Mommy! Yes, I miss Mommy and Daddy so much!” Luna jumped up and gave Hanna her rather damp little hand.
“Then let’s go see her.” Hanna smiled down at the little girl. “Let’s go see your Mommy.”
And the two of them began the long walk back.
21
HANNA
Time moves differently in the Shadow Lands. Hanna felt as though she had been trudging for hours, keeping Little Luna firmly by the hand. At first she had been afraid that she’d gone too far—that there was no getting back to the Land of the Living. But little by little, the tiny bright spark that was the door that led to the hospital room began to grow bigger.
Luna walked by her side, uncomplaining. In the living world she might have said that she was hungry or thirsty or that she needed to go to the bathroom. But in the Shadow Lands there is neither hunger nor thirst—neither intake nor elimination. That which is, is and it never changes.
Going back was like walking through quicksand, Hanna thought. Or maybe just really thick mud. The Shadow Lands seemed to suck at her and the girl beside her—Luna especially had been there long enough that the gray half-life considered her its own and wanted to keep her.
But they persevered and after what felt like hours and hours, the door was at last right in front of them. Luna had been keeping her head down as they walked—the effort to keep moving was clearly taking all her energy. But then the sounds of the Living Lands drifted out to them and she heard her mother’s voice.
“Mommy!” she exclaimed, looking up eagerly. She saw her mother standing beside the hospital bed and frowned and looked up at Hanna. “There’s my Mommy…but who is that little girl in the bed?” she asked. “She looks like me.”
“That’s because she is you,” Hanna told her.
“She is? But how can she be me when I’m me?” The little girl looked confused.
“I should have said she’s part of you,” Hanna corrected herself. “She’s the part that can run and play in the sun—she doesn’t have to stay in the gray place.”
“I don’t want to be in the gray place, either! I want my Mommy!” Luna started to run through the door but Hanna gripped her hand, stopping her.
“Wait!” She crouched down beside the little girl, putting herself on her level. “Listen to me, Luna,” she said firmly. “I know what you want to do—you want to run in there and hug your Mommy right away—right?”
“Yes! Yes, I do!” The little girl was beginning to cry now—a good sign, Hanna thought, that she could produce tears in this vast, arid desert.
“But first you have to jump into the little girl in the bed,” Hanna told her. “She’s part of you, remember? Until the two of you join up again, your Mommy won’t be able to hear you or see you. Do you understand?”
“I think so…” Luna said slowly. “Jump in the girl on the bed and then my Mommy can see me?”
“And hear you and hug you,” Hanna told her, nodding. “Can you promise to do that for me?”
“Yes, yes—I promise!” Luna was tugging at her hand. Her eyes were fixed on the scene in the hospital room. Hanna’s were too. The girl in the bed, her grieving mother—Aunt Luna and Uncle Bruin, who was holding Hanna’s own limp body carefully and giving her worried looks.
Hanna wanted to jump into her own body as well, but she knew she had to wait and be sure that Luna got into hers first. If she somehow missed and wound up back in the Shadow Lands, Hanna had to be there to catch her and redirect her.
“Okay,” she said to the little girl. “On the count of three, you’re going to run into the room and jump into that little girl. Are you ready? One…two…three!”