Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

you know how we live here.’
    ‘Yes. Well maybe I don’t want to live here.’
    Luna sees Rafa look up.
    ‘I know how we live in Twé. It’s a good place, Twé. It’s a safe place. With my people , Rafa. I want to take Luna there.’
    Luna gasps. The shaft is so tight she can’t press hands to mouth, to try and call back the noise. They might have heard. But then she thinks, Boa Vista is full of sighs and whispers.
    Rafa is on his feet. When he is angry, he gets close, breath-close. Spit-in-my face close. Lousika doesn’t flinch.
    ‘You’re not taking Luna.’
    ‘She’s not safe here.’
    ‘My children stay with me.’
    ‘Your children?’
    ‘Didn’t you read the nikah? Or were you too eager to jump into bed with the heir apparent of Corta Hélio.’
    ‘Rafa. No. Don’t say this. This is beneath you. This is not you.’
    Rafa’s anger is stoked now. Anger is his sin. It is the other side of his affability: easy to laugh, to play, to make love. Easy to rage.
    ‘You know? Maybe your people planned …’
    ‘Rafa. Stop.’ Lousika presses her fingers to Rafa lips. She knows his anger is as quick to ebb as to flow. ‘I would never, ever plot against you – not me, not my people – to get hold of Luna.’
    ‘Luna stays with me.’
    ‘Yes. But I won’t.’
    ‘I don’t want you to go. This is your home. With me. With Luna.’
    ‘I’m not safe here. Luna’s not safe. But the nikah won’t let me take her. If you’d once said you were sorry that your escoltas put a knife to my throat, it might be different. You were angry. You weren’t sorry.’
    Now her father speaks but Luna can’t hear his words. She can’t hear anything but a rushing noise inside her head that is the sound of the worst things in the world arriving. Her mamãe is going away. Her chest is tight. Her head rings with the horrible hissing, like air and life leaking away. Luna wriggles free, pushes herself down the shaft away from the hidey-hole where she overheard too much. She has scuffed her shoes and torn her Pierre Cardin dress on the raw stone.

    The rain has swept the dead butterflies into floes and flotsam. Their wings form an azure scum around the lips of pools. Luna Corta sits among the corpses.
    ‘Hey hey hey, what is it?’ Lousika Asamoah crouches beside her daughter.
    ‘The butterflies died.’
    ‘They don’t live very long. Just a day.’
    ‘I liked them. They were pretty. It’s not fair.’
    ‘That’s how we make them.’
    Lousika kicks off her shoes and sits down on the stone beside Luna. She swishes her feet in the water. Blue wings cling to her dark legs.
    ‘You could make them live longer than a day,’ Luna says.
    ‘We could, but what would they eat? Where would they go? They’re decorations, like flags for Yam Festival.’
    ‘But they’re not,’ Luna says. ‘They’re alive.’
    ‘Luna, what happened to your shoes?’ Lousika says. ‘And your dress.’
    Luna looks at the floes of butterflies slowly drifting downstream.
    ‘You’re going away.’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘I heard you say it.’
    None of the questions Lousika could ask have any meaning here.
    ‘Yes. I am going back to Twé, back to my family. But only for a while. Not for always.’
    ‘How long?’
    ‘I don’t know, love. No longer than I have to.’
    ‘But I’m not going with you.’
    ‘No. I would love to, more than anything – more than myself – but I can’t.’
    ‘Am I safe, Mama?’
    Lousika hugs Luna to her, kisses the top of her head.
    ‘You’re safe. Papa will keep you safe. He’ll tear the head off anyone who tries to hurt you. But I have to go until things are clear. I don’t want to, and I will miss you so much. Papa will look after you, and Madrinha Elis. Elis will not let anything hurt you.’
    The words burn Lousika Asamoah’s throat. Madrinhas, host mothers. Hired wombs, who become nannies, who become unofficial aunts, become family. For small corporations like the Cortas with a business