The Creature from the Moon

The first time I stole the moon, I was seventeen years old and desperate to bring my sister back from the dead.

The second time, I was trying to save the world.

The third time, I discovered the moon had been stealing things from me all along.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

My name is Eveline Thorne, and I am a witch. Not the sort who sells love potions to lonely farmers or charms apples to keep worms from their skins. I practice the old magic, the kind that demands blood, memories, and occasionally a piece of your soul.

My grandmother taught me everything she knew before she died screaming in a language that no human throat should be able to form.

Her final words were these:

“Never trust anything that shines in the dark.”

At the time, I thought she meant the faeries.

I was wrong.

It began on a winter night when the moon hung enormous above our village, its silver light spilling across the snow like milk poured over a grave. My younger sister, Shannon, had been dead for three days. A fever had taken her quickly, leaving me alone in our cottage with a cold hearth, an empty pantry, and a body wrapped in my best bedsheets.

I had tried everything.

I had boiled mandrake roots, crushed graveyard mushrooms, and whispered incantations over her pale lips until my voice became a rasp. I had offered my own blood to the household spirits and promised the river a year of my life.

Nothing answered.

Then I remembered my grandmother's forbidden book.

It lay beneath a loose floorboard, bound in black leather and fastened with a clasp made from human teeth. I had been forbidden to open it until I understood the difference between wanting something and needing it.

I understood now.

I opened the book.

The pages smelled of wet earth and old bones. Most were filled with symbols I couldn't decipher, but near the back I found a drawing of the moon suspended in a circle of thorned branches.

Beneath it were seven words.

What the moon takes, the moon must return.

The instructions were simple enough. Build a circle of salt and ash. Light seven candles. Speak the name of the dead beneath an open sky.

Then reach into the moonlight and pull.

I carried Shannon's body outside.

The snow crunched beneath my bare feet. Above me, the moon watched with a face so bright it seemed almost alive.

I drew the circle.

I lit the candles.

And I spoke my sister's name.

“Shannon Thorne.”

Nothing happened.

I said it again, louder.

“Shannon Thorne!”

The moonlight changed.

It gathered around my hands like liquid silver, curling between my fingers. The air grew cold enough to freeze the tears on my cheeks. Somewhere in the darkness, something laughed.

I reached upward.

My fingers closed around the moon.

It felt like ice wrapped in silk.

I pulled.

The sky screamed.

Every window in the village shattered at once. The church bell rang without a hand to strike it. Shadows stretched across the snow, twisting into shapes that looked almost human.

And the moon came down.

Not all the way. Only a fragment, no larger than an apple, broke free and fell into my hands.

It pulsed like a living heart.

I pressed it against Shannon's chest.

For one terrible moment, the world went silent.

Then my sister inhaled.

Her eyes opened.

And she smiled at me.

“Eveline,” she whispered. “Why did you wake me?”

I threw my arms around her, sobbing into her hair. She was warm. Alive. Her heart beat beneath my palm.

I had done it.

I had conquered death.

That was when Shannon looked over my shoulder and began to scream.

Something stood at the edge of the forest.

It was tall and thin, with limbs that bent in too many places. Its skin shimmered like moonlight on water, and its face was a smooth white oval without eyes or a mouth.

Yet I heard it speak inside my skull.

Thief.

The fragment in my hands turned black.

The creature took one step toward us.

I grabbed Shannon and ran.

Behind us, the thing followed without making a sound.

We reached the cottage and slammed the door. I drew protective symbols across the wood, scattered salt over the windowsills, and shoved a burning poker through the handles.

The creature stopped outside.

Its faceless head tilted.

Then it whispered through the walls.

Three nights.

The candles extinguished.

Three nights to return what you stole.

Then it was gone.

I should have been afraid.

Instead, I laughed.

My sister was alive. Whatever price the moon demanded, I would find a way to pay it.

I had no idea how expensive a miracle could become.

By morning, the moon had vanished.

The sky was an endless black void, even after sunrise. The sun rose weakly, a dull red smear behind the clouds, and the village awoke to a world that no longer behaved as it should.

Cows gave birth to blind calves with silver teeth. Rivers flowed backward. People forgot the names of their children.

And every night, the shadows grew longer.

Shannon seemed perfectly healthy, but something about her had changed.

She no longer slept.

She stood at the window for hours, staring into the dark sky. Sometimes I caught her whispering to the empty air.

“What are you saying?” I asked on the first evening.

She turned toward me.

“Nothing.”

“Shannon.”

She smiled, and for an instant her teeth shone like polished bone.

“The moon misses you.”

I gripped the edge of the table.

“What does that mean?”

“It says you should give it back.”

I took her by the shoulders. “You are my sister. Whatever it is speaking through you, you must fight it.”

Her smile disappeared.

“I'm not your sister.”

The words struck harder than any curse.

Shannon blinked. Confusion crossed her face, followed by terror.

Then she collapsed.

I caught her before she struck the floor.

Her skin was freezing.

Beneath it, something silver moved through her veins.

That night, I searched my grandmother's book again. I read until my eyes burned and my fingers cramped. At last, I found a passage hidden beneath a layer of dried blood.

The moon is not a stone in the heavens. It is a prison.

Within it sleeps the first hunger, older than the stars. It feeds upon death, borrowing the faces of those we mourn. Those who steal its light steal its chains.

When the prison breaks, the hunger shall walk.

I read the passage three times.

Then I understood.

The moon had not brought Shannon back.

It had sent something wearing her face.

I staggered away from the book.

From the bed behind me came a soft voice.

“Eveline?”

Shannon sat upright.

Her eyes were entirely silver.

“You have to let me out,” she whispered.

I backed toward the door.

“What are you?”

Her face crumpled into something almost like sadness.

“I am what remains when someone loves the dead more than the living.”

The cottage walls began to tremble.

Outside, the village bells rang.

Once.

Twice.

Then the entire world went dark.

On the second night, the dead came home.

They walked out of the graveyard in their burial clothes, their eyes shining silver beneath the starless sky. Some wore familiar faces. Others had been dead so long that their flesh had become a memory.

They gathered outside my cottage.

My father stood among them.

He had been killed by a winter wolf when I was twelve. I remembered his laughter, his rough hands, the smell of woodsmoke in his beard.

Now he stood in the snow, smiling.

“Little witch,” he called.

I pressed my forehead against the window.

I had not cried for him in years.

“Come outside,” he said. “Your sister is waiting.”

Behind me, Shannon began to weep.

“Don't listen,” she whispered.

I turned.

She was herself again, or something close enough to hurt. Her cheeks were wet. Her hands trembled.

“Eveline, please. I don't know what I am, but I know it isn't me.”

I wanted to believe her.

Then my father knocked on the door.

Three gentle taps.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “Let me in.”

I reached for the latch.

Shannon seized my wrist.

“Look at his shadow.”

I glanced through the window.

My father stood beneath the pale glow of the red sun.

His shadow stretched across the snow.

It had antlers.

Its hands ended in claws.

And its head turned toward me even though my father's face remained fixed on the door.

I stumbled backward.

The thing outside laughed.

Its face split open, revealing a cavern filled with tiny white stars.

Two nights, thief.

The dead surged forward.

I threw a handful of salt into the fire, spoke the oldest protection spell I knew, and watched blue flames race around the cottage walls.

The dead shrieked as the light drove them back.

When the screaming stopped, I found Shannon crouched beneath the table.

She looked up at me with my sister's brown eyes.

“There's something I need to tell you,” she whispered.

I knelt beside her.

“What?”

“When I died, I saw a place beyond the dark. There were thousands of people there, all waiting. They weren't frightened. They were peaceful.”

She swallowed.

“Then something came and took me away. It wore your face.”

My stomach turned.

“What do you mean?”

“It told me you were coming. It said you would trade anything to have me back.”

She reached for my hand.

“Eveline, you didn't bring me back because I wanted to live.”

Her fingers were ice.

“You brought me back because you couldn't bear to lose me.”

I wanted to deny it.

Instead, I began to cry.

Because she was right.

And somewhere beyond the empty sky, the moon was listening.

I spent the final day preparing for a battle I could not win.

I gathered iron nails, dried rowan berries, and every bottle of holy water in the village. I carved protective runes into my skin and braided my hair with threads taken from my grandmother's burial shroud.

Shannon sat quietly beside the hearth.

She had stopped pretending to be human.

Silver cracks spread across her face, and light shone through the spaces beneath her skin.

At sunset, I opened the cottage door.

The village was empty.

Every living person had vanished.

Only the dead remained, standing in silent rows along the road.

At the end of the village, where the church once stood, a staircase descended into the earth.

I knew where it led.

The oldest stories called it the Hollow Below, the place where the first witch had buried the first demon.

I took Shannon's hand.

Together, we descended.

The staircase seemed endless. The air smelled of frost and flowers, and pale roots twisted through the stone walls. Far beneath the earth, I heard a heartbeat.

At the bottom stood a vast chamber.

A black lake stretched across its center, reflecting a sky filled with stars. Suspended above the water was the moon.

Up close, it was not white.

It was bone.

A colossal skull, cracked down the center, with silver fire burning inside its hollow eye sockets.

Chains stretched from the skull into the darkness, each one wrapped around a sleeping figure.

Thousands of them.

The dead.

And at the center of the chamber stood the creature that had followed me from the graveyard.

Its smooth white face turned toward me.

You have returned, little thief.

I raised my knife.

“Give my sister back.”

The creature tilted its head.

She is yours. You may keep her. All you must do is feed me.

The black lake rippled.

Images appeared across its surface: my mother, my father, my grandmother. All the people I had ever loved stood on the opposite shore, smiling at me.

One life for another. One memory for one memory. One soul for one soul.

I stared at them.

Then I looked at Shannon.

She stood beside me, silent and trembling.

“What happens if I refuse?”

The creature's face opened.

Beneath its smooth skin lay an endless darkness filled with tiny moving mouths.

The chains will break. The dead will rise. And every living thing will learn what it means to be forgotten.

I believed it.

I also knew that my grandmother had never taught me how to defeat death.

She had taught me how to bargain with it.

I lowered my knife.

“What do you want?”

The creature extended one long hand.

Your memories. All of them.

I thought of Shannon as a child, chasing fireflies through the meadow. I remembered my father's laughter, my mother's songs, and my grandmother's hands guiding mine as I learned my first spell.

I remembered the smell of bread in winter.

The warmth of sunlight on my face.

The sound of someone saying my name with love.

Then I understood the true price.

The creature did not want my life.

It wanted the things that made my life worth living.

I smiled.

“Then you'll have to take them.”

I drove my knife into my own chest.

Pain exploded through me.

Blood spilled onto the stone, and the chamber shook as the ancient magic awakened. My memories poured from me in ribbons of golden light, spiraling toward the moon.

The creature reached eagerly.

It had never understood witches.

We do not merely borrow power.

Sometimes, we become the price.

I seized the golden ribbons with both hands and pulled.

The memories wrapped around the chains.

My father's laughter became iron.

My mother's songs became fire.

My grandmother's final words became a blade.

The chains tightened around the skull, and for the first time in eternity, the moon screamed.

I looked at Shannon.

She was crying.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

Then I let go.

The chains snapped.

The moon shattered.

Silver light flooded the chamber, burning away the creature's skin. Its countless mouths screamed as the black lake evaporated beneath it.

The sleeping dead opened their eyes.

And one by one, they disappeared into the stars.

Shannon reached for me as I fell.

For a moment, I felt her arms around me.

I smelled woodsmoke.

I heard my father's laughter.

Then everything went quiet.

I woke on a hillside beneath a pale morning sky.

The moon hung above me, whole and ordinary, as though it had never been anything but a stone in the heavens.

Shannon lay beside me.

She was dead.

Truly dead.

Her skin was cold, her heart silent, and her face peaceful.

I held her until the sun rose.

I cried until I had no tears left.

And then I discovered the price of my bargain.

I could remember that I had loved my sister.

I could remember that she had been kind, stubborn, and fond of honey cakes.

But I could no longer remember her voice.

I could not recall the exact shade of her eyes or the sound of her laughter.

The memories were gone.

Yet the love remained.

A hollow ache inside my chest, as real as the wound the knife had left.

I buried Shannon beneath the old apple tree behind our cottage.

Then I buried my grandmother's book beside her.

I never practiced the old magic again.

Well, almost never.

Sometimes, when the nights are especially dark, I light a candle and sit beside Shannon's grave. I tell her about the village, the weather, and the ridiculous things Reverend does when he wants attention.

I tell her stories about a girl I once knew.

A girl who loved honey cakes and chased fireflies through the meadow.

I tell her I miss her, though I can no longer remember what her laughter sounded like.

And sometimes, when the moon shines through the branches, I hear a faint voice carried on the wind.

Not a ghost.

Not a demon.

Just a whisper, soft as a kiss against my cheek.

I'm here, Evie.

I never answer.

Because my grandmother taught me that not everything shining in the dark should be trusted.

But I have learned something she never knew.

Sometimes, the things we lose are not gone.

Sometimes, love survives even when memory dies.

And sometimes, the greatest magic in the world is not bringing someone back.

It is finding the courage to let them rest.