I should probably start with the place.

  It was once a small town beneath a wistful plain where they say the moon dawned and a star fell. Just once, just strong enough for people to start telling myths about it.

  Or you know, so they say.

  When my brother, Devon, and I arrived back then, it was just humid and tired in the honest way trading ports usually are, all salt in the air and mud pressed deep into the roads by carts that never seemed to stop coming or going. Down south, there was a pier jutting out into the gray, sawdust-filled sea and a lighthouse that burned through the fog like it was stubborn enough to keep the dark at bay on its own. The town's anchorage sat on the busy outer side of a splintered mountain, right where the forests open. The hills themselves weren't a single cast so much as a cradle of stone, rising around a plain like a broken crown—split and jagged, as if the peaks were fragments of an enormous apex gone missing. It looked as though something had struck it so devastatingly it cracked the ground open, never bothering to apologize. If you squinted and opened your mind a little, you could almost believe a star had actually fallen there. The townsfolk certainly did. Back then, I just thought it was a caldera—some immense, disproportionate hot scar people were better off fearing than worshiping. Funny thing was, hardly anyone actually lived in the center then. Most locals kept to the outskirts, closer to the fields and the treeline, watching the roads, wary of the foreign infestations rumored to be moving in, leaving the heart of the town deaf and quiet, waiting. A little afraid of being noticed, all while becoming forgotten.

  We were in that foreign ship, waving some foreign banner, passing through under the excuse of Devon's work and the promise of moving on. Our parents passed not so long ago from the consumption, and all he could ever think about was how to get me out of the piss-stained streets. And for him to get by. His job didn't even sound real when you say it out loud: some dockside tallyman. You know, anything to keep everything out of mind. Suffice to say, we see great views now and then, get to eat good food where it comes from, get to screw things up, and be able to leave it all behind to start anew somewhere else. Devon was old enough to decide where we went, and young enough to still believe we might land somewhere that stuck. And indeed, he managed to fish up a lower itinerant position for a local trading mail company when we arrived at the dock. So, it's not too bad.

  But I was twelve and the way we lived meant constant travel, sleeping only where we could, learning the shape of a place just well enough to leave it. Eventually, it grew on me, drifting from wonder to misery. Making friends I knew I wouldn't keep and choosing solitude when it felt cleaner, easier, like less of a lie. Being alone always made departure simpler. This town didn't grant mercy, though. I walked its empty breeze by myself, felt the weight of the clouds drawing overhead, and somehow stayed. Long enough for the place to settle into me in a way no other ever had—and no matter how many roads came after, I never really managed to leave it behind.

  Still, none of that is the story I meant to tell.

  ***

  I don't remember her the way I remember places or dates. Rather, she reaches me in the way you remember weather; how it feels before you think to name it.

  Now, I'm slowly forgetting the equinox brushing past my arm on the last leaf of that autumn—but I'm glad I get to tell you about this girl I've long adored.

  I first saw her on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was my birthday, but Devon spent the night scouring the town, running errands that never seemed to end. By then, it was the third year in a row he seemed to be distracted. There was a tint of sorrow in my chest seeping out of me in ways I couldn't know how to admit. I was lost—in every sense of the word—tripping through branches I had no reason to be familiar with, let alone trust. It was getting late, and the only light I could find came from the moonlight through a thin break in the canopy somewhere ahead. Following it felt like the only way out of the forest, assuming I wanted out at all. And so, when I reached the top, it wasn't relief waiting for me.

  I could still smell the sting of the wind in my nose.

  She stood with her weight on one heel, the other foot half-dragging the ground like she was halfway between staying and leaving. She was shorter than me. Her skin was pale, complementing the salmon tone on the inside of her ashen, long coat. She swung with the gentle gusts and slowly glanced my way.

  She froze and stared at where my shadow was as if I had stolen her smile.

  "Hello?" she whispered, or so I think it was the word she stuttered into.

  I couldn't hear beyond my shame and all the allegories I was forming in my head just looking at her. Her heavy hair danced as she faced the opposite direction the breeze was blowing. Its dark tinge played along with the brightening shade; strands cut across her face. It was then that my mind focused on my vision.

  She locked her narrow eyes with mine. It was obsidian. Deep and distressingly warm. Her brows sat low enough that I mistook her focus for impatience. There was a faint layer of freckles on her cheeks that burned gold with the cold. And then her smile went back up; it was small and restrained, like she didn't give it away unless it was earned. Back then, none of this felt worth naming. It was just the shape of her in the world. Now it's the clearest thing I have.

  She raised her arm and struggled to remove one of her mittens. There were faint burn marks along her fingers from tending fires and kettles she was never careful with. She waved hello in a nervous stance. This time I was sure.

  "Hi, I was—" the cold finally tapped my tongue, "...just walking through." I tucked my fists into my jacket pockets and gestured a random direction my arm could conjure, "Sorry."

  "I've been waiting for you," She spoke tenderly.

  My guilt turned into confusion.

  She tilted her head a little to the side. Clumps of her hair stumbled with the dying wind. Her smile dropped into a worry ever so slightly.

  "Oh, you're still..." she followed, then paused, pulling her mittens back. I can see her search for something to say as she nervously looks back into the horizon and back to me. "I know you may be on your way somewhere, but—" her thoughts stumbled in a delicately annoyed grunt, "Would you mind sitting here with me for a moment?"

  I can't remember exactly what I was thinking back then as comprehensibly as the words she uttered—you can sit, if you want, or maybe you don't have to leave yet. All I could recall was that I entertained her offer, probably for the sheer intrigue she carried, and the way she spoke like the night itself had asked a question and I was late in answering. I was lonely, and it had been a long time since anyone had spoken to me as if I were meant to respond. My first real interaction, if you will. Well, real is a bit overreaching, but thinking about it now, I find myself hoping that it was.

  She led me into a small clearing off the cliff overlooking the mountainscape. I didn't look at her as we walked—at her, or anywhere in particular—and yet I'd lost all sense of our surroundings. All that I could remember was that the path to the makeshift log bench took longer than it should have. I let her choose her side first, still wondering how a girl could be comfortable in a situation like this at all.

  When I took my seat, and I looked out over the horizon, the frost bit me all at once. Not from the high winds, nor the quiet presence of someone I was drawn to beside, but from the growing sight the thinning of the mists has uncovered. It carved itself into me, so vivid and pure I would have printed it out if I could.

  From up there, I felt alone. Like I was peering into something that had already happened and hadn't finished happening yet. The land cupped the dark the way a bowl holds liquid, and the wind never seemed to know which way to leave, so it wandered instead—damp, almost welcoming—carrying the scent of earth that had once been scorched and never forgotten.

  The plain didn't reflect much—neither the moon, nor the stars. It took the gleam and kept it, like it had learned long ago not to give things back. All the lights I could see came from everywhere but the center near the lake. A few lanterns clung to the roads at the edges, careful and few, and far to the south, the bell church blinked steadily, watching over the town. The sky felt farther away there, pressed back by the ring of stone, and for moments the clouds would thin just enough for the town to dull into a faint sheen, like glass worn dull by too many hands.

  That's when I came to understand how the stories had come about. Not because I believed a star could shatter and live on—but because the place looked like it was still waiting to be struck again, and like it wouldn't flinch if it were.

  "The clouds moved the same way," a dainty voice fractured the fragile trance I was in, "We were on this very wood when we sat before."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The mountains held me in hesitation, but I stole a glance at her, facing the horizon. The winds settled as I did, and she stood, framed in a careful symmetry of luminescence and shadows, with the leaves and branches trickling around her. The scent of wisteria reached me then, and with it the rustle of birds somewhere in the distance.

  With my agony dissipating, she let out a deep breath and caught a chuckle, "Can't you remember?"

  "I don't..." I was rummaging through my thoughts, "even know you."

  "You have, by many names." She crumpled her fingers into one another, rubbing them as if the cold had only just found her. "Here," she added softly, "this one goes by Selene. "

  "I'm sorry," I resisted, "This is the first time I've met you. And for what it's worth, I'm really glad I have—but forgive me if..." The words failed where my face had already gone. "I seem to have lost the thread."

  She smiled then, still patient, unwavering, the way one might smile at a child learning without correction. I remember the clouds parted behind her, the moon flaring so bright it reduced her to silhouette. I saw her mouth moving, whispering something I couldn't hear. Clarity never came to me when I knew how hard she wanted it to.

  Until now, I'm regretful of that fact. And forever I will be until the day I die.

  She whimpered.

  ***

  It was on the eleventh day, eleventh month,

  When a lovers' tale untethered a livid town.

  They seethed them forth to mountain ado,

  By bargain struck, two families' dues.

  A chambermaid, one wayward from Merwysteria,

  The other, an heir, sundered by Lancastelia.

  And so, they fled to the valley of dunes,

  And wished to drown in the river of dew.

  But the skies revolted for what came so soon,

  Down fell a loathing star, tearing through.

  Made one last wish, one held so true,

  A thousand years, one heart to prove.

  ***

  It struck me then—the myth. I had been so misplaced running from what I'd left behind that I'd forgotten the ground beneath my feet.

  Who could she be?

  She faced the distance as she spoke, but her cadence was never meddled with. Her words were untouched by memory; they're unmoved, as though the poem lived in her, not the other way around. I wanted to interrupt. I wanted to be confused. But something stilled me, numbed my tongue, left only her voice to move through me.

  Her words never meant anything to me as much as I wanted them to. Maybe that was the reason they lingered, the sense of longing I couldn't reconcile.

  We sat there in silence. The winds drowned out our breathing as they roared back. For the first time that night, I saw her toning into a frown, "You're supposed to have remembered it by now."

  What am I supposed to remember?

  "Meet me here tomorrow. Same place, same time," she softly declared, turning to me, "No witnesses."

  In her last words, she leaned in as if it was supposed to be something I should keep to myself. By then, the clouds were preparing to mask everything: the moon, the skies, us. The mists were shaving the air past us, and the trees started to resist again. She was too close for politeness, close enough that the light reflected from somewhere on the mountains or the lanterns from below had nowhere else to go. It was only then that I noticed. A faint seam beside her right eye, not a scar exactly, more like the memory of one. Her eyelashes grew paler than her locks, catching the glow before the others could. It wasn't something you'd see from across a room. It was something the night had to agree to first. I've spent years trying to remember if it was really there, or if the light convinced me it mattered. But it was so significant to me at that time that I didn't notice her standing and walking off. It was so silent that if I knew better, I'd think she was a ghost.

  For the rest of the night, climbing back down and into the guesthouse, it was her who I could think about. Even after bumping into Devon on my way, I couldn't remember my sadness for him. He bought me a cake, though, a small one, but enough to feed us for the night. He asked me if I'd had a good day. Not how my birthday was—just the day. I said too many yesses, far too quickly. He nodded like those answers had been rehearsed between us for years. His grin grew heavy as he kept on trying to put on a facade of his weariness. In hindsight, I could've just let him rest that time, as my mind was too occupied. I think he noticed that; probably got the wrong note, too. I could've said that I was delighted. He sent his good nights a little while after eating and cleaning, snoring just a second after reaching his bed. On my side, I was spinning and tumbling in my sheets throughout the night, with my mind no steadier.

  Was it real? Was she real?

  One way to answer those questions.

  ***

  The next morning, I caught Devon waking before he caught me. It was a first, he said, joking about how heavy the cake must've been last night if it kept me up. It wasn't the cake. It was a good cover, though. I almost told him then. Almost said I met someone just to hear how it sounded out loud. But no witnesses still rang in my head, and besides—what if saying it made it less real? What if Devon's rational explanations or concerned questions broke whatever spell had let it happen at all? So I kept quiet and let him think I'd just eaten too much.

  I waited until he went about his day, all the way until he left for work. It was past noon by then, but on my end, it felt like an entire season passing. I spent the afternoon in deliberation with an imaginary council in my head. Why should I go? What if it were a curse, and that girl, only a premonition? I'd be biting into something I couldn't spit out. But what if she was real? Just... peculiar. And what if this were the wonder I'd remember for the rest of my life? In the end, it came down to the simplest truth: I had nothing else to do. So why not take the risk?

  Why not take the risk? What was there, really, to risk?

  Maybe I'd found something that would finally stay. Maybe this town would be the difference I've been anticipating ever since God knows when.

  That night—same hour, same phase of the moon—I made my way back up. The walk felt disturbingly routine, as though deviating even once from last night's path would undo whatever fragile thread led to her, like a ritual. The climb took longer than I remembered; something my clouded perception had spared me the first time. When I reached the top, she was there. Same stance. Same place. The wind folded the same way. The clouds held the same shape. Same time, same clearing.

  But something was wrong.

  When she turned my way, she was no longer held by that warm outline. She was in tears.

  I hurried to close the gap between us, reaching out to try and comfort her.

  Oh, what a fool I was.

  She stepped back, and I noticed she was still trying to be polite—still smiling.

  "What happened?" was all I could manage.

  "You know," she said, her words folding into one another, "when you know your way around a town, yet still get lost in its gardens?" Her eyes shone differently. "I haven't found my town. That's why I'm still lost."

  "Then let me help you look," I said, not understanding but desperate to mean something. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I came back. That has to count for something."

  "I thought you would be the missing piece," she said quietly. "The one that would fit."

  "But you do," I said quickly. Too quickly. "Whatever you're looking for—I want to be that. Just tell me what you need me to remember."

  She shook her head. "You don't. Don't make this any more difficult." She paused. Then, softer, "I'm sorry. It's just not you."

  Something in me gave way then, not all at once, but along a fault I hadn't known was there. The summit before us stood whole and immovable, yet I could feel it in the way she looked past me; that the star had already shattered somewhere inside itself, that gravity was only waiting for permission. My thoughts followed that same fracture. What I had believed to be real: my place, my certainty, even the weight of my own presence—collapsed inward without sound, like the stones bending into its own shadow. Nothing fell outward. Nothing announced itself. But when I looked again, the world was no longer where it had been, and I knew I would spend the rest of my life standing among the debris, pretending I still remembered the shape of the mountain before it broke.

  She turned away slowly, catching her tears, and was about to leave.

  "Wait," I blurted, snapping back into myself. "Can I know your real name?"

  Those were the last words she ever heard from me. She slipped off her mittens, dried her eyes, and sauntered into the woods behind us. She never answered. I realized then that I didn't even remember the name she'd already given me—the one she'd offered so softly on that first night. It was gone, buried under everything else that had happened between us.

  I needed something to sit on, and the makeshift log bench was the only thing nearby. I sat and looked at the view again—the broken crown of stone, the scattered lights, the lake at the center holding its dark, the bell church blinking in the distance. But this time I wasn't worried about a myth or the landscape. I was looking at the bench itself. The worn wood. The careful placement. The way it faced exactly where two people would want to sit together.

  It hadn't been meant for me.

  ***

  I climbed back every night for the next month. Same time, same place, no witnesses. The wind carried the same cold, the bench held the same grain, the moon lit the same stones. But she never returned. We only met twice—two nights that should've meant nothing, that by all logic were nothing—and yet they carved themselves deeper than years of anywhere else ever could. I've met people who stayed. I've known love that had time to prove itself. But none of it ever felt as real as those two nights with someone who was looking for somebody else.

  I never told Devon. Not then, not in all the years after. Maybe because she'd said no witnesses or maybe because I knew he'd try to make sense of it, to fix it, the way he'd tried to fix everything else. But this wasn't something that needed fixing. It was just something that happened to me, something I carried alone.

  I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake—if telling him might have made it lighter, or at least less strange. But I think even then I knew: some things you don't share. Some things are meant to be kept, even when keeping them hurts. Maybe Devon knew that. All those nights he spent scouring around in town for errands and wearing those half-empty smiles—maybe he was carrying something just as impossible to explain. Something about our parents, or the weight of keeping us moving, or his own loneliness that had no name. I understand that now. We were both holding onto things we couldn't say out loud, protecting each other by staying silent.

  Eventually, Devon's work finally paid off. He'd saved enough for us to leave, to try for the main city, to settle somewhere with actual prospects. He was proud when he told me. I should've been, too. After that, I walked back down the mountain, and I kept walking. Past the guesthouse, past Devon's masquerades, past the docks and the lighthouse and the broken crown of stone. I kept walking until the town became a smudge on the horizon, then a memory, then a name I didn't say aloud.

  Selene.

  It took me weeks to remember it, lying awake in some other town, and years more to understand what it meant. Moon. She'd named herself after the moon in a place where they said the moon had dawned. Of course, she had. But by then it didn't matter. The name was just another piece of the myth I'd stumbled into and never belonged to.

  But it never left me.