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The taste of late August lingers on the tip of Moon’s tongue, the cotton candy sky in the back of her throat. It’s stained with the sun’s lips, bleeding through and wishing farewell. Blue takes over pink with autumn in tow, the impatient two moons herding the sun away. The stars reel them in, winking as if to tell her not to worry, little girl, there’s still days away from early night.
Moon turns her back and chases down her own sun, who’s on the west side, The Rainwing Rainforest, and she’s praying Kinkajou isn’t busy with Glory. Glory’s not that much older than them, but it’s always a little intimidating being around her when she’s the boss of the whole place. In fact, she’s the person who collects rent so it’s double the scare when she remembers her mom’s overdue.
She sends a quiet prayer to any of the three moons who are willing to listen and knocks on the door. There’s a pause as she braces herself. Instead, she hears a squeal that’s unmistakably Kinkajou and Moon finds herself practically tumbling down onto the peeling wall.
Kinkajou’s beaded hair echoes down the hallway as she picks herself up. She helps up Moon and pulls her into a tight hug. Saccharine strawberry jam’s in her nose, a scent reminiscent of June. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” Moon muses. As they separate and step into the room, she continues, “My mom’s too busy at work, again, so I just wanted to come hang out with you.”
Kinkajou gasps. “But it’s our last day before we leave!”
“Yeah.” Moon flops onto the couch and sinks. She lets the leather swallow her whole.
Kinkajou snorts, joining her on the couch. “I’m way cooler to hang out with anyway. You wanna see what Coconut’s doing? I bet he’s rearranging kitchen utensils this time.” She swings her feet, the ripples from her heels keeping Moon afloat.
“Not really, he’s probably taking a nap.” Moon pauses. “Glory probably needs to drag him to Jade Mountain next week.”
“I’m still surprised he didn’t end up skipping the entire last year.”
“Jade Mountain has better air conditioning.”
Kinkajou solemnly nods in agreement. The whirr of the fan does too. Moon sits up and continues, “I was actually hoping we could go to Sanctuary before it closes. Winter’s there.” She says this as if Winter’s not at Sanctuary from dawn to dusk, mothering bunnies and puppies like he’s their Mother Teresa, or something.
He also runs a soft serve stand.
Kinkajou’s kicking stops. She turns to Moon with a grin and stuffs her pocket with fives. They jump from the couch and head down to Sanctuary.
-
He greets them with a warm smile when they stroll up to the parlor. By then, the sky’s a deep blue, way past blue hour, with contrasting twin moons. The block is quiet, save for the faint blows of seashore waves and faraway trains.
“Hey, Winter,” Kinkajou says, almost bashful. “You ready to go back to Jade Mountain?”
Winter sighs, hands them both a cone, party cake with extra sprinkles for Kinkajou and reliable mint chip for Moon. “I wish the Talons of Peace weren’t so booked up. I could do this job forever.”
Moon laughs. “What, the ice cream or the kittens?”
“Definitely the kittens.” He smiles easily. “But I was pretty excited for Riptide’s lessons too. He’s undoubtedly a better history teacher than Webs.”
“Yeah that may be true, but we would’ve missed you tons!” Kinkajou chimes in, mouth full of ice cream. “It’s not like he would’ve had time for homeschooling you anyway, he’s way too busy writing songs about Tsunami and her ocean glitter eyes . I would know. Glory complains about it all the time.”
“Agreed. Plus, Jade Winglet wouldn’t be the same without you, you’re our…”
“Tomato? In our Jade Winglet Sandwich?” Kinkajou supplies. Moon laughs.
“I guess you’re right,” Winter chuckles easily. He handles their money and closes up shop. There’s not much inventory to count, and there’s nobody around for miles, so Winter grabs the last of the chocolate and joins them on the boardwalk.
The evening wind still bites, more than usual now that it’s closer to autumn’s reign. He doesn’t mind, letting the chill bend at his sides, but he still clings to Moon’s radiating warmth.
They’re like three peas in a pod, clumsy bumper cars and chatterbox arcade games, all they can do to accompany the swish of the seafoam and the crash of the waves, with two spotlights on them because Sanctuary’s saying goodbye, and so is The Rainforest , and Moon’s mom is surely home by now, but Kinkajou’s erratic hops and Winter’s rare break in prince-ness formality are all that could ever stay. The two moons break free and they’re high overhead, listening to faraway talks of sand dragons and mountain memories.
Sticky hands are what’s left of their ice cream, twitching for the ocean’s cleanse. The faint buzz of sugar shines in their eyes and it’s no surprise when they find themselves ankle-deep in salt banks with the burrowers, overlords of the sea, digging into wet sand.
From their loud, ungraceful sloshing, it’s clear none of them are Turtle, or Anenome, or any swimmer, but they make it work. The beads of ocean water flinging off of them aren’t helping with the chill and Kinkajou is definitely shivering, the least accustomed to the cold. She drags her feet to the shore and falls over.
Time hesitates. Moon and Winter jostle Kinkajou up, who’s blubbering from the face-first encounter. She reaches forward and searches the water, frenzied. She’s about to fall a second time, so Winter pulls her back as she wrenches Excalibur from the sand. Their tired steps leave the ocean, breaking from the cohesion and dragging themselves to safety.
“What even is that?” Winter squints. They’ve recovered, slightly, teeth still chattering and goosebumps hard on their skin, but they’re sitting on the sand with the sharp lapping waves a safe distance away aside from the occasional cleanse of their feet.
Kinkajou’s turning it over in her hands, the obvious wear of the sea apparent. “A glass bottle, genius.” She widens her eyes. “This has somebody’s soul in here.”
“How long ago do you think they left it?” Moon’s eyes are still on Kinkajou, edges still stuck to her forehead. Her nose is a bit red too, but Moon’s not sure if it’s from the cold or the bottle. It’s old-fashioned, a non-insulting thing, as stereotypical as you could get for a message in a bottle.
Kinkajou’s hands move to the top. She shrugs. “Only one way to find out, I guess.”
A hushed silence falls over the beach as the drag of the corkscrew pops into the air. The foreign sand that snuck inside falls out, mixing into the familiar, and the neatly twined letter sits atop the pile. It’s starting to unfold in the new air, the damp paper yellowed.
Kinkajou’s hands shake as she unties the twine and lets the paper fall free. Moon and Winter huddle into her side as they read.
“4,906 AS… Brightest Night…” Moon starts.
“That’s over 100 years ago!” gapes Winter. Kinkajou shushes him, eyes focused.
“Standing in front of me is the unwavering beauty of the Phyrrian Sea,
with its love for the moons too incomprehensible for even me;
the stars are my only witness,
they have seen this scene one too many times.
My dear, dear, Truthchaser,
your wing wrapped over me, can you see this?
You must, I can trace the mirror of you right here.
You followed me from the first day I’ve met you– hand in hand with the three moons burning inside you.
Is this no different? Don’t tell me no.
The blood is behind me, I can return no longer, lest the Queen have her way with my head. And to die from the talons of her would be an honor, I’m sure.
But the lull of the sea is far too strong, it’s where I saw your moons burn out–
And you told me to reach Brightest Night
because that’s where I’d find you, deep in the shadows
Of your lovely hidden kingdom
where the only nobility were the fireflies
who crowned us themselves.
And I’ve returned
to find a martyr strung up as tapestry
Instead of you.”
The waves cease their crashing, the wind softens its maw, and the moons turn away. They were listening, Moon could tell.
Kinkajou breaks the silence with a sob. “They’re both dead now.”
“Do you think they ever found each other?” Winter asks. He’s still eyeing the scroll.
“They better!” shouts Kinkajou indignantly. The waves roll over her toes, soothingly.
“Truthchaser was loved,” Moon says, finally.
“And Truthchaser loved the writer back,” Winter nods back. He puts an arm around Kinkajou. “I bet they’re mapped in the stars, or reborn as fireflies, or something equally as peaceful.”
Kinkajou sniffs, puts her head into Moon’s neck, leaning on Winter’s forearm. In the somber violet sky, Kinkajou’s eyes glisten with the moon’s reflection in them.
It's a minute in bliss before her jump startles both Moon and Winter, her eyes replaced, now sparkling with determination. "We should totally write our own letter," she starts.
“And we’ll continue this bottle’s legacy,” she continues, “like it’s been waiting for us, all these years, because why else would it choose me to trip?”
Moon traces the bottom of the bottle with its neck in the sand, rounded and curved, molded by its years in the current. Of course it would choose her, why wouldn’t anything choose her? Kinkajou’s love is fierce, unbreakable, comes in supernovas of yellow and pink.
Winter pulls a napkin from his pocket, the creases flapping routinely in his hand. “This is all I have, in terms of paper. It’s basically cardboard.” Moon knows Winter knows what she’d been thinking in her head, because who else would?
Moon pulls out her tiny, chewed up pencil she keeps for luck, plastic wrap torn off years ago, the white base dirtied with coin nicks and jacket lint.
Kinkajou shrugs.“This thing probably won't last for a hundred years, but it’ll work!” She accepts the stationary and they huddle together, thoughts in sync. The nib of Moon’s prized pencil barely does away at the cheap napkin of Sanctuary’s ice cream palace, but they write in Kinkajou’s dreams, Moon’s secrets, and Winter’s warmth, all under the reverence for the Truth , the Moons, the Firefly Kingdom, all around them, watching, as they did. Dear Whoever , because there might never be another chosen reader, if they’ll ever know.
“Does this thing have an eraser?” Kinkajou asks, staring at the closed up metal mouth. The streaks of graphite that make its home on the napkin leave misspellings of humanity, seperate instead of separate , the wrong their there theyre . Moon shakes her head. Kinkajou crosses out we’re part of the bourjoreise (it’s too crass, plus too hard to sound out) so she can write we're the dukes of fireflies and we NEED HELP. SOS!!
As far as the ramblings of three buzzed soon-to-be sophomores go, it came out pretty okay. Two additional napkins were needed and they’re all torn in at least five different places, but Kinkajou’s excess swirls are the glue of the letter. The hundred old twine was recycled– Sunny would be proud. They sign the outside part of the napkins, so when the Whoever picks it up in 5, 20, 50 years, they'll know their names. It’s a farewell to summer, the last days of August on the way home to their Roman father, arms outstretched.
Write back to us when summer returns, is the last line of their letter. Winter came up with it, because contrary to his name, he likes the smell of wet hot grass and numbing radiant waves, and maybe most of all the loud screeches of Riptide’s run-down basement shows, the foil of his barren steel childhood memories.
Kinkajou hands Moon back her pencil, but she drops it into the bottle instead. “So it’ll have a better chance of, um, finding the one,” she shrugs. Winter gives her a dopey smile.
A hair pin with mango leaf charms gets dropped into the bottle. “If we’re all putting keepsakes into this, I don’t want to be left out!”
Their bottle is a third full of the beach’s smoothest sand, and the rest with their last moments of summer. They let it go rolling, until the sea grasps it in her roaring arms, cradling it away to the warmth of the horizon. It is a rite of passage, fleeting, with no string attached to tug it back.
The biting wind grits its teeth again, but the two moons above embrace her, warmth far too much like her mother’s. Soft citronella scent is clinging to her nose, and it follows her as she and her own two moons make their way back to the Rainforest, the crickets’ chirps compelling her home. They are home, in the way they tell fables or sing old melodies when she walks through the quiet parking space, they're like an old dog that kisses your ankles on a rough day.
They’ll come back, tomorrow, to tell her about foxes and crows and everything Aesop missed, but she’ll be up on Jade Mountain, where it’s too cold for her bards to sing, listening to tales of scorpion dens and deep sea palaces instead. See you tomorrow is reserved for Kinkajou and Winter, the latter dropping off at Riptide’s, who’s outside the Forest, and Godspeed is for the crickets, because soon, just like the cicadas, they’ll have moved on to better things, found new listeners, because they can’t wait for Moon forever.
It’s just Kinkajou and Moon, Moon and Kinkajou, from the beginning to the end, hand in hand, as they ride the high of the rickety elevator to the second floor, the waft of seasalt still on them. Their whispers are faint and light.
When she’s in her mother’s arms, lemons have never smelled sweeter. August has passed, buried under September’s stars, who’ve let go of the moons long ago, high and wild across the midnight blue.
Down the shore, there is the century bottle, sun-wrought grapes gone, replaced with ice cream napkins, watching the same auburn stars she sees, arriving, new, in the world that spins round.