Moonshade Tea And The First Hunter

Orange light spilled across Samantha’s desk as the first leaf of fall drifted through the Starborn Library.

It landed beside her open dream book with a soft, papery sound.

Samantha Alder leaned closer. The leaf was not really a leaf. Its edges glowed like a tiny sunset, and its middle held a picture: a child floating over a quiet pond, smiling at a moon made of sugar.

Samantha quickly picked up her blue pencil.

“Hold still,” she whispered.

The dream shimmered. Samantha sketched the pond, the moon, and the child’s bright boots. She was the first Librarian, and watching over dreams was her most important task. Every dream she could see belonged in the right book, on the right shelf, where it would be safe until morning.

Her cup sat near her elbow. She had poured Moonshade tea into it without thinking, just as she always did when she wrote and sketched dreams.

But today, the tea was orange.

Samantha blinked and lifted the cup. In summer, Moonshade tea was a beautiful red. In winter, it became bluish purple. She had seen both colors many times.

Orange was new.

She carried the cup between the tall dream-shelves. The shelves curved upward until they disappeared among soft stars. Books hummed quietly in their places. Some smelled like rain. Others smelled like warm bread or clean blankets.

Samantha followed the glowing leaf as it floated down the aisle.

“Please stay where I can see you,” she said.

The leaf twirled away.

Samantha hurried after it, holding her sketchbook in one hand and her tea in the other. The dream-shelves shifted as she walked. A row of books about flying dreams slid to the left. A row of garden dreams rolled gently to the right.

Samantha stopped.

The orange leaf had vanished.

She looked up and down the aisle. The Library was safe and quiet, but the shelves seemed taller than before. The little dream on the leaf had disappeared too.

“Oh dear,” Samantha said. “I lost it.”

She tried to remember which way the leaf had gone. She pictured the pond. She pictured the sugar moon. She pictured the child’s boots.

Nothing appeared.

Samantha placed her sketchbook on a shelf and checked behind a stack of dream books. No leaf. She looked beneath a reading cushion. No leaf there, either.

Then a black cat stepped from behind a bookcase.

His fur was smooth and dark, and his green eyes were bright with thought. He carried a small bowl in his mouth.

“Have you seen my ramen?” he asked.

Samantha stared. “Your what?”

“My ramen noodles,” said the cat. “They were here a moment ago. A bowl of noodles cannot simply vanish. That would be a very poor scientific result.”

Samantha glanced at the bowl. It was empty.

“I’m Samantha,” she said. “Are you Romulus?”

“Correct.” Romulus set down the bowl. “And you are searching for something orange.”

“How did you know?”

“You are holding orange tea, your eyes are looking in three directions, and you have stepped over the same blue book twice.” He tapped the book with one paw. “Also, orange is difficult to ignore.”

Samantha looked at her cup. The tea glowed gently, but when she stared at it, the orange seemed to move. It became gold, then peach, then orange again.

“I lost a dream,” she said. “I need to find it before it drifts onto the wrong shelf.”

Romulus sat beside the blue book. “Then you need to pay attention.”

“I am paying attention.”

“You are paying attention to everything,” Romulus replied. “That is not the same thing.”

Samantha frowned, but Romulus’s voice was calm. He was not teasing her. He was thinking.

She took a slow breath and listened.

The Library hummed. Pages turned by themselves. Somewhere far away, a book gave a tiny sneeze. Beneath those sounds, Samantha heard a soft splash.

“The pond,” she said.

She followed the sound. Romulus trotted after her, carrying his empty bowl.

The shelves opened into a round reading space. A silver rug covered the floor. In the middle sat a low table, and on the table was Samantha’s missing leaf.

The dream on it had changed. The child with the sugar moon was now sitting beside a small orange boat. The boat rocked on the pond, but no one was inside.

Samantha reached for the leaf.

It floated away again.

She tried to catch it with her sketchbook. The leaf slipped beneath a shelf. Samantha knelt and reached under it, but her fingers brushed only cool dust.

Romulus peered beneath the shelf. “The dream is moving because you are chasing it.”

“I have to catch it.”

“Perhaps it wants you to notice something first.”

Samantha sat back on her heels. She did not like losing dreams. She liked neat shelves, clear pictures, and books returned to their proper places.

Then she noticed the steam rising from her cup.

The orange steam curled into a little trail. It drifted toward the shelf, then curved away from it, pointing to a narrow space between two tall books.

Samantha held the cup closer.

The steam brightened.

She took one careful sip.

The tea tasted like warm fruit and fresh leaves....