The Moon That Waited Beneath

The crack in the floor pulsed with moonlight that had no source—a silver breath from somewhere deep, somewhere that shouldn't exist beneath a cabin floor. I'd watched it through the night, unable to sleep after pulling Mirror-Aria from my daughter's dreams. Now, as dawn crept through our shelter, the light grew stronger. Insistent.

Ashara stirred uneasily in my arms, whimpering without waking. Even in sleep, she felt it—the pull of something ancient calling from below.

"It's spreading," Dorian said quietly, already awake and watching. The crack had lengthened overnight, spider-webbing toward the center of our shelter.

I shifted Ashara to his arms and knelt beside the glowing fissure. The moment my fingers touched the edge, sound rushed up—not loud but deep, thrumming through my bones. Chanting. Voices layered like sediment, speaking words that predated language. They weren't threatening, weren't calling.

They were waiting.

"There's something down there," I breathed.

"Then we leave." Dorian was already gathering our few possessions. "Find another shelter. One that doesn't breathe moonlight from its foundations."

But I couldn't look away from that silver glow. "What if it's connected to her? To what's been happening?"

"All the more reason to go."

"Or to understand." I met his gaze, seeing my own fear reflected there. "We've been running from echoes and shadows. Maybe it's time we looked at what's casting them."

The floor creaked, and a section near the crack suddenly gave way—not collapsing but lifting. A hidden edge. A deliberate construction.

"This cabin was built on a secret," Dorian said grimly. "We've been sleeping on a forgotten mouth."

Together, we pried up the false floor, revealing stone steps that descended into darkness lit by that impossible moonlight. The air that rose smelled of deep earth and older magics, of time locked away from time.

"We go together," I said. "All of us. I won't leave her up here, and I won't go down there without you."

He nodded, though every line of his body screamed reluctance. "If it tries to take her—"

"We leave. Immediately. No questions, no hesitation."

The descent felt longer than the steps suggested. The moonlight grew stronger as we went deeper, until we emerged into a space that stole my breath. A temple, carved from living rock, bathed in silver radiance from stones that held light like captured stars. The architecture was wrong for any era I knew—too ancient for the oldest ruins, too sophisticated for primitive worship.

"Look at the walls," Dorian whispered.

Carvings covered every surface, telling a story that made my skin crawl. A woman with a silver child cradled to her chest—not depicted as goddess but as sacrifice. The images progressed, showing moons bleeding into oceans, cracks spreading across skies like shattered glass. And at the center of each scene, a child with no face, devouring timelines with infant hands.

"This temple," I said slowly, understanding creeping like frost, "once worshipped the version of Ashara that never got born."

"How is that possible?"

"Because some prophecies echo backward." I traced a carving of the faceless child. "They knew she was coming. Knew what she could become. So they built this place to..."

We'd reached the temple's heart. An altar of black stone shot through with silver veins dominated the space. And on it—

My face. Carved in stone with disturbing accuracy. Not some ancient representation, not symbolic. Me, as I was now, down to the scar on my jaw from our flight through the forest. The bust was cracked down the center, as if something had tried to emerge from within.

Around the base, names were carved in silver script. Dozens of them, all scratched out with violent strokes. All except one.

Ashara.

But it was written twice—once forward, once reversed. Mirror writing for a mirror child.

"This place wasn't built to summon her," I realized. "It was built to seal what she could have been."

A whisper rose from the stones themselves. Not a ghost—ghosts had will, had purpose. This was just memory, embedded so deep it had become part of the temple's bones.

The last time a Moon-Child was born imperfectly human, she shattered mirrors with her cries. Pulled the dreams from sleeping minds. Forgot which mother was real.

The voice was ancient, female, grieving. The first Oracle, maybe, or someone who'd stood where I stood now.

We burned her name from all records. But names echo. In the space between spoken and silent, they wait. They find new mouths.

Ashara began to glow in Dorian's arms. Faint at first, then stronger. Her tiny hand reached toward the altar with the inexorable pull of magnetism.

If she touches the altar, she completes the circle. She'll remember everything she was meant to forget.

"No." Dorian pulled her back, but her glow intensified. "We're leaving. Now."

"Wait." The word escaped before I could stop it. "What if the answers are down here? What if knowing saves her from repeating their mistakes?"

"Or damns her to them." His eyes blazed with protective fury. "You want her to remember being unmade? Remember the version of herself we fought so hard to prevent?"

Ashara's eyes opened—just one, half-lidded and aware. When she spoke, her voice carried harmonics no infant throat should produce:

"She's still hungry. She wants the name you never gave her."

My heart clenched. Even dissolved, even scattered, Mirror-Aria's hunger persisted. Looking for cracks. Looking for ways back in.

I crossed to Dorian and gently lifted Ashara's reaching hand away from the altar. Her glow flickered, dimmed, but didn't die. I pressed my lips to her forehead, tasting moonlight and possibility.

"You don't need to know what they buried," I whispered. "You only need to know we'll never bury you."

The temple sighed. The moonlight faded like a held breath finally released. The whispers sank back into stone, and the carved names began to fade—not destroyed but allowed to rest.

We climbed back to daylight in silence, each step returning us to a world that felt more solid, more real. But when we tried to close the trapdoor, the wood resisted. The ground beneath seemed to pulse with slow breath.

"It's still open," Dorian said unnecessarily.

"Maybe it needs to be." I looked at Ashara, who watched us with eyes fully her own again. "Maybe sealing things away is what makes them hungry."

She tilted her head, considering with that unnerving focus. Then, with perfect clarity:

"She's not in the dream anymore. She's somewhere else now."

Ice ran down my spine. "Who?"

"The other me. She's not me anymore." Ashara's gaze drifted to the open door, to the darkness below. "She's looking for someone else to wear."

The morning sun felt suddenly cold. We'd severed Mirror-Aria from Ashara's dreams, yes. But in doing so, had we set her free to find another host? Another child born between human and divine, another mother torn between versions of love?

"We need to warn them," I said. "Whoever she finds next—"

"How?" Dorian's voice was flat. "How do we warn the world that a dream is hunting for flesh?"

I had no answer. Could only hold our daughter—our real, flawed, breathing daughter—and wonder if saving her had doomed someone else's child to the hunger we'd refused.

Below us, the temple waited. Patient as stone. Ready to catch whatever fell through the cracks we'd torn in the world.

And somewhere, a dream that had learned to want was searching for its next mother to disappoint.