Friday Fairy Tale: Moon Woman Working

I have no proof the Moon Woman was a ghost. True I saw her only in the dark morning hours of very moonish nights. True I never saw her eyes, or knew her for anything besides the unfinished labor that consumed all her attention. I could say the same thing of my college room mate. I could say the same thing of old Ms. Manor, who I've never seen outside her garden, covered by a sunhat.

She didn't live in the creek behind my best friend's house. She didn't live anywhere, when I knew her. Best to say, perhaps, that I always saw her in my best friend's back yard, slightly immersed in the banks of the creek. She didn't seem put out by being buried in creek mud. Her movements proclaimed that she was working, and couldn't be expected to interrupt herself for a lazy creek that hadn't the industry to maintain its own banks.

She was always working. Through the sliding glass of the living room door I could see how busy she was, arms constantly reaching and moving and selecting, head tilted in the distinct fashion of a crafter considering the progress of a project. I don't know what she was making; the moon fell along the curves of her arms and shoulders, sometimes even filled the hollows of her face. The work was invisible to the rest of us, as cryptic and compelling as any newborn inspiration. But it took all her attention.

I saw her when the moon was right; and of course, when I went to look. It wasn't my house, after all, and the lighting didn't always allow me to even see the backyard. I caught her eye just once, on a hot summer night when the skies were angry with dry lightning. She had tilted her head as women do when they've looked down too long and can't yet stand up. She shook herself a little, stretched her arms, and then looked at me.

And then she bent back over her work.

I don't know if the Moon Woman will ever be done with her creations. And I don't know that it would be so sad if she didn't. There are worse places than a creek on a Texas summer night; and worse ways to spend eternity than in the glowing moment of creation, calling thought into being beneath the moonish light.

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(This is a very abbreviated version of a short story I've been working on. Illustration coming soon!)