All Kawalia wanted was to touch the moon just once before it was lost again.

She heard waves rolling against the pebbly shores as she pulled her boat out from the small seaside cavern, the hull grating against the rocks beneath it.

“Is there anything I can say to stop you?”

Caught with the stern of her boat still in the cave, she had hoped that second-night would be too early for anyone to have followed her down the hills from the small town of Bagatan. Most people’s day didn’t start until the sun rose a third time in the sky. They needed more rest than the two hour light-dark cycle allowed, so they slept for six hours and woke for twelve. Tuskar was always an early riser. “No,” Kawalia said.

“What’s your plan for getting there?” He approached her, gesturing towards her sailboat as she pulled it along the shore. “Because that won’t get you far.”

“I’ll sail until I reach The Aperture.”

“And for food?”

“I can fish.”

He chuckled. “And when you encounter your first Rime?”

She kept her gaze towards the ocean as she spoke. “Where’s Salia?”

“At home. Asleep.” He scratched his close kept beard and shrugged, keeping pace with her as she hauled her ship towards the water. “Thought you didn’t care.”

Of course, she cared. She did. Or, well- she wished that she could. She wanted to care. “You should be there with her.” Kawalia stepped around the boat so that she could push it from behind instead of pulling the front now that it was free of the small cavern. Though she didn’t look at him, she could feel Tuskar’s eyes on her the whole way.

“What should I tell her about why her mother isn’t there tomorrow?”

What could he tell their button-nosed daughter? That her mother was sailing to The Aperture in search of land that only existed in theories? That she left to touch the moon as it dipped up and down, dangerously close, through the center ring of their planet? That she simply had to get away? Would a three-year-old even understand? Kawalia kept pushing her boat.

“That’s a good answer,” Tuskar chuckled. It was a bitter, harsh, thing. “Nothing. I could tell her nothing.”

Kawalia stopped and looked at him. “What do you want me to say? What do you want to hear?” She knew that anything short of her staying wouldn’t satisfy him.

He leaned the small of his back against the side of her ship and looked out towards the unusually calm waves. Those brief calms were becoming more frequent, never mind the storms that followed. Shuddering, she hoped to make it to the center ring before a Rime touched her at sea.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her,” he said.

Of course, he had. Now, she tried to keep her face even.

Tuskar continued. “There was a time you could smile at me, but with her…” The muscles in his jaw worked as he clenched and unclenched it. “What do you think of her?”

More questions. She remembered how his game of questions used to make her feel like she was being heard. It felt like he was listening, and maybe he was back then when they would watch Salia hunt bugs in the bogs behind their house, talking about nothing that mattered. But now, under the light of the setting moon, his questions felt like an interrogation. “She’s my daughter.”

“And?”

And she wanted to feel some kind of affection towards her. But every time she looked at her face, all she saw was the same grin and glint in her eyes that Salia’s father once had. And Kawalia’s heart plummets and she remembers the fond memories spent with him under the moon. And the remembering is what cuts her too close. What kind of mother was she if she couldn’t bear to look at her own daughter?

The stones shifted underfoot as she walked around the boat to lean against the same side as Tuskar. Their shoulders almost touching, she folded her arms to her chest and studied the pebbles at her bare feet. “I have to go.”

“You’re trading our life for a myth.”

“If I don’t go now, I may never get the chance.”

She watched him laugh, bitter and harsh. “Did you ever care about Salia?” he said.

Kawalia tried to remember a point when she did. “I always have.”

“Did you ever care about us?”

She looked away from the intensity in his eyes and watched the shore. Maybe she had cared about them once, some time ago. Perhaps there was a time when she cared about anything other than the moon. It must have been a time back before she had a toddler that she couldn’t stand to look at. Back when things were simpler. Back before something in her broke. “I have to leave.”

“Let us come with you.”

She shook her head. “Stay here with our daughter-”

“-She’s not even mine.”

“You’re the only father she’s ever known.”

“What will she do without the only mother she’s ever known?”

Kawalia dropped her gaze from his. “She’s always preferred you as a parent.”

He fell quiet, the muscles in his jaw flexing again. The waves lapped around them. The moon got lower in the sky. “Please stay.”

Kawalia expected to feel more from their parting as put her hand on the small of Tuskar’s back and firmly guided him off her boat. She pushed it the rest of the way to the shore, it’s waxed hull gliding into the water. She waded into the sea until the ocean was up to her knees. Pulling the boat from the shore until it bopped beside her, she clambered in, took out the oar, and started rowing away from the continent.

All Kawalia wanted was to touch the moon just once before it was lost again.

Dominique Dean is a writer, sound designer, and filmmaker living in the valleys of Virginia. When not writing, she enjoys calling her neighbor's cat over to her yard for some treats. Her fiction and non-fiction have been featured in The Bluestone.