The dark was the kind of dark Kit had never seen before.
It was not the dark of her bedroom at night, with the streetlight leaking in around the curtains. This dark was total. It pressed against the windows. It swallowed the numbers on her alarm clock and the glow of the porch light, all at once, like someone had closed a book on the whole town.
"Kit."
Kit stood frozen beside her bed, the tin box open at her feet, the dark blue button burning in her palm. She had never heard a voice like this one. It was low and clear and close, the way her grandmother's voice had been close at bedtime — except this voice came from everywhere at once.
"Mom?" Kit whispered. "Mom, is that you?"
It was not her mother. Down the hall, she could hear her mother moving in the dark, muttering about the fuse box.
Kit wanted to run. She wanted to hide under her blanket the way she had when she was seven and the thunder was too loud. But her grandmother had taught her that when you're scared, you move slowly, and you look at what's in front of you, and you don't run until you know what you're running from.
The moon was blazing. It was round and silver-white and so bright it hurt to look at, yet soft, like light through water. It lit the rooftops of Graywater and the street below, where neighbors stood in pajamas, holding flashlights that would not turn on.
And then, as Kit watched, the moon began to dim. A little at a time, the way a candle gutters when the wax is almost gone, until it was a thin, tired crescent again.
"Then why did the lights go out?" Kit whispered.
"You wished for the town to remember," the moon said, its voice fainter now. "And for one minute, everyone in Graywater remembered. They remembered wishing on birthday candles, on shooting stars. They remembered the moon."
"Will the lights come back?"
"Yes," the moon said. "In a minute."
"Because a wish that big is heavy," the moon said. "I am too small to carry it alone. I borrowed the light of the town to answer you. Now I have to give it back — or the town will stay dark."
"But listen to me, Kit. Listen carefully, because I cannot speak for long. The first night is spent. You have two nights left."
"Two?" Kit said. "Anselma said three!"
"Anselma counted the night you found the room," the moon said. "Tonight was the first. Your wish was beautiful, Kit. But wishes are not enough. You must give the wishes back — the jars, the buttons, the box, everything — open every jar and let the light go home, then make one more wish, the truest wish you have, before the last night ends."
"And if I don't?" Kit asked.
"Then I will go out," the moon said. "Not just over Graywater. Over everywhere. And the towns will forget, one by one, the way Wren's town forgot. And there will be no one left to remember."
The voice faded. The moon dimmed a little more. And then, all at once, the lights came back on. The streetlight outside buzzed and steadied. The numbers on Kit's alarm clock glowed red again: 11:47. Her mother's voice came down the hall, relieved and confused. "Well, that was strange. Must have been a surge. Kit? Are you okay?"
She looked down at her hand. The button was cooler now, like a coal burned down to an ember. She pocketed it and lay awake, looking at everything in the tin box, one thing at a time.
They were not just lost things. They were wishes — a wish to go home, a wish to be noticed, a wish for a father to come back — and she had kept them warm for years without knowing it.
She woke to her alarm at seven and went downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen, in her scrubs, making coffee.
"Did you see the moon last night?" Kit asked, trying to sound casual.
Her mother frowned, the way she frowned when she was trying to remember something and couldn't quite reach it. "The moon? What about it?"
"It was really bright," Kit said. "For a minute. And then all the lights went out."
Her mother shook her head. "I don't remember that. I remember the power going out. But the moon? I haven't looked at the moon in years, Kit. Who has time?"
Her mother stopped pouring. She stood very still, and for a second Kit thought the memory was coming back.
Then her mother smiled, a little sadly. "I remember your grandma. I remember her jars. I always thought it was just a game."
It was not a game. But her mother was already turning away, already late, and Kit knew that if she said the moon was disappearing, her mother would not believe her.
So Kit ate half a piece of toast, packed the tin box and the oldest jar in her backpack, and put the dark blue button in her jeans pocket. On the way to school, she kept finding things: a button, a hairpin, a glove in the gutter. She took the button and the hairpin. She left the glove. The town was shedding wishes faster than she could catch them.
"You heard it too," Wren said. It wasn't a question.
Kit nodded. "It called my name."
"Mine too," Wren said. "Only it didn't say my name. It said yours. It said, 'Tell Kit the first night is spent.' I woke up and drew it." She opened the sketchbook to a blazing moon, with the words underneath: TWO NIGHTS LEFT.
"Both," Wren said. "Anselma counted the night we found the room. The moon counted the night you made the wish. Either way — we have two nights. Tonight and tomorrow night. That's it."
Kit told Wren everything — the blackout, the borrowed light, her mother forgetting — and Wren listened quietly, drawing small moons in the margin of her notebook while Kit talked.
"Then we have to practice," Wren said. "Before tonight. We have to know what it feels like to give a wish back. So we practice. Today. One wish. A small one."
"How?" Kit asked.
Wren took a cold button from her pocket — a plain white one, with two holes, the kind that comes off a school shirt. "This one. I found it this morning on the bus. It's cold. It's forgotten. Let's find whose it is, and give it back."
It took them all lunch hour, asking at the office, the bus driver, three teachers, until they found him outside the science labs — a boy in Year 10, sitting on the floor, sewing a button back onto his shirt, his fingers shaking.
The boy looked up. He stared at the button, and then he started to laugh — a relieved laugh, like someone who has been holding their breath for a long time and can finally breathe again.
"I wished for that," he said. "This morning, on the bus. I wished my shirt wouldn't fall apart in front of everyone. And then I forgot I wished it." He took the button, and the moment his fingers closed around it, the cold button went warm — just for a second, like a match being struck.
And outside the window, high in the pale blue afternoon sky, the moon — the thin crescent nobody else could see in daylight — flared, very faintly, silver-white.
"It worked," Wren whispered. "One wish. One button. The moon got a little bit brighter."
Kit felt something lift in her chest — something light and bright and almost like hope. It was possible. She could give them back, one by one, and the moon would come back, a little at a time.
But then she thought about the tin box: forty-three buttons, eleven earrings, a key, a marble, a photograph, a bus ticket, a thimble, a glove. And the thousands of jars in Anselma's room. One button had taken all lunch hour. How long would thousands take?
"We need a faster way," Kit said. "Tonight, in the room — there has to be a faster way. Anselma will know. She has to know."
After school, they went to the hill. In daylight, there was no door — only the old oak, the soft ground, and the place where the door had been, which looked like nothing at all.
"Then we wait," Kit said. "We go home, eat dinner, pretend everything is normal. And at midnight, we come back with the box and the jars."
But that evening, at dinner, her mother stopped in the middle of a story about the hospital. She put her fork down, looked out at the dark sky, and said quietly, "It's strange. I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something. Like there's something I used to look at, every night, and now I can't remember what it was."
Her mother turned to her. Her eyes were confused, and then — for one second, just one second — they were clear. Clear and frightened and awake. "The moon," she repeated. "Kit. The moon is —" And then the clarity was gone, like a light going out, and she shook her head and laughed a little and said, "I'm just tired. Night shifts. Don't worry about me. Eat your pasta."
Kit did not eat her pasta. She sat there, watching her mother forget the moon, and understood what Anselma had meant: the town would forget how to wish, quietly, at kitchen tables, one person at a time, until there was nothing left to remember.
At eleven o'clock, Kit packed the tin box and the oldest jar, pocketed the dark blue button, left a note for her mother — I'm with Wren, don't worry — and climbed out her bedroom window. She ran through the sleeping town to the hill, where Wren was already waiting.
Kit thought about her mother, forgetting the moon at the kitchen table. She thought about the boy in Year 10, sewing his button back on. She thought about the thousands of jars in the long room, and the jar labeled KIT, sitting empty on the shelf, and the moon, calling her name in the dark.
"Ready?" Wren asked.
"Ready," Kit said.
Wren put her hand on the ground where the door had been. She knocked three times, soft and steady, the way you knock on a door when you know the person inside is waiting for you.
And the door opened.
Only this time, the light that came through it was not bright. It was dim. It was faint. It was the color of a candle about to go out.
And inside the long room, where the shelves rose from floor to ceiling and the thousands of jars stood in perfect rows, row after row of jars had gone dark.
And on the floor, in the middle of the room, folded neatly, like someone had laid it down and walked away, was Anselma's long gray coat.
And Anselma was gone.
Behind them, the door closed, soft as a sigh. And in the darkness of the room, the moon's voice came again — fainter than before, farther away than before, like someone speaking from the bottom of a well.
"Kit," it said. "She gave you her night. Don't waste yours."
Kit picked up the coat. It was cold. It was empty. And in its deepest pocket, her fingers closed around something small and round and warm.
A jar. A single jar, no bigger than her thumb. And on its label, in faded ink, was a name Kit had never seen before.
ANSELMA.
And behind her, in the doorway of the long room, where the door had just closed, someone cleared their throat.
Kit turned around.
Someone else had followed them through the door.
---