Women have been tied to the moon since time began. They say our bodies run like the tides harnessed to the moon’s gravity. They say our magic is the most powerful in the dark of the moon. They say we gather and dance naked in the light of the full moon, and they whisper of witchcraft and devil worship. What do they know of the moon? What of women and our dark secret places? What can they understand?

I have slept with the moon. Not as you have, the beams sliding in your window, or hanging like a lantern above your campfire. I have held her tenderly in my arms, kissed her midnight hair and twined my fingers with hers as slumber stole our wakefulness.

She came to us in the dark of the moon. She walked from the darkness of the forest, up the garden path, a cloak of the deepest blue draped over her shoulders, her gown a purple black underneath. It was the cat that saw her first. Black as night himself with luminous green eyes he marched out the door and onto the path to rub against her legs. He ushered her into the cottage and sat at her feet, looking adoringly up at her. It seemed as natural as breathing that she should be with us.

“I’ve watched you,” she told me as she lowered herself to the chair by the fire next to mine. Her skin was luminous like an opal, softly glowing from within, her raven hair shot with silver that sparkled like the night sky. She held my eyes a moment, then ducked her head.

It seemed as natural as breathing that she should be with us. She took up a sprig of herbs from the basket between us. I handed her the spool of twine. Her hands, as practiced as mine, looped the string to hang the bouquet for drying. The cat curled himself in her lap.

The cat seemed to know her, to love her, and I deferred to his wisdom. For a year she came and went, her visits lasting only a few days. She would come to the door in the dark and leave the same way, walking up the path and disappearing as the darkness swallowed her slender form. She helped me tend the garden, gather healing herbs. She seemed to know exactly which to harvest at dawn or in the evening, which should be left for the full moon’s glow, and which would be most potent in the new moon’s embrace. She was a loving, but mostly silent companion, anticipating my needs, with a cup of tea or the lending of her hands. The cat adored her. Day or night I could find him sitting at her feet, gazing up at her face, his feline features grinning, or asleep in her lap, a contented purr rumbling in the air.

I grew to love her, too. I’d never expected to have a companion other than the cat, and she filled my heart so it felt like a harvest moon, huge in my chest. I began to think of the small, thatched roof cottage and carefully tended garden as ours. One night, as she took her cloak to leave, I was overcome with sorrow at the thought of her absence.

“Stay,” I said. 

And she tried. 

But within a week, her hands trembled at nightfall, the tremors soon spreading to her whole body. Though I held her tightly until the shaking subsided, I could not heal her. Her pale skin glowed now with an unnatural radiance, and she was faint and listless during the day. The cat was distressed, he kept close and worried at her with pitiful yowls.

“What is it?” I echoed him in anguish, holding her hands in my own, my eyes searching hers. I couldn’t think which herb or tincture might mend her.

A tear, large as a raindrop, slid down her cheek, and I thought I saw the moon reflected in its orb. 

The cat came to her and put his nose to hers, catching the tear in his velvet coat where it shone like a liquid star. She held him in her hands, and I saw how emaciated they had become. As she had grown brighter, the flesh had melted from her frame. She was becoming a shadow made of light.

It was the cat who rescued her, just as he had brought her to me. He lept from her lap and went to the door, traversing the same path over and over each time looking up at her stricken face, turning back at the midpoint to see if she had followed. She took my hand finally and together we followed the cat. He pawed at the door, and I opened it. He marched onto the garden path, and that was when I saw that instead of gleaming white in the moonlight, as it should have, the path was dark. I looked to the sky for clouds obscuring the light, but the night was fair and warm. I looked then at my love. She bowed her head, her starry tresses shielding her face. 

“How?” I asked.

“I love you,” she said. 

My eyes filled with tears, my throat tight as I let go of her hand. She could not stay. I could not hold her bound to the earth when she belonged in the sky.

The love of the moon is as vast as the night sky, our memory as deep as the ocean. Do not despair. We are bound to her, and she is bound to all women. Our magic is strongest together when she is hidden from men and instead roots in us. This is why we dance naked in the moonlight, to feel her breath on our skin, her cool caress, to live in her embrace for just one more night.