Branwen was a lonely child, and no one told her why until she was a child no longer. At eighteen, the town ceased to hold its breath and revealed to her the terrible truth: that Branwen had been raised in the shadow of three missing sons.

When Branwen was in her mother’s womb, the world was a happy place for their family. Corbin, the oldest son, Merle, the middle, and Bertram, the youngest, were an exuberant, noisy trio. Like many children, they were rebellious and irreverent, doing what they should not do, going where they should not go, listening to their parents with one ear, and with the other, hearing the call of the world, bright and endless. They were like the ravens that flew above the cottage, their mother said, cunning and mischievous and blithe.

Branwen was born into a family of six. But just a few months later, her parents sent their sons to fetch water for their mother to drink, so that her body would change it to milk to feed her new daughter. And rather than fetch it, the boys began to play a game in the fields, crouching, marching, bellowing, and forgot all about the well.

As the sky outside began to grow dark, their father complained loudly of the boys, and their mother defended them. ‘They are like ravens,’ she said. ‘They long for the freedom of the wide open skies.’

‘They are not ravens,’ their father retorted. ‘But if they yearn so much to be free of the responsibilities of boys, I wish they would be!’

The boys never came home. There was a rustling in the yard, croaks and moans, and bright black feathers swirled through the air to land on the doorstep of what was now a family of three. Their father lamented his harsh words, but it was too late. And no one told Branwen of her lost brothers until she turned eighteen.

Immediately, Branwen declared that she would find them. It was not due to guilt or grief, but a sense that this quest had arranged itself directly in her path. Branwen had been raised by parents with a nebulous sense of responsibility and work: at times praising her for toiling in the house until her hands were red and callused, at times urging her to run out into the yard and be nothing but a child. But Branwen was not a child now.

Branwen packed lightly for her journey: an apple and a knife to cut it, a jug of water and a cup to drink it, and an empty pocket for whatever she might find along the way. Those in the village spoke of a flock of ravens which roosted in nearby fields, and Branwen began her search there.

Branwen had seen ravens before, of course, but not so many in one place. The flock seemed endless, taking up every tree except for one small pine, and as Branwen watched, three ravens out of the multitude landed there. They were slightly different from the other ravens, she realised: curiouser, madder, brighter.

Branwen felt uneasy in the shade of that tree and took a few steps back. The trio of ravens did not move, but before long, the cries of the flock faded from Branwen’s ears and she began to hear another sort of speech, this one nearly human.

The Sun, Moon, and Stars have cursed us, the largest raven said. Sister, will you set us free?

‘I will try,’ said Branwen, and in response, the ravens took to the air. They were graceful in their aerial dance, always three together, but always in their own space. They circled overhead for a moment, and a single black feather drifted down through the air to land at Branwen’s feet. The feather was nearly as large as Branwen’s hand. She put it into her empty pocket.

*     *     *
In those days, one could walk to the palace of the Sun. It lay at the last point of land before east became west and day became night. As a child, Branwen had read of the home of the Sun, with its open blue skies and green fields, its maze of a garden laid out in tangled rays, and a palace of bright white walls that had no ceiling.

The reality of it was somewhat different.

Branwen crossed from the road into the garden, confident that a place with no shadows held no secrets. And perhaps it did not. Perhaps all that Branwen needed to know was right there before her.

The garden path was white. The Sun had bleached it. But it was not stone that crunched and crackled beneath Branwen’s feet, but bones. They were a mix of sizes: tiny little sharp-snapping bones, and larger ones that were thick enough to still be intact, rolling beneath Branwen’s feet. There were even some that were still new and soft, driven to a white madness by the blazing of the Sun before they’d even fully dried.

They were the bones of children, Branwen realised. Everyone who came to see the Sun had to walk on the bones of children, and could do nothing for them.

The garden was very hot, and the hedges that grew along the path were sharp, with delicate spines that were like bones of their own. Where the plants got their water from, Branwen could not see, and she had to stop often and drink some of the water she’d brought with her, from the jug that she’d refilled from every stream and river she’d crossed before she’d come to the Sun’s palace. She longed for those rivers now, in the heat of this garden. She yearned for the sweet grass of home, the green fields that had been her playground. The grass at the palace of the Sun was dry, brown, and dead.

The air only got hotter as Branwen approached the palace. It was a beautiful building, with walls of white stone that sparkled in the light, and no roof to cast shade. The light was so bright now that it became no different from darkness, because it blinded Branwen, leaving her groping for the steps, seeking the growing heat that lived in the centre of the walls. The only relief that Branwen could find now was in her own fear, blessedly dark, heavy, and cold.

Finally, there came a point when Branwen could go no farther, so great was the heat. She went to her knees and found that in this place, even white stone could grow hot to the touch.

Before Branwen could speak, the Sun did. ‘I smell,’ said its heated voice, ‘a child.’

Branwen thought of the bones in the garden. ‘I am no child,’ she said.

‘You are a human child,’ said the Sun. ‘And I have not eaten in days. Everywhere around the world, the children have been hiding in shadows. My stomach is empty. And here a child comes to me in my night-time prison.’

Branwen shivered in the heat, and her breaths came as gasps. ‘I seek my brothers.’

‘More children?’ the Sun asked, eager.

‘They are ravens,’ Branwen said. ‘You have cursed them.’

The Sun seemed to scoff. ‘I know nothing of ravens. And your brothers cannot be ravens, as you are human. When I put your bones into the garden, they will be among their peers.’

Branwen dug frantically into her pocket. ‘But I am a raven too!’ she exclaimed and held out the long black feather toward the Sun. She felt the moment it caught fire, jerking in her grasp, and she let it go with a cry. The smell of burnt feather filled the air.

‘You are a raven!’ the Sun roared, angry. ‘I do not eat birds! Begone with you!’

Branwen fled, through the halls, down the steps, into the garden and across the bones. Gradually her body started to remember what cold was, and her eyes began to recover their sight. But she shivered all through the coming night.

*     *     *
In those days, one could also walk to the palace of the Moon, which lay at the place where the sky touched the ground. The Moon was said to live in a beautiful blue twilight, with pools of water to reflect itself, and everywhere a mist that smelled of green and growing things. But now that Branwen had seen what the palace of the Sun was really like, she recalled the tales of the Moon with an uneasy nostalgia.

When Branwen had nearly reached her destination, three shadows crossed her path, and she looked up to see three ravens: carefree, mighty, and beautiful. It was the middle one who came near now, swooping and gliding over her head. Another feather fell, this one smaller than the first. It fit better into Branwen’s pocket.

How clever you are, sister, said the middle raven, before they flew away.

It grew darker and colder as Branwen neared the palace of the Moon. It wasn’t cold enough to snow or to freeze the streams she crossed, but there was a damp chill to the air that grew heavier as she walked. The grass grew tall alongside the path, and caught the dew between its strands, pulling it down to the wet, brown earth.

Eventually, the damp was so pervasive that it solidified into a mist and got in between Branwen’s clothes and her skin, in between her eyes and the horizon, and eventually, in between her eyes and the ground.

At first, it was difficult to follow the path blindly. Branwen had to rely on the tall grass grasping at her ankles when she strayed to one side. But after a while, the path became more obvious, harder and springier beneath her feet. Branwen hadn’t gone much farther when a breeze sprang up, chilling her, but also clearing some of the mist.

‘Oh,’ Branwen said softly, as she found herself in the garden of the palace of the Moon. There had been only dry and painful death at the palace of the Sun, but here there was life. Water flowed everywhere, abundant even after feeding plants and flowers of every sort.

Some plants grew tall, reaching up toward the darkened sky, and some grew wide, spilling over the mossy path with lush, green fingers. Flowers bloomed in muted, greyish colours in the twilight, but Branwen could see what would be blood red in better light, what would be blue, what would be pure and white as snow. But these flowers would pass their whole lives in the shadows.

The palace of the Moon was at the centre of the garden, and it looked very much like the palace of the Sun, except its white stone did not sparkle, as there was not enough light. There was still no ceiling, and here, that meant that the mist and water came into the palace unhindered. The abundance of moisture had caused the walls to begin crumbling, and the whole building was covered in a greenish algae.

A large pond was next to the palace steps, and the ground around it was so wet that it had turned into a sucking mud. And that was how Branwen discovered what the hardened, springy path was actually made of, when the moss had been swallowed and drowned and could no longer soften the crunchy bits.

There were bones here too, and Branwen thought her heart might break. The creeping rot of the place had covered the path and made it green, but it was still built on the remains of children: here a delicate finger with a flower twisted round it, there a skull with soft, mossy hair.

The air grew colder and the heavy mist returned. Branwen was not surprised to hear a voice. ‘I smell a child.’

‘I am no child,’ Branwen said. ‘I am a woman seeking my brothers, whom you have cursed to become ravens.’

‘Ravens,’ said the Moon, unimpressed. ‘Don’t speak to me of ravens. They’re terribly noisy, talking to their reflections in the garden pools, chattering and screeching.’

‘If you lift your curse, there will be three fewer ravens in the world,’ Branwen said.

‘If I eat you,’ the Moon retorted, ‘there will be one less human child.’

Branwen was shocked to feel five icy fingers close around her arm, but the fog was so thick that she could not see what had grasped her.

‘I am no child!’ she cried. ‘I am a raven!’

‘You feel like a child,’ said the Moon, close and terrible.

‘That’s just one of the bones from the path,’ Branwen said. She pulled the feather from her pocket and brushed it against the fingers of the Moon. ‘See, here is my wing!’

The Moon let go of her arm with a gasp. ‘You treacherous raven, trying to trick me! Begone, and all your brothers and sisters with you!’

Branwen fled down the mossy path of bones, past the greyish flowers and the flowing streams, with hope fading in her heart.

*     *     *
That night, in a dry field under starry skies, Branwen dreamed. She was back in her parents’ cottage, but the place was livelier now, colourful, messy, and boisterous. Three young men greeted her with fond embraces. The oldest had dark hair and an easy smile, and wore an air of command. The second had eyes that glittered sharply and took in everything with a haunting, unblinking gaze. The youngest was fair and pretty, the shyest of them.

‘I have failed you,’ Branwen said. ‘I have been to the Sun and to the Moon, and they will not lift their curse.’

‘There are still the Stars,’ said the youngest, encouragingly. ‘Any mortal would be lucky to have reason to visit the Stars.’

‘The palace of the Stars is no less a place of death,’ warned the middle.

‘Perhaps,’ said the oldest. ‘But surely to be able to say you have been to the Stars is worth any trouble.’

When Branwen woke, she found in her pocket a small black feather, the size of her pinky finger.

Branwen journeyed with a sense of dread toward the palace of the Stars, built in a place where dark fought with light and neither ever won. But contrary to her fearful expectations, Branwen found herself in the most beautiful place she had ever seen.

There was no garden this time, but instead an orchard of small, wide trees that turned their broad leaves to the dark sky. The ground beneath the trees was green and healthy and dry. Branwen knelt and put her hands on it, but it was soft, with no hint of bones. Nor was there any clammy cold or suffocating heat. Here everything seemed to exist in harmony.

The palace at the centre of the orchard was not white stone but opal, and it glowed like a living thing, changing colours as she moved round it. Branwen climbed the steps and arrived in a gallery, large and open, with no ceiling. One wall was painted black and decorated with thousands of little white ornaments. If they were meant to illustrate the constellations, then they were for a sky that Branwen had never seen.

On the opal floor were hundreds of little black chairs arranged in rows, and in nearly every chair was a Star. They were pretty little things, with blond hair made of stardust, wearing hazy comets’ tails like clothes, with delicate little hands and faces that glittered like diamonds. All of the Stars turned to face Branwen when she entered, and one of them said, ‘Oh! It is a human child.’

‘I am not a child,’ Branwen said. ‘My parents did not send me to obey an order. I come on my own, and seek my brothers, who have been turned into ravens. The Sun would not help me, and neither would the Moon. You are my last hope.’

‘Sit down,’ said a Star, ‘and let us look at you.’

Branwen found an empty black chair, and it was a size too small for her, but she sat, and the Stars gazed at her. Branwen had spent some of her childhood hours staring at the Stars, and thought it very odd to learn that the Stars liked to stare back.

‘You are very pretty,’ said a Star, finally. ‘You may stay here with us.’

For the first time, a bit of cold crept along Branwen’s skin, in between her shoulders. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, ‘but I must continue on my journey.’

‘To what end?’ asked another Star. ‘You said that we were your last hope, and we cannot help you.’

Branwen stood up at once. She loomed over the little Stars. ‘My brothers told me that they were cursed by the Sun, Moon, and Stars,’ she said. ‘And none of you will admit it. Why do you tell such lies?’

One of the Stars hummed a little. ‘I am very old,’ she said. ‘And in my lifetime I have found that one should not always trust the tales told by ravens.’

‘They are not ravens,’ insisted Branwen. ‘They are my brothers.’

‘If they were not ravens,’ a Star pointed out, ‘you would not be here.’

‘Can’t you help me?’ Branwen asked. ‘Please, I beg you.’

The Stars began to blink, bright then dark, like fireflies, creating patterns of light that ran all across the gallery. It was as if they were speaking without sound, in a language foreign to outsiders. At last, one of the Stars pointed a delicate hand toward the dark wall, hung with little white objects. ‘Your brothers are in the Glass Mountain,’ said the Star. ‘They are prisoners there. On that wall you may find the key that will free them.’

Branwen’s heart fell. ‘But they are not imprisoned,’ she said. ‘I have seen them flying through the air above me.’

‘There are many kinds of prison,’ said one of the Stars, wisely. ‘And to find what you seek, you must scale the mountain and unlock the door at the top.’

Branwen walked over to the wall, her shoes clicking on the glowing floor, realising as she neared the wall that every little white object was, in fact, a key. ‘How am I to know which key it is?’ she asked. ‘They aren’t labelled.’

‘It’s made of glass,’ said a Star, and little giggles from the other Stars echoed all round the gallery.

‘They are all made of glass,’ Branwen objected, but as she reached the wall, she found that the truth was very different. And now she felt sick, with her feet too cold and her head too warm, wet tears in her eyes and dry air in her throat. The keys were all made of bone. There were some little bones still intact, and some pieces whittled from larger bones, here and there a tiny toe, the curve of a hip, the flare of an ankle. Behind Branwen, the Stars murmured hungrily.

Branwen began her search in earnest, her hands trailing over every key, searching for the smoothness of something that had never been alive, instead of the remains of children who had once breathed and giggled like Stars. At the very end of the wall she found it, the key made of glass. Branwen held it up to the light, checking every delicate cut and rounded edge. Then she made to put the key in her pocket alongside the smallest raven feather.

‘Oho!’ cried several Stars, and there was murmuring all around the gallery. ‘We did not say you could take the key. Only that you could find it.’

‘How am I to free my brothers without the key?’ Branwen asked, turning to face the Stars and discovering with alarm that every chair in the place now faced her and the wall of keys.

‘But you cannot take the key,’ a Star said. ‘What will we hang on our wall?’

‘Then what good are your keys?’ Branwen said, with a groan. ‘If they’re always here, then they can never be used.’

‘They’re not meant to be used,’ said a Star. ‘They’re meant to be gazed at.’

Branwen looked at the glass key lying in her hand. It was just the same size as her pinky finger. The same size as the smallest raven feather. Branwen closed her hand over the key. ‘You have thousands of little white keys,’ she said to the Stars. ‘They’re all very lovely, but they all look the same. However, it so happens that I have in my possession a key different from all of these, a key that glows rich and dark like the night sky.’

There was a clamouring in the room. ‘A black key?’ the Stars asked. ‘Where is it? Let us see it!’

Branwen turned her back to the Stars and drew out the raven feather and the knife she carried. With quick cuts, she nicked and notched the feather’s black vane to resemble the key to the glass mountain.

‘Here it is,’ she said, and held out the feather-key for all the Stars to see.

‘What is it?’ asked the Stars. ‘What is it made of?’

‘It is one of my feathers,’ said Branwen. ‘I too am a raven on occasion, and this key is made from my very own wing.’

The Stars murmured and exclaimed among themselves, growing louder, until Branwen handed the key to the nearest Star. Immediately there was a rush as the other Stars ran from their chairs to see the key for themselves. Branwen was careful to be quiet as she sneaked toward the door, but they paid her no attention. In a few short moments, Branwen was out of the gallery and down the steps, running through the orchard, with the key to the Glass Mountain in her pocket.

*     *     *
The Glass Mountain stood in a valley, and so, in one sense, it was not very tall. Cliffs at either end of the valley approached the height of the mountain, but none were close enough to allow someone to jump from the cliff to the mountain.

From the valley floor, of course, the top of the mountain looked tall enough to touch the sky. Its sides were perfectly smooth and hard, and very bright, as there was nothing inside the mountain at its base but glass, and the Sun was shining through it, filling the whole valley with heat and light. Branwen was afraid the Sun might try to catch and eat her again, so she was careful not to stand where it could see her.

Or perhaps, Branwen thought, gazing up at the impossible climb before her, perhaps that was exactly what she needed to do.

Branwen stepped into the full sunlight and waved her arm. ‘Hello!’ she cried. ‘There you are, mighty Sun. Have you eaten yet today?’

The Sun rumbled and grumbled, sounding like thunder. ‘No, I have not eaten. I was only waiting for a child like you to come out of the shade.’

‘Well, here I am!’ called Branwen, and as she had both hoped and dreaded, the Sun came lower in the sky and began to chase her.

It was very hard to run in the heat of the valley, especially as the Sun got closer. But Branwen did run, circling the base of the Glass Mountain, one time, a second time, a third. Every time she got too tired to go on, she ducked into the shadows of the cliffs to catch her breath. But she couldn’t stay there long, or the Sun might lose interest in the chase. So Branwen kept running. And the Sun kept getting closer.

As the Sun neared, the Glass Mountain began to make a noise. It sounded a bit like water, and a bit like falling stones. Subjected to the intense heat of a very close Sun, the base of the mountain began to melt. Molten glass flowed out into the valley, and Branwen had to run harder to avoid it. At last she found a shadowed foothold on one of the cliffs. She jumped up and hid there as the mountain came down, and then watched the mountain’s top gradually lower as its base melted and flowed away.

The Sun, confused at having lost its target, made an angry, hungry noise and returned to the sky and its usual course. The mountain continued to melt for a while, and the molten glass filled up the valley, climbing up the sides of the cliffs to make a vast, clear, raised plane.

Finally, when the mountain had cooled enough, it stopped descending. Branwen took careful, slippery steps out onto the new glass surface of the valley, until she neared what remained of the mountain itself. But her heart sank when she realised that the top of the mountain was still too high for her to reach.

It was night by then, and moonlight began to play on the newly melted glass, casting cooler light all around the cliffs. After being so hot, the night air felt especially cold, and Branwen began to shiver. She looked up to see the Moon passing directly overhead, full and damp and cold.

‘Hello!’ cried Branwen. ‘Here I am! And there you are, mighty Moon. Have you eaten yet tonight?’

‘A human child!’ cried the Moon at once. ‘Come closer, so that I may look at you. I will not harm you. I only want to see how pretty you are.’

‘Oh, but I’m just going home!’ Branwen said. ‘I’m not supposed to play outside after dark.’

‘Stay!’ pleaded the Moon.

‘But I don’t want to,’ Branwen said. ‘It’s far too hot down here. Maybe I would stay if it was cold. Maybe if there was snow to play in.’

‘Then snow you shall have!’ exclaimed the Moon, and at once, it gathered a bouquet of damp clouds and shook them until snow began to fall.

Branwen, already cold, began to shiver. But she stepped out into the rising snow, pretending she was playing.

‘There you are!’ the Moon said happily. ‘And how pretty you look.’

‘How pretty you look!’ exclaimed Branwen. ‘Just wait, I’ll build a staircase of snow and climb the steps so that I can see you better.’

‘Hurry, hurry,’ said the Moon. ‘I am so anxious to meet you!’ Snow began to fall faster, thicker, and Branwen started building steps up the side of the Glass Mountain, sculpting their shape with her nearly frozen hands, stomping them into strength with her soaked shoes.

‘Where are you?’ asked the Moon. ‘I can’t see you through all the snow.’

‘I am building my stairs!’ Branwen shouted. ‘I am climbing higher!’

‘You sound nearer!’ said the Moon eagerly.

Branwen shivered and shook as she carved the stairs, one by one, taller and taller, until the top of the Glass Mountain was finally in reach. Still hidden from the Moon by the falling snow, Branwen reached into her pocket for the glass key.

But her pocket was empty.

‘No,’ Branwen whispered. ‘No, no.’ She looked at the steps beneath her, but realised that she’d never be able to find a key made of glass in a valley of glass with a covering of snow.

‘Where are you?’ cried the Moon. ‘Come, little child, climb up to me!’

Branwen didn’t answer. With her breaths frosting the glass door in front of her, she took out her knife and, with one quick stroke, she cut off the little finger of her left hand.

The wound froze almost instantly, and Branwen wrapped it carefully in cloth ripped from her shirt. Then she used the knife to whittle the bone of her finger into the Glass Mountain key, just as she had with the raven’s feather. Shaking, with the Moon groaning above her, Branwen fit the key into the lock and turned it.

The bone immediately broke, too new, too wet to keep its shape. But Branwen didn’t need it any longer. The door swung open.

Branwen found herself in a large room, with four chairs arranged by a cheerful fire. Three young men were standing in its light, one contented, another rather malcontent, and the last benevolent.

Branwen staggered and sank into one of the chairs. ‘You are not ravens,’ she said.

The youngest brother, Bertram, looked at her with regret. ‘We are ravens,’ he said gently. ‘And we have always been so.’

The oldest brother, Corbin, gave a cheerful laugh. ‘We thought it would be fun to pretend to be little boys for a while, but when your parents had you, we were no longer needed. Except then you wanted to find us!’

‘It was such a lovely thing to do,’ said Bertram, kindly. ‘We thought as reward, we would give you a taste of the freedom we feel. Ravens can visit the Sun, Moon, and Stars anytime we like. But so very few humans have ever been there. We wanted you to have the chance.’

‘And how you have triumphed,’ said the middle brother, Merle. His eyes glittered, dark and a little frightening. ‘No human has ever reached the top of the Glass Mountain.’

‘You were never prisoners,’ Branwen said softly.

‘We were prisoners as little boys,’ Merle said.

‘We escaped!’ Corbin added, looking quite pleased about it.

‘But you were missed,’ Branwen said.

‘How could we be missed when they had you?’ asked Corbin.

‘Because you can’t give one child enough love for four,’ Branwen said. ‘It flows out and is wasted.’

Bertram looked down, seeming regretful. ‘That was never our intention.’

‘And there is this.’ Branwen silently held up her hand, with only three fingers.

‘Oh, yes, very clever,’ said Merle, stepping closer, with a smile on his face. ‘You were so quick to solve all of the other problems. We simply couldn’t let the last step be easy for you.’

Merle held out his hand. In his palm was the key to the Glass Mountain.

Branwen snatched it. She tore the bandage from her hand and fitted the key into the empty space. In the heat of the fire, in the heat of Branwen’s anger, the base of the glass key melted onto her hand. The pain stopped and the glass finger shone in the firelight. ‘Now,’ Branwen said, ‘I control the door to the Glass Mountain.’

Corbin gave a cry of delight and broke into applause. ‘Oh, you are truly worthy of being our sister!’

Merle shrugged his shoulders. ‘Our wings can carry us everywhere,’ he said. ‘If you banish us, we have endless other places to go. We are truly free.’

‘The Stars said that there were many kinds of prison,’ Branwen said.

‘Regret is a prison,’ Merle answered. He looked sharply at his brothers. ‘We should take care to avoid it.’

Bertram looked guilty all the same. ‘You should come with us,’ he said softly.

‘But I am not a raven!’

‘And yet, the Sun, Moon, and Stars believe that you are,’ Corbin said. He came closer, smiling broadly, and knelt at the foot of Branwen’s chair. ‘Oh, won’t you let us make it up to you?’

Bertram gave a little laugh. ‘What he means is, you’re cleverer than the three of us put together.’

‘If we ever do become prisoners, you can certainly figure out how to free us,’ Merle said, sounding very practical.

‘You are locking us out,’ Corbin said. ‘Sister, take care that you don’t lock yourself in.’

Branwen thought for a moment, and then said, ‘If you truly mean to make amends, then I will come with you. And then perhaps you will prove yourselves worthy of being my brothers.’

‘You set us a quest?’ inquired Merle, dubious.

‘I set you a lesson. You are not the only children who are missed.’

*     *     *
Branwen made the journey back to the garden of the Sun on foot, which slowed the trip considerably, and the ravens who flew above her called out their displeasure in sharp cries. Branwen was not moved. Part of the lesson was patience.

Finally, they reached the edge of the garden of the Sun, where the white path began. Here were some soft bones, new and still slightly damp. The raven brothers gathered them together, and in time, they formed a little skeleton, nearly complete, with only the right upper leg bone missing.

Corbin, the oldest, was cautious and concerned. ‘He’ll never walk again,’ he said, as he paced around the bones.

‘You could give him a new leg,’ Branwen said.

‘If I do that, I will be permanently without a feather. If I give him a part of me, I will always miss it.’

‘That is your lesson, then,’ Branwen said. ‘Children are always made from parts of their parents, and after those parts are given away, they may be lost forever.’

With great reluctance, Corbin extended his wing and plucked a large, black feather. He rubbed the spot where it had been torn away, grimacing with pain. Then he laid the feather on the grass, where the little skeleton’s leg should be.

At once, the bones leapt up from the ground, and when they settled again, they had become a little boy with dark hair and wild eyes. He ran about the grass with an awkward gait, but he smiled broadly, revealing every reclaimed tooth. Corbin gave a delighted clap of his hands, watching the boy stumble like a new deer.

The boy’s journey ended in cries of joy. Back at his village, Branwen and her brothers watched him open a gate and rush across a green field toward a woman who was surrounded by other children. The whole crowd of them began to exclaim and embrace the boy, who laughed and laughed.

‘They did miss him,’ Corbin said. ‘Even with so many others.’

‘Nothing can fill the void of a missing child,’ said Branwen. ‘Not even other children.’

Branwen made the journey to the Moon’s garden on foot as well. This time, though, when she camped for the night, her brothers joined her, and Bertram, the youngest, asked for stories of their parents. Branwen told tales of apple harvests and picnics by the lake, their parents grasping at happiness as it wafted through the air like feathers.

In the dampened garden of the Moon, it was not difficult to find new, soft bones at the start of the path. In the mist, they remade a child, placing each piece with care. But try as they might, they could not find the last round, thick bone that filled the gap between neck and head.

‘He won’t live like this,’ Merle said, disapproval in his voice. He picked up one of the child’s tiny finger bones. ‘Children die, sister. If we bring this one back, another child’s bones will soon lie in this spot. We cannot prevent the Moon from being hungry.’

‘You know what you must do,’ Branwen told him.

‘If I give him one of my feathers, I will never fly as well. I won’t be as free.’ Merle stood up. ‘No. I understand the lesson now. We were cruel to our parents, and for that I am sorry. But I will not give my feather for a child who could die tomorrow of some other mishap.’

‘Will you visit our parents then?’ Branwen asked. ‘Will you tell them the truth?’

‘I see no point to it. It will only add to their grief to know that what happened to them was done on purpose.’

It was Corbin who answered. ‘You have not learned the lesson, then.’

Bertram spoke up as well. ‘Do you think our parents never made sacrifices for us? Our mother made us from her own body.’

‘Remember how our father made toys for us, even after toiling from dawn till sunset on the farm,’ said Corbin.

Merle stood in silence, looking down at the skeleton. Dark expressions passed over his face: melancholy, mourning. Finally, he extended his wing and plucked out a short, fat feather. He placed it on the skeleton’s neck, and at once a little girl lay there, breathing noisily, her eyes wide with confusion.

‘Up,’ Merle said to her, and she obeyed, climbing to her feet in the wet grass.

Her head turned strangely on her neck, too flexible, too fast, and too far. But she opened her mouth, and in a quiet little voice, she asked to go home.

This child was greeted with aching silence. Branwen and her brothers showed her the way home and watched as the girl’s parents came out of their house and sank to their knees in awe. The parents looked grey and worn, too old to have a child, too fragile. But they gathered the little girl into their arms in desperation and rushed her into the house with sure, strong steps.

On the way to the gallery of the Stars, Branwen’s brothers asked for more stories. Now, Branwen told tales of little boys’ clothes tucked into boxes and hidden in a closet, little boys’ muddy handprints on a door that were never cleaned away.

Bertram began to cry, and Corbin put his arms around him. ‘He has learned his lesson already,’ Corbin said softly. ‘We do not need to visit the Stars.’

But Bertram objected strongly. ‘No, no. Let us go. I want to go.’

‘You would have a difficult time of it,’ Branwen acknowledged. ‘Each bone has been made into many tiny keys, and the Stars will not want to let them go. Perhaps the lesson will have to be that what is lost is lost.’

‘I will visit anyway,’ Bertram insisted.

‘Perhaps,’ Merle said thoughtfully, ‘there is a better place for us to go.’

There was a village near the palace of the Stars, with a stream that cut through a grassy field, and there the travellers found children playing games, splashing each other with cool water.

As darkness grew, most of the children left for home, but two remained. Their laughter bounced wildly around the field as the Stars came out. Soon enough, the parts of the creek that lay in deep pools began to reflect tiny blazes of light, growing larger.

One of the children went back to the village. The Stars sparkled brightly for the last child left, and he began to wander the field, gazing upward as if in a trance.

The Stars kept growing, coming closer and closer, until they were nearly the size of the child. When their glittering was almost too bright to look at, Branwen heard a sharp, childish cry of pain.

At that moment, a shadow fell over the boy, dark and feathered. It was Bertram, bold and brave. The Stars shouted with surprise and flashed together in confusion before withdrawing, fading and shrinking in the sky.

The child was left crying and cradling his hand.

‘They only bit off a finger,’ Merle said, after examining him. ‘He will get on just as well without it.’

‘Perhaps,’ Bertram said, as he extended his wing and pulled off a small, perfect feather. ‘But some loss is natural. Parents give pieces of themselves to their children, but what they give also lives on in their children. That is my lesson. If he carries my feather with him, then perhaps my life will not end with me.’

It was not a terribly long walk from the village to Branwen’s home. Branwen’s brothers walked it with her.

Branwen’s parents – their parents – received the three boys with weeping. When they heard the truth and their guilt was removed and taken by the ravens, they wept still. There were times in every parent’s life when they weep for their children, but these parents had lost those times; they claimed them happily now.

The house became a place of peace, where Branwen worked beside her parents. And in their freedom, even with the Glass Mountain reopened to them, the ravens visited their parents nearly every day, as caring and merry as boys.