Anna wasn’t Oceanus; the first baby born on the Mayflower as it sailed across the Atlantic.
She wasn’t Virginia Dare, the first white child born in America.
And she certainly wasn’t Claire Nichole, the first baby born in the new millennium of 2000.
Anna wasn't any of these, but she was surely just as special.
Since birth Anna had been a different type of child. Her parents were a different type of parents too.
Her mother and father were Moon Walkers; and she was the 179th moon baby to be born on earth.
I know what you’re thinking… 179 isn’t an impressive number. But that’s not what made her special. What made Anna so special, were her hands. On the inside of both her hands, right in the middle of her palms were two small golden circles, and on the day Anna was born they glowed so brightly that everyone in the room had to wear sunglasses.
Anna’s hands were they talk of the town. It had been a very long time since any Moon Walker had possessed reflective properties. Once long ago all Moon Walkers had them, but since coming to Earth these properties had faded away. In the last 142 years no one had been born with it.
Anna’s hands were highly unusual.
There was an emergency meeting the day after Anna was born. The Elders who kept charge over the Earth-bound Moon Walkers were worried about Anna’s powers. They were slightly concerned about what her glowing hands meant. Would she be able to blend into society with glowing hands? The only reason they, the Moon Walkers, had been able to live unnoticed on earth so long was because their powers had faded. If Anna was born with powers, did it mean all the children born from now on were going to have powers to?
Several Moon Walkers in the community thought that Anna and her family should be sent back to the moon, keeping them on earth was a threat to the rest of the Moon Walkers. However, everyone knew that this was not an option, it was even more dangerous to the Moon Walkers to have them on the Moon than on earth. If the Earthlings ever discovered that there had once been people living on the moon it would ruin their secret.
In the months that passed the Elders realized that there was really nothing they could do about Anna’s hands. When she was an infant her parents would make her wear mittens in public, but she grew older she refused to wear the mittens.
Every night for hours on end Anna would sit on her bed trying to figure out how to control her glowing hands. Countless hours she spent poured over old books trying to find the secret. And every night tears would stream down her face as she lay in her bed and realized that she couldn’t do anything about it. She was a freak, even among her own people, and there wasn’t any way she could change that.
It didn’t ever get easier for Anna either, during the hours she spent poured over these books other powers emerged from inside her. She could see in the dark, control the ocean, see the future, and control energy forces. Just by walking in a room she could suck away a person’s energy. For a long time Anna kept these powers hidden to herself, but eventually the Elders found out.
They forbade Anna to read any more of the books and demanded that she never study these powers again. But they were too late, by now she had already learned how to control all her powers, except for her glowing hands.
They never stopped glowing.
YOU ARE READING
Moon Girl (Watty Awards 2013)
AdventureEVERYONES TALKING ABOUT IT!! "A brilliant book with a strong female character. It is beautifully written. Definitely, a breath of fresh air." - flying-person (Author of "He Was Looking for a Princess Instead He Found Me" and "The Art of Courtin...
