0 January Secret Agent #23

TITLE: THE FIRST BOOK OF MOOJIE
GENRE: YA Magical Realism

There was a bundle of fur inside the fishing bucket. Inside the fur, the baby boy was bound up. The fur felt soft to him, as the bucket swung next to footsteps. His breath was warm and moist against his face. He could see the hole of light above him and the man’s hand grasping the bucket handle. Between footsteps, he could also see the trees and blue sky. The footsteps were moving fast and the hand was locked on the handle and the baby was bound up inside the fur. There was nothing he could do to stop the footsteps. He was thirteen weeks old and being taken somewhere. Inside the furry cave, his body felt hot and cramped. He stared up at the hole of light, looking outward at the manifestation of forces too dazzling to understand—seeing—and not yet understanding, the mysteries that lay beyond. In his mind, there was but one thing to do. Passing through the trees, he reached toward the hole of light, programmed by nature since the dawn of time, to verge upon, to clutch, to lean toward, something—neurons seeking neurons—life itself seeking a connection.

His name was Moojie. At least, that was the word smudged in ash across his forehead.

When Mother Teagardin first saw him, she thought he was a fish. Someone had beaten on the chapel door of San Miguel de las Gaviotas before leaving the covered bucket on the landing.