I
Tonight there are two moons in the sky, one light and one dark. It’s been many years since I saw them, but were there always two? And why is the second moon looking at me that way? It has the entire world to look at, to spy on. Why spy on me? I hid through the back door of the house into the kitchen. It can’t see me. But it knows where I am. I will have to stay inside until morning. I make a pot of tea. Tea is best picked on a cloudless night like tonight when the leaves are damp and covered in dew. But tonight something is wrong, I do not even notice the water boiling.
I sit down at the kitchen table. There is a red-haired girl sitting across from me; she must be hiding from the moon as well. She looks not all there, a semi-vacant stare. She tells me she has seen death. I tell her I am having my tea. I can't give you a cup because I didn't know you were coming. When you make tea you have to measure it properly for the number of people drinking it. This is very important. Why don’t people LISTEN when I tell them about tea. It is not HARD to UNDERSTAND.
II
She is not stupid, I see that sly glance she gives me when she thinks I am not looking. There is no moon in the sky tonight but I stay inside anyway. I make enough for her and add some honey to hers as well; girls like sweet things. I give her the tea in the Nice Cup because it is Polite. She slurps the tea and doesn’t say anything about the honey. I will not serve her tea in the Nice Cup again.
III
Day is the time of yang, but night is the time of yin. Moonlight is the energy of yin. Dew is the water of the night and is also yin. When the night is full of yin's influence (moonlight and dew) the yin of the tea picked at this time is strengthened and in harmony.
I serve tea to the girl in the Chipped Yellow Cup. I don't think she notices. She tells me when she was a young girl, she was allergic to sunlight and could only go outside at night. In the deserted playgrounds she could climb and play on the swings and slides. Her only friend was the moon's cold light.
She says she can be my friend. But her eyes tell me something different. She is yin, she is darkness. She wants my flesh. She wants to kill me.
I am afraid.
IV
We sit at the table in the moonlight. Neither of us moves, watching the other. If I take my eyes off her I know I will be lost. I know her for her true nature now and her yin no longer hides behind a vacant stare. A tongue the colour of a tea leaf slips out between her lips, and she smiles. The tea goes cold in the pot on the table. We sit for hours. Then weeks. Then years. The world slips by outside unnoticed as we sit together, locked in our silent vigil. She is the daughter of the moon; the spirit of the witching hour who has come to claim me with hideous strength and take me back into the silent planet.
And yet. There is something else, eclipsed behind her eyes. Like the moon is only a reflection of the sun, she is but a poor soul's cold twin sister. She is near yin, but not of it. I reach out to the tea sitting on the table and pour her a cup. Her cup is full and I keep filling it, tea running out over the rim, over the saucer, over the table. Her hand snakes out latching onto my wrist. She hisses but I do not stop until the pot is empty and the tea puddles and drains off onto the floor. A cloud moves across the moon, plunging the kitchen in shadow. The tea drips steadily. I wait for the moonlight to return but it is has gone and so has she.
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