Claralell didn’t give Fern a chance to absorb the gravity of her situation before she dragged Fern up stairs towards the doors. The doors were quite tall and appeared to made of stone, like the rest of the castle. The only way to get inside appeared to be two silver knockers that hung down about a foot above the girls’ heads, the rings of metal styled into flower laden vines.  Either the raccoon beasts that lived here previously were quite tall, or they had some other means of opening these doors.

Fern turned to Claralell, “Is there another entrance, or…?”

Claralell waved her hand, “Please, this is nothing for me.”

Fern raised a brow, “The handles are a foot up.”

“Just watch.”

The little blond girl leapt up to grasp onto one of the silver knockers, dangling there from both hands for a moment. Then she pulled her feet up, crooking her body to the right and planting her feet on the other door. Then, with all her might, she started pulling on the knocker, using the other door as a counter heave it open. As silly as it was, it worked. To Fern’s surprise, she succeeded in shifting the door open enough for them to enter.

Claralell huffed her breath and wiped her brow, looking proud of herself, “There, see? It’s easy when you do it like that.”

“Is there really no other way of doing that? And how do you get it closed once you’re inside?”

“Well, there are some other doors, but they’re all built big and heavy like this one. And all the windows open, but they’re high off the ground to. Even if I did leave on open, you’d have to climb up to get through. Anyways, come in, come in! Oh, there’s so much to show you!”

Fern took a glance back towards the garden, the end of the wide road off in the distance. “Hey, where do those other roads go?”

“Those? The one going straight leads to a really big stone tree and the other one leads to a big pit. I think it might’ve been a lake once, but who knows? Either way, that tree happens to be up on a hill and is the best stargazing spot this side of the moon! I’ll have to show you sometime.”

Then Claralell pulled Fern through the door, turning around to grip a large rope tied to the handle on this side. She had to put her foot on the door jamb to brace herself and lean her whole body weight into it again, but she managed to slide the door shut.

“…And that’s how I close it!”

A thought occurred to Fern, “Hey, how come everything’s not lighter?”

“Pardon?”

“The moon has less gravity than Earth, so shouldn’t we be able to move things a lot easier here?” She did a little hop to demonstrate. Unlike in all the movies she’d seen of space, she didn’t go higher than expected and then float back down. Instead she went up about two inches and landed with a solid thud. “See? That shouldn’t happen on the Moon.”

“Oh, that happens everywhere but the palace. I’m not sure why, but everything has Earth-like gravity on palace grounds. But if you go out further than the gate you can do that.”

Fern took a deep breath, more questions welling up inside her, “But how’s that possible? And how can we breathe here? The Moon doesn’t have a breathable atmosphere! And why couldn’t I see Earth outside? The moon is always facing the Earth, so shouldn’t I have been able to see it-?”

Fern was silenced by a finger pressed to her lips. Claralell frowned at her, “Goodness, I don’t know all the answers Fern! I just live here.” She took her finger away and hummed, “I don’t know why we can breathe. Maybe because we came through the Gate? I’ve never gotten here any other way, so I wouldn’t know, but I’ve seen that astronauts have to wear funny suits so they can breathe. And we can’t see Earth from here because we’re on the side that always faces away from it.”

“We’re on the dark side of the Moon? Shouldn’t it be…you know, dark?”

“That’s not meant to be literal silly. There’s plenty of light on this side, it’s just that we’re always facing away from the Earth. It would be more apt to call it the far side of the Moon.”

“Oh….”

Claralell started to walk through the corridor and Fern followed. They were in some sort of entryway, a hallway with a steeply pitched ceiling that was supported by stone arches. The tiles beneath their feet had taken of a checkered look, big square slabs of white butted up against pale blue. From the archways above hung lights that shone a crisp white, bouncing off the tiles. Light from outside shone in through the colorful stained glass, casting an array of colors across the floor. Large silver lanterns hung from the rafters above, but none of them were lit.

They came to another set of doors, this one hanging wide open. When they passed through, Fern swallowed heavily, eyes widening at the sight of the room before them. They were standing on a landing with stairs going downwards, the elaborately designed rails curling off to either side. The room was a massive circle, the checkered floor so polished that it reflected the stars. Stars? Fern looked up.

The roof was a glass dome, The only obstruction of the cosmos and millions of stars being the silver frames that made a delicate web. Looking back down, the walls of the room were lined with pale, shimmering columns. They were giant chunks of moonstone, shaped and cut into columns. Under the light coming through the glass roof, each column shimmered it’s hazy hue and cast its silvery blue light around it, as though the cloudy material was glowing from within. The walls were finely detailed with crown moldings, and tapestries hung from every wall. These were all identical, depicting a silver crescent against a pale blue backdrop with midnight boarders. There was large raised portion of the room with parted dark blue curtains, likely a stage for musicians.

To either side were more great doors, and on the far side another staircase that lead to more doors. Thankfully, they were all hanging wide open.

Claralell grinned at Fern and started pulling her down the stairs, “Come on, this room is super fun!”

“It’s really pretty, but it’s just a big empty room.”

“No no, watch this.”

On the last step, Claralell sat down and started unlacing her shoes. “Are you watching?”

Fern nodded, “Yeah.”

“Ok, watch!”

Claralell let her shoes dangle from her fingers as she kicked off the step, sliding across the polished floor in her socks. She giggled and twirled like a ballerina, “See? Fun!”

Fern stepped from the stairs and onto the polished floor. It did look like a lot of fun. Her dad always told her not to sock skate on the tile in the kitchen because she could fall and bust her head open on a counter, but this room was so vast and empty that it was near impossible to badly injure herself! She frowned down at her feet, disappointed. She obviously hadn’t been anticipating this trip, so she hadn’t thought to dress properly. She was only in her orange slippers, and beneath that bare feet.

Claralell slid over and seemed to see the problem. She took Ferns hand and started to skate towards the door on the far side, “It’s okay, You can borrow some socks and we can do this another time. And besides, most of the castle floors are like this. I usually skate because it’s faster than walking around this huge place. Come on, there’s so much to see!”

Fern walked alongside Claralell, having to jog a bit to keep up with her. Fern found it a bit funny that just a little while ago she had been the one having to slow down for Claralell. But not the blond girl was skating circles around her, flouncy dress fluttering around her legs as she gave a brief tour of the castle.

Claralell pointed over to the left doors, “Those lead to what I think were servant quarters. There’s a lot of rooms, anyways. It also has the kitchens.”

“What do you eat around here?”

“I go down to Earth to get food now and then. I’m a pretty good cook though, so I can make just about anything. Anyways,” she continued, pointing to the right doors, “those lead to a lot of different stuff. There’s a library, an armory filled with weapons, and an observatory, to name a few things.”

“A library?”

“Yes, but it’s mostly filled with all the books that they left behind. You know, the ones I can’t read. But a while ago I took to reading and started filling it with books that I brought back from Earth. Of course, my favorite books stay in my personal collection.”

They made it to the base of the steps and Claralell veered to the side to use the handrails. Without her shoes, the floors were quite slick and she had to heave herself up to keep from slipping and falling. Fern went to her side to take her other arm and help her up, “So, where are we going?”

“I want to show my room first! I think you’ll love it Fern, it’s a room fitting a princess.” She paused, “Well, I suppose it may have actually been a princess’s room.”

Past the doors was another large room, but not nearly as vast as the ballroom. It was a dining room, with a long table and dozens of silver and dark blue cushioned chairs pulled up to it. There weren’t any plates or silverware laid out, but the table was decorated with a light blue tablecloth with an elegant star pattern and porcelain vases filled with stone and crystal flower arrangements. The walls held more moonstone columns, tall windows draped in dark blue curtains, and sconces vaguely in the shape of an eagle’s head that dangled lanterns from their beaks. Instead of a glass ceiling, this room had a gigantic chandelier, it’s elegant silver branches laden with crystals that varied from light blue to lilac.

There were two sets of doors this time; one smaller and off to the side while the other was grander and straight ahead. Claralell started skating towards the bigger ones, “Come on! This goes to the tower.”

“Umm…how high do we have to go to get to your room?”

“Almost to the top!”

Fern balked. Claralell could barely run at a light pace, how could she possibly climb that many stairs without passing out? Not to mention expect Fern to do the same?

But upon passing through the door, instead of a grand set of swirling staircases, they came to a small parlor of sorts. There was a large door off to the side and much bigger one before them, the buttons that sat on the engraved panel beside it looking familiar.

Fern was confused but relieved, “An elevator?”

Claralell nodded, moving over and pressing the top button on the panel, “Yes, and thank the Lord for it.” She looked and Fern and pointed over to the other set of doors, “Those are the stairs, but can you imagine if I had to climb that many stairs whenever I wanted to go to sleep? I don’t care how nice the rooms above are, they’re not nice enough for that!”

Fern could hear the innerworkings of the elevator as it beeped, sliding its doors open for them to reveal the polished inside. Claralell pulled Fern inside, the door sliding shut behind them. Fern looked around. Even the elevator was spacious and elegant. The walls on the right and left had benches that were lined with that deep blue fabric. Fern reached out to feel it and found that it was similar to velvet. The door that came in from had a large panel beside it that held dozens of buttons, each one etched and painted with a symbol that Fern assumed were numbers. Above them was a smaller, but equally carefully crafted chandelier that held an orb that glowed with a slightly blue tint. Fern squinted at the orb. The inside seemed to be…swirling, like the glow was produced by air.

Claralell jabbed a button towards the top of the panel and the elevator started to move upwards smoothly and without delay. Then she twirled around and sat primly down on the cushioned seat, pulling Fern down beside her.

“So, what do you think so far?”

“Of the palace? It’s very pretty! And very…blue.”

“Well, it is the Blue Moon Palace.”

“Do you…really live here all alone?”

Claralell’s smile fell into a thoughtful look, “…Usually. But sometimes I’ll bring new friends to visit. And sometimes they chose to stay and live here, but I don’t have anyone like that right now.”

Before Fern could press her further on the matter, the elevator pinged and what Fern had thought was just a blank wall slid open. Fern blinked, “That was fast. It didn’t feel like we were moving that quickly.”

“I know, but I’m not complaining.” Claralell hopped up and grabbed Fern’s hand, pulling her into the room. Fern felt herself sink down and looked to see squishy lavender carpet. 

Claralell tossed her shoes into a corner and stepped into the room, spinning around and throwing out her arms, “Well, these are my rooms!”