Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

It was a wonderful feeling, a sense of release and boundless freedom that he had never known before. He was beyond the reach of all the things that had weighed him down and hemmed him in.

Could he be hovering somewhere in the cosmos? But in the cosmos there were stars and here there was nothing of the kind. There was only this velvety darkness and a wonderful, happy feeling he hadn’t known in all his life. Could it be that he was dead?

“Moon Child, where are you?”

And then he heard a delicate, birdlike voice that answered him and that may have answered him several times without his hearing it. It seemed very near, and yet he could not have said from what direction it came.

“Here I am, my Bastian.”

“Is it you, Moon Child?”

She laughed in a strangely lilting way.

“Who else would I be? Why, you’ve just given me my lovely name. Thank you for it. Welcome, my savior and my hero.”

“Where are we, Moon Child?”

“I am with you, and you are with me.”

Dream words. Yet Bastian knew for sure that he was awake and not dreaming.

“Moon Child,” he whispered. “Is this the end?”

“No,” she replied, “it’s the beginning.”

“Where is Fantastica, Moon Child? Where are all the others? Where are Atreyu and Falkor? And what about the Old Man of Wandering Mountain and his book? Don’t they exist anymore?”

“Fantastica will be born again from your wishes, my Bastian. Through me they will become reality.”

“From my wishes?” Bastian repeated in amazement.

He heard the sweet voice reply: “You know they call me the Commander of Wishes. What will you wish?”

Bastian thought a moment. Then he inquired cautiously: “How many wishes have

I got?”

“As many as you want—the more, the better, my Bastian. Fantastica will be all the more rich and varied.”

Bastian was overjoyed. But just because so infinitely many possibilities had suddenly been held out to him, he couldn’t think of a single wish.

“I can’t think of anything,” he said finally.

For a time there was silence. And then he heard the birdlike voice: “That’s bad.”

“Why?”

“Because then there won’t be any more Fantastica.”

Bastian made no answer. He felt confused. His sense of unlimited freedom was somewhat marred by the thought that everything depended on him.

“Why is it so dark, Moon Child?” he asked.

“The beginning is always dark, my Bastian.”

“I’d awfully like to see you again, Moon Child. The way you were when you looked at me.”

Again he heard the soft lilting laugh.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I’m happy.”

“Happy? Why?”

“You’ve just made your first wish.”

“Will you make it come true?”

He held out his hand and felt she was putting something into it. Something very small but strangely heavy. It was very cold and felt hard and dead.

“What is it, Moon Child?”

“A grain of sand,” she replied. “All that’s left of my boundless realm. I make you a present of it.”

“Thank you,” said Bastian, bewildered. What on earth could he do with such a gift? If at least it had been something living.

As he was mulling it over, he felt something wriggling in his hand. He raised his hand to see what it was.

“Look, Moon Child,” he whispered. “It’s glowing and glittering. And there—look!—a little flame is coming out of it. No, it’s not a grain of sand, it’s a seed. It’s a luminous seed and it’s starting to sprout!”

“Well done, my Bastian!” he heard her say. “You see how easy it is for you.”

Barely perceptible at first, the glow of the speck in Bastian’s palm grew quickly, making the two child faces, so very different from each other, gleam in the velvety darkness.

Slowly Bastian withdrew his hand, and the glittering speck hovered between them like a little star.

The seed sprouted so quickly that one could see it grow. It put forth leaves and a stem and buds that burst into many-colored, phosphorescent flowers. Little fruits formed, ripened, and exploded like miniature rockets, spraying new seeds all around them.

From the new seeds grew other plants, but these had different shapes. Some were like ferns or small palms, others like cacti, bullrushes, or gnarled trees. Each glowed a different color.

Soon the velvety darkness all around Bastian and Moon Child, over and under them and on every side, was filled with rapidly growing luminous plants. A globe of radiant colors, a new, luminous world hovered in the Nowhere, and grew and grew. And in its innermost center Bastian and Moon Child sat hand in hand, looking around them with eyes of wonder.

Unceasingly new shapes and colors appeared. Larger and larger blossoms opened, richer and richer clusters formed. And all this in total silence.

Soon some of the plants were as big as fruit trees. There were fans of long emerald-green leaves, flowers resembling peacock tails with rainbow-colored eyes, pagodas consisting of superimposed umbrellas of violet silk. Thick stems were interwoven like braids. Since they were transparent, they looked like pink glass lit up from within. Some of the blooms looked like clusters of blue and yellow Japanese lanterns. And little by little, as the luminous night growth grew denser, they intertwined to form a tissue of soft light.

“You must give all this a name,” Moon Child whispered. Bastian nodded.

“Perilin, the Night Forest,” he said.

He looked into the Childlike Empress’s eyes. And once again, as at their first exchange of glances, he sat spellbound, unable to take his eyes off her. The first time she had been deathly ill. Now she was much, much more beautiful. Her torn gown was whole again, the soft-colored light played over the pure whiteness of the silk and of her long hair. His wish had come true.

Bastian’s eyes swam. “Moon Child,” he stammered. “Are you well again?”

She smiled, “Can’t you see that I am?”

“I wish everything would stay like this forever,” he said.

“The moment is forever,” she replied.

Bastian was silent. He didn’t understand what she had said, but he was in no mood to puzzle it out. He wanted only to sit there looking at her.

Little by little the thicket of luminous plants had formed a thick hedge around them. As though imprisoned in a tent of magic carpets, Bastian paid no attention to what was happening outside. He didn’t realize that Perilin was growing and growing, that each and every plant was getting big or bigger. Seeds no bigger than sparks kept raining down and sprouted as they hit the ground.

Bastian sat gazing at Moon Child. He had eyes for nothing else.

He could not have said how much time had passed when Moon Child put her hand over his eyes.

“Why did you keep me waiting so long?” he heard her ask. “Why did you make me go to the Old Man of Wandering Mountain? Why didn’t you come when I called?”

Bastian gulped.

“It was because,” he stammered, “I thought—all sorts of reasons—fear—well, to tell you the truth, I was ashamed to let you see me.”

She withdrew her hand and looked at him in amazement.

“Ashamed? Why?”

“B-because,” Bastian stammered, “you—you must have expected somebody who was right for you.”

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Aren’t you right for me?”

Bastian felt that he was blushing. “I mean,” he said, “somebody strong and brave and handsome—maybe a prince—anyway, not someone like me.”

He couldn’t see her, for he had lowered his eyes, but again he heard her soft lilting

laugh.

“You see,” he said. “Now you’re laughing at me.”

There was a long silence, and when Bastian finally brought himself to look up, he saw that she was bending very close to him. Her face was grave.