Text Leveling System

The Girl Who Drank The Moon

RDQ:	2244	Max Word/Sent	68	Total Words	3069		Diff Words	1040
Lex	940	Ave Word/.Sent	10	Hi Freq occurs	2200	71.7%	Hi freq	406	39%
AR	5.4	Long Sentences	13	Low Freq occurs	314	10.2%	Low freq	244	23.5%

In Which a Story Is Told
Yes.
There is a witch in the woods. There has always been a witch.
Will you stop your fidgeting for once? My stars! I have never
seen such a fidgety child.
No, sweetheart, I have not seen her. No one has. Not for ages.
We've taken steps so that we will never see her.
Terrible steps.
Don't make me say it. You already know, anyway.
Oh, I don't know, darling. No one knows why she wants children. We don't know why she insists that it must always be the very youngest among us. It's not as though we could just ask her. She hasn't been seen. We make sure that she will not be seen.]]
Of course she exists. What a question! Look at the woods! So
dangerous! Poisonous smoke and sinkholes and boiling geysers
and terrible dangers every which way. Do you think it is so by accident?
Rubbish! It was the Witch, and if we don't do as she says,
what will become of us?
You really need me to explain it?
I'd rather not.
Oh, hush now, don't cry. It's not as though the Council of Elders is coming for you, now is it. You're far too old.
From our family?
Yes, dearest. Ever so long ago. Before you were born. He was
a beautiful boy.
Now finish your supper and see to your chores. We'll all be
up early tomorrow. The Day of Sacrifice waits for no one, and
we must all be present to thank the child who will save us for one
more year.
Your brother? How could I fight for him? If I had, the Witch
would have killed us all and then where would we be? Sacrifice one
or sacrifice all. That is the way of the world. We couldn't change
it if we tried.
Enough questions. Off with you. Fool child.]]
In Which an Unfortunate
Woman Goes Quite Mad
Grand Elder Gherland took his time that morning. The
Day of Sacrifice only came once a year, after all, and
he liked to look his best during the sober procession to the
cursed house, and during the somber retreat. He encouraged
the other Elders to do the same. It was important to give the
populace a show.
He carefully dabbed rouge on his sagging cheeks and lined
his eyes with thick streaks of kohl. He checked his teeth in the
mirror, ensuring they were free of debris or goop. He loved
that mirror. It was the only one in the Protectorate. Nothing
gave Gherland more pleasure than the possession of a thing
that was unique unto him. He liked being special.]]
The Grand Elder had ever so many possessions that were
unique in the Protectorate. It was one of the perks of the
job.
The Protectorate-called the Cattail Kingdom by some
and the City of Sorrows by others-was sandwiched between
a treacherous forest on one side and an enormous bog on the
other. Most people in the Protectorate drew their livelihoods
from the Bog. There was a future in bogwalking, mothers told
their children. Not much of a future, you understand, but it
was better than nothing. The Bog was full of Zirin shoots in
the spring and Zirin flowers in the summer and Zirin bulbs in
the fall-in addition to a wide array of medicinal and borderline
magical plants that could be harvested, prepared, treated,
and sold to the Traders from the other side of the forest, who
in turn transported the fruits of the Bog to the Free Cities, far
away. The forest itself was terribly dangerous, and navigable
only by the Road.
And the Elders owned the Road.
Which is to say that Grand Elder Gherland owned the
Road, and the other Elders had their cut. The Elders owned
the Bog, too. And the orchards. And the houses. And the market squares. Even the garden plots.
This was why the families of the Protectorate made their
shoes out of reeds. This was why, in lean times, they fed their
children the thick, rich broth of the Bog, hoping that the Bog
would make them strong.]]
This was why the Elders and their families grew big and
strong and  rosy-cheeked on beef and butter and beer.
The door knocked.
"Enter," Grand Elder Gherland mumbled as he adjusted the
drape of his robe.
I I was Antain. His nephew. An Elder-in-Training, but only
because Gherland, in a moment of weakness, had promised the
ridiculous boy's more ridiculous mother. But that was unkind.
Antain was a nice enough young man, nearly thirteen. He was
a hard worker and a quick study. He was good with numbers
and clever with his hands and could build a comfortable bench
for a tired Elder as quick as breathing. And, despite himself,
Gherland had developed an inexplicable, and growing, fondness for the hoy.
But.
Antain had big ideas. Grand notions. And questions.
Gherland furrowed his brow. Antain was-how could he put
it? Overly keen. If this kept up, he'd have to be dealt with, blood
or no. The thought of it weighed upon Gherland's heart, like
a stone.
"UNCLE GHERLAND!" Antain nearly bowled his uncle
over with his insufferable enthusiasm.
"Calm yourself, boy!" the Elder snapped. "This is a solemn
occasion!"
The boy calmed visibly, his eager, doglike face tilted toward
the ground. Gherland resisted the urge to pat him gently]]
on the head. "I have been sent," Antain continued in a mostly
soft voice, "to tell you that the other Elders are ready. And all
the populace waits along the route. Everyone is accounted
for."
"Each one? There are no shirkers?"
"After last year, I doubt there ever will be again," Antain
said with a shudder.
"Pity." Gherland checked his mirror again, touching up his
rouge. He rather enjoyed teaching the occasional lesson to the
citizens of the Protectorate. It clarified things. He tapped the
sagging folds under his chin and frowned. "Well, Nephew," he
said with an artful swish of his robes, one that had taken him
over a decade to perfect. "Let us be off. That baby isn't going
to sacrifice itself, after all." And he flowed into the street with
Antain stumbling at his heels.
Normally, the Day of Sacrifice came and went with all the
pomp and gravity that it ought. The children were given over
without protest. Their numb families mourned in silence, with
pots of stew and nourishing foods heaped into their kitchens,
while the comforting arms of neighbors circled around them to
ease their bereavement.
Normally, no one broke the rules.
But not this time.
Grand Elder Gherland pressed his lips into a frown. He
could hear the mother's howling before the procession turned]]
onto the final street. The citizens began to shift uncomfortably where they stood.
When they arrived at the family's house, an astonishing
sight met the Council of Elders. A man with a scratched-up
face and a swollen lower lip and bloody bald spots across his
skull where his hair had been torn out in clumps met them at
the door. He tried to smile, but his tongue went instinctively
to the gap where a tooth had just recently been. He sucked in
his lips and attempted to bow instead.
"I am sorry, sirs," said the man-the father, presumably. "I
don't know what has gotten into her. It's like she's gone mad."
From the rafters above them, a woman screeched and
howled as the Elders entered the house. Her shiny black hair
flew about her head like a nest of long, writhing snakes. She
hissed and spat like a cornered animal. She clung to the ceiling
beams with one arm and one leg, while holding a baby tightly
against her breast with the other arm,
"GET OUT!" she screamed. "You cannot have her. I spit on
your faces and curse your names. Leave my home at once, or I
shall tear out your eyes and throw them to the crows!"
The Elders stared at her, openmouthed. They couldn't
believe it. No one fought for a doomed child. It simply wasn't
done.
(Antain alone began to cry. He did his best to hide it from
the adults in the room.)
Gherland, thinking fast, affixed a kindly expression on his]]
craggy face. He turned his palms toward the mother to show
her that he meant no harm. He gritted his teeth behind his
smile. All this kindness was nearly killing him.
"We are not taking her at all, my poor, misguided girl,"
Gherland said in his most patient voice. "The Witch is taking
her. We are simply doing as we're told."
The mother made a guttural sound, deep in her chest, like
an angry bear.
Gherland laid his hand on the shoulder of the perplexed
husband and gave a gentle squeeze. "It appears, my good fellow, that you are right: your wife has gone mad." He did his
best to cover his rage with a facade of concern. "A rare case,
of course, but not without precedent. We must respond with
compassion. She needs care, not blame."
"LIAR," the woman spat. The child began to cry, and the
woman climbed even higher, putting each foot on parallel rafters and bracing her back against the slope of the roof, trying
to position herself in such a way that she could remain out of
reach while she nursed the baby. The child calmed instantly.
"If you take her," she said with a growl, "I will find her. I will
find her and take her back. You see if! won't."
And face the Witch?" Gherland laughed. All on your
own? Oh, you pathetic, lost soul." His voice was honey, but
his face was a glowing ember. "Grief has made you lose your
senses. The shock has shattered your poor mind. No matter.
We shall heal you, dear, as best we can. Guards!]]
He snapped his fingers, and armed guards poured into the
room. They were a special unit, provided as always by the Sisters of the Star. They wore bows and arrows slung across their
backs and short, sharp swords sheathed at their belts. Their
long braided hair looped around their waists, where it was
cinched tight-a testament to their years of contemplation
and combat training at the top of the Tower. Their faces were
implacable as stones, and the Elders, despite their power and
stature, edged away from them. The Sisters were a frightening
force. Not to be trifled with.
"Remove the child from the lunatic's clutches and escort
the poor dear to the Tower," Gherland ordered. He glared at
the mother in the rafters, who had gone suddenly very pale.
"The Sisters of the Star know what to do with broken minds,
my dear. I'm sure it hardly hurts at all."
The Guard was efficient, calm, and utterly ruthless. The
mother didn't stand a chance. Within moments, she was
bound, hobbled, and carried away. Her howls echoed through
the silent town, ending suddenly when the Tower's great
wooden doors slammed shut, locking her inside.
The baby, on the other hand, once transferred into the
arms of the Grand Elder, whimpered briefly and then turned
her attention to the sagging face in front of her, all wobbles
and creases and folds. She had a solemn look to her-calm,
skeptical, and intense, making it difficult for Gherland to look
away. She had black curls and black eyes. Luminous skin, like]]
polished amber. In the center of her forehead, she had a birthmark
in the shape of a crescent moon. The mother had a similar
mark. Common lore insisted that such people were special.
Gherland disliked lore, as a general rule, and he certainly disliked
it when citizens of the Protectorate got it in their heads
to think themselves better than they were. He deepened his
frown and leaned in close, wrinkling his brow. The baby stuck
out her tongue.
Horrible child, Gherland thought.
"Gentlemen," he said with all the ceremony he could muster,
"it is time." The baby chose this particular moment to let
loose a large, warm, wet stain across the front of Gherland's
robes. He pretended not to notice, but inwardly he fumed.
She had done it on purpose. He was sure of it. What a
revolting baby.
The procession was, as usual, somber, slow, and insufferably
plodding. Gherland felt he might go mad with impatience.
Once the Protectorate's gates closed behind them, though, and
the citizens returned with their melancholy broods of children
to their drab little homes, the Elders quickened their pace.
"But why are we running, Uncle?" Antain asked.
"Hush, boy!" Gherland hissed. And keep up!"
No one liked being in the forest, away from the Road. Not
even the Elders. Not even Gherland. The area just outside the
Protectorate walls was safe enough. In theory. But everyone]]
knew someone who had accidentally wandered too far. And
fell into a sinkhole. Or stepped in a mud pot, boiling off most
of their skin. Or wandered into a swale where the air was bad,
and never returned. The forest was dangerous.
They followed a winding trail to the small hollow surrounded
by five ancient trees, known as the Witch's Handmaidens.
Or six. Didn't it used ta be five? Gherland glared at
the trees, counted them again, and shook his head. There were
six. No matter. The forest was just getting to him. Those trees
were almost as old as the world, after all.
The space inside of the ring of trees was mossy and soft,
and the Elders laid the child upon it, doing their best not to
look at her. They had turned their backs on the baby and
started to hurry away when their youngest member cleared
his throat.
"So. We just leave her here?" Antain asked. "That's how
it's done?"
"Yes, Nephew," Gherland said. "That is how it's done." He
felt a sudden wave of fatigue settling on his shoulders like an
ox's yoke. He felt his spine start to sag.
Antain pinched his neck-a nervous habit that he couldn't
break. "Shouldn't we wait for the Witch to arrive?"
The other Elders fell into an uncomfortable silence.
"Come again?" Elder Raspin, the most decrepit of the Elders,
asked.]]
"Well, surely ... " Antain's voice trailed off. "Surely we
must wait for the Witch," he said quietly. "What would become
of us if wild animals came first and carried her off?"
The other Elders stared at the Grand Elder, their lips tight.
"Fortunately, Nephew," he said quickly, leading the boy
away, "that has never been a problem."
"But -" Antain said, pinching his neck again, so hard he
left a mark.
"But nothing," Gherland said, a firm hand on the boy's
back, striding quickly down the well-trodden path.
And, one by one, the Elders filed out, leaving the baby
behind.
They left knowing-all but Antain-that it was not a
matter of if the child were eaten by animals, but rather that
she surely would be.
They left her knowing that there surely wasn't a witch.
There never had been a witch. There were only a dangerous
forest and a single road and a thin grip on a life that the Elders
had enjoyed for generations. The Witch-that is, the belief in
her-made for a frightened people, a subdued people, a compliant people, who lived their lives in a saddened haze, the clouds
of their grief numbing their senses and dampening their minds.
It was terribly convenient for the Elders' unencumbered rule.
Unpleasant, too, of course, but that couldn't be helped.
They heard the child whimper as they tramped through
the trees, but the whimpering soon gave way to the swamp]]
sighs and birdsong and the woody creaking of trees throughout
the forest. And each Elder felt as sure as sure could be that
the child wouldn't live to see the morning, and that they would
never hear her, never see her, never think of her again.
They thought she was gone forever.
They were wrong, of course.]]
In Which a Witch Accidentally
Enmagics an Infant
At the center of the forest was a small swamp-bubbly,
sulfury, and noxious, fed and warmed by an underground,
restlessly sleeping volcano and covered with a slick of
slime whose color ranged from poison green to lightning blue
to blood red, depending on the time of year. On this day-so
close to the Day of Sacrifice in the Protectorate, or Star Child
Day everywhere else-the green was just beginning to inch
its way toward blue.
At the edge of the swamp, standing right on the fringe of
flowering reeds growing out of the muck, a very old woman
leaned on a gnarled staff She was short and squat and a bit bulbous
about the belly. Her crinkly gray hair had been pulled back]]
into a thick, braided knot, with leaves and flowers growing out
of the thin gaps between the twisted plaits. Her face, despite
its cloud of annoyance, maintained a brightness in those aged
eyes and a hint of a smile in that flat, wide mouth. From certain
angles, she looked a bit like a large, good-tempered toad.
Her name was Xan. And she was the Witch.
"Do you think you can hide from me, you ridiculous monster?"
she bellowed at the swamp. "It isn't as though I don't
know where you are. Resurface this minute and apologize."
She pressed her expression into something closely resembling
a scowl. "Or I will make you." Though she had no real power
over the monster himself-he was far too old-she certainly
had the power to make that swamp cough him up as if he were
nothing more than a glob of phlegm in the back of the throat.
She could do it with just a flick of her left hand and a jiggle of
her right knee.
She attempted to scowl again.
"I MEAN IT," she hollered.
The thick water bubbled and swirled, and the large head
of the swamp monster slurped out of the bluish-green. He
blinked one wide eye, and then the other, before rolling both
toward the sky.
"Don't you roll your eyes at me, young man," the old woman
huffed.
"Witch," the monster murmured, his mouth still half submerged
in the thick waters of the swamp. "I am many]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Concept: Fanciful

Chapters

Headings

Prior Knowledge: Basic understanding.

Features

Integral Setting

Complex plot

Difficult names

Topic

Witches

Monsters

Dragons

Good/Evil

*Fictional Ideas/Charac

Low Frequency Words

accidentally	accounted	addition	adjusted	affixed
angles	annoyance	antain	antain's	array
artful	astonishing	bereavement	birthmark	borderline
bracing	breast	bulbous	calmed	ceremony
cheeked	cinched	citizens	clarified	compassion
compliant	concern	contemplation	convenient	cough
council	craggy	crescent	crinkly	curls
curse	cursed	dampening	dealt	debris
decade	decrepit	deepened	despite	disliked
doglike	doubt	ease	echoed	edged
efficient	elder	elders	ember	encouraged
enmagics	ensuring	enthusiasm	facade	fatigue
fellow	fidgeting	fidgety	flowering	fondness
fortunately	frightening	fumed	furrowed	future
general	generations	geysers	gherland	gherland's
glared	gnarled	grief	gritted	guttural
handmaidens	harvested	haze	hobbled	hollered
hollow	hoping	impatience	implacable	inexplicable
insists	instantly	instinctively	insufferable	insufferably
intense	inwardly	keen	kindly	kindness
kingdom	knowing	kohl	liar	livelihoods
looped	lore	luminous	lunatic's	magical
maintained	medicinal	melancholy	misguided	moments
mourned	murmured	muster	navigable	neighbors
nephew	notions	nourishing	noxious	numb
numbing	occasion	occasional	openmouthed	orchards
ought	overly	pace	palms	parallel
particular	pathetic	patient	perplexed	phlegm
plaits	pleasure	plodding	poisonous	pomp
populace	possession	possessions	precedent	presumably
procession	protectorate	protectorate's	provided	purpose
quickened	rafters	ranged	recently	reeds
resembling	resisted	respond	restlessly	resurface
retreat	revolting	ridiculous	rosy	rouge
route	rubbish	ruthless	sacrifice	saddened
sagging	sandwiched	scowl	settling	sheathed
shirkers	shudder	similar	sinkhole	sirs
skeptical	slung	slurped	sober	solemn
somber	soul	spat	spine	squat
staff	stature	striding	subdued	submerged
surely	surrounded	swale	swamp	sweetheart
swirled	swollen	swords	tempered	terribly
testament	theory	throughout	tilted	traders
tramped	transferred	transported	treacherous	trifled
trodden	uncomfortable	uncomfortably	unencumbered	unfortunate
unique	unto	urge	utterly	visibly
wandered	weakness	weighed	whimper	whimpered
whimpering	wobbles	woody	wrinkling	writhing
xan	yoke	youngest	zirin