Chapter Three: Whose Face Did the Moon Borrow?

"Our contract mark used to be there." Shen Wu opened her hand. Half a crescent glowed in her palm. Its missing half appeared in Gu Linchuan's. "Is the woman in the street Wen Mo?" "Yes and no. Wen Mo lent her body to your old identity. The thing wearing your face is the memory this town stripped from your previous life." "A memory can become a person?" "Here, if enough people believe a name, it can grow a face and body." The Moon Borrowers, he explained, had begun as forty-three survivors of a mining disaster. The meteorite iron underground preserved their consciousness, allowing them to exchange names and lives under a full moon. At first, the exchanges let the bereaved rest or the sick borrow healthy bodies.