Luna Howls at the Moon

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  “A squirrel,” Beatrice breathes. “I told y’all that was nothing to be worried about.”

  Night gets heavier. We carry it as we walk. The scent of pine needles sticks to us like sap. Crickets chirrup and owls hoot and the lake beside us gets inkier and wider.

  “What’s that?” Caleb asks, pointing several leaps ahead. Whatever it is, it’s hard to see in the night. We get closer.

  It’s a fence, pulled across the trail. Our trail. Our path to light. With a sign.

  I feel Beatrice untangling the letters of each word, fumbling like thick fingertips over tight shoelaces.

  “‘Danger. Trail Closed. Keep Out,’” Caleb reads.

  We stand there stunned as shock collars.

  A growl begins low and deep in Beatrice’s throat. It rises. Escapes.

  “ARRRGGHHHHH!” She balls her fists, grits her teeth, and kicks the fence with the toes of her thick black boots. The fence groans. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  She is echoing what Caleb said earlier. Tessa doesn’t like when that word, stupid, is said in her counseling sessions. It makes her prickle. It’s “unproductive,” she says. I think that means it stops you from growing.

  Beatrice is too frenzied for me to touch right now, but I move next to the fence where she can see me. I look at her with the most calming eyes I can muster. Beatrice stops kicking, drops to the ground, and sits with her back against the cold crisscross fence. But she throws her head back against it. “Ow!”

  I sit next to her, and she tosses an arm over my neck.

  “What do we do?” Caleb asks.

  We go home, I answer.

  But none of these kids say it. Why aren’t they saying it?

  The light of the moontower flickers through the wind-whipped leaves. It’s closer now. Still far but closer. We are so close to Hector. So close to finding out about the whys and why nots of new friendships.

  Caleb’s heart ticks away the time we have to get there.

  My whiskers twitch. These kids don’t want to turn back, not when the moontower is so close they can almost feel its hum.

  Melancholy. It’s a feeling a little like being sleepy, but with some blue heaviness heaped on top. Amelia sighs, droops next to Beatrice. On the trail beside us, a tangle of star-shaped yellow flowers droops as well. They sunburned themselves all day, and now that the sun is gone, they’re wilting.

  A gate? An actual obstacle in the path. Sandpaper’s voice purrs through the night. He swishes out of the tall, flower-spattered grass and weaves around Caleb’s ankles. Rarely does a metaphor present itself so literally.

  Caleb looks down at the cat weaving between his legs like it’s the first time he’s ever seen a cat. We are silent long enough for the purple night to notch closer to fully black.

  “Huh,” Caleb says, watching Sandpaper nudge his shins. “My mom always said I’m allergic to cats.”

  “You’re not sneezing,” Beatrice says.

  “And not itching,” Caleb says. Wistful. Wishful. He stoops and scratches Sandpaper behind the ear. Sandpaper’s eye closes.

  “All of this to see a crummy hoverboard,” Caleb says. His voice is light, feathery like a tickle. He’s teasing Beatrice.

  She smiles in the dark. I can feel it. “Hector better be telling the truth. That thing better float.”

  Caleb leans forward, trying to see her face. I lean too. “Why does it matter? If it flies or not?”

  Beatrice snaps up straight, eyes wide. “That’s just it. He didn’t say it flies. He said it floats. Floats! Lots of junk flies. But how many things float?”

  We sit still, thinking of that word, float. I don’t know what my kids are picturing or even if they are, but I imagine tennis balls and clouds and frisbees and bubbles. Nice things.

  Nice things float.

  I guess Beatrice needs to see something nice.

  “Well,” Caleb sighs at last. Looks at his wrist. “It’s almost eight thirty. I guess we should—”

  “Why are you in counseling?” Beatrice shoots at him. An arrow through the dark.

  “Why are you?” Caleb shoots back. I’m oddly proud of him for shooting back.

  Silence inhales, exhales. Silence is more silent at night.

  Beatrice rolls her head against the whiny fence to look at Amelia. “I mean, I get why you are.” She rolls it back forward, facing Caleb. “Actually, I get why you are too.”

  My whiskers twitch, and I expect to pick up white-hot anger from Amelia and Caleb. But instead, pops of yellow joy, like flashes of fireflies, poke holes through the night. Giggles?

  Amelia laughs. Caleb laughs. And Beatrice, who I think was trying to stoke a fire, surrenders. She laughs too.

  Joy floats. That’s something else to add to that list. Joy.

  They chuckle till they cry, these three kids of mine. As long as I live, I will never understand human tears. Humans cry at happy and sad and rage and bliss. Like feelings are one big circle, with tears gluing them all together.

  Caleb inhales, exhales. “I have to testify in my parents’ divorce hearing.”

  Beatrice picks up a fistful of fine gravel, lets it sift through her fingers. “That sucks.” Amelia nods.

  “Yeah. Well, testify isn’t really accurate, I guess. At least that’s what they tell me. I’ll be ‘chatting with a judge’ about our ‘family circumstances.’” When he says this, he wags his fingers up and down. He spits these words rather than says them.

  “That sounds fun,” Beatrice says, her voice as flat as cardboard.

  “Yeah. And my dad’s been telling me things to say about my mom, and my mom’s been telling me things to say about my dad.” Caleb tugs on the neck of his T-shirt. The blood there is dry now, and brown and crusty. I feel him missing his backpack, with its emergency water and change of clothes. Caleb is training to be an Eagle Scout. He is always prepared.

  He is usually prepared. He was not prepared for this.

  I’m so thirsty.

  Caleb sighs. “It’s all just one big game to them.”

  “Checkmate,” Beatrice says.

  “Exactly. Checkmate. And do you know how often a pawn betters the king in chess?” Caleb paces now, his feet squelching in mud. He cracks his knuckles. Sandpaper follows, weaving around him. Caleb stops to avoid tripping over the cat, and stoops to pet him again. Caleb’s pulse slows its rush when he does this. The Waterfall, softened by Sandpaper.

  “You know what I’m going to miss the most?” Caleb continues. “Mom’s family and Dad’s family get along great. I mean, great. We do all our holidays together, all of us, and we sing and laugh and watch sports and tell stories. That’s going to end, I guess. I won’t miss the fighting. But I’ll miss that.”

  We take a moment to think about missing things. I miss Tessa.

  “You know what I should do? I should stand up to my parents,” Caleb says. It looks like he’s saying it to Sandpaper.

  A noble decision, Sandpaper says.

  “Yeah, like that’s easy,” Beatrice says. All three nod. They agree: not easy.

  “You should tell them how you feel, though,” Beatrice offers.

  Caleb smirks. “Yeah. My dad doesn’t really believe in ‘feelings.’” He wags his fingers again when he says this.

  How can you not believe in feelings? They are what makes life salty and sweet and chewy and crunchy and delicious and sometimes very hard.

  Caleb cocks his head at Beatrice. “Were you crying in that weirdo museum earlier?”

  Every part of Beatrice screams no, except for, oddly, her mouth. She chews the inside of her cheek. “I guess? I mean, yeah. But I don’t know why, you know?”

  Amelia nods fast at this.

  “I mean,” Beatrice says, shifting. Her arm is still draped over my shoulder, so the movement pulls me closer to her. “I do know. My grammy, she would’ve loved that place. I miss her. So much.” Beatrice’s throat tightens. I nudge her chin with the top of my head.

  “My mom—she’s more like a friend
, you know? A good friend—my best friend, I guess. But not a mom. My grammy, though.” Beatrice is fighting tears. I don’t know why humans do that. Tears are wonderful.

  “My grammy could do it all. Grandma. Mom. Dad. She was all of them.” Beatrice sniffs loudly. Groans. “UGH. Sometimes I feel like I’m a balloon in a world full of pins.”

  Beatrice and I have this in common. I am soft in a world of sharp.

  She continues, “Everyone else seems to be able to tell you exactly what they’re feeling. I’m happy! I’m sad! I’m lonely!” She says these things high and yippy, like a squeaky toy. “I am all those things. All the time. All at once. I don’t know how to pick them apart. It’s like trying to pick out one flame in a bonfire.”

  These kids are excellent at analogies, Sandpaper says. His head is cocked to the side and his one eye is closed thanks to the ear scritches Caleb gives him. It truly helps me understand their human trials.

  At the words flame and bonfire, Amelia flinches. Beatrice must notice, because she leans toward her. “And that fire. It must’ve been pretty bad, huh?”

  Amelia gulps and her throat is dry as dust. But she nods.

  “Did anyone . . . die?” Beatrice asks. A whisker twitch tells me Caleb is about to tell Beatrice she shouldn’t ask that, but Amelia quickly shakes her head no.

  “Okay, good,” Beatrice says. “I was worried about that.”

  I open my nostrils and sniff and it’s true—Beatrice does have a whiff of worry about her. Worry smells like the stuffing ripped out of a favorite toy. Dry and messy. Easy to choke on.

  “When did it happen?” Caleb asks quietly. He runs a hand over his head.

  Amelia blinks. She’s unused to being asked questions that require more than yes or no. She holds up four fingers.

  “Four . . . months ago?” Beatrice guesses. Amelia nods.

  “And what those guys said—that the fire department thinks someone started that fire. Is that true? It wasn’t an accident or wiring or something?” Caleb bites his lip after asking this, like maybe he’s pushed too far.

  Amelia breathes in in in, and her exhale is shaky. I move between Beatrice and Amelia, lay my chin over her leg. She places her hand on my neck. She nods.

  “Eesh. That is scary,” Beatrice says. She places her hand on top of Amelia’s and gives it a squeeze. I feel Amelia sigh, Yes, it was. It IS. But she holds on to Beatrice’s hand, and it helps.

  Beatrice leans even closer to Amelia. “Listen. You speak when you’re ready, okay? Don’t let guilt or pressure from anybody rush you. Parents want hurt to be OVER, you know? And I mean, I get it—who wants to see someone they love hurting? But you have to feel hurt to make it go away. That’s the crappy thing about hurt. Well, that and it hurts.”

  Amelia nods. Swipes her cheek with the back of her hand.

  “I never should’ve come up with this stupid idea,” Beatrice says, and throws her head against the chain-link fence again. “Ow!” I lick her chin.

  “You know what Tessa says.” Caleb offers Beatrice his hand to stand up. “‘Should’ve is putting pressure on your past self to do things differently!’”

  Beatrice says the last part along with him. She takes his hand. He pulls, and she leaps to standing. Next he offers his hand to Amelia, who does the same.

  Beatrice dusts herself off. “My favorite Tessaism is: ‘It’s only a problem if it’s a problem.’”

  Caleb singsongs the last part of that sentence along with Beatrice, and all three of my kids laugh. Their happiness together is like the whole of the sky and its endless wonders.

  They stand awkwardly, limbs loose, their eyes trying to read one another. But I know the answer to their unasked question: What do we do now?

  It is: follow the light.

  Beatrice backs up, grins huge, sprints toward the fence, and leaps, gripping the chain link with her toes, her fingers. The metal rattles like tiny dull bells. She climbs. Throws one leg over, then the other. At the top, her shirt gets snagged on the pointy metal and rips. Just like when she climbed out of the church basement window earlier. When she reaches to loosen it, her arm scrapes the metal, and her skin rips too.

  “TTtttttsshhhh.” Beatrice sucks air through her teeth. She feels hot-pink pain. “Checkmate, that hurts.” She pushes backward, drops to the ground with a thud of her toothy boots.

  I whine. Not just because Beatrice is now on the other side of the fence, hurt, but because how will I ever get over? I can’t climb a fence! Is this where I have to leave them? I can’t let a silly fence stop me from my duty!

  “You okay?” Caleb asks from our side of the fence.

  Beatrice examines the scrape. It’s beading with blood. “I’ll be okay. As long as my tetanus shots are up to date. Otherwise I guess I’ll die a gruesome death.”

  She looks at us through the crisscross metal. “Okay. I guess, uh, Caleb, you climb with Luna, then drop her down to me. . . .”

  This all sounds squirmy and dangerous and I whimper because there is talk of gruesome deaths.

  But Caleb grins. Grins!

  “Bea, anyone ever tell you that you make things more difficult than they need to be?”

  Beatrice huffs. Her pink knot of hair slides around on top of her head. “All the time.”

  Caleb’s grin grows. He pushes the fence. It’s on wheels and it rolls easily to the edge of the trail. It wasn’t connected to anything.

  Beatrice narrows her eyes at us, then bursts apart with glee, like a balloon popping in this world of pins. Lightning flashes with their laughter. I twitch with each flash.

  We walk toward the moontower.

  The sky feels heavier.

  We run toward the moontower. Toward Hector and answers about friendship and things that float.

  A cold needle stings my back. My neck. The top of my head. My back.

  All faces turn up to the lightning laughter sky. It is no longer dotted with stars. It is now a sky of wrath.

  It breaks open.

  Sandpaper’s eye clouds with disgust.

  Rain.

  20

  Light as Steam

  Rain pelts us with hard, cold drops and it feels like getting hit with rocks. My kids hunch in half, duck under the leafy canopy of a massive magnolia tree. I follow. It helps. And the smell of the magnolias! The day-hot flowers steam and their scent is as warm and white and big as the sun itself.

  The raindrops on the slick green leaves above us sound like hundreds of tiny drumbeats. A few stubborn drops worm their way through the leaves and find us, dripping cold on our backs, heads. I try to catch a few drops on my thirsty tongue. It leaves me wanting more water.

  Rain! Rain washes away all the scents we’ve left behind. That was the one thing I could count on—the scents to lead us back home. And now those scents are soaking into tree roots, washing into gutters. I cannot find my way back to the church after this rain. I pant and drool.

  And I shudder. Beatrice shivers. Caleb appears to be calculating something inside his head. But Amelia! She sticks her cupped palm out from beneath the tree, watches the rain splash into it. She lights up.

  She ducks her head out from this big green umbrella, tilts her face to the sky. Rain spatters her cheeks, reddening them. She crawls out from under the tree, her dress now soaked and muddy. Beatrice, Caleb, and I watch as Amelia stands in the middle of the trail, face-first into the storm.

  Lightning flashes.

  Amelia spins.

  Slowly she spins, at first. Then faster. Then she hops and splashes in fast-forming puddles. She dances. The earth is steaming now too, the rain releasing all the heat the dirt absorbed today. Amelia dances in this mist. It smells musky, a large earth sigh.

  Amelia ducks back under the leafy canopy and does the come here motion with both pointer fingers.

  Beatrice beams. She crawls under the leaf line and joins Amelia. They grasp both hands and leap and twirl in the cold rain. They jump in puddles, splash! I can’t remember the last time I saw humans ju
mp just for the joy of jumping. I had almost forgotten they can.

  Thunder rumbles; the leaves continue to drum. My whiskers twitch. I expect Beatrice and Amelia to feel joy, but what they feel is . . . relief?

  Release.

  A sigh just like the earth.

  I glance at Caleb. Surely he will have more sense than to go dance in the rain? Caleb has one hand on Sandpaper, who I didn’t even know was under here and who is cussing like mad at getting wet. Cats know a lot of bad words and insults, it seems. Caleb shakes his head. But he’s smiling.

  “C’mon out, Caleb, the water’s fine!” Beatrice shouts.

  And he does it! Caleb, who up until four hours ago could barely leave his house without the strong-smelling goo that cleans his hands, crawls through mud, drags himself through muck, and dances on the trail with Beatrice and Amelia. Lightning flashes, burning images in my eyes of them dancing in the rain.

  They are soaked: clothes, hair, faces. And one, maybe two, maybe three of them, cries. It’s safe to cry while the rain soaks your skin. No one can tell. No one but me.

  And they dance. And splash. And leap. And swipe at their salty eyes.

  Rain is vile, Sandpaper says next to me, and I don’t disagree. Thunder rumbles in my belly. If I were the author of this tale, I would never include rain. It is an absolute abomination.

  But my spirit tugs toward my kids. Look how much fun they’re having!

  I can’t take it any longer. I crawl on my belly under the magnolia leaves, and my underside gets gooey muddy wet. But I join my kids in the hard, cold rain, and I dance and splash with them.

  I thought it would be miserable, getting this wet, this muddy. Tessa has always kept me neat and tidy, because I’m around so many people all day. But this? I feel carefree.

  Carefree is an emotion that doesn’t need me to study it. I am free of cares. Light as steam.

  A sigh.

  The rain stops as quickly as it started. When you’re dancing in the rain, you can forget the cold. When you’re standing in night air after the rain, the cold grips you to your bones.

  We trudge toward the moontower light, now playing peekaboo with fast-moving gray clouds. We can’t be far now. The lights of the tower are almost as high as the tops of the swishing pine trees.