Regret and weariness weighed down her voice and body. Things had changed from that first day when she seemed sure that she could help me find a way to stay. Mack’s death, seeing what the thing had left, maybe remembering again how Dennie had died. Luna no longer believed we could beat it; her face was empty of answers.
“You got to find a way to save Davey, too. If you don’t, he’ll grow into the thing that’s chasing him. You got to find a way to give him back his life without taking it.”
Her words stung me. I couldn’t speak, because I knew they were true. We sat there, and Luna sighed like she does sometimes, but heavier than usual, hopeless.
When Davey came down, I wondered if he had heard us talking, but couldn’t bring myself to ask. Maybe Davey knew what was up, maybe he didn’t, but he didn’t say anything, and I knew he felt bad about how he’d left earlier. Luna went back into the kitchen and put the biscuits on and we had breakfast. Nobody spoke; nobody ate much. When we’d finished, Luna went to watch one of her Discovery Channel programs, Davey to finish some homework for Cade. I sat in the backyard, feverishly drawing the bushes where the lilacs had bloomed.
Later that day, Cade called and asked if Davey and I would like to go to a street carnival in the next town. It was funny when I thought about it, something so commonplace, so normal—yet neither Davey nor I had ever been to one. Yeah, I said, I’d love to go. It will be fun, he told me. For me it would be a chance to find a way to say good-bye, to let him know how much he’d meant to us. It would be the last time we would be together. I knew that, too.
And before I slept, I remembered the fantasies I’d had about him, how much I’d wanted him to touch me, to feel him inside me, but that would never happen. That dream was as dead and gone as the grin of Walter Mack, whose torn, featureless face wouldn’t leave my mind.
10
raine
“I’m not leaving,” Davey said first thing next morning, then chanced a look at Luna to see if she would offer any support. She threw him a glance that said leave me out of this, and beat a hasty retreat out of the kitchen. I knew she hadn’t had time to mention my plans to Davey, but he knew me well enough to guess my next move. “You can go if you want to, but I’m not,” he said, making his point again.
It was hot in the room, and the bright green Luna had painted the kitchen walls added to the heat. I’d gotten used to Luna’s color schemes: the turquoises springing from nowhere, the calm beiges littered with dots of pink and maroon. And green. Luna claimed green made her feel cool because it reminded her of trees; it wasn’t working for me this morning. The air conditioner had broken the week before, and the squeaky ceiling fan over the kitchen table was doing double duty. I didn’t feel like fighting. Up until recently, my arguments with Davey had been laced with touches of humor, but that had recently changed, right along with the tinted glasses that in mid-July replaced his Harry Potter glasses and the blue skullcap with the Nets logo pulled low and hiding his hair, which he’d taken to wearing despite the summer’s heat.
“You know that’s not going to work.” My voice was as calm as I could make it as I sipped my coffee. “Where do you think you’re going to live?”
“I can take care of myself. Mama Anna told me I’d have to someday, and she told me how to do it.”
“Is that so.” I casually scanned the morning paper, but his defiance had set me on edge. Anna and Elan were in him, too, and those parts were crowding me out, making themselves known. Mack’s death had done it, and his anger that we were leaving … again.
“What did she tell you?” I asked cautiously. I rarely asked him about his talks with Anna, though I knew she still had power over him, even from her grave. “Did she tell you where to go when you change, did she tell you where to hide?”
He looked straight ahead, his face hardening.
“What did she say?”
“Secret,” he said.
The thing about folks like me and Davey is that we have no idea what to do with what comes and goes.
I didn’t know how to help him.
I would try later, when we got back from the street fair. I’d be as honest as I could about what I knew and didn’t, and how much I loved him and feared for his safety. I’d beg him to give himself a few more years, give me those years, before he fully became what Anna had said he would. Sitting across from me now, he sensed my fears; he always did.
“I’m going to be twelve, Mom,” he said gently. “Twelve! I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m not your little boy.”
“You’ll always be my little boy.”
“I can do things with … you know the changing … that I couldn’t do before,” he said, ignoring me. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done it on my own.”
“When?” I challenged him.
“Plenty of times. I know how to kill it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You don’t know anything,” he sulked, and I had no reply to that because I didn’t. Then the old Davey was back for an instant, the one who gave tender kisses and whispered to take a breath so I wouldn’t worry. I reached for him, wanting to hug him like I always did, and he pulled away, self-conscious. I realized how much I would miss that child, how much I missed him already.
“We’ve got to help each other through this,” I said, but he didn’t answer. I wondered if he’d even heard me, and how long would it be before I lost him altogether?
When Cade rang the bell, Davey answered it.
“Hey, man, ready to head out?” he asked, throwing me a wide grin. I grinned back, wondering if he could see the worry that was in my eyes. I’d slipped on jeans and a pink tank and put on too much makeup, but I didn’t care. If I could have painted a smile on my face, I would have done it, because there was nothing but sadness in my heart.
The minute we got in Cade’s car, Davey stuffed his iPod earbuds into his ears. He liked nu metal groups I’d never heard of, and when I asked him about them, he’d just shrug and grin. I glanced at him, then at Cade, intent upon driving.
Nobody talked much, which was good because my thoughts weren’t in the car. They were with Anna and her bitter little smile, her hard little eyes. I remembered how it had been when Davey was six, and we ran for the first time. It was Connecticut then, us riding on the bus, bags full of McDonald’s burgers and fries. I’d gotten money from the bank and bought a used Civic when we got to Willimantic, an old mill town that had seen better days. It was a red car that Davey loved, and we’d driven to Rhode Island, far enough away, a small state so nobody from Anna’s funeral would know where we’d gone. It had been an adventure, me and Davey. He thought we would find someplace to settle, have our own house just the two of us, he used to say … and maybe a pet, he’d always add, even though he knew that couldn’t happen.
A year later, folks in our building started complaining about a stray dog—wolf, somebody said—hanging around, prowling in from nowhere. I knew it had found us. It wouldn’t go away, and it chased Davey to his bus one morning. We left quick after that. Davey had seen the eyes, and he knew it had come. That was it, Anna used to say, it could get your scent and find you, no matter where you ran.
I used to wonder if it was my imagination, seeing things that weren’t there, being too scared to confront what might be, running from beasts I’d conjured up from Anna’s stories, but then there’d be some telltale sign—the glance of a woman with one eye bright red, not quite closing; a dog’s muzzle for lips; a wolf’s ear sneaking out from inside a hat; or the fleeting sight of Anna, showing up and disappearing like she did, warning us from a place she couldn’t return from.
“I don’t have any pennies, but there’s a quarter in change in my pocket. I’d say whatever’s on your mind is worth at least that.” Cade broke into my thoughts. “Whatever he’s listening to must be pumping,” he added with a nod at the backseat. “Typical tweener. Are you ready for what comes next?” He must have noticed my confused look and added, “Tweener. Between ten and thirteen. It’s g
ot its own title these days. I’d say he’s typical.”
Davey was anything but typical, and this dear man sitting so cheerfully beside me knew nothing about us, and that thought brought tears into my eyes and a lump into my throat. He knew the simple stuff—that Davey liked to read about magic, and I liked to sketch flowers. That Davey was getting into heavy metal, and that old-school pop—Aretha, Mary J—was my thing. That Davey loved navy blue—as close to black as he could get, and I loved any shade of lavender. Not a bit of it made a difference. By next week, we would disappear, and he would have had no idea who we really were or where we’d gone. I hadn’t lied to him, but I was a liar. I swiped at a tear that slipped down my cheek.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Cade glanced at me, then at Davey to make sure he couldn’t hear us. “Why are you crying?” I didn’t answer; I couldn’t. “Will you tell me later? Maybe tonight, after we drop Davey off at Luna’s? You want to come to my place? For some tea or something?”
“Something like a drink,” I said, thinking more of myself than of him.
“No, for me.” He focused on the road again, then spoke, as if choosing his words carefully. “I told you about that setback I had a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think I told you what brought it on. A guy was killed downtown, the same way Dennie was, and it brought the whole thing back, not that I could forget it. Did Luna mention it?”
“About the drinking, but not about why it happened.” I didn’t want to dwell on what had happened to Mack.
“There’s still that wild man dwelling inside, yearning to get out.”
“Having a drink when you’re down doesn’t make you a wild man.”
“No, what makes you a wild man is not facing up to stuff that still hurts you, burying my grief until it comes out wild and unruly.”
“Maybe that’s just another way to deal with fear and sorrow.”
“Like running away?”
I didn’t answer that; I didn’t dare.
“But it’s not like it was before, like I told you before.” He snuck a look at me to see if I remembered, and I managed a smile, a small one, to let him know I did. “But the cops coming over like they did, asking questions, drove me right into that bottle of Jim Beam, and I finished it off. So much for the drink you wanted.” He smiled at himself, making light of it. “Guess I should have waited till I was stone sober to call Luna, so she wouldn’t tell all my business.”
“She told me because she knew how much I care about you,” I said, which made him smile.
“The thing of it is, anything can set me back, to where I was. I know that now, and that’s scary as hell. I’ve told one of my secrets, I want to hear yours.”
“So that’s one of your secrets, that you drink when you get depressed?”
“Up until I met you, I was burying myself in a bottle almost every other night. Second secret: I can’t handle it, and I’ve been known to pass out cold. Third: I’m scared I’ll end up like my father. That’s three. And I’ve got plenty more.” He followed with one of his quick half smiles.
“Three for three, right?”
“There’s a lot to tell.” I stared at the road. A lot not to tell.
“One secret at a time, that’s all I want. Drop Davey off at Luna’s, and spend some time with me tonight. Okay? I’m going to hold you to it. We’ve known each other long enough to be honest, Raine. I know how I’m beginning to feel about you, how much I care about you. I’ve been through too much to do anything but play fair. I can’t play games anymore with anyone.”
The way he said it touched me because I knew I would have to tell him that we were leaving. But I couldn’t tell him why. Not all of it. Never. Davey was still rocking to whatever he was listening to. I caught his eye and winked at him. He looked puzzled, then nodded as if telling me he was okay, too, that everything was going to be okay.
“Mom, what’s that on your face?” he said from the backseat, louder than he should because of the earphones.
“Too loud,” Cade said just as loudly, gesturing toward his ears.
“You got black streaks running down your face, Mom.”
“No napkins this time.” As I dug into my bag for a Kleenex, Cade’s words and glance told me he remembered when he’d wiped the milk off my chin in the restaurant that first time we had coffee together.
“Were you crying?” Concern was in Davey’s voice, and it hurt to hear it. I never wanted him to know I cried.
“No.”
“What, then?”
“Allergies,” I said.
Even Davey didn’t believe that; he grimaced in disgust.
Cade threw me an amused look. “Raine, you are one of the most secretive women I’ve ever met. But I’ve always loved a mystery.”
Not this one, I thought. You don’t want to solve this one. Mack came into my mind again. Everywhere we went, it found us, after months, a year; this time it had been nearly three, but it knew. It had found Mack. He hadn’t told it where we were, because he didn’t know, and it had killed him. And Dennie? That made no sense at all, except she lived near Luna, and it must have known that, too.
About a week. That’s how much time you’ve got, Raine, so if you’re going to go, you best be gone by then.
We’d be long gone by then.
“You all ready to do this thing?” Cade’s tone was carefree, but the confidence in his voice saddened me. He’d begun to believe there could be more to us—as a couple with a kid—than would ever be possible.
Run. Run. Run. That was all I knew and that was all I would ever know—get out of here and away from him and the me that had begun to feel again.
“Yeah,” Davey said, as enthusiastic as Cade, as they both climbed out of the car.
“Excuse me, a lady should always have the car door opened for her,” Cade apologized, then came to my door to open it. “One thing to remember, Davey, when you get to that point. Something my dad never taught me.”
“Who taught you?”
“Me,” Cade said as the three of us headed into the fair.
It was crowded, noisy, and filled with color. Red and white balloons bobbed in the air, and yellow streamers were strewn across the branches of trees. The air was filled with the smell of hot dogs grilling, popcorn popping, and funnel cakes frying. Booming music and exuberant laughter seemed to pour in from all corners of the playground. From somewhere a rap group screamed rhymes, a brass band played hit tunes from the ’80s, and kids laughed and shouted like they’d lost their minds. The noise and merriment were contagious, and I was swept with a sense of optimism and excitement. It had rained two days before and the ground was still muddy, which seemed to add to the fun of kids who gleefully stamped around grounds filled with booths selling swirly cotton candy and cheap toys. The rides—a pint-sized Ferris wheel, rickety roller coaster, and mechanical swings—were all in need of paint, but nobody cared; lines circled the ticket booths.
“Hey, Mr. Richards, how you doing?” yelled a boy in an oversized T-shirt, hair shaved to his scalp. He was about the same age as Davey and was followed by two other kids, one with an earring in his left ear, the other with a Nets cap like Davey’s. “Is this kid your son?” the boy with the earring asked, giving Davey the once-over.
“No, he’s a student like you.”
“She his mama?”
“Yep.”
“Hey, kid, what school you go to?” asked the kid in the T-shirt. Stunned, Davey dropped his head.
“You guys here by yourselves?” Sensing Davey’s discomfort, Cade shifted attention away from him.
“Nah, my dumb sister’s here somewhere,” said the boy with the Nets cap. “Hey, kid, you down with the Nets?”
“Yeah,” Davey said, comfortable on familiar territory.
“Who you listening to?” The boy with the shaved head pointed to the iPod earphones hanging around Davey’s neck.
“Nu metal. Papa Roach, Disturbed, Chimaira.”
“Wow, cool.”
I glanced at Cade, who r
olled his eyes.
“Want to hang out?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Davey said, trying to be cool, but asking my permission with his eyes.
Cade mouthed he’ll be fine, and gave me a nod that said he’d keep an eye on him.
“See you later,” I said as casually as I could.
Papa Roach and the Nets had given Davey a path to normalcy, at least for an afternoon, and I sure wasn’t going to take it away. The boys strolled toward a concession stand. Cade bought me a giant wad of yellow cotton candy as we followed discreetly behind them.
I caught a glimpse of myself in a long, distorted mirror in front of a fun house, and cringed at the black smudges on my face and cotton candy that had found its way into my hair. The women’s restroom was in a field house close to the fairground, and after Cade promised he’d keep an eye on Davey, I ducked into it. The narrow room was lit by fluorescent bulbs that cast a greenish, surreal light on the checkered floor littered with paper towels and empty soda cans.
As I wiped black smudges off my cheek, a woman came in, ducking quickly into one of the stalls. It was her smell, floating in from somewhere I couldn’t place, that caught my attention. Was it Anna’s scent? It couldn’t be, but I knew I’d smelled it before, after the funeral—pine touched with rosemary, smothered by a mix of wildflowers that only Anna knew how to blend.
Another woman came in then, pretty and plump, accompanied by a child with tightly braided cornrows.
“I hate it when mascara streaks on your face.” She smiled, and I nodded in agreement. She had a quick friendly grin, and when she and the child left, I wanted to leave with them, but something made me linger. I needed to see who this person was who smelled so much like Anna.
When she came out, she took her place at the sink next to mine, avoiding my eyes. Despite the heat, she wore a soiled black raincoat buttoned to the top and covering what looked like a lace blouse. We faced each other in the cracked mirror, she applying powder two shades too light, me dabbing at my cheeks at stains no longer there. When she stopped to search through her pocketbook, I studied her face. Could it be her after all this time? Was I seeing someone who wasn’t here?
The Moon Tells Secrets Page 11