“Sometimes.”
“And this time you do, or is something else bothering you? Please tell me Raine. This … has meant…” He didn’t finish, and I noticed his eyes had filled with tears, too. Embarrassed, he got up and turned his face from mine, trying hard to hide them. “Do you want something to drink? I have … whatever you want.”
“Just you,” I said. “Just you to stay with me awhile longer.” He chuckled, giving one of his half smiles that I knew I was falling in love with, and pulled me close to him, his body telling me he was ready to make love again. And we did, drunk again with each other.
“Tell me why you cry so often,” he said when we were finished and resting. His voice was the same one I knew he used to coax secrets from the kids he taught. “All you have to do is tell me what it is, and we can solve it together.”
My sigh was weary and filled with anxiety because I knew he could never understand.
“Is it another man? I know you said there was no one, but—”
“No, Cade. There’s nobody else.”
“Is someone threatening you? You owe somebody money? I’ve got a little saved, not much, but whatever I have is yours.” He chuckled slightly at that, but I knew he was telling the truth, and that anything he had he would give me as willingly and generously as he had shared his body. “Then what, Raine. Something with Davey? Is something going on with him?”
I’ve never been a good liar even though I’ve had a lot of practice. Running away and lying, that’s been my life for the past few years. Running to and then from and then back to Anna with all her protective madness. Lying about who I was to half the people I knew who had grown to love me. Running before they could find out the truth. Lying to Mack and even to Davey about settling down somewhere and staying put, about finding a place where we could be happy and safe. Then running away, again and again and again. Lying to myself. Running from myself and what my child was, who he was.
Sometimes you reached a point where you just couldn’t tell another lie without it rotting everything that’s in you, and I knew resting next to Cade, after making love as ardently, passionately as we had and then peering into his eyes shadowed by grief yet deepened by his desire for me, that I was at that point.
“Tell me?” he said gently but firmly. I didn’t say anything for a while, moved closer to him under the sheets, kissed the space under his chin, running my tongue down his chest, wondering if maybe I could put it off if we made love again, but he pulled away this time, not cruelly but thoughtfully, as if he’d made up his mind and this was what he’d decided. I edged away from him and sat up, pulling the cover over my breasts. He grabbed my hand and kissed my fingertips and then pulled me toward him, gently kissing my lips again.
“Now,” he said with a determination that made me smile despite what I was feeling.
“You asked for it,” I said, half joking, but only half.
“Nothing can be that bad,” he said with a teasing, coaxing smile, and that made me smile, too, because I remembered what Luna had told me all those days ago, how the telling was worse than the told half the time, and maybe she was right. So I leaned back against the pillows on the bed and started to tell it, but I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I didn’t want to see what might come into them.
“You remember the first time you met me and Davey, in the church that time with Luna?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Then you remember how scared Davey was, how I couldn’t find him for a minute, how he disappeared?”
He was puzzled and I realized he’d left before I discovered Davey was gone. He’d gone to get his car. “What I do remember was when we got over to Luna’s, he seemed scared. You said he got scared sometimes. What did you mean by that?” He studied me, determined now to get any truth I was hiding. I was tired of hiding now; he could have it all.
“Something was chasing him.”
“What?”
“Something that wanted him dead, and Davey ran from it.”
“What do you mean wanted him dead?”
“Something that’s been chasing us a long time, Cade. Something that won’t give up until it gets him, me.”
“Who are you talking about? What do you mean by it?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, ignoring his eyes wary with disbelief.
“Raine, how could you not know who wants to kill you and your son?”
“Because it or he or she is not human, and it changes each time it finds us.”
He pulled back from me in disbelief, his breath sticking in the back of his throat. He studied my face, not sure what to say, and that look made me wish I’d said nothing, let our time together with all its sweetness and longing be only the “now” we’d said it would be. But it was too late. His eyes were wide with questions, I went on.
“Do you remember that time, that first time in the Starbucks when you told me that what murdered Dennie was inhuman and—” Cade started to interrupt me, but I put my fingers on his lips, like I used to do with Davey when I wanted him to be quiet and listen, and he did, reluctantly, letting me finish. “Remember you told me that it was like some animal killed her, like it killed Mack.”
“Walter Mack?” he looked puzzled, and I realized I’d never told him about Mack, about me and Davey and Mack. “You knew him?”
“I used to work for him. The thing that butchered him was looking for me, Cade, for me and Davey.”
He pulled away from me then, standing up to walk across the room. He picked up his boxer shorts, taken off and thrown there in our rush to make love. Slipping them on as if he felt vulnerable, as if he wasn’t quite sure he could reveal every part of himself to me, but he came back to bed, sat on the edge, and I breathed a sigh of relief; he wasn’t leaving. I knew what his next question would be.
“And Dennie?”
“Maybe it was a mistake or maybe it knew I would end up staying with Luna.…” But even as I said it, I knew that didn’t make any sense. His head collapsed into his hands, covering his eyes so I couldn’t see what was in them.
“Or it was after her because of the stuff she was studying,” he said, his voice muffled so low, I could hardly hear him.
“What was she studying, Cade?” Maybe I was wrong, maybe it hadn’t been looking for us after all.
“I thought I told you, I thought maybe Luna … Myths. Navajo myths. Skin-walkers. Shape-shifters. Shit that doesn’t make any sense, that doesn’t exist. Maybe she stumbled onto something, got involved with some crazy man. I can’t talk about it anymore, Raine. Please—”
“We have to talk about it,” I said, and he turned to me, and then away. “Because there’s more.”
“More?”
“It’s why I’m leaving. It found us.”
He tilted his head as if he hadn’t quite heard me, didn’t know if he could believe me, as if maybe I were imagining things. “Found you? What do you mean, found you?”
“Found us, Cade. It always finds us because it needs to.”
“This doesn’t make sense, Raine. How do you know? Because of the guy who died? Because … Look, you can’t leave because of some random murder—even Dennie was probably something else, not connected. How do you know that, Raine?” He grabbed my shoulders to make me face him and look into his eyes, which I didn’t want to do. “Raine!” He pulled me to him again, and I let him do it, enjoying the strength of his pull as he drew me next to him.
“I know because I always do.”
He let me go then, and I edged away from him, back to my side of the bed even though I wanted to be close to him again, to have him hold me like he had before, to pretend that this could be the beginning not the end between us.
“Is it just a matter of protecting you and Davey? You must know how I feel about the two of you by now. That I’ll do anything—” He stopped then, and I wondered if he was thinking about Dennie and what had happened to her, about Mack. And then I realized that maybe he didn’t believe me at all, not completely, anyway. How could he?
“What aren’t you telling me?” he said, looking into my eyes, trying to see what was there, and as I gazed into his, I could see a flicker of suspicion, a trace of doubt.
“It’s about Davey,” I said.
“Are you afraid that we won’t be able to protect him from … whatever you think is threatening him. Is that it? Raine, I’m on your side. I don’t want to let you go. I can’t let you go, don’t you understand that by now?” The rush of his words and the anguish in his voice shot through me, and I felt a pang deep within my heart.
“I need to tell you about Davey,” I said more softly than I meant to, and he bent toward me as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Davey?”
I nodded, took a breath, not quite sure where to begin so I reminded him that he’d asked me once if Davey was afraid he’d inherited an illness from his father, and I started there, back to our first date. He smiled, and I knew he was remembering like I did; the memory made me smile, too, but it was a bittersweet one, more bitter than sweet.
“You said, in a way he had … inherited something,” he said. I was surprised how closely he remembered what I’d told him.
“But it was a half answer, not the whole thing—”
“Raine, if—”
“No. Listen to me! Don’t say anything until I finish.” My raised voice surprised him, but he nodded, acknowledging that he would hear what I had to say.
“Davey can change shapes,” I said. “He’s what some people call a shape-shifter or werewolf, and when they’re at their worst, they are called skin-walkers—that’s what Anna called them, in some language I couldn’t understand. It happens when he gets scared or angry or sad. It happens to others with the shape of the moon.” He opened his mouth to talk; I touched his lips with my fingers. I had to get it all out now, not go back to it later. Make it done and over now, and he would know once and for all what my truth—what Davey’s truth—was and had been.
“His grandmother Anna had it, this gift he has, that’s what she called it anyway, and his father, Elan, must have had it, too. It’s been small animals up to now—rabbits, squirrels, mice, but as he gets older, it will change. He will grow meaner, fiercer.”
Cade leaned toward me, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind, then drew away, saying nothing, staring at the bed, at the space between us.
“Davey is one of those things that tore apart your wife, Cade, can you understand that? He has that rage within him, and, I’m scared it will take him over. My son is the youngest of his pack, Anna said, and when he grows into his strength, he will lead it. The thing that is chasing us wants to kill him before he can grow into a man. Before he can defeat it, so there’s nothing I can do now except run.”
He touched the side of my face, my lips with his fingertips as I’d touched his before, as if trying to silence me, as if he thought I’d suddenly gone mad, sitting here on the bed, telling what must have sounded like some crazy woman’s tale. “Raine, are you—?”
“Do you think I would make something like this up? How could you think that I could do that?” Tears filled my eyes and then his as he pulled away from me, back to his side of the bed.
“Listen to me with your heart if not with your head, and you will know I’m telling the truth because we both know what happened to Dennie. It was looking for Davey.”
Cade turned away then, his face distorted with anguish.
We couldn’t face each other; I was as closed off from him as he was from me. I had told him the truth, what he wanted and needed to know, and I knew he believed me. It was time for me to leave, to go back to Luna’s, to pick up my son and finish packing, for us to be on our way.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a while, not quite ready to leave, as I remembered the beginning of our evening. His teasing words about my “tucking Davey in,” the sweetness of our kisses downstairs, even the burning of popcorn, and it seemed as if it had happened long ago. Nothing was the same now.
I thought about Davey then, and what he’d said before I came over here. I remembered the rage in his voice as he’d screamed at me before I left his room.
* * *
“I’m not going. No matter what you think or want, I’m not going. Just like I told you before.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” I’d told him. “Luna will be out for a while. She’s going to visit a friend, but she’ll be back.… Did you hear me?” His head was tilted like it was when he heard Anna’s words and danced to her silent tunes.
“What are you thinking, Davey?”
“I’m not thinking, I’m feeling.”
“What are you feeling?”
“Something you can’t understand.”
“Are you shifting?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Please tell me, Davey. Don’t cut me out.”
He didn’t say anything, then turned to me with more sorrow than I could ever remember seeing in his eyes. “I don’t have any choice,” he said.
I’d thought about Cade then, that I should call him, tell him to forget it, just stay and sit awhile longer with Davey, but I needed to say good-bye to him, in my own secretive way.
“I love you, Davey,” I said, and kissed him on the top of his head, and he gave me his special smile, the one that always broke on his face when I needed to see it most, and I’d left him staring into the darkness of his room.
What dreams do you have for him? Cade had asked me once—so long ago, it seemed. I knew the answer now: none.
* * *
“Raine.” Cade brought me back to him.
“It’s time for me to go.”
“Please stay with me awhile longer. Just for a time. Wherever you’re going, whatever you’re thinking, we’re safe now, just for tonight.”
And so I stayed, nestling close to him, believing he was right.
13
cade
Two hours before dawn, Cade awoke and thought he heard a dog growl, then realized it was nothing but the wind, so he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Raine breathing easy and soft beside him. He kissed her shoulder as lightly as he could, and she smiled in her sleep. He drifted off himself, trying to recapture the remnant of a dream.
It was about Dennie, as his dreams often were, and he was happy as he always was when he saw her. She was sitting at her desk, dressed in the torn jeans and red cowl sweater she wore around the house, horn-rimmed glasses perched precariously on top of her head, fuzzy pink slippers loose and comfortable on her feet. He looked around her office, afraid of what he would find, fearful of something he wouldn’t see but suspected was there, and then, still afraid, glanced at her again, and she grinned, saying it would be okay. She was talking into her recorder, pausing, stopping, listening, then abruptly turned it off. I’m fine and you will be, too, she said to him, although her lips were closed because she was smiling. Dennie! he screamed in his sleep, and she disappeared as she always did when he called her name.
He woke up, reaching for Raine like he used to for Dennie, but her side of the bed—pillow and sheet—were cold. Had she simply left the room, gone to the bathroom? But the air itself felt empty, devoid of breath and scent, and he knew he was alone.
He wondered for a second if he’d dreamed the whole thing: laughing in the kitchen, the comfort and warmth of her body when she yielded it to him, pushing his way inside her, and most of all, what she’d told him before they fell asleep—about what had killed Dennie, about Davey. Damn her! He got out of bed and pulled up the shades, letting sunshine brighten the room. Spotting a note on the bureau, he picked it up and read it quickly.
Cade,
Forgive me if I’ve caused you pain. I will cherish you forever and never forget this precious night, the last one we will ever spend together. Try to understand what I told you and why we need to leave as soon as we can. I am afraid of what will happen. Please allow me this space.
My love forever, Raine.
“Fuck!” he said, balling up the note and tossing it into the
trash can at the side of the bureau. “Just fuck it!” Then feeling strangely contrite, he pulled it out of the trash and read it again. He sat down on the side of the bed to clear his head, to try to forget how he’d felt last night, the tenderness with which they’d made love, but her scent, the smell of the lemon lotion, oil, or whatever the hell it was she wore, lingered in the room, the bed, his skin, it seemed, and he wondered if he were imagining that, too—if one could imagine smells like you could sounds, like he’d imagined the dog howling before dawn.
What had she said about Davey, about him being one of those things that tore Dennie apart, about the rage he had within him? And for an instant, but not more than that, he’d felt rage boil within him toward the boy, sitting on his couch, playing chess, listening to him teach; Davey was a part of what had destroyed his life! He stopped himself then. She must be out of her mind.
He didn’t give a damn what she said, Davey couldn’t be what she thought he was. He knew enough about kids to see that. And that was key, wasn’t it? What she said her son had within him. For the last ten years, he’d worked with kids—smart, dumb, crazy—and knew more than a bit about troubled ones. Hell, he’d been a troubled one himself. Davey wasn’t troubled; he’d been with the kid a couple of hours, two or three times a week, and never saw any hint of that. Sad, sometimes scared, like the time he’d heard that dog. That had sure scared him, like it had scared her at Starbucks that day. Had the dog actually nipped her hand? Had it drawn blood?
Please allow me this space.
He could hear the pleading in her voice even though the words were written, and he knew he had no choice but to give her what she asked. But didn’t he have rights, too? When someone touched your life, changed it as she had his, they owed you something even if they didn’t know it. He knew it and had a right to find any truth he could. That was the only way you could heal, and he would sure need healing after this.
He showered, pulled on sweats, and went to the kitchen to make coffee, poured himself a cup, and spotted the remnants of the burned popcorn still in the sink. Funny how scorched popcorn made him recall the softness of her lips, and a shock of desire rammed itself through him despite his determination to keep her out of his mind. Then he thought about Davey and got angry all over again. What craziness was that, to make her say stuff like that about her own kid? She must be crazy as hell! Then suddenly from somewhere came Dennie’s voice, and he stopped mid-sip, recalling a conversation they’d had so long ago:
The Moon Tells Secrets Page 14