The Moon Tells Secrets

by Savanna Welles

  Quickly, as soundlessly as I could, I scooped my clothes off the floor and hurried into the bathroom down the hall to change, noticing for the first time the layout of the house. Two bedrooms on this floor, separated by the large bathroom I’d entered. A room for a baby, that second room, the child that would never be born, and for that instant, I thought about climbing back into bed with him, being a part of the life he’d lost that he had seen me returning to him. I had no doubt that grief played into how he felt about me, how could it not? But I knew—and feared—that all I could bring him, me and my son—who was changing daily into someone neither of us would know—was more grief, adding to his sorrow. I’d seen scrap paper on his desk earlier and I crept into the living room to write a short note explaining as much as I could, then went back upstairs and placed it on the bureau so he would see it when he woke up. He slept soundly, his breath even and peaceful. I bent down and kissed him lightly on the lips, whispering good-bye; then I left the house from the back door, glancing once around the kitchen and locking the door behind me.

  It was dawn, and the world was bathed in the pink of first light. I paused between Luna’s and Cade’s homes, pulling the morning air deep inside me as I tried to rid myself of doubts that remained. A new day with new beginnings—each one a chance to renew. I squeezed between the bushes, sat down in the swing, rocking back and forth, letting its rhythm calm me as I waited for the sun to come up.

  A new day was here, and I could define how I would live it in any way I choose, a new start for me and Davey, wherever we ended up. I promised myself that I would find a way out of this for both of us, until he was old enough to battle what I now knew he must. But he wasn’t old enough yet; I was sure of that, despite what secrets Anna had whispered, perhaps still did. I would find a way.

  As soon as Davey was awake, we’d go. It never took him long to get over his anger; he’d be fine by the time he got up. Packing would be easy. I’d stored our bags in Luna’s attic, and Davey had outgrown most of his clothes anyway. He’d changed so much in the past few months, I wondered if he’d even want to bring the things he’d packed in the spring. We’d leave what we could with Luna to send to us when we were settled. We’d head north this time. I’d heard the schools were good in Massachusetts, and with Cade’s tutoring over the summer, he would find his way. He’d need to say good-bye to Cade, in his own way, or perhaps he’d decide that was too painful, like it had almost been for me. When we settled, when I was sure we were safe, he could write him. Things would work out; they always did. Because as Davey got older, so did the thing that stalked us. He had youth on his side, and if he never fought, never was drawn into a blood battle with it, he would simply outlive it, and that part of his nature might never come out, despite all Anna’s warnings and talk of revenge.

  But even as I imagined it, I knew it could never be. This was part of Davey and it always would be—boy, youth, man—but he and I together would find a way to control it. This move would give us time, but I knew it would not be the last one, not for a while. I peered through the hedges at Cade’s house and remembered the drawings I made of the flowers the day that Davey, so terrified and weeping, had told me it found us. He hadn’t heard the dog since then; at least, he hadn’t mentioned it. But I had seen it at the carnival, pretending to be something else, and as the sun rose and shone on the backyard, I remembered something else Anna had told me.

  They fool you because they move faster than any living thing you can imagine—so fast, it seems they can be in two places at once. One thing one time and someone entirely different each time you look. Because they take over anyone they want to. All they need to do is stare at someone hard to absorb that person into them, become them, wear their skin like it’s their own.

  And that was what it had done.

  Luna was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea, when I came in through the back door.

  “I thought you might still be at Cade’s.”

  “No. I left before morning. I’ve been sitting outside for a while, just swinging and waiting for the day to start good so I can wake up Davey.”

  She held up her cup, as if toasting me. “So it’s one for the road?”

  “I guess so,” I said, more sadly than I’d meant to, knowing this would be the last time we’d be together like this. Luna turned the kettle on and measured tea into a pot.

  “That old swing is going to miss you all, between the two of you, you gave it quite a workout. You know where you’re going this time?” She was stirring honey into her tea and avoiding my eyes, and I didn’t look into hers when I answered.

  “Boston, maybe. Davey likes the Celtics, so maybe he’d like to go there. I don’t know, Luna. So much has happened so fast—Cade, my feelings about him, and then that … thing showing up when she did.”

  “She?”

  “I know who it is,” I said, no longer avoiding her eyes. “I knew it when I saw her in that carnival, but I wasn’t sure until you told me she was here.”

  “Doba.”

  “At first I thought it might be her father, because of the way he was shunned at Anna’s funeral and maybe it was at first. He may have killed Elan, maybe the two of them did that together or maybe she killed him alone, but I’m sure it’s her.”

  Luna drank her tea meditatively, taking little sips like it burned her lips, sipping at it like she had that Bloody Mary when I told her about Davey that night, but when she finally spoke this time, it wasn’t with the conviction she’d had then, the certainty that we could beat it. Maybe she knew too much about what we were fighting, or maybe that gift they said everybody in our family had told her what I already knew.

  Until we figure something out, she’d said that night, but it was different this time; things weren’t to be figured out. She finished her tea, putting the cup neatly into its matching saucer. “It was a thumb,” she said after a minute.

  “A thumb?” I didn’t get it at first, and then it came together for me as it must have for her.

  “The thing in Dennie’s office that looked like a piece of a claw, that’s what it was. It was her thumb.” Luna shook her head, slowly reprimanding herself, and I saw the sparkle of a tear in her eyes. “I should have known what the damn thing was when I saw it, Raine. I should have known it when it stood right there on my porch wearing that ring like your earrings, bragging about the loss of its thumb. Damned, filthy thing!” She dropped her head to her chest, as if scolding herself. “I let you down.”

  “No, Luna, never!” I hugged her, holding her tightly like I had my grandfather before he died, a child’s hug, trying to offer her a bit of the comfort she’d offered me. The smell of ginger and cinnamon, which hung around Luna in a fragrant cloud, made my throat tighten as I realized how much I’d miss her. “You did everything you could. Took us in. Looked after us. I’ve brought all this on you and Cade.”

  “Don’t ever think that. You saved that man’s life.”

  “Ruined it, more likely.”

  “No! You don’t know what was going on before you came. I thought the sun would never come up for him again, and it did, even if it was just for a day or two, just enough to help things bloom.”

  This had been more a home to me than any of the other places I’d been, even with Anna, although I’d lived with her the longest. There was always an invisible threat in Anna’s presence, a shadow of anxiety that loomed around her as faintly as the ginger and cinnamon floated around Luna. I’d joked once to Luna about what a good mother she’d be, and she’d shaken her head in protest. Woe be to any child who had me as mama, she’d told me. You have to have a good mother to be a good mother, and Geneva, bless her soul, nearly drove me crazy half the time. But you, Raine, you’re the best mother that boy could hope for, she’d told me. I hoped she was right.

  Luna got up and gathered the cups and put some bacon in a skillet for breakfast, and the smell and sound of it sizzling made me remember how hungry I was. “Thought I’d make some waffles today—he alway
s loves those. Be a good way to get you two on your way.”

  I nodded, dreading facing Davey again. So I put it off a few more minutes, running what I’d say to him over again in my mind, except I’d said it so many times before, I knew it by heart. It was what I’d said to him that night after she showed up at Mack’s and before that when we left South Jersey and now.

  “Right after breakfast, you think?” Luna broke into my thoughts.

  “Yeah, as soon as we’re all packed. Can you ship things to us when we get settled?”

  “You don’t even have to ask me that. I guess you said your good-bye to Cade last night.” A mischievous smile played briefly on her lips.

  “I hope you’re not expecting details.” It was the first time I’d smiled that morning.

  “Those last good-byes are always the sweetest,” Luna said with a sly chuckle more to herself than to me, but her eyes darkened with sadness and I wondered how many sweet last good-byes, how many sad ones, she’d uttered in her lifetime. I knew far less of Luna than she knew of me. I regretted now that I hadn’t taken the time to let her talk more about her life and whom she’d loved and lost. “You know you do have a couple of days of grace. It’s only Monday, and if it’s been like the other times, it will wait for the full moon to come, and that’s not until Friday night—”

  “No,” I said, making my voice as gentle as I could because I knew Luna would miss us as much as we’d miss her. She nodded and turned back to her mixing bowl.

  “Davey, come on downstairs. Breakfast is ready,” Luna called from the stove as she poured batter into the waffle iron. “Waffles. Come get them while they’re hot.”

  “I’ll get him,” I said, heading to the stairs. I needed to start packing for both of us; Davey would have done nothing. I also needed to have a few words with him before he came downstairs. He could spend time with Luna—and with Cade, too—while I packed. It would be good for both of them. And I needed more time to myself, just to think.

  I’m not sure what stopped me when I got to Davey’s door. That sense that mothers have that says things aren’t right, that makes the hair on the back of your neck bristle like some stranger’s fingers grazing it. I said his name anyway, softly at first and then until I was yelling it. When there was no sound, no movement, I opened the door and saw what I already knew: He was gone.

  The window was open, but only slightly, and I saw how he left, as some smaller animal—but not too small, he’d said at church that day, not too weak, not too easily conquered. Somehow, I kept from screaming as I searched for some clue I knew wasn’t there, something besides his clothes in a pile on the bed, his glasses folded on his desk. I picked them up, hugged them to my breast as if they were part of him as a wild panic surged through me, coming with the sudden, terrible knowledge that I might never see him again. All my fears and dread had finally become real, and that was when the scream that had settled into the bottom of my stomach tore from my heart and out of my throat. I fell down on the edge of his bed and pulled his clothing to my face, trying to trap the scent of him forever inside me.

  “Davey.” I whispered his name this time, loving the feel of it on my lips. Davey. And suddenly I was aware of the scent of cinnamon and ginger, and the warm bulk of Luna as she grabbed me to her bosom, hugging me as I hugged Davey’s clothing.

  “I didn’t know he would go, I should have … I didn’t know…”

  I didn’t understand what she was saying, because I couldn’t hear her. Had we sat there ten minutes? Fifteen, until Luna stood up, letting go of my hand. “He must have left right after I got back from Jocelyn’s,” she said. “I knocked on his door and he answered, and then I went to bed. I should have—” She stopped reminding herself of what she’d just told me. “I’m going to look around outside and see if I can find anything. He knew what he was doing when he left. Nothing got him, we can be thankful for that.”

  “How do you know that?” I wasn’t able to look at her. I couldn’t open my eyes.

  “Because he left his glasses on his desk, and that could mean he’ll be back for them, sooner or later. They weren’t on the floor or smashed or broken. He knew what he was doing, where he was going.” And there was no blood. No flesh ripped from his bone. Not like Elan or Dennie or Mack. Luna didn’t have to say that, but I knew what she was thinking because some small part of me was thinking it, too, grateful for what little there was to be thankful for.

  “But what if…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it; saying it could make it happen.

  “It won’t,” Luna said softly, but I knew she didn’t know that any more than I did. “I’ll see if there’s anything outside. He opened the window, climbed out on the roof, jumped down…” She paused, and I knew she was thinking what had occurred to me: Whatever he’d changed into had the ability to jump, to spring from the window to the ground like an animal did. It was both a blessing and a curse.

  He’d taken on the mantle with which Anna bethrothed him, but she wasn’t here to guide him, nobody was but me, and I had no idea what he was up against. I was as helpless and vulnerable as he was. The fear crawled up my body and tightened my throat, and when it came out, it was a wail. I wasn’t aware it had come out of me until Luna grabbed me again, gently shaking me, trying to bring me back to myself.

  “Come down with me,” she said. “Help me look outside.”

  “Let me stay here a few minutes, okay?”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “I’ll be back up to check on you in a few.”

  I sat at Davey’s desk, remembering him studying here, so intent on doing the homework Cade had given him to do, and thought about Sunday at the carnival, trying too hard to be a normal kid like all the others, but knowing that he never could be—that he carried Anna’s, Elan’s curse inside him. And finally he’d accepted it. Taken it on because he had no choice.

  When the phone rang downstairs, my first thought was Davey. Maybe he had come back into himself, stuck somewhere with no clothes, cold and frightened. Had the cops picked him up, assumed he was some troubled runaway who had nowhere to go? Let him make one call. I ran downstairs, trying to get to the phone in the kitchen before whoever it was hung up.

  “Davey!” I screamed into the receiver. Silence. Was he afraid to speak? Was someone stopping him from answering? “Is that you? Please answer me!”

  “It’s Cade. Isn’t Davey there with you?”

  I couldn’t answer; I couldn’t think of the words to tell him what had happened.

  “Raine, are you there? Answer me, please!”

  “Yes,” I said because that one word took no energy.

  “Davey is gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I managed to say, but the words came out muffled in a sob I couldn’t control.

  “Look, I know what you said, but I want to come over, is that okay? I need to see you and know what’s going on with Davey. Maybe I can help you figure this thing out.” He paused and then added, “I know I can help you figure this thing out.”

  I knew that even if I said no, he would have come anyway. I could hear the fear and worry in his voice. Davey and Cade had forged their own friendship that was separate from ours, the same as he and Mack had done.

  “Raine?”

  “Please come,” was all I managed to say.

  It seemed that before I hung up the phone, Cade was standing beside me in the kitchen, holding me to him, giving me as much of his strength as he could. Luna came in shortly after that, and I could tell by the look on her face that she’d found nothing. I wasn’t surprised. The three of us sat down at the kitchen table, and Luna made some tea—her remedy for whatever was ailing in the world, but nobody drank it and nobody spoke until Cade finally broke the silence and fear that hung over us.

  “I know how we can kill it,” he said.

  15

  cade

  Thursday morning. Davey had been gone three days. There was nothing Cade
could say, so he said nothing. All he could do was listen—to Raine’s sobs, holding her as much as she would let him, rocking her like he remembered his mother had once rocked him—and how long in his past had that been? he wondered at one point. The most enduring remembrance he had of that poor woman was how she’d comforted him; he pulled it out now, as much as he recalled, to help him take care of Raine in her sorrow. Luna had suggested she spend nights with him, give Davey some time to “sneak back in,” as she put it, so Raine had stayed at his place each night, praying that she’d go back to Luna’s in the morning and find her son asleep in his bed. He hoped Luna was right but suspected she wasn’t.

  As much as Cade mistrusted cops, after twenty-four hours passed, he gently suggested they call them, report Davey as a runaway, see what they had to say. At least then it would be official, and the police would keep an eye out for him. Kids his age ran away all the time, and cops usually knew where to look. He’d talk to them, he’d said, tell them what happened. What he didn’t say was that he didn’t want her to get hysterical and start talking about some creature that was after them both. It can’t do any harm, he’d explained, and if you think something is chasing him, then—Raine’s glare, like he’d slapped her in the mouth, made him stop mid-sentence. Have you forgotten what I told you, about the way Davey can shift, about why he has shifted? Cops won’t do any good. They’ll just make things worse. It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice at him, and the sound of it coming from someone who was always so gentle stunned him. So he’d let it go. Not mentioned the cops again. Just said whatever she wanted to hear.

  He had begun to believe what she told him about the creature. He’d heard it for himself, the way it talked to Dennie, how it could be killed, but he didn’t fully understand why it was after Davey and Raine. And he couldn’t yet bring himself to believe that Davey could become what Raine had said. Or maybe he just didn’t want to believe it. It was more likely that the boy was just mad at his mother because he was sick and tired of being pulled every which way into some new town every couple of years. He wanted to stay put. He’d probably run away to scare her, prove himself, and get his own way. Boys did that sometimes; he sure had. He just hoped he wouldn’t regret not pushing the cop thing.