Moonlit

by Jadie Jones

  “He, who? What blood? What are you talking about?” I sputter.

  “Ever since we suspected that Spera’s soul was reborn in your body, we have done our best to shield you from their sight. Spared no heartache to keep you hidden,” she continues as if she doesn’t hear me.

  “Wait, hold on. My head is spinning. Shield me from who? Spera? What does Spera want with me?” I demand. In my head, all of the things I know I shouldn’t believe in are strung around me like flimsy threads of a spider web: the mark on my chest, the surges of ridiculous strength that come and go whenever they please, Lucas, the little glowing horseshoes I don’t see anymore, the black apparition haunting the trees at Wildwood Farm, and the creatures that chased Hopewell through the forest that night. Subconsciously I’ve been searching for a connection, wondering what could’ve triggered these things. But I realize that these threads tie back to only one thing: me.

  I am the connection. I just don’t know how. Or why. Everything hinges on her answer. I can feel it humming under my skin like a swarm of bees. Maris gives me a sad smile.

  “No, girl. You are Spera. Your soul was born first in her body and returned to us the day you were born again.” I rock back on my heels and watch her watch me as I absorb the answer. In my mind, the threads wrap around each other and hold. Piece by piece, the web completes itself at its center. But I still have no idea what it means.

  “So if I’m Spera, what does that mean exactly?” I lift my chin and stare straight into her eyes, daring her to tie the knot.

  “Spera died before making the decision. So that responsibility now falls to you. We suspected early on that it was you. Oh, how I wept with your mother.”

  I chew on the inside of my cheek, the earlier agitation stoked by her ambiguous response. Dad, I could really use your help here, I silently plead. I close my eyes and concentrate on a memory of his face. Out of nowhere, a memory of learning how to jump blossoms in my mind, the horse ducking away from the jump over and over. “What’s happening?” I’d asked him, frustrated into tears. “She doesn’t believe you, Tee,” he’d said. “You have to make her believe you. Take her to the center. Be specific about it. Block her shoulders to send her straight.” Be specific. Make her believe that you believe.

  “My mother,” I say the word firmly, as though to mention her doesn’t hurt and never has. “You said she could see both sides of the veil. What does that mean?”

  “A veil separates the world humans see from another realm, from the Unseen things.”

  “What are Unseen things? Ghosts?”

  “No, child. We are not ghosts,” she says, her face softening. “Our world exists with yours, like two plays on one stage, only you can’t see through the curtain.”

  “Wait, ‘we’? You’re an Unseen thing? Then why can I see you?”

  “I am on your side of the veil. When we cross over, we are forced to take forms that Seen things can comprehend.”

  “What do you look like on your side?”

  “I am the hand in the undertow. I am the rainbow in the mist,” she repeats, slowly shaking her head.

  “You won’t tell me,” I sigh in defeat, the effort it took to scrap up any usable information heavy on my chest. She gives me the same sad smile, her eyes trained on my mark. I automatically move to cover it, but I catch myself and force my hands to my lap. “Let’s say any of this is actually true. What does it have to do with me?”

  “There is a way for you to witness your Origin, Spera’s first life.”

  “What if I don’t want to see it?”

  “That choice is yours to make. But I would suggest you see what you’re up against, because it is going to happen either way. Asher has clearly found you. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his move, if he hasn’t already,” she says, plucking a small red bottle from her wooden chest. She holds it out to me but I don’t move for it.

  “Who is Asher?”

  “He wants to open the veil between our worlds.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants something that only this side of the veil can provide.”

  “What does he want with me?”

  “You are the end,” she says sorrowfully, and tucks the bottle inside her pocket.

  “The end of what?” Heat erupts below my collar and spreads through my chest and down my arms. Instantly, beads of sweat collect on the skin above its scorching path. I know what she’s going to say next. I can’t explain it. I just do.

  “The end of my world, or the end of yours.” Her eyes begin to burn with the same fury gnawing at my insides, both demanding that I move somewhere, anywhere. She rocks forward onto her knees, reaching out for me with both hands as her lips pull back. I don’t wait long enough to find out whether it’s a smile or a snarl forming on her face. My body reacts on pure instinct as I shove her back, leap to my feet, and bolt out of the tent.

  “Tanzy? Are you okay?” Vanessa’s voice calls out as I rush for the inky cover of the trees that hang over the riverbank. But I don’t answer, straining to listen for any evidence that Maris followed me out. My brain is so still and focused that it slices through every sound, discarding each one from my ear as soon as it’s recognized. Laughter from the crowd around the fire pit, thousands of crickets chirping a two-note melody, my own steps as they crunch across the sand.

  Vanessa finally reaches me and grabs a hold of my elbow. Even though my body demands I keep moving, that I disappear into the black of the forest, I drag my feet to a stop.

  “You could have warned me that Maris is completely off her rocker,” I say without meeting her gaze. Vanessa’s grip goes slack, but she doesn’t drop her hand. Her lack of a response is unnerving and my mind fills the void, desperate to convince me that she just made some lucky guesses and I blindly gave her the information she needed to fill in the blanks. I know I’m wrong, but I keep trying.

  “What did she say?” Vanessa finally asks.

  “Is she?” I search her face for an answer before she speaks. But her green eyes are filled only with worry.

  “Is she what?”

  “Insane?” My voice breaks on the word, the want, the need for it to be true too heavy to shove from my mouth without stumbling.

  “Probably,” Vanessa answers with a short laugh. “Why? What’s got you so upset?”

  “She has this crazy theory about past lives and that some souls come back. And that I’m basically the worst soul in the history of souls, but she wouldn’t tell my why. She said I was ‘the end.’ And when I asked her what she meant she said I had to see for myself in an Origin or something. You could have warned me,” I repeat in an angry rush.

  But Vanessa doesn’t start reassuring me with stories about other wild things Maris has said like I hoped she would. Instead, she bites her lip and stares down at the sand.

  “Okay, don’t think that I’m crazy, but when it comes to that stuff, the past life stuff, I kind of believe her. I didn’t know what all she was going to tell you so I didn’t want to say anything beforehand. But I’ve seen it. My Origin. And I believe her.”

  I try to respond, but all I can manage are a few sounds. There are no words that begin to describe the hurricane gaining strength inside my ribcage, swirling and rearranging and ripping things from their roots.

  “I know how crazy it sounds, I do,” Vanessa continues, her eyes pleading with mine. “But when my professor did that research on the drum circle, he interviewed her at length. She knows things, Tanzy. Things no one should. She knew about the car accident. She knew about the colors. So when she offered to show me my past life, I couldn’t say no.”

  “Did it work? What did you see?” My deep suspicion is lured into mild curiosity by Vanessa’s confession.

  “Don’t be mad, but I can’t tell you,” she says, her face twisting with regret.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “It’s . . . you’ll see.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Did she give you a bottle?”
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  “She tried. I wouldn’t take it.” I glance in the direction of Maris’s tent. I half expect her to emerge from her door, but the fabric is still.

  “Do you want me to get it for you?” she asks, following my stare to the tent.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “If you want to do this, if you want to see what I’m talking about, it’s the only way.” A thread of frustration bunches her words together. I stiffen, leaning away from her narrow eyes, and cross my arms in front of my chest. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Seeing my Origin helped me so much. It helped me understand what I can do and why I can do it. It made me feel like . . . like I’m the normal one and everyone else is defective.”

  The tension slips away in an instant. Vanessa’s just trying to help. She’s always trying to help.

  “Then sure, I do want the bottle to have the option. But I’m not sure I’ll do it.”

  “Don’t worry, no one can make you,” she teases. “You have to want it for it to work.”

  “Right. Makes perfect sense.” I roll my eyes and Vanessa laughs. As she heads toward Maris’s tent, a wind kicks off of the river’s surface and whistles through the trees. Its cold fingers claw at my hair and slip beneath my collar. A shudder passes through me and leaves me chilled.

  I move toward the glow and warmth of the fire as the rush of air seems to double back, stealing my breath from my mouth. The flames curl along the current, twisting into a spiral and then flattening beneath another rush. I stand as close as I can without putting myself in the reach of the living blaze. But it’s not close enough to warm past my skin.

  I shove my hands in my pockets, and my knuckles brush against something smooth and cylindrical. The bottle from the tent. When could Maris have slipped it in my pocket? With an inward cringe, I remember the wild expression on her face as she made a move for me. But her hands were open. Empty. I stare down at the red vial, half full of whatever Vanessa and Maris believe can show me everything I need to know. I can’t help but wonder what Vanessa saw, and if it’s all actually true or if I’m just signing up to drink some kind of backwoods, hallucinogenic moonshine. I frown at the little bottle and tuck it back inside my pocket, half hoping it won’t be there the next time I check.

  The wind softens and steadies, but the cold within me doesn’t leave, instead spreading and solidifying like water to ice. I huddle closer to the fire and reach out over the glow. A flame leaps from the base of the fire, licks around my wrist, and leaves a painless swirl of black ash. In an instant, a lifetime’s worth of memories I’ve never seen before flood my mind. Red liquid drips to a cracked and barren earth. Blood-curdling screams echo inside my skull.

  Instantaneously, I know what it feels like when a life ends by my own hands. The moment of impossible pressure just before the embattled release. And then, everything goes white.

  17 Here goes nothing

  I don’t remember falling. But there is sand buried beneath my fingernails and plastered on the side of my face. Unfamiliar faces lean in toward mine, and I fight the urge to kick them away. A hand clamps down on my shoulder. I recognize who it belongs to just in time to stop myself from yanking it off. Vanessa. But her presence only works to drive my heart rate even higher, her fear so strong in the air that it tastes like a penny.

  “Are you okay?” she asks and pulls me to my feet. I stumble behind her as she tows me away from the buzzing onlookers and to the cover of the darkest edge of the bank.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” Vanessa repeats, dusting me off. I can’t respond, my mind still prisoner to the flashes of red and cries of unimaginable pain. “Tanzy? Can you hear me?”

  “Vanessa.” My ears don’t recognize the gritty, thick voice as my own. “Maris is right. I think I can be bad. I think I can be really bad.” Vanessa’s face goes still and rounds with a look I’ve never seen before. It’s a kind of fear, but whether it’s for me or of me or both I can’t yet tell.

  “Get her out of here,” Maris whispers to us.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammer, clinging to the pieces of my mind as it fractures.

  “No need for your apologies, child. It’s not safe for you here. You are too visible.” Too visible. She’s right. I can feel it. Eyes. Everywhere. My own eyes dart to the woods. Everything inside of me wants to slip into that hazy black and never come back out.

  “What do you mean?” Vanessa says, and moves to shield my back with hers.

  “Just go. Take her somewhere safe.” My insides hum at the sound of her command, driving fresh blood into my muscles and making me ready for whatever has seen me here.

  Vanessa wraps a protective arm around my shoulder and guides me through the crowd. The forest that seemed so alive when we came through only an hour before now seems on guard as we slowly make our way back to Vanessa’s car. I don’t object as she helps me into my seat and buckles the seatbelt across my trembling body.

  “What did she mean when she said I wasn’t safe? Who saw me?” I croak.

  “I don’t know. I just know that she knows. And that’s enough for me.”

  I close my eyes and lean into the side of the car. The cold window feels good against my throbbing head. I just know that she knows. And that’s enough for me. Vanessa’s words echo in my brain. And Maris’s musical voice: I know everything.

  Does she? She seemed to know everything about me. And she knows my mother. At least she says she does. And all those words she bit back. She knows way more than she was willing to tell me. I slip a hand inside my pocket and squeeze the little bottle, grateful it hasn’t disappeared. She said that the rest I have to learn for myself. Is this the way? I have to try.

  “Tonight.”

  “What?” Vanessa asks, clearly distracted.

  “I am going to see my Origin tonight.” Saying it out loud slides something into place. Something that soothes and burns at the same time. But I have to see. I have to know.

  “I didn’t get the bottle. Maris wasn’t in the tent when I went back. I didn’t see her until she came up to us after you fainted, and at that point I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “I have it,” I say and show her Maris’s red bottle. Vanessa’s eyes dart from my hand to my face. “Don’t ask. I have no idea how it got in my pocket. I just know that somehow she got it to me. Don’t you think that’s a sign or something?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not with what just happened.” Vanessa shakes her head, her face lined with worry.

  “That’s exactly why it has to be tonight. I saw something. Memories. They felt like memories. But I’ve never seen them before.”

  “What did you see?”

  Those sounds. There’s only one word to describe them.

  “Death.”

  “You saw yourself die?” she asks on the heels of a sharp inhale.

  “No. I caused death,” I answer, keeping my jaw locked.

  A heavy note of silence fills the car as I watch Vanessa watch the road. Does she believe me? I’m not sure whether or not I want her to. The hard line above her brow relaxes and she flicks her eyes at me.

  “Is this about your dad?” she asks.

  “No. It doesn’t have anything to do with him. These weren’t accidents.” Vanessa tries to mask her sudden recoil, shifting her legs beneath the dashboard. I look down at my hands. Even now, they itch with the sensation of having just squeezed something to the point of numbness. I ball them into fists and hide them under my thighs. What exactly am I capable of? “I have to know.”

  She glances at me. “Okay. As long as you think you’re ready.”

  “Yes. I promise I’m fine. What happened to you wanting me to do this? Are you trying to talk me out of it?”

  “It’s not that. But I know what you’re about to go through, and it’s not easy.”

  “Nothing about this has been easy,” I say, biting back a bitter laugh.

  “Good point.” She settles against the back of her seat. Her body appears relaxed, but her eyes tell a diffe
rent story, staring wide and vacant at the place where the road meets the horizon.

  Vanessa whips so hard into the parking lot that the tires screech against the empty street. She hurries to my side of the car and reaches in to help me out but I wave her off and climb out of the car on my own. I don’t know what’s coming, but I have a feeling it’s going to take everything I’ve got. I need to make sure I can put one foot in front of the other in a world I know before I attempt to travel somewhere I’m not even sure exists.

  Vanessa studies my face with the same haunted eyes. They follow my every step as we make our way to the inn and up the stairs. She opens the door for me and insists on helping me out of my boots. I sit cross-legged on the bed and watch her dig through the bag of clothes for a nightgown.

  “Here, change into this. It’s really soft,” she says and hands me a white cotton slip. She busies herself, sorting clothes on top of my dresser as I shrug out of my layers and pull on the little gown. I walk slowly to the mirror, reluctance pulling at my heart and begging me to stay here. To stay me. I can see it in the reflection of my eyes. I am not different, but I am not the same. And I certainly won’t be the same after this. If it works.

  “How does this work?” I ask, still studying myself in the mirror.

  “You are absolutely sure you want to?”

  “Yes. Please stop asking me if I’m sure.” I turn away from the mirror and clench my hands at my sides.

  “I’m not questioning you. I’m just asking because you have to be absolutely sure or it won’t work.” She retrieves the red bottle from my jacket pocket and sits down on my bed.

  “I’m sure,” I repeat, claiming a spot next to her. “So what do I do now?”

  “Once I’ve left the room and you are absolutely sure, drink what’s in the bottle and go to sleep.”

  “Then what?”

  “If it works, you’ll know it. A guide will meet you and will walk you through key events in your original life. It should help make sense of . . . everything.” She motions from the mark on my sternum to my hands, which are tightly clasped in my lap.