Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  I smooth out the piece of paper on my desk and look at the picture I drew of my family. Stick figures living within the outline of a house, depicting all the usual suspects—you know, comatose mother, unsuspecting brother, werewolf daughter, and dead father.

  The laughter that escapes from my lips reminds me of the sounds I heard leaking out of the padded cells in The Dungeon—demented, wild, and with no chance of salvation. To ensure that my future will have any value at all, I have to either kill my father or myself. Hilarious.

  When I hear the knock on my door I crumple the picture into a ball like I’ve done several times already, but this time I toss it in the trash. I don’t need my amateurish artwork to remind me of my fate; it’s already seared into my brain.

  “Caleb’s here,” my father announces. “Meet us in the living room.”

  Sure, why not. The day can’t possibly get any worse. Wrong.

  “Barnaby’s at his track meet, so we don’t have to worry that he’ll overhear anything.”

  Two things run through my head when I hear my father mention Barnaby’s name as I walk down the stairs. First, his voice sounds lighter than it has in months; I think he actually feels liberated now that Luba has added an addendum to her original spell. And second, if my brother ever finds out the truth about what’s been happening to his family right underneath his nose, he will hate me more than either of us ever thought possible.

  Glancing at the time on the cable box I realize it’s been more than a few hours since Caleb took the video cam footage from the Animal Protection Center. Just how long does it take to tell us exactly what we already know?

  “Did the video pick up Luba unlocking the cage?” I ask.

  I can already hear the edge in my voice, but I can’t help it. I’m tired of concealing my true feelings, and I’m not my father; I haven’t yet mastered the fine art of delusional thought.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” Caleb starts. “I burned the digital data from the camera onto a regular DVD so I could show you what was found.”

  My father nods his head, seemingly impressed with Caleb’s diligence and thorough work, but also seemingly ignoring the fact that Caleb has ignored my question. My father is, however, as eager as I am to get to the bottom line.

  “Well, son, pop it in, and let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Involuntarily, a smile materializes on Caleb’s face, but it definitely hasn’t come from any of his happy places. I know my boyfriend, and I know that’s one of his fake expressions. My father picks up the remote control and turns on the TV from where he’s sitting on the couch as Caleb walks over to the DVD player to put in the disc. From where I’m sitting I can see Caleb’s hand shake; whatever’s on that disc is not going to provide us with an afternoon of family entertainment.

  His finger hovering over the Play button, Caleb turns to me. “Dominy, I cut out your transformations and deleted all the original footage,” he says.

  Well, ain’t he sweet. “Thank you.”

  Then he turns to my father. “So what you’re about to see only exists on this copy.”

  Enough with the setup, Caleb. Start the show!

  For a second I think that he’s hit the Fast Forward button instead of Play, until I realize he’s simply sped up the video; no need to watch me as a wolf circle the cage and howl arbitrarily for hours. Suddenly, the footage slows down, and I’m transfixed; it’s like I’m being hypnotized. Right there on my TV is proof of what I’ve become. And there is absolutely no way I could have prepared myself for the sight. There is no way I could have prepared myself to witness the majesty that I’ve become.

  Despite the grainy imagery the camera has still picked up the red coloring of my fur. It looks . . . Luxurious isn’t really the right word; it looks opulent, like a fur that a Russian queen would wear while sitting on a throne. The way the camera’s positioned it’s looking down at me slightly, so I’m not looking directly into the camera as I walk, no parade around the cell, each step highlighting the muscles and power and strength that lie just beneath the surface, that are just aching to be put on display.

  I’m mesmerized as I watch my head turn as if I’ve heard something in the distance, and then I arch my neck to howl in recognition or response. The sound I produce makes me flinch, and I feel my father’s hand on my knee, I can’t move to accept or refuse the gesture; I’m as still on the couch as I am on screen.

  Another howl pours out of my immense mouth, as clear and solid and strong as a trumpet’s blast. When I’m done I look straight ahead and expose my teeth, glistening white and razor sharp, and growl. My power is undeniable, but I don’t know if my growl is a warning or a greeting, because the rest of my body doesn’t move; it waits.

  Until my father gets up and unlocks the cage.

  Someone watching the scene gasps—I’m not sure who it is—then someone asks for Caleb to rewind. Silently, he complies, and once again we all watch dumbfounded as my father wakes up, rises from his chair, takes the key out of his pocket, unlocks the cage door, and pulls it open. He steps to the side as I walk out of my holding cell, pausing not to greet my father, but for some reason to acknowledge the video camera. I’m shocked to discover that Archie was right; my eyes are exactly the same. It’s like someone dug them out of my face, placed them to the side, waited until I transformed, and then put them into the empty sockets of my werewolf self. It’s an undeniable link. And this video is undeniable proof that my father is responsible, as always, for all the terrible stuff that’s been happening.

  I let my mind fade to black along with the TV screen, think of nothing, feel nothing, wait until someone else begins and then plan to follow his lead. But no one does, not for a full minute, though our collective silence isn’t that surprising. What’s really left to say? Oops, guess we were wrong about Luba. Or were we?

  Caleb clears his throat and speaks first. “Let me play it again.”

  Holding up his hand, my father answers. “I think once was enough, son.”

  “Sir, please,” Caleb says, his voice respectful, but firm. “I had to watch it a few times myself before I saw everything.”

  What else could there possibly be to see? How many other ways are there for a father to ruin his daughter’s life?

  Undeterred, Caleb rewinds the video as my father and I stare straight ahead, deliberately avoiding looking at one another. Soon I’m back on screen, unmoving, but staring at something on the other side of the bars. This time I know what I’m waiting for. I’m waiting for my freedom. Just as my father puts the key into the lock, Caleb hits the Pause button, and my father’s image is frozen. If only I didn’t know what came next I could fool myself into thinking that my father was just checking that the lock was secure and sat back down, the barrier between me and the rest of the world still unbroken. But once you see something, it becomes part of you that can never be severed, for better or for worse. And seeing my father act reprehensibly definitely qualifies as worse.

  “Look at the floor,” Caleb orders.

  My father and I both hunch forward at the same time, straining to notice whatever Caleb is obviously trying to get us to see. Maybe our eyes are too shocked and scared from the last image, so that they’ve shut down and refuse to see anything new, refuse to connect to another unwanted sight. But sometimes you have to shut down your mind to see the truth.

  “It’s a shadow!” I cry.

  “Yes!” Caleb agrees.

  He hits the Pause button again and runs next to the TV screen. “Right there, it’s a shadow.”

  Bleeding out of the bottom right-hand side of the screen is a shadow that wasn’t there seconds earlier. There’s no way of knowing exactly who it belongs to, but it’s definitely the shape of a person. Someone else was in the building with my father, standing just outside the view of the camera.

  “I’ll be damned,” my father murmurs.

  “There’s no way to be sure, but c’mon, that shadow’s got to belong to Luba,” Caleb says. “She used some more m
agic to get in without being detected. . . .”

  “And put another spell on you, Daddy, to open up the cage,” I say, completing Caleb’s thought.

  My father’s still staring at the TV, shaking his head, his lips forming a smile. He’s not upset; he’s amused. “She just won’t leave us alone, will she?”

  He doesn’t have to say another word because I know exactly what he’s thinking. It’s my thought too. Unless we break this curse, Psycho Squaw is going to keep coming up with ways to mess with our lives simply because it’s her lifelong quest to satisfy her vengeance. The problem is evil can never be satisfied.

  “I know it looks bad,” Caleb says, unwittingly uttering the understatement of the year. “But you can’t blame yourself. Just like with Dominy, you didn’t do a thing, Mr. Robineau. It’s this Luba; she’s pulling all the strings like some crazy mastermind.”

  “Thank you, Caleb.”

  I can tell from Caleb’s pout that he takes my father’s words and tone as being dismissive. I know otherwise. But since I’m not yet ready to tell Caleb the rest of Luba’s master plan, I keep quiet and let my boyfriend think our private screening is over.

  “Well, like I said, this is the only copy,” he reminds us, handing the DVD to my father. “So you can, you know, do with it whatever you see fit.”

  After Caleb leaves and we’re alone, I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.

  “You’re thrilled that it’s you on that tape, aren’t you?”

  I have to give my dad props for not arguing with me or trying to convince me I’m wrong.

  “It’s all the evidence we need, isn’t it, Dominy?” he asks in an annoyingly adult rhetorical tone. “Now we know we have no other choice but to break this curse.”

  We? Seriously? What is he now, a doctor? How are we feeling? Are we ready to do whatever it takes to get better? No, Dad, it’s not we; it’s me! I’m in this on my own. And I’m the only one who gets to make the final decision.

  My heart is thumping inside my parka. I actually press down on the left side of my chest to try to calm it down, stop it from beating so hard. After walking a few blocks randomly, I can feel my breathing return to normal, or close to normal anyway. Looking around I can see that it’s a gorgeous day, and I try to concentrate on that. Snow is falling from the sky, lightly, lazily, as if the clouds merely had a surplus and didn’t feel like holding on to it any longer. Maybe that’s what I should do with my pain and my anger—let it go, release it from my body and let it scatter according to the whims of the wind. Wherever it falls, doesn’t matter to me, because it’s not mine any longer. But it is mine, and when something is yours, even if you don’t want it, even if you know that it’s destructive and harmful, it can be so hard to let go of it.

  The snow crunching under my feet becomes a steady rhythm, and soon that’s the only sound I can hear. How wonderful it feels to think of nothing, just one repetitive, comforting sound. I turn a corner and then another and another and find myself, quite unexpectedly, standing in front of St. Edmund’s Church. Did I subconsciously bring myself here, or was I just following the sounds of my feet? I have no idea.

  I glance at my watch and see that it’s almost five o’clock. All the pre-Sunday early bird masses are over for the day, so I know the church will be deserted; might be nice to sit quietly in a pew and reflect. Plus, my fingers went numb about two blocks ago, so I could use a place to defrost and warm up.

  The recently shoveled steps have a light coating of snow-dust on them, so when I climb the stairs they creak, but the sound is muffled. Hopefully, my entrance won’t be announced; last thing I need is an inquisitive priest asking me to confess my sins. He’d be dialing the Vatican before I’m halfway done with my list.

  Sitting in one of the pews in the back, I have to stifle a gigglaugh when I realize there definitely is a hierarchy to organized religion. The pews in the back are wooden, while the ones up front that I sat on during Jess’s funeral mass are padded. I guess the closer you get to God, the more comfortable it really is.

  I rub my hands together and look around the church in search of something that will replace my cynicism with a surge of hope. Unfortunately, St. Edmund’s isn’t lavish or ornate; it’s an ordinary Midwestern church, with the emphasis on devotion and not design. The floors look like they’re made of the same wood as the pews, just a shade or two darker, and their slats are slanted so they meet in the middle to make an inverted V shape or an A without the horizontal line in the middle. However you look at it, the zenith is closer to the altar than the entrance.

  There are a few chandeliers that hang from the ceiling that look like old-fashioned wagon wheels; they used to hold candles before small light fixtures were added when the church converted to electricity. I imagine how beautiful it must have looked on a wintry night, seeing the snow fall through the windows, being huddled together with family and friends underneath the glow of a canopy of candlelight. Even if you don’t believe in the scriptures, that sounds like religion to me.

  Since it appears that I have the church to myself, I decide to take a walk along the wall of saints. In between the windows on the right-hand side of the church are statues of various saints that all seem to have been carved out of the same block of ivory. They’re smooth and are abstract in design, beautiful, but a bit out-of-place with the rest of the church.

  Regardless I’ve always liked them, and suddenly I know why. These statues are exquisite because of their simplicity, and it reminds me that not everything has to be complex. Not church, not life, not even important decisions. Keep things simple, and maybe you can get things done.

  That’s how St. Michael defeated the devil and how St. Joan defeated whatever army was attacking the French and how St. Jess defeated her enemy. St. Jess?!

  The statue before me isn’t carved from ivory, but sunshine. Jess’s golden light is emanating from within her just like it did last night. I grab onto the raised post at the end of the pew behind me and literally fall to my knees. My hope has been restored. I wasn’t just dreaming or wishing or hallucinating; I truly saw Jess while I was a wolf, and now I can see her as me. And she looks just as beautiful as I remembered. Just as beautiful as my mother did when the light broke through her lifeless body and we connected.

  Can it get any more perfect? Both my mother and my best friend using pieces of sunlight to reach out to me now that I’m this child of the moon. This added meaning makes Jess look even more splendid, downright magnificent.

  “I do, don’t I?” she squeal-asks.

  Perched high atop the regular statue’s podium, Jess still has the ability to knock the poetry out of me and bring me back down to reality.

  “Jess . . . I can’t believe this is happening!”

  Like a golden leaf caught in the swirl of an autumn breeze, Jess floats down from her platform until she is standing in front of me. She leans over, and I feel pieces of her sunlight or whatever particles are hovering around her face and body pierce through my flesh; they feel like warm drops of rain. But instead of gliding down my cheek or arm, they cling to the inside of my skin. It’s both scary and amazing at the same time.

  “It is happening, Dom, but you’re the only one who’s allowed to see me,” she says. “So when you talk to me, act like you’re praying or something or else they’ll think you’re a loon.”

  Another gigglaugh rips through my throat and echoes off the church walls before getting lost somewhere near the arched ceiling. Jess was a dramatic creature in life, and she’s only gotten more dramatic in the afterlife. I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Wait a minute; the one thing I don’t expect is to be lied to.

  “I’m not the only one who can see you,” I correct her. “Luba saw you too.”

  Rolling her eyes she tilts her head back and forth. “Sorry, I didn’t phrase that the right way. Humans can’t see me.”

  Stunned, I ask the only logical question I can think of, though it doesn’t sound logical at all when spoken out loud. “Luba�
�s not human?”

  Leaning her head close to mine and whispering like we used to in geometry, Jess explains the situation. “Even though you sort of straddle both worlds now—the real one and the supernatural realm—I can’t really tell you everything. Honestly, I don’t know how much I can get away with; I’m still new at this whole spiritual being thing. But I think I can say that Luba’s like you.”

  It takes me a minute to digest and decipher Jess’s clue. “So I’m right; Luba’s only part human.”

  When Jess nods her head, a spray of sunshine falls over my face, and I can’t help but smile at my friend. I keep smiling when I ask, “What in heaven’s name is going on, Jess?”

  Her cackle is so loud I turn my head in every direction, convinced a troop of priests is going to run out to see who’s disrespecting their house of worship, but none come. I guess I’m the only one who can hear Jess too.

  “Dom, I have no idea,” she says. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it.”

  “Me too,” I reply. “And thanks for the lip gloss.”

  Another cackle rips through the church. “You got it?! I wasn’t sure it would work, but I wanted to send you a sign,” she admits. “I’ll try to do that from time to time, but no promises. Like I said, I’m powerful and all that, but I have limitations.”

  Tentatively, I reach out my hand, not because I’m afraid Jess won’t respond and grab hold of me; I’m just not sure if in her particular state I’ll be able to feel anything. When her hand settles into mine, I’m convinced I’ve witnessed yet another miracle.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” she confirms. “After all I am an Amaterasu Omikami.”