by Garth Stein
She knew what it was. It wasn’t a mystery. It would fade with time. She had made a choice, and there was no use looking back. But there had been something there, and it would take a while for it to go away.
His telephone number was on a piece of brown paper stuffed in her wallet. She unfolded the paper and looked at it. She should throw it away. What good would it do her? What good would come of using it? The idea of hearing his voice, his bright and cheerful voice, made her think of calling. Robert was still in the shower; she could hear the water running. He would never know. Maybe she could call him and try to tell him all those things she had wanted to say in his truck. All the explanations she wanted to make about who she was and why she did the things she did. She owed him that, after all. She owed him so much. He had saved her. When no one else would, he saved her, and she loved him for that. That might not help him to know. It probably wouldn’t make him feel better, but he should know it. And also, she’d never said good-bye. She had been afraid to. She thought it would be too final, too permanent. She should call and tell him good-bye, if nothing else. Tell him she got home safe. Tell him she missed him already.
She dialed the number and it rang three times. She could see him, walking down the hallway in his worn jeans and old T-shirt. Reaching for the black phone in the living room.
There was no answer. Four, five.
Standing in the kitchen, turning off the heat under the frying pan, wiping his hands on the dishcloth. Stacking the pancakes on a plate before he picks up.
Seven, eight.
In the shower, drying his lean body quickly with only one arm, bright and fresh after a good scrubbing, rushing down the hall naked, a towel clutched to his chest.
Eleven, twelve.
A house, sitting empty, quiet. A hollow shell, its silence marred by the clanging of a little black box that rings and rings. Hoping, wishing that someone, anyone, would pick up.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Afterword
When my publisher offered to release a new edition of Raven Stole the Moon, which had been out of print for many years, I was pleased but somewhat nervous: Would I look back at my first novel, written thirteen years ago, and feel the need to rewrite vast portions of it?
Fortunately, the answer was no. Other than restoring the sequence of the first two chapters to the order I had originally intended, I found the only changes I wanted to make were to cut much of the vulgarity in the first edition. (I don’t know why, when I was thirty-one, I found cursing such a crucial form of expression. Perhaps now that my children are older, I’d prefer they have a gentler view of their old dad . . .)
In preparing the manuscript for this edition, I did laugh out loud at the absurdity of certain things—a world without cell phones? No Internet? It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that 1996 was really the threshold of the digital revolution. We seemed so proud of our technology back then, though now a phone the size of a credit card has more memory than a room full of Pentium PCs. I didn’t update these technology issues, however, as I felt that Raven Stole the Moon benefits from retaining the innocence of the pre-digital era.
I would like to make a brief comment on the use of my Tlingit heritage in this novel:
My mother was born in Wrangell, Alaska; my grandmother was born in Point Ellis. My great-grandmother, a full-blooded Tlingit, lived in Klawock, though her place of birth is unknown. I was not born in Alaska; nor was I raised with any Tlingit culture in my household; still, my blood quantum is verified, I am registered with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, and I am a Sealaska shareholder. Simply put, I am a Tlingit more by blood than by culture.
Because of the policies of the United States government regarding Alaskan natives, there is a generation or more of Tlingit who were deprived of their cultural ties. This is not to say that Tlingit culture no longer exists; there are many Tlingit who have maintained the wonderful tradition of language, ceremony, and art that, with the help of the Internet, is spreading to younger generations of Tlingit who may have lost touch with their past.
I am not an authority on Tlingit theology, and my ideas of certain rituals and ideas as portrayed in this novel are based on reading I have done and by listening to the stories my uncles and aunts told me when I was young; Alaskans are famous storytellers, and my uncles and aunts were no exception. I apologize if the liberties I have taken cause offense.
There are many books available for anyone interested in a more traditional account of Tlingit myths and legends, such as Shamans and Kushtakas and Heroes and Heroines in Tlingit-Haida Legend, both by Mary Giraudo Beck; and Tlingit Myths and Texts, a collection of native stories recorded by John R. Swanton.
My objective in writing this book was to tell a compelling story, like those I heard when I was a kid at the campfire with my extended family. Those stories sent chills down my spine, raised the hair on my neck, and yet made me crave the next camping trip when I could hear them again. With that in mind, I want to acknowledge the greatest narrative influences in my life: my mother, Yolanda Ferguson Stein, and her siblings: Billie, Margaret, Jean, Hall, Valentine, Robin, Steele, and Thorne.
Garth Stein
Seattle, 2009
About the Author
GARTH STEIN is the author of three novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain and How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets, and a play, Brother Jones. He has worked as a documentary filmmaker, and he lives in Seattle with his family.
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Also by Garth Stein
FICTION
The Art of Racing in the Rain
How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets
Copyright
RAVEN STOLE THE MOON. Copyright © 1998 by Garth Stein. Copyright renewed © 2010 by Bright White Light LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-180638-4
10 11 12 13 14 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
EPub Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780061969515
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