The Moon Stands Still

by Sibella Giorello

  “That’s better.” His grip relaxed.

  My knee shot straight up. He doubled over. I reached for the phone but missed. I heard it rattle across the floor tiles. I turned.

  He grabbed my throat. Short, powerful, filled by something inhuman, he drove me back against the wall.

  I held still once more. Clear your mind.

  “Answer me!” He gave another shove. Something on the wall cut into the back of my head. “What did you put in that coffee!”

  “Nothing.” My voice sounded high, scared. “There’s nothing in the coffee.”

  “You think you can fool me?”

  That question. I knew that question.

  Oh. No.

  I tried to swallow.

  Don’t show fear.

  I pressed my voice down, down, but my thundering heart shot it back up. “Nothing was in the coffee.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “I’m not lying.”

  He laughed. High and shrill. “You want to kill me.”

  Paranoia. Here again. No way out. Schizophrenia. “Dr. Nyler will be here any minute.”

  He pushed his weight against my rib cage, the putrid breath wafting over my skin. “Dr. Nyler’s always late.”

  I turned away. The sharp pain stabbed at my head again. Something was digging into my scalp. Time. Buy time. “I can help you, Dr. Nyler told me what you need.”

  “You talked to her?”

  “She’s coming to help you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I talked to her.”

  “But she didn’t answer when I called.”

  My heart exploded. Lezlee wasn’t coming.

  He leaned in again. “I opened those capsules she gave me.”

  Breathe. Get control.

  “I saw the dried worms.” His smile—that paranoia smile.

  Get the phone—call the guard—but the guard was gone—

  “Let’s see you like them.” He shifted, digging one hand into the sodden wet wool. “You can eat those pills.”

  I could feel him moving, millimeters of pressure releasing from my neck. I heard something rattle.

  “Lookee-lookee.” His dark fingernails clutched a prescription bottle. “Your turn—”

  I twisted away but he was ready, driving his body into me, snapping my head back. Pain shot across my head. I swung one hand at him and threw the other against the wall, slapping the surface above my head. There. I felt it, a hard metal edge.

  His fingers grabbed my jaw, forcing open my mouth. I tossed my head back and forth. Each pass something cut deeper into my scalp.

  “Yum yum,” he sang. “Open up.”

  My fingertips caught the metal edge. I yanked down.

  The air shattered.

  The fire alarm screamed.

  He shrieked, falling away from me.

  I dove, sweeping my hands over the tiles, blinking back the burn in my eyes. Phone—please—God—I grabbed it, the screen staring back at me. I pressed 9. The air screaming in terror. I pressed 1. Pressed it again, my eyes like fire. Then looked up.

  His red hands clutched the sides of his head, his chapped mouth open, howling. A wounded and crazy hound. He screamed and screamed.

  And he screamed.

  Like the voice trapped inside my heart, finally escaping.

  36

  In the emergency room hallway of Harborview Medical Center, Jack waited beside my gurney. Directly overhead, ceiling speakers squawked orders. Doctors and nurses rushed past, darting into rooms—every room was filled on a Saturday night in Seattle.

  “Harmon.”

  I counted to three, holding the ice pack over my eyes. “What?”

  “Who attacked you?”

  I heard somebody fly past, clicking a pen. My injuries didn’t merit an actual room. No bullet holes in my body. No knife wounds to the torso from some crazed ex-husband. No broken jaw from gang fighting in south Seattle. On a night where the city’s main trauma hospital was melting toward Sunday, all those people took priority over me.

  “Hello?” Jack said.

  I counted out another three. Shifted the ice pack. Blinked my one good eye against the bright light beaming down on me, light that would lay bare my highly ugly injuries and make them completely visible to the man I once believed I loved. I lifted the ice pack. Jack’s eyes looked as blue as fluorite under black light.

  But he winced. “Whoa.”

  I put the icepack back on my face. “There’s this psychologist.” I swallowed, cleared my throat. “Her office is next door and she constantly messes up her appointments. This guy showed up, he was crying—”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Harmon, did you let him into your office?”

  “He said he was going to kill himself.”

  “So you—what?—offered to let him kill you instead?”

  “I offered him a cup of coffee. He sent it back.” I lifted the icepack, turning my face, showing him the burns that ran like a red birthmark down the side of my face.

  His winced again. “You had the gun on you?”

  I replaced the ice pack. “My gun was in the car.”

  “Harmon, a gun is like a parachute. If you don’t have it when you need it, you’ll never need it—because you’ll be dead.”

  “Thanks for your understanding.” I turned my face to the wall. A wave of dizziness and nausea swimming up my throat, into my brain. Concussion. Skin burns. But nothing that required urgent medical attention. Especially in this revolving circus of lacerated human beings.

  “You did the right thing, Harmon. But for the wrong person.”

  I started to nod but the dizziness and nausea came back. My ears were ringing, too, that incessant panic of the fire alarm. I told the 9-1-1 operator not to send fire trucks but they showed up, ready to evacuate all thirty-eight floors of the Smith Tower. Right behind them, the EMTs were checking my wounds, including the bleeding cut caused by the fire alarm’s metal edge. I needed stitches. And after the Harbourview doctor stitched my head under local anesthesia, he asked about my ride home. I didn’t have one. And the staff refused to let me leave until I called someone. That someone who stood here now.

  I laid my arm over my face.

  “Harmon, are you really okay?”

  Concussion. Stitched head. Scalded face. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  I opened my eyes. Inches away, the plastic wristband read Harmon, Raleigh, right above my May birthdate. My swollen fingers dangled, nails broken from clawing at the alarm. Nothing else broken, claimed the X-rays. But I knew differently. Something was definitely broken. Just nothing anatomical.

  “There is a bright side,” Jack said.

  “I survived.”

  “That, and for once you don’t have to report to OPM.”

  Office of Personnel Management. The FBI’s version of internal affairs. We knew each other too well during my time with the federal government. “Jack, you really know how to make a girl feel better.”

  “Harmon, seriously. Don’t beat yourself up. We all make mistakes.”

  Something clutched at my throat. It wasn’t the nausea, though the feeling was almost as sickening. It was the fact that I had nobody else to call. Eleanor needed to rest. Aunt Charlotte wasn’t reliable. And Lani didn’t answer telephones or texts. So here was Jack. I stared at the wristband. Harmon, Raleigh. Yes, she made mistakes. Especially in relationships.

  “I just need a ride to my car, Jack. Then you can—”

  “Forget it.”

  I lifted my arm. The man needed a shave. His hair was freaking out. And—oh, crap—he looked fantastic. “You won’t give me a ride?”

  “Not to your car.”

  “Why not?”

  “Eleanor said—”

  “You didn’t.” I raised my head all the way off the tissue-covered pillow. “Please tell me you did not call Eleanor.”

  “She said you better obey my orders.”

  “She did not.�
��

  “Exact words. She said either you obey my orders, or she’ll kick you out of her house. And your little dog, too.”

  37

  Three thousand days later, finally finished with Harborview’s checkout process, Jack drove through the mist and neon of Seattle. But at the bottom of Capital Hill, he turned right, heading north.

  I lifted the fresh ice pack off my face. “My car’s the other way.”

  “You’re coming to my place.”

  His face was set forward, resolved with an expression that told me don’t even bother arguing. I put the ice pack back on my skin, cooling the burn. But deep inside my chest, my heart pounded. The miles to Lake Union washed past me in a blur of thoughts and feelings, until we finally reached his place. Dizzy and exhausted, I let him help me out of the car and guide me down the dock. I listened to the water lapping at the wooden pylons, the soft wooden groans of the wood. But inside, I was shaking.

  Jack pushed the door open. “I’ll take the couch, you can take the bed.”

  “No,” I mumbled. “I’m not supposed to fall asleep.”

  “I’ll be waking you up every hour.”

  Doctor’s orders, due to the concussion. I wanted to fall into bed but instead I went straight for the couch, claiming it. No way could I handle that man’s bed. Even now, with the brisk night air coming through the open door, his pine-laced scent swam toward me, taunting me to tears. “I prefer the couch, if you don’t mind.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then closed the door. “Have it your way.”

  He took sheets and a pillow from a small closet. I turned, so very slowly, and gazed out the picture window facing the lake. Onyx-black water stretched beneath a jet-black sky. I forced myself to focus on the pinpricks of light, the specks of bobbing green boat lights flickering from the harbor. I put the ice pack on my face.

  Jack tucked a white sheet around the couch cushions, then clicked on the end table lamp. A lava lamp. I watched the molten mass start to melt.

  “Lay down,” he said.

  I moved as carefully as someone with a ticking bomb hung around their neck. Jack helped lift my feet onto the couch. Holding the ice pack, I started to lay my head against the couch’s armrest but at the last moment, he slipped his hand under my neck, cradling my head, placing it on the soft pillow.

  He stepped back. “Need another pillow?”

  Yes. This one smelled of evergreen trees. “No, thanks. This is great.”

  He didn’t move.

  I wanted to lift the ice pack, look up, read his expression. See his eyes. But that might only make me sadder.

  “I’ll leave the lamp on,” he said. “In case you need to get up.”

  “Good idea.”

  I felt him standing there, close enough that I could reach out and touch him. Feel the rough weave of his jeans, the solid muscles beneath. My pulse pounded. I swallowed, counted to ten, eleven, twelve… When I lifted the ice pack, Jack was walking to his bedroom.

  He left the door open.

  I gripped the wooden oars, blisters stinging my hands. I pushed my feet against the slant board and pulled with my arms. Wind lashed my face. Rain water filled the boat. In front of me, Jack shuttled back, his shoulder muscles flexing.

  But the boat wasn’t moving.

  I looked down. The water was rising, rushing over the sides of the boat shell, drowning my feet strapped to the platform. “Jack?”

  “Harmon?”

  “We’re not going to make it!”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No! “I looked up at the ashen sky. It promised death. “We’re not going to make it.”

  A raven swooped down, its oily black wings flapping against my face. I tried to swat it away, but my hands wouldn’t let go of the oars. The bird clawed my shoulder. “Jack, help me!”

  “I’m right here. Harmon, wake up.”

  My eyes opened to a flash of purple light. And pain. The couch. Blanket. Jack, standing beside me, hand resting on my shoulder.

  “You were having a nightmare,” he said.

  A scared herd of horses thundered across my chest. Pain radiated from my hands, heat like I’d touched fire. I looked down, blinking at the tight fists that gripped the blanket. Just like I’d latched onto the oars in that dream. That nightmare.

  “It must be the medication,” I said.

  “Tylenol?” He shook his head. “Maybe you need to go back to Harborview.”

  “No.” I swallowed. It felt like rusty nails going down my throat. “I’m fine.”

  Jack didn’t move. Carefully, I shifted my head, protecting the stitches. I looked up at him. The bedroom light glowed behind him, silhouetting his body. I couldn’t read his face.

  “Seriously, Jack. I’m fine.”

  He moved down to the other end of the couch. “Tell me about the nightmare.”

  “It was nothing.”

  He picked up my feet and sat down. “If you talk about it, it’ll go away.”

  I glanced out the window. Too fast. Dizzy. I focused on the Space Needle, its glowing disc. The blue glass skyscrapers behind it rose like a crystal chorus ready to sing hymns to paperwork. “We were rowing.”

  “We—you and me?”

  I nodded. Bad move. I swallowed the nausea. “There was a storm. The boat was filling with water.” I could still feel the blistering sting in my hands, the feathers of that black bird. A dream so real it must’ve happened. Now, feeling a faint itch tickling my face, I brushed it away. My fingers came away wet.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  I tucked my hand under the blanket. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do.” He leaned back against the armrest. “You said, ‘We’re not going to make it.’”

  “Because of the storm. We went rowing in a storm, for some stupid reason, and the boat was full of water and the shore was really far away.” I tried to open my right hand. But it refused. “The lesson is, Don’t go rowing in a storm. Big deal.”

  How long we stayed parked at opposite ends of that couch, I don’t know. But every one of my senses was tuned to him. How his hip was touching my foot. How his wrist lay beside my ankle. The way heat radiated from his body into me. So close. And yet very far away.

  “You should get some sleep,” I said.

  He stood up. I turned to look out the window again, refusing to watch him fade down the hallway to his bedroom.

  He touched my shoulder. “Scoot up.”

  “What?”

  “Move forward.” He reached down, raising my shoulders. He slipped in behind me, right leg straddling my right side. Then his left. Gently, he laid my head on his chest. I held every breath I’d ever breathed, and closed my eyes. The sting came back.

  Do. Not. Cry.

  The sting scorched all the way to the back of my head, to that bandaged piece of me that now rested on Jack. I forced a breath out. And felt Jack’s heartbeat, beating in syncopation with mine.

  “Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

  The hour took seconds.

  “Harmon?”

  My eyes didn’t open. I felt his voice rumbling against my back.

  “Harmon, you awake?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Any nightmares?”

  “No.” No nightmares. No sinking boat, no drowning. Only deep and perfect sleep. I gazed down at the strong arms draped by my sides, his hands open, relaxed.

  But my hands? Still balled into fists. I tried to pry them open, joint by joint.

  “Harmon—”

  “I’m awake. I’m not going into a coma.”

  “No, the nightmare, why did—”

  “Not this again.”

  “But you said, ‘We’re not going to make it.’”

  “I told you, the boat.” I held still, fingertip resting on curled fingertip. “The boat wasn’t going to make it back to shore. That’s all.”

  He took my right hand and gently pressed open my fingers. I watched his capable
movements. An ache invaded my chest, rushing in so quickly I almost missed the other thing. But Jack saw it, too.

  “Whoa, what’s that?”

  My right palm was glowing like it was painted with neon. The colors streaked from my fingerprints in fire-blue topaz and an out-of-this-world green. I twisted my hand back and forth. “The lava lamp.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s a black light.”

  “I guess, yeah. But what’s that got to do with your hand?”

  I moved my palm away from the light. The colors disappeared.

  Jack stirred beneath me. “Did they give you something at Harborview?”

  I lifted my left hand toward the lava lamp. No colors, no glow. Gingerly I sat up. “The alarm.”

  “What?”

  “The alarm at the Smith Tower. I pulled the fire alarm, when that guy was attacking me.”

  “Good thinking—for someone who forgot her gun.”

  I held my right hand to the lamp. The glow was luminous and eerie, sublime as the electro-magnetic beauty of the Northern Lights. “Jack…”

  “Harmon, I know that tone.”

  “You worked bank robberies, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “You were good at it?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know what this is?” I held up my palm, making sure the glowing skin was directly in front of him. “It’s thief paste.”

  “Oh, that makes sense. The alarm box.”

  A mineral-based adhesive, thief paste was invisible to the naked eye. It was painted onto fire alarm boxes and bank vaults, and other objects prone to robbery or vandalism, because it stuck to human skin and helped law enforcement detect any culprits. Thief paste didn’t wash off for days, sometimes weeks.

  I stared at my hand. “It’s thief paste!”

  “Are you okay?” Jack sounded concerned. “Do you remember you already said that?”

  I turned to look at him, slowly, and found him frowning. His hair was messed up like the other night when I wanted to crawl into his lap, feel his arms around me. And now, here I was receiving that exact wish … getting just what I wanted.