After calming down a little, I turn back to her. “I bought this house. It’s mine now. You can’t come here.”
“When?” she asks with narrowed eyes.
“Never!” I explode. “You can come here never.”
“No,” she replies, annoyed. “I mean when did you buy the house?”
“Today. It’s my property now, and you need to be off it,” I explain, rapidly losing patience.
She glances at the sky before returning her gaze back to me. “Can’t do.”
I choke on the air from aggravation. “What do you meancan’t do? Just get on your feet and remove yourself from my yard before I do it.”
Her brow quirks up with something one might call an open challenge. “It’s the full moon today. And I need to soak in all the wisdom at midnight.” Then she adds with a smirk, “Here.”
I blink. “Soak in the wisdom?” She’s even crazier than I initially thought.
“Yes.” She spreads her arms wide, revealing the milky globe of her tit and making me avert my eyes this time. The woman is an intruder on my property, and somehow I’m the one ashamed. “The moon is most powerful at midnight.”
I watch her, slowly blinking, hoping she’ll disappear after my eyes open. She doesn’t, so I just squeeze them tighter every time. Maybe I’m dreaming due to exhaustion, and all ofthis is just a nightmare. But she’s still here, sitting on the unkept lawn. The grass surrounding her helps to cover some of her legs—at least that helps.
“You need to go back to your place and soak in the wisdom there.”
“No can do.” She shrugs. “No moon there.”
“It’s everywhere,” I deadpan.
“She’s better here.” She points at the sky. “See? The brightness reaches here. She talks.”
I blink again.
“She?”
“The moon.”
“The moon talks?”
She nods.
“What is it saying?” I ask, playing right into the trap.
“She. And it’s a lot.” She lifts her finger in the air and adds thoughtfully as if she were a hundred-year-old shaman from the high mountains. “Only if one listens.”
I blink some more and, after a forceful shake of my head, tell her, “You need to go.”
It’s her turn to blink slowly, drawing my attention to her eyes and her big eyelashes throwing long shadows on her cheeks. “I will go when the ritual is done.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking, but what ritual?”
She watches me like I’m the one with a few screws loose. “Soa-king up th-th-the mooooon,” she explains, drawing out the words.
My eye twitches. “Go soak it up in your backyard.”
“Can’t do.” She shrugs, moving her hair again and revealing even more of her skin, which is covered in goosebumps. I notice that part. Along with her other parts reacting to the cold of an early September night. “It’s almost midnight, and I don’t have time to look for another place.”
“You need to go,” I growl. “Now.”
“Can’t do,” she replies stubbornlywith narrowed eyes. “This house has been empty for two years, and I’ve been coming here all this time. I’ve been cutting the grass and fixing the gutters after storms. I might be the only reason the house hasn’t fallen apart yet. You,” she points a finger at me, “should be thanking me instead of ordering me to leave.” Her voice turns vicious. “I will soak in the moon here. The house lets me.”
