“I’ve been to the train station before.” She squints, thinking. “There were a couple of kids building pebble forts for their toy soldiers. They were flashbacks stuck in a loop, though, and didn’t know I was there.” She shakes her head. “Nope. No ghost man that I know of. Somebody’s probably lying for attention.”
She is oblivious to my flat, penetrating stare.
From the stovetop, Luna appraises me over her shoulder. I think she knows what I’m up to, but she doesn’t say anything when I saunter to the sink.
“What are you making now?” I examine her pot, which contains a simmering globby substance that smells like orange and chamomile.
“Worry-Away Jam, which we can eat with the scones I’ve got baking right now. I’ve noticed you seem troubled lately. I don’t knowwhy”—her head bobs on the word as she stirs her concoction with a wooden spoon—“and I don’t think you’lltellme, so this is how I can be helpful.”
Her knowing that I’ve been troubled lately makes me even more cross. “I’m not eating one of your potions. They aren’t FDA-approved.”
“It’s an old family recipe. I’ve had it loads of times myself, and I haven’t died yet.”
Despite my resistance, she somehow convinces me to take a scone up to the attic to work. Faced with my intimidatingly blank Word document, I decide to nip back down for another scone, with extra jam (it tastesinterestingmore than delicious, but I keep craving more), and then I decide it’s far too early to be working and I should grab a book, don a rain slicker, and sneak outside instead.
Maybe the author phase of my life is over.
Would that be so terrible? True, it’s always been my dream to be an author, but it’s safe to say I’ve accomplished that now, and…maybe it’s time to move on. Not just from Villamoon, but from the proverbial pen. My love for writing is somewhere out at sea right now, in sunglasses and a scarf, waving goodbye.
My fingers curl around the hood of my rain slicker, lowering it. Warm drops fall, atmosphere tingling with hot tar, candied popcorn from a cart on the corner. The sky is low, pushing between treetops, pressing so close that its gray tendrils meet the rain that ricochets off the brick road.
Thunder rumbles in far-off hills, and my chest loosens, breathing easier. I’ve always loved storms. I met one of my exes when we were both caught in the downpour after leaving a museum. He’d covered me with his umbrella.Where are you headed? I’ll walk you.
And he did. Five blocks out of his way, just so I wouldn’t get wet. He was so kind, so thoughtful, and yet I slept through hisDeath of a Salesmanstage performance because I stayed up all night writing. That was, at least, a somewhat more palatable excuse than the one I gave to a different boyfriend, who couldn’t believe I was nearly an hour late showing up to dinnerwith his parents because I was readingThe Insects: An Outline of Entomologyby P. J. Gullan and P. S. Cranston and “didn’t want to stop on an odd-numbered page, but the even-numbered pages never finished with complete sentences, which meant I had to keep reading.”
I have torpedoed a lot of relationships by muttering, “Just one more page.” By prioritizing whatever interests me most in the moment.
Forcibly setting this genre of thought aside, I open a hardback copy ofPhantom Architecture. I adore the way protective Mylar covers on library books crinkle to the touch, and the buttery, battered pages that have been explored by so many other hands, loved by so many other minds. I don’t even have to be reading a book for it to provide comfort. Merely holding one soothes me. But I’m eager to lose myself now, as it will be nice to think about words that aren’t my own.
For background noise, I inwardly riffle through a collection of music, dusting off the tried-and-true opening theme ofMasterpiece Theatre, and slide it onto the mental record player. Set the needle.
Right as the song begins to play, my gaze snags on a clump of trees beyond the red bridge: it’s darker and thicker in Falling Rock Forest than anywhere else around here. I imagine that I can almost feel the forest breathing, watching.Zelda, Zelda, it says.What have you forgotten?
I draw a sharp intake of breath.
“Zelda.”
I jump. It takes a tick to process the visually loud distortionof neon clothing, dark brown eyes, hair hanging in them, so close that raindrops falling off the ends land on my shoes.
“Guess what. I have something to show you,” Morgan says, and this is followed by a strange happening.
The string lights hanging high over the road between Wafting Crescent and The Magick Happens brighten, the individual glows coalescing into a single blinding burst, blinking as the light teleports from one bulb to the next. It reminds me of those expensive Christmas light shows wealthier suburban neighborhoods put up, syncing the lights to music. An animal darts along the wire, toward us, so close that when I tip my head all the way back as it races past, I can see that its belly has fur as rumpled as an Airedale terrier’s.
My view is abruptly blocked by a sheet of paper thrust into my face. “Look,” he demands.
“No,” I say, the word automatic. But of course, I look. “What is this?”
“The animal you saw in the road. Did I get it right?”
He’s made a police sketch of The Thing That Was Not a Coyote, a Deer, or a Dog. I’ve put it out of my mind, but Morgan’s obviously been dwelling—even though he didn’t see it himself—and has stacked potential names beside the drawing.Long-Tailed Vinton Varmint. The Zaleski Deer Dog. Coralote.
The sketch isn’t that bad, actually. Rudimentary, but accurate.
“The antlers are off. Different kind of coral.”
He pulls up pictures on his phone, showing me various corals. “Which kind?”
“Morgan, I think you’re taking this too seriously. There is no such thing as a long-necked coyote with coral antlers. You…you understand that, don’t you?”
