Casper cried again, and a slice of life sparked inside me. “Hold on, I’m coming!” I shuffled off the bed, grabbed the molding around the door frame, and swung into the hallway toward the back door. On my way, I paused, staring at the opened book Julian left with me. I bent down and scooped it up before slipping out into the cold behind the house.
One green eye and one blue eye stared at me from the ground beneath Julian’s window. We locked eyes for a moment, and then Casper took off around the cabin. I was still wearing Julian’s tee and a pair of his plaid pajama pants as my bare feet moved quickly through the woods, muddying the bottoms. Casper took off south. I was a good fifteen feet behind him and could hear the rising wind whistle through the trees’ branches as we swept through the woods.
It grew colder and colder, and my eyes stayed trained on the powdery-white form leaping over roots and ruts in the ground. I called out for Casper, but he didn’t slow. He was on a mission. Possibly trying to tell me something, lead me somewhere.
It hadn’t occurred to me until after some time that we were heading in the direction of the funeral home. In the distance, the flicker of flames from torches and candles blanketed the cemetery, townspeople dressed in all white, bathing in the soft yellow moonlight. The trees thinned out around me until canopies turned into the velvety darkness of the night. Tonight, all the stars had fallen from the sky and were dancing over the graveyard. They were here to celebrate the lives of loved ones stuck on the other side, possibly even be able to visit them on this night. The mere beauty lit a fire inside my chest, and I slowed to a half jog, half walk.
Casper meowed in front of me, steering me to the corner beside the building where it was dark and empty. He circled in place before sitting beside a headstone sitting alone in front of a beech tree. Its branches loomed over me, and my gaze settled over the carved rock that read:
FREYA DELIA GRIMALDI MORGAN
“THE LONE LUNA”
JULY 10th 1968- JULY 1st 1996
BELOVED MOTHER, WIFE, FRIEND
& my moon
“My moon” seemed as if it were carved after the fact, and my eyes glossed over, but I couldn’t blink the tears away. They froze there, in my eyes, blurring the headstone, distorting the words. I was cold but not shivering. I could hear the townspeople’s hushed voices in the distance, but nothing seemed to sink in. It felt wrong to be standing here, at her grave. She’d died giving me life, and all I’d brought her was death.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you, Fallon.”
The voice was familiar and like a song in the wind. I snapped my head up from the tombstone, and beside the tree stood the woman from a picture I’d seen before. Her hair was twisted masses of white with eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and not from a picture, but a mirror.
Small differences. My hair was straight, hers wavy. My nose was smaller, pert. Same lips. But it was as if I already knew her, the instant recollection like a dreamy pastime. I was nervous, yet my nerves settled as if remembering where to lay their heads.
My mother was here, standing in front of me. My eyes blinked, and the tears were warm as they slipped down my cheeks.
“Oh, baby, please don’t cry.”
She saidbaby, and I shook my head as tears tumbled, one chasing the other. For twenty-four years, I longed to hear my mother’s voice call out to me withanygiven name. I’d imagined what it would sound like. If I had the kind of mother who would raise her voice when she was mad, sing me to sleep, whisper stories like Marietta used to do, had a musical melody in her laugh. Oh, how I envied all those who had a mom at all, who I’d overhear, complaining about groundings and overprotectiveness and rules and curfews. I’d stood on the sidelines, wishing to trade places with them! Yearning for someone to ground me, to shelter me, toyellat me!
I killed her, and she was calling mebaby.
If I wasn’t frozen in place, I feared I’d fall. But she kept her chin up and held my gaze though we both had tears in our eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried as she walked nearer.
“It’s not your fault, Fallon. None of this is your fault.”
“You died because of me.”
She smiled. “You have it all wrong. I died so you could live.”
“I don’t understand.” Another wave of tears washed over my face, and I didn’t want to wipe my eyes, afraid it would wipe away the vision of her. “Gramps died, and it was all my fault,” I told her in case she didn’t already know. “I couldn’t help him. I failed him. And Dad’s dead too. Marietta’s dead, you’re dead. And now… Julian … and I love him. I love him so much that it hurts … and maybe it’s because of me. Because death surroundsme.”
“But that is why I’m here. You must listen to me, Fallon. The birthmark on your skin links you to a bloodline of the moonchildren, a type of witch who originally found power through love and misery. It’s your duty now to keep our magic alive.”
“Magic? I have no magic,” I shook my head, hearing the same story and still unable to believe it, “They tried. Dad’s coven tried to pull it out of me, tried to force me to become one of them. They tried! I’ve been bullied and betrayed and lied to, and no matter how far they push me, there was nothing I could do to stop them. There’s nothing! No magic! I can’t do anything. I’m just a girl.”
“You are notjusta girl. And if no one can see that, be your own lover. Moonchildren were never meant to be in a coven because we are our own breed,” she tsked, “Stubborn and wild and unchained. Tell me I’m wrong, Fallon. Tell me you have no interest in guiding the spirits who seek you or wander under the moon’s phases when I know you do. Tell me you’re not insecure yet love intensely, because when we love, it’s rare, and it’s real. But your heart is a wild beast all on its own. A love so fierce and a hate so raw, which is your curse, moonchild. You’re not just a girl, but if you don’t rise up and tell them who it is you are, they will do it for you.”
“The Lone Luna,” I whispered, staring at her.
She understood how it was to be like me. I had so many questions, but she could leave at any moment, and there was not enough time. There had to be a way to break Julian free, and maybe she had all the answers.
I took a step forward with the pressure rising in my chest. “They took Julian, and he’ll die if I can’t do anything to stop it!”
