Moon Child

by Gaby Triana

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  The clairs were moving in their beds. I didn’t want them to wake and be startled by Lobo. I reached out to touch him, but he took steps back onto the parquet floor, claws clicking on the wood.

  “Good boy…thank you. Okay, shoo, now.”

  He stared at me with lackluster eyes, jaw slack, pink tongue bobbing. A drop of saliva dripped as he panted, licked his chops to regain composure, then lolled his tongue again. His silvery eyebrows expressed that he wanted something.

  “Coming.” I scrambled to my feet.

  He led me out of the ballroom into the desolate hallway as dark as obsidian with the occasional pewter highlights. I crept along one wall for orientation, careful to keep my hands to myself so I wouldn’t see into the Sunlake’s mind.

  Lobo stopped at the entrance to the atrium.

  “No,” I said.

  He panted and stared at me.

  “I can’t, buddy. I don’t like what’s in there.”

  You must, he seemed to say.

  “That room doesn’t want me. It keeps scaring me out.” Hearing my words aloud, I knew it was crazy to think so, but from the first day I’d set foot in the hotel, the atrium had wanted me out.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  I jumped, my shoulder hitting the wall. I saw a tall, shirtless shape in the diffused moonlight. “God damn it, Crow.”

  “That’s a lot of blasphemy for a child of God.” He approached, holding his camera.

  “Don’t you rest?” I huffed. “You’ll see her when you see her. Now that we did the ritual, I’m sure you’ll catch a good one of her soon.” I was tossing him a bone, I knew, but I didn’t want to be here with him. I was going back to bed. “Goodnight.”

  I started to leave, scanning for Lobo, when Crow blocked my path, showed me the glowing screen of his camera. A self-satisfied smile crossed his lips. “I did. I caught some good ones of, I don’t know, something. There’s this mist…” He showed me a tall column of what could’ve been smoke but also may have been a reflection of light off the glass. “And this one…” The next slide was of a giant orb.

  “Orbs are dust, I’m pretty sure,” I said.

  He smirked at me. “There’s great moonlight coming in through the windows upstairs. Figured I’d take some night shots.” He thumbed through at least ten more beautiful low-light photos, and though they were gorgeous, I fought the urge to tell him I’d seen his Lady. “Ghosts keeping you awake?”

  “The wolf did.”

  “Wolf?” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, right. An extinct wolf follows you around. Let’s see if I catch him.” Lifting his camera, he took shots of the hallway, turning on his flash to illuminate the darkness, but thankfully, Lobo had skulked off. “What else do you see?”

  “Meaning…”

  “Since the ritual last night, do you see anything different? Do you see her?” He put down his camera and crossed his arms defensively.

  I stared at him. I didn’t want to lie anymore.

  “The lady. The Lady of the Lake,” he said. “Do you see her?”

  Yes, I was sure I’d seen his grass-covered lake spirit last night during our ritual, unless my newly acquired superpower had simply been an overactive imagination. But considering she was his Holy Grail, we were alone, and he seemed to envy me, I lied.

  “No.”

  Crow stood there, studying me. Once he was satisfied that I might be telling the truth, he sighed and took a few slow steps in my direction. “Good, ‘cause, no lie, that would’ve frustrated the shit out of me.”

  I had no choice but to bump against the cracked wall, he was so close. I didn’t like how he was looking at me or how his gaze focused on my lips, or the way he smelled. His time living here had finally infected his clothes and skin, and tonight, he smelled worse.

  “What are you doing?” My palms grew sweaty. “Back up.”

  “I mean, I’m supposed to be the clairvoyant one, right?”

  “I said stop.”

  He reached for my hand. I hesitated. “You’re the new one. How would it look to the others if you saw her and I didn’t? I’d look like an idiot, wouldn’t I? After everything I’ve done, the work I’ve put into saving this place. Imagine if you got rewarded with a full-body apparition instead of me.”

  I yanked my hand out of his, but he gripped my wrist in a flash, and planted it on his face. His skin felt cold and clammy. “Tell me what you see.”

  I expected to “see” visions of Crow’s childhood or emotional trauma, but only a pair of seafoam green eyes entered my mind. A woman’s face superimposed over his, a slender, cracked nose, beautifully formed lips, curved breasts over Crow’s body. I smelled a rank stink in the air, like stagnant swamp water and rotting dead fish rolled into one.

  I tried to twist my hand from his grasp. “Don’t touch me again.”

  Crow smiled, his fingers tightening on my wrist. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “She’s all you think about,” I said. “And she’s going to appear to you very soon.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Valentina.”

  “I’m not.” I had no problem lying if it meant he’d release me. I hated these games. Unfortunately, my voice sounded weird when I lied, high-pitched and unsteady.

  He held my gaze with those awkwardly light eyes. I looked away, rattled, ashamed. Shoving my hand away, he said, “That’s what I thought,” and disappeared down the pitch-black corridor.

  In the morning, I leaned against a veranda column watching a large spider build its web. It worked so diligently, even though one of us was bound to ruin it by accidentally smashing through it. Between my fight with Cami, the nightmares, the agonized spirits, and Crow, I felt like a lost soul.

  Maybe it was time to leave. I’d done what I’d come to do. I’d helped the clairs. In turn, they’d helped me see life in a new way. For that, I would always be grateful. Was there any reason to stay?

  Someone displaced the air beside me, a short body blocking the chirping of birds. I looked. The little boy stood there. Sandy brown hair, bell-bottoms, tie-dye shirt. He ran off so fast, giggling as he bolted, that I felt the icy blast of his wake.

  “Hey!” Before I could follow where he went, he disappeared.

  I was almost sure it was the same little boy I’d seen in the atrium, staring at the mermaid fountain.

  Boo. A giggle.

  There he was to my left, holding a yellow tissue paper flower by its green pipe cleaner stem. He held it out as an offering, but before I could take it, he ran off with it still in his hand.

  “That’s not nice.” I smiled, happy to know at least one cheerful soul inhabited this wretched place.

  He was gone.

  But in his place was someone else entirely. I drew in a sharp gasp from the suddenness of it.

  A sickly woman. Hospital gown open. Chest exposed. Large flaps of skin pulled apart and pinned to either side, revealing her ribcage and diseased lungs. I stood paralyzed, watching the flesh sacs fill with air and contract, as she stared at me with vacant eyes.

  Something slipped out of a bright red incision in her right lung onto the floor. It looked like a ping pong ball rolling toward me. A small, off-white, plastic-looking ball skittered and rolled, snaking a path toward my feet, disappearing before it could touch me.

  I think it’s working, the woman said. I feel better. She coughed, and blood flew from her lips, spattering onto her gown.

  I couldn’t respond, I was so shocked by her image and the odd object that’d emerged from her body.

  Somewhere behind me, a real voice cried out from inside the Sunlake. Ripping my gaze from the patient, I turned and ran into the hotel, checking the ballroom first, the main hallway, then every room of the ground floor on the way toward the atrium.

  I passed Wilky rummaging through a custodial closet. “Was that you just now?”

  He shook his head.

  I jogged past the atrium, slowing to stare into it by habit. The chande
lier bobbed softly between its chains. Back and forth, back and forth. No breeze. I braced for the worst. Didn’t wish to see the man hanging there again. Instead, an old-timer with wild white hair hunched over a walker stood there, his hospital shift sliding down his frail shoulders. Attached to the walker was his IV stand. Hollow eyes pled with me.

  “What is it now?” I muttered.

  I can’t move.

  “Go to the light, sir,” I pleaded. “The light has everything you need.”

  He looked above my head as though the light were there. Mori was right, these souls needed help. And if I had the ability to see and hear them, to help direct them somehow, how could I, in good conscience, leave the hotel?

  I can’t… The man continued to stare wide-eyed.

  I craned my neck to look up at whatever it was he was seeing, terrified. There was nothing, just the lobby’s columns with their scaly tails, ocean wave crown molding shimmering in the morning light, and ropes of green ivy wound around them.

  A very real, very loud discussion echoed from down the hall. With a lingering look at the old man, I ran off past the kitchen, wishing I wouldn’t run into anyone else not of this dimension. Fae and Mori were in the dining hall, both hunched over Mori’s notebook. They marched up to me with a wild look in their eyes, flailing the notebook. “Let’s see what Vale thinks.”

  “I think I’m going crazy,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “You, us…it’s happening.” Mori showed me their notebook. On one sheet, Mori had written LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE in their scratchy, trance-writing style. The words took up most of the sheet and were punctuated with pencil puncture wounds through the paper.

  I shook my head. “You channeled that?”

  “That’s not the only one. Look.” Mori flipped to another sheet with similar scratchy words that read: YOU WILL DIE YOU WILL DIE YOU WILL ALL DIE ALL DIE.

  “I watched them.” Fae wiped tiny beads of sweat off her upper lip and twisted locks of hair around her wrist. “I watched them write it, and I’m telling you, I’ve never seen them do that before. Mori’s always calm, Vale. Whoever this was coming through, was not nice.”

  “Not every ghost is nice, love,” Mori said.

  Fae insisted. “That wasn’t a normal soul. We’ve been here a year, Mori. When has that ever happened?”

  “We opened the portal. We might now be communicating with deities, guides, demons…”

  “Demons?” Fae chewed on the dried tips of her hair. “I have enough of those on Earth, Mori.”

  “I’m not saying it’s a demon. I’m saying the amplification may have opened another of this building’s layers to us where older, non-human entities exist.” Mori looked at me, dark circles under their eyes. I wasn’t the only one getting shitty sleep.

  “Maybe it’s a TB patient,” I said, thinking of the image of the woman with her chest exposed. “Or a mental patient. Isn’t it true that many weren’t necessarily mentally ill? In the old days, people were institutionalized for anything—being atheist, believing in angels, seeing spirits, having a vagina.”

  “TB patients are usually weak,” Mori said. “They don’t say DIE DIE DIE.”

  “Then it’s someone warning us,” I said. “Last night was intense. Did you guys see anything strange during the ritual?”

  Mori shook their head. “Lightning, lake water surge, plume of fire…which strange thing?”

  “None of those.” I checked to make sure Crow wasn’t around. “The lady that walked out of the lake into the fire covered in seaweed, looking nearly identical to all the paintings around this place.”

  Mori and Fae looked at each other. “Ehh…that’s oddly specific. I’m not surprised, Vale. You seem to be stronger than all of us combined. Crow know you saw her?”

  “I haven’t told him, but I think he knows.”

  With a big exhale, I held out my hand. I had come to the Sunlake to help the clairs, and help I would give, no matter how terrifying this was for me. I had to use my power for good.

  Mori handed over the pad, I took a seat on the floor, and they joined me. With the pad between my fingers, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  God, keep me safe.

  Within moments, a tall and thin figure walked down a dark corridor toward me. A man, wearing a black and red robe and one of those capes that sat only on the shoulders. Broad-bellied, he seemed to float above the ground without feet. His hair grayed at the temples. He wore the Holy Cross around his neck. Where his eyes should have been were sparkling gold coins.

  “Gold.”

  “Gold?” Fae’s voice echoed as if from another place.

  “A priest,” I said.

  He moved from room to room, leaving death in his wake, taking what didn’t belong to him. Wallets, rings, watches, deeds. He ripped up living wills. He rummaged bags, opened unlocked file cabinets. He took it all.

  What are you doing?

  I knew his secret. He was searching for rumored gold, taking anything else he could get his hands on in the meantime. He was supposed to be giving last rites to the dying.

  The priest bristled and scowled at me. Leave.

  “You leave,” I said. “Walk towards the light. God will decide.”

  “Who is it, Vale?” Fae asked.

  They have nothing left to give, the priest reassured me.

  “Then there’s nothing to take,” I replied. “Leave it.”

  The gold coins dropped out of the priest’s eyes, revealing two bottomless holes where his eyes should be. You go—you with rage in your heart.

  His words stung. “I have no such thing,” I whispered, but he wasn’t wrong. Just by being here, anger had been seeping out of my soul for the last week, though it’d been brimming at the edge of my consciousness for years.

  She feels it. She feeds off it.

  Who? I asked.

  He laughed. YOU WILL ALL DIE ALL DIE YOU WILL…

  “Vale!” Mori cupped my face, thumbs swiping away tears. I pushed out of my trance and dropped the notebook.

  He’d seen. He’d seen straight into my heart.

  For so long, I’d worked not to let the rage show, to stay even keeled and neutral to everyone around me. I’d mediated my parents, accepted my grandfather’s lack of belief in me—You wouldn’t make a good businesswoman, Valentina. Be a teacher. Teaching is a great career for women. I’d minimized my own hurt to make others feel better about themselves. I’d been the good, Catholic girl. I’d swept pain that was rightfully mine under a rug.

  That shit needed to stop—now.

  “What did you see?” Fae shook my hands. Poverty, dirt floor, taunting in school, child services coming for her, a family rumor of riches. Yet Fae had nothing but love for this earth and everyone on it.

  “What did you see?” Mori asked.

  Describing the priest might make him reappear. I took back my hands. It was too much, too much. Crow interrupted, rushing in, camera in hand, making a beeline toward one of the front windows. “I fucking knew it.”

  “What happened now?” Mori asked.

  “Your friend you could trust?” he said to me. “Obviously reported us.”

  TWENTY

  We peered out the window into the parking lot. A silver Honda was parked. A familiar figure stepped out of the driver’s side, hanging onto the door and staring up at the structure.

  “It’s just Macy,” I said, relieved it wasn’t a county official.

  “Who?” Crow seethed.

  “My sister.” I made my way through the room, noting Fae and Mori’s silent exchange with Crow. I wasn’t here to rat them out, yet indirectly, I’d ratted them out.

  I hurried down the hall, through the lobby, out the broken auxiliary door. Macy leaned against the car, chin to phone, probably texting me to come out. “Hey,” I said, out of breath.

  A look of relief washed over her. “There you are. What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cami came back last night wit
hout you in your car, frazzled as frick. I asked what was wrong. She said the two of you had a fight. She said you were in trouble. When I asked how so, she insisted you were hanging around Devil worshippers. I suspected she was exaggerating, but I came to check.”

  “God.” I covered my face.

  “I know. But, umm… Look, it’s none of my business. I just came because I wanted to make sure…”

  “That I’m not actually worshipping the Devil?”

  “Making sure you’re not in any danger.” She pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear.

  “I’m not.” Though in the back of my mind, I couldn’t wrap my conviction around it. Since we’d opened the portal, I’d had a sense of impending dread.

  “Cami said you’re being lured to the dark side, God is testing you, you’re failing.” Macy gave a halfhearted laugh. “You’re sure everything is alright? I’ve been giving you the space you need, but you’re still my family. I would hate for something bad to happen, and I did nothing to prevent it.”

  I reached out and did something I’d needed to do for a long time—hugged Macy.

  Yes, my hands and arms needed to stop touching people and things long enough to clear my mind, but the hug felt good. Besides, there was nothing bad in Macy’s soul. Her all-knowingness slid through me, her willingness to help, to know me as a sister.

  “Aww, sis,” she said.

  In the hug, I also saw her past, her pain, spitefulness she’d received from kids who didn’t look like her, how having a sibling meant a lot to her. I saw a teen who worked too hard, who wished she could hang with friends instead of burn the midnight oil.

  “You can talk to me, Vale. I know you don’t know me well, and I know you’re holding back.”

  Those words made me cry.

  Fingertips swiped my cheeks. “But I was just like you once, and trust me, I understand the need to make your own mistakes.”

  I looked up at the darkening clouds, blotting the snot threatening to come out of my nose with my fingers. “I didn’t want to worry you or make you think you made a bad decision by letting me come here. I’m not a troublemaker. I swear I’m not.”