by Gemma Jace
After twenty minutes of boiling, the concoction for her cure turned into a tomato soup-like liquid and the other cure concoction turned a seafoam green. Rusty took the spoon and stirred the green one.
“I think they’re done,” Rusty said. He and Luna gazed at one another. “This is it. Are you ready to do this?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I am. I will drink my potion first. That way, if something goes wrong, you won’t drink yours and you’ll be safe.”
Luna’s heart fluttered at the words. He was handsome and chivalrous too. She couldn’t wait to take the cure so that maybe Rusty would see her the way she had started to see him. He dipped the ladle down to fill it and put it up to his mouth to blow the steam away. After several seconds, Rusty took a sip, then he gulped the whole thing down. Luna’s heart pounded, half from excitement and half from worry.
“How do you feel?” River asked.
“I feel fine, so far.” He sat and waited a few minutes. “I think I’ll be ok.” As soon as he said those words, he started sweating. Giant droplets poured from under his hat, down his forehead, and into the fire with a hiss. He wiped his brow and sneezed several times. His nose began to run, and he started coughing.
“Rusty, what’s happening?” Luna shouted, grabbing his face and turning it to hers.
Rusty didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, through the sneezing and coughing. He clutched his neck and gaged as saliva and mucus spilled out from his mouth.
“Oh my God! He’s going to die!” River yelled.
Rusty fell back onto the ground, convulsing. His hat fell off and his glasses bobbed up and down.
“Rusty!” Luna crawled to his side, trying to hold his body down.
River sprang into action and grabbed a stick, shoving it into Rusty’s mouth and putting Rusty’s head on his own lap to protect it. “He’s having a seizure.”
Rusty’s eyes rolled back into his head as his body jerked relentlessly. What had they done? This poor boy was going to die in the middle of the woods, far from his home, and it was all her fault.
“Rusty, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Please be ok. Forgive me.”
Another minute passed, and the tremors stopped. He rolled over onto his side and puked up black sludge. It projected out of his mouth like a water hose, sending the stick flying and spraying all over the tree in front of him. He coughed, sputtered, and spat the rest out. River patted his back while Luna held his hand. They helped him stand up.
“Are you ok?” River asked, checking his pulse on his neck. She had never seen River be so in charge and capable. It was wonderful, and nothing less than she knew he could do. Yet knowing inside and seeing in action were two different things. River took off the boy’s glasses and checked his pupils and asked him questions to see if he was with it.
“I’m ok now. I think I should sit down for a minute.”
Luna and river took him by the arms and helped him over to a tree and lowered him down. Rusty leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes. The sun peeked through the branches onto his caramel skin. He looked somehow refreshed and content. How could that be after he had just gone through such a traumatic ordeal? It didn’t matter; what mattered was that he was ok. She sat down beside him and wiped the sweat from his brow and head with the bottom of her shirt. She felt something prickly as she wiped his head. She stopped and looked closely. There, sparkling in the sunlight, were tiny strands of red hair sprouting all over his head.
“River look!” She sat up on her knees to get a better look, to make sure the light wasn’t playing a trick on her eyes. She rubbed his head again with her bare palm and could feel the hair.
River bent down close and looked. “Hot damn, it worked! Rusty, it worked!”
Rusty’s eyes shot open. “What?”
“Feel your head...go on,” Luna encouraged him, nodding.
Rusty rubbed his head and his eyes bulged open. He shouted out a ‘woo-hoo’ and sprang to his feet as if just getting out of bed from the sounding of an alarm.
“Oh my God, it worked!” He jumped around, all the while rubbing his new red stubbles. “It’s a miracle!”
Luna and River jumped around with him, cheering and celebrating his success. It was amazing. If the cure worked for him, it would work for her, so she not only celebrated for him, but for herself.
His hair grew even more while he was jumping around, really showing its ginger-red color, which made River stop and take notice.
“Your hair is still growing. Has it always been that color red?” He ruffled Rusty’s half inch curls.
“Yes indeed, that’s how I got my name. I was born with rusty colored reddish-brown hair.”
“It’s more like orangish-red,” Luna told him.
“It is?” He went to the bucket and peered at himself on the shiny surface. “Hmm, that’s definitely a different color, but I kind of like it.” He smiled brightly as he ran his fingers through his new locks. “Heck, I wouldn’t care if my hair came back seafoam green, like the potion. I’m just happy to have hair again.”
“Amen brother,” River cosigned.
“That’s so awesome, Rusty. I’m so glad you came with us,” Luna said.
“So am I, Luna.” He stood and gave her a big hug. “Thank you for showing up in my store. You are an angel.” He squeezed her tightly around her waist, almost taking her breath away. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him back as tight as she could, feeling his new soft hair against her cheek.
“I guess I didn’t help at all,” River said sarcastically, scratching his head. Rusty let go of Luna and ran over to him, picking him up off the ground in a big bear hug. Luna laughed with joy as River yelled at Rusty to put him down.
Now that they knew the cure worked and wouldn’t kill them, it was Luna’s turn to drink the red potion. She went to the boiling liquid and stirred it with the ladle. She pulled up a ladle full of the potion and blew on it just as Rusty did. Her palms began to sweat just thinking about going through what Rusty had just been through. But there was no turning back now. After a minute of cooling it off with her breath, Luna gulped it straight down.
“Come lie down, quickly,” Rusty told her.
She laid down on a soft pine needle-covered spot on the ground. River put her head in his lap just as he had done for Rusty. Rusty kneeled down beside her, ready for what came next. Luna closed her eyes tight and clinched her fists.
“Don’t worry, we got you,” River said.
Luna nodded her head and continued waiting for the seizure to come. Several minutes passed, then several more, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes and looked up at River.
“Did anything happen?” she asked.
“No.”
“Perhaps your potion doesn’t cause the same effects,” Rusty said. “But we should wait a little longer just in case it does happen.”
Fifteen more minutes went by and still nothing. Luna was tired of just lying there with nothing happening, so she sat up.
“Did anything change?” She got up and went to the pail to look at herself. No, nothing had changed.
“You look the same to me,” River said.
“Why isn’t it working for me?” Luna said in a low voice.
“Just wait a while. I’m sure it just works differently for you,” Rusty assured her.
They sat under the tree and ate more of the many goodies they had gotten. Luna ate the sweet tart cherry gumdrops River had bought her while she listened to the two boys talk about Rusty’s cool new hair. She dug her hand into the bag of candy and put one up to her lips when she noticed that her fingertips had turned white.
“What is this?” She brushed her hand against her jeans, thinking it must have been the powdered sugar dusting on the gumdrops, but it didn’t rub off. “What is this?!” She shouted this time. She dropped the bag on the ground and looked at her other hand, which had white fingertips.
“What’s the matter?” River asked.
�
�My fingertips are white,” she said as the brown on her hands faded away and turned white. It crept up her wrist, then to her elbows, then on up to her shoulders, until both of her arms were white. “Oh no, this is wrong, very wrong.” She stood up and ran back to the pail and drank another ladle of the potion before River could grab her.
“No, Luna, don’t!” Rusty yelled, but it was too late.
Luna had drunk two more ladles full, not caring of the burning sensation on her lips and tongue. Surely she hadn’t drunk enough of the cure. This time it would work. She looked down at her arms, waiting for them to turn brown again.
“Luna, your face is turning completely white,” River told her.
“And your hair is changing colors too,” Rusty said.
“No!” She looked at her reflection again and screamed in horror. It couldn’t be. Instead of her white face turning brown like the rest of her body, her body was turning white, like her face. She watched her black curly hair fade to a pale-yellow color along with her eyebrows and lashes, while her lips turned a rosy pink. “No!” she cried out as she kicked the pail hard, slamming it into a tree, splashing the remainder of the potion everywhere.
River and Rusty watched as she jumped up and down screaming before crumpling to the ground in tears with her hands hiding her face. They went to her and sat down by her side, both putting an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s going to be ok Luna. We’ll check the book again and figure out what went wrong,” River said.
“Yes. There has to be a good explanation for what went wrong. We’ll find out what that is and fix it.”
“I’ll never be able to go to the Eastern Islands with you now. I’ll have to go back to Green Brook for sure,” she sobbed.
“No way! You promised to go with me and you’re not going to back out now,” River said.
“Look at me. There is no way I will ever be accepted anywhere looking like this. I have the full curse of Cain.”
Luna had only heard about people who had the original curse of Cain, but no one she knew had ever actually seen it. She even thought it was just a myth herself. But now she could see that it wasn’t a myth, because here she was with it herself. She would be despised, just as Cain was when God put the mark of colorlessness on him thousands of years ago for murdering his own brother. They would think she was a murderer and would run her out of town or even try to kill her. The thought was just too much to bear.
“People will look to harm me while I look like this. There is no safe place for me now but home.”
“That’s not true. No one believes in that dumb stuff anymore,” River said.
“Actually they do,” Rusty said. “There was a boy who had come to Castleberry looking for a job at the castle, but the Count turned him away because of his all white skin and yellow hair. They were afraid of him and thought he would bring bad luck to the castle. He went into town looking for a place to stay until he could catch the train the next day, but no one would deal with him. The next morning, they found him in the woods tied to a tree with barbed wire, barely clinging to life.”
She covered her face and sobbed uncontrollably.
“No one will hurt you as long as I have breath in my body,” River said to her before turning his wrath on Rusty. “Why would you tell her that?!” River demanded with a glare.
“She needs to know, and so do you. We have to be smart about our next move. I want to keep Luna safe just as much as you do.”
“How is telling her scary boogeyman stories keeping her safe?”
“It’s not a boogeyman story, it’s the truth, and she needs to be aware of what people are capable of.”
“Did you see the boy tied to the tree?”
“No, but my cousin knew a boy who knew a girl who told him her brother saw him.”
“Like I said, a boogeyman story adults tell kids to scare them straight. You’re so gullible.”
“I beg your pardon. I am not gullible, I am very smart and I know what I’m talking about, unlike you.”
“No, you’re very dumb, unlike me.”
“How dare you!”
River and Rusty’s voices faded away. Her mind went blank. All she could hear was a buzzing-like static in her ear. She was shaking, but she wasn’t moving at all. She felt like she would never move again. She was a pillar of salt that would melt away into the ground as soon as the rain came. That would be the ending she deserved... unceremonious and useless. What would her father think about her hopelessness? He had always taught her to be strong and to look for the light, not the darkness. How could she? Her entire life had been nothing but darkness, and this moment was the darkest yet.
“How dare you!” Rusty shrieked, snapping Luna out of her self-deprecating stupor. She hadn’t heard what River said, but she could only imagine how offensive it must have been by the tone of Rusty’s voice.
Luna knew she had to pull it together before the boys’ words got even worse toward one another; River would throw the first punch, and they would end up in a brawl. She wiped her tears.
“Stop arguing!” She stood. “I’m ok now. Obviously, something went wrong with the potion, and the only way we are going to figure it out is if we work together, as friends.”
Rusty and River stopped their arguing and sat gaping at her.
“Luna, I hate to tell you this, but you are absolutely beautiful,” Rusty said.
“She looks exactly the same,” River added.
“She has yellow hair and is completely white now. In what way does she still look the same?”
“She’s always been beautiful.”
Luna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. These two boys thought she was pretty in the state she was in. And River always thought she was beautiful? She felt a smile creep across her lips.
“Thank you both for such wonderful compliments, but just because you like what you see doesn’t mean the rest of the world will. I’d much rather look like you two, so can we come up with a plan to get me out of this state?” She down-played how she really felt, which was warm and wanted; a much-welcomed feeling from what she felt only moments ago. She had never felt desirable to anyone before, and now it took this tragedy for a boy to tell her she was beautiful. This was both the worst and best day ever.
“I have an idea,” Rusty said, putting on his glasses after cleaning them off with his shirttail. “Didn’t Early say that his sweetheart now lives in Coastal City?”
“Yeah, Miss... what was her name?” River snapped his fingers while pondering.
“Miss Mary,” Luna said.
“Yes, Miss Mary. She would heal the sick children with her medicine.” Rusty raised an eyebrow to them.
River and Luna waited for him to finish his point.
“Don’t you get it? She healed the sickest ones that no other medicine could heal. She comes to him every few months for platypus stingers.”
“So,” River shrugged.
“She’s a wiccan!” Luna blurted out in her aha moment.
“Bingo,” Rusty said.
“And all we have to do is find her and ask her to help me fix the potion.”
“You’re such a clever girl.”
“No, you’re a genius. But how am I going to get to Coastal City now, looking like this?” Her heart dropped again just thinking about her awful state.
“We’ll camouflage you,” River said.
“How can I camouflaged all of this?” She said as she waved her hands around her body.
“Easy. Rusty doesn’t need his hat anymore, so you can wear it with your hair tucked in. And you can put on the long-sleeved brown flannel shirt grandma gave you; that way you’ll look regular cursed.”
“That’s brilliant. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Rusty taunted.
“It comes and goes,” River replied with a smirk and a shrug.
“We still have the ingredients we need except for the sea water which we can get when we get to Coastal City. All she has to do is show us how to use them proper
ly,” Luna said.
“We used all the pine needles and owl feathers. We’ll have to get more,” Rusty said after checking the contents of his satchel.
“There’s no way she can go up that tree again with those psycho birds.” River shook his head.
“She doesn’t have to. The owls lost enough feathers during the attack. All we have to do is gather them up on our way.”
“Thank goodness. I don’t know if I could have survived another hair pecking like that again.” Luna felt the top of her head where all the damage had been bestowed upon her.
“We’ll stay in the woods until thirty minutes before the train departs. It should be dusk by then,” Rusty said.
They hung out in the woods, eating candy and the last three oranges in Luna’s bag. When dusk came, Luna put on Rusty’s brown tweed newsboy hat and River’s mom’s brown flannel shirt and they headed out of the forest, gathering up feathers as they went to the train.
The streets were dark except for the lanterns that lined them. Only a few people were out walking, and the ones who were paid no attention to them.
They made it back to the train platform just as the ten-minute warning whistle blew. Rusty went back into the candy shop while Luna and River got on the train. He came back with ten bags of candy and bottles of soda pop which he gave to Luna. She shared her gifts with them both as the train pulled from the station.
“Next stop, Coastal City. End of the line,” the conductor called out as he walked through the aisles. The excitement Luna thought she would feel was nothing but fear and uncertainty. She prayed that Miss Mary could help her. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to Green Brook and her abusive mother.
CHAPTER 7
