A Moonlit Task

by Tom Hansen

  Oh dear.

  The sight was bad enough, but the smell was horrifying. Nancy gagged, resisting the overwhelming urge to throw up.

  She could only see the profile of the victim. She was Asian, or at least the parts of her that were recognizable were. Her blouse was shredded and she had a huge gash across her torso. The tattered remains of her clothes were scattered around her. A purse lay on its side, the contents strewn out across the pavement. Gashes in the car’s paint marked near misses from the beast.

  “You poor thing. I’m sorry it ended this way.”

  The woman’s chest did not rise or fall. Nancy let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Her mind assessed the situation, checking off details. Brutal death, blood everywhere. Should she check for a pulse? Her consideration was cut short when something brushed across her ankle. Nancy glanced down at the kitten.

  The kitten hissed, its fur bristling.

  “You came. I was worried you didn’t hear me,” said a scratchy voice from the darkness.

  The voice sent Nancy’s heart racing. She looked up and saw the woman’s head had turned to look at her.

  Half of her face was shredded and raw, like someone had taken a cheese grater to her skin. The whole scene looked like the grim remains of a torture horror movie, one of Edna’s guilty pleasures.

  Nancy’s nerves fired all at once. She froze and shook at the same time, unable to move. Tingles shot up and down her body along with a feeling of déjà vu. She fought the urge to throw up.

  “Please, come.” The woman’s arm moved.

  Nancy rushed to the woman’s side, kneeling down on the alley floor, all pretense of staying clean gone as she realized this woman was still alive.

  “I’m here. I’m here.” Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at this woman. The body was so torn, Nancy didn’t know where to put her hands.

  “You heard my call. I need your assistance, Moon Called.” The woman trailed off. Her one undamaged eye glazed over and rolled back in her head.

  The woman coughed, blood spattering from her mouth in an arc through the dim light. Some of it landed on Nancy’s face and blouse. The woman’s one un-maimed eye looked at her again, recognition on her damaged face.

  Relief flooded Nancy’s mind. She leaned in closer to hear the quiet words of this dying woman. She hoped Edna had made the call. She tried to ignore the gore and focus on the fact that the woman was still alive somehow.

  “My name … is Linda.” The woman coughed again. “Linda Hamada. I run the herb shop.” Her shredded hand raised to indicate the building next to the car.

  “Hello, Linda. My name is Nancy. Nancy Moon. Help is on the way. My friend is calling an ambulance.”

  The woman smiled, or tried to with what remained of her face.

  “You are latent.” Linda sounded almost surprised at her own statement.

  “Latent?”

  Linda tried to smile, but her grotesque features looked horrific. “I’m sorry I called you. I thought you … you have much to learn, Nancy of the Two Moons. I only wish I had time to teach you.” She paused to try to breathe, a gurgling sound in her chest as it rose and fell. “You are a witch, and I need your help.” She devolved into a coughing fit with these latest words. More blood oozed out of her wounds with each shake of her frail body.

  Nancy smiled, emotion finally releasing along with a flood of tears.

  Please don’t die. Not here. Not like this.

  Linda wasn’t making much sense, but Nancy didn’t expect her to. The woman was on her deathbed. Nancy was only there to comfort her.

  “Please, take.”

  Linda paused to take a breath. After a moment, the dying woman's hand rose into the air and made its way slowly to Nancy. It shook violently. Nancy reached out and took the hand in hers. Her skin was cold and thin. She noticed the woman’s other hand was bloodied and torn, lying limp to the side. What remained of that hand twitched in an eerie staccato rhythm.

  Nancy pulled her gaze back to the woman’s face, trying to forget the image of that twitching hand.

  “You must find Peter!” The woman’s voice held an urgency to it that caught Nancy off guard.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean, Linda. Who is Peter?”

  “He needs help. He is trapped and this will help him, but not until he is ready. I do not know how to unlock it. I only retrieved it … Anca …” She paused to catch her breath.

  The woman’s hand continued to tremble. Nancy finally realized Linda was trying to give her something. She carefully opened the dying woman’s hand and let the object slip into her palm. It was cold, dark, heavy, and covered in sticky blood. The light bouncing off its smooth surface looked green in the darkness of the alley.

  Echoes of an emergency vehicle worked their way through the chilly night air and down between the old buildings, into her ears. She was unable to pinpoint their direction.

  “Please, Nancy, tell him he is forgiven. It is not his fault. Witches are dying. Promise me—”

  Nancy leaned back as Linda devolved into series of wracking coughs. A horrifying wheeze rattled in her throat, and pink foam bubbled out of her mouth.

  “You need to save your strength.”

  Linda shook her head, coughing again, then finally getting control. Her voice was tiny, barely a whisper and each phrase was a struggle. Nancy had to lean in close to even hear, her ear an inch from the dying woman’s bloodless lips. “This is your task … set things right … I will be close … tied to you … Nancy of the two …”

  Linda’s face contorted with pain or fear. Nancy wasn’t sure which.

  Panic rose in Nancy’s chest again. “No! Don’t go. The ambulance is here!”

  Nancy pulled Linda’s hand to her lips and kissed it. The woman’s good eye lolled back in its socket.

  She was still.

  Tears erupted from Nancy’s eyes as the gravity of the situation hit her. This woman had died in her arms. In her brief care.

  “I … will find him. I will find Peter. I promise.” The words poured out of Nancy and she didn’t know why. She had no idea who Peter was or how she would find him, but she didn’t regret her promise, not in this dark time. What else do you say to someone dying in your arms? Who was Peter? Who was Anca? What was going on? None of that mattered now.

  The sirens grew significantly louder, localizing behind her.

  Nancy heard the screech of brakes as the siren came to a full stop. Sounds of footsteps and slamming doors echoed down the narrow alley.

  She heard voices in the distance, but they were too hard to pinpoint, and none of them made sense. Unintelligible. She turned to look for the help Linda needed.

  The sensation of someone else in the alley caught her attention, like a feeling of motion just outside her purview. She turned back, expecting Linda to be trying to move again, but the woman lay motionless. Her one seeing eye glazed and her battered hand sat limp. It didn’t twitch. Neither did her chest rise again.

  Despite the blood and torn flesh, Linda looked more at peace.

  “Peter. Anca.” Nancy spoke the names aloud, surprising herself with the steadfastness of her voice. A solitary tear broke from her eye and traveled down her cheek before landing on her arm.

  “I’m so sorry, Linda.” She looked the torn body one last time. The old woman’s skin was pale in the moonlight, nearly translucent, her life essence pooled about her in the muck and dark. She was a figment of what she once was, an apparition to haunt Nancy for the rest of her days.

  Something blue and shiny flashed and she looked up, only to have the image disappear from her mind. It was all too much for her; her mind had started playing tricks. She was already seeing ghosts.

  Just before the paramedic grabbed her around the shoulders to gently direct her away from the grisly scene, Nancy slipped the object she palmed into her coat pocket.

  The dirty kitten’s tiny claws made terrifying screeches on the paint as it tried to gain traction on the hood of
Nancy’s car.

  After the last two hours of her life, the noise was music to Nancy’s ears. It grounded her in a morose reality, and kept her mind from wandering back down the dark alley where Linda’s body lay covered with a blooded sheet.

  She stretched, putting her hands high up into the air as she tried to get the knot out of her back. The object Linda had given to her dug into her side slightly, reminding her of its existence.

  “Let’s go over your story one last time, shall we, ma’am?”

  Officer Brown, according to his nametag, held his notebook and pen at the ready. His eyes were wide in anticipation of her story.

  Nancy nodded, her thoughts drifting back to the poor woman in the alley.

  “Officer.”

  “Yes?”

  She turned back to him almost in a daze. “Did you ever figure out what happened?”

  He had been the first one to throw up upon reaching the alleyway, though she suspected it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring that up now. She was amazed she hadn’t done the same. The whole situation was obscene.

  The officer glanced at his notes. “As far as we can tell, it happened just like you said. We found tufts of orange fur embedded in her wounds and in the scrapes of not only her car but yours as well.”

  Nancy nodded. But the whole thing didn’t add up. “She told me about Anca. Did you contact them already?”

  “Oh yes, her partner, Anca”—he flipped back one page of his notepad—“Petran.”

  Nancy glanced over at Edna, twenty feet away, sitting in the back of the second ambulance to arrive. She was munching on some pretzels. Nancy suddenly realized how hungry and tired she was.

  “Ma’am?”

  Nancy ached for sleep. Her lower back twinged shooting pains down her leg, and she couldn’t avoid the tangy taste of copper in her mouth. Her hand wouldn’t stop trembling and she felt like she should simultaneously scream and cry.

  She was tired, sore, dirty, covered in another person’s blood, and nearing the end of her patience. She loved the public servants, but this was getting out of hand. Did it really take three people to take her statement? Did they not have at least the decency of offering her coffee or a place to sit?

  Worst of all, they hadn’t even let her talk to Edna.

  Nancy trailed her fingernail over one of the claw marks in the hood of her car, her thoughts wandering.

  She cackled. She didn’t even care that she was laughing like a crazy woman.

  Officer Brown looked at her questioningly.

  “My insurance company is going to love me,” she said.

  Nancy fingered the small, smooth object in her pocket. The blood had long since dried on it. She felt guilty not divulging the item to the detectives, but something about the earnestness in the woman's eyes—it was definitely her eyes—made Nancy hold back.

  Don’t give it to the police; this is your task, they had said to her. She wondered if this was how Frodo had felt.

  “Ma’am?”

  Nancy stood up, squaring her shoulders and looking the young man in the eye. “Look, I’m sure you have a job to do, but I’ve already told my side of the story twice, to Detectives Grady and Ankler over there. They have all the information, if you could just check with them.”

  She glanced back into the alleyway at the flashing lights from the police cameras then turned back to the officer.

  “I just want to talk to my friend, make sure she’s okay. I haven’t been allowed to talk to her for well over an hour, and quite honestly, I’m going to throw up pretty soon if I have to sit in these bloody clothes any longer.” She crossed her arms in front of her and gave him the teacher-knows-you’re-lying look she’d perfected in her twenty years at Madison Elementary. May I go?”

  Officer Brown opened his mouth then snapped it shut. He nodded. “We’ll contact you if we have any other questions.”

  “Thank you.” She picked up the small kitten and strode toward her friend.

  “How is Officer McNaughty over there?” Edna had a twinkle in her eye despite the grim situation. She glanced down at the kitten and took a step back.

  “Officer Brown, and I’m pretty sure I changed his diapers at one point, so don’t go getting any ideas.”

  Edna offered the small bag to Nancy, who grabbed a handful of pretzels at the behest of her rumbling tummy. She didn’t realize how hungry she was until the first crunchy pretzel was in her mouth. They tasted like a five-star meal all by themselves. “You get the third degree too?”

  “Oh yeah, the Bobbsey Twins Investigator Unit is quite impressive.” Nancy grabbed a couple more pretzels and popped them in her mouth. She turned to watch the investigators conferring with the officer. Nancy wasn’t going to talk to them again until she got some sleep.

  Sleep.

  The thought made her nervous. What dreams would haunt her tonight?

  “I got the guest bedroom all made up for you.”

  Nancy finished munching and swallowing her snack before responding. “Thanks, but I really want to go home. I just want my bed tonight. I could use a couple garbage bags so I don’t get anything in my car, or a change of clothes.”

  Edna nodded. “I understand. Anything to keep you from being in one of your moods.”

  “One of my moods?”

  Edna flashed a smile and a small wink. “Of course. I’m just waiting to hear all about how miserable your life is now that you missed Dancing with the Stars two weeks in a row.”

  Chapter Three

  The doorbell chime had not yet faded when Nancy opened her eyes. Daylight streamed through the second-story bedroom window of her century-old gothic home as the haze of sleep sloughed off her mind. She blinked once then bolted upright when the doorbell rang a second time. Pains coursed through her back as she sat up too fast. She winced and put her hand on her lower back for support. Glancing at her nightstand, her eyes went wide at the time.

  “Ten o’clock!”

  Ignoring the scream in her back, Nancy hurried to throw on a robe and shuffled out. She held onto the handrail, taking each step carefully, counting them down in her head from twenty. The doorbell rang again as soon as her foot hit the landing.

  “I’m coming. Hold your horses.”

  She glanced in the mirror beside the door, not pleased with the banshee that stared back. She’d amazed herself last night by staying awake long enough to shower, though she did fall asleep before she was able to change from a towel to real clothes.

  Linda’s blood. The memory caused a shiver to go down her spine. She pushed it out of her mind.

  She smoothed back her unruly hair, pulled her robe closed, and opened the door.

  Bright sunlight streamed around a small figure in the doorway.

  “Hello?” Nancy couldn’t make out a face through the overbearing sunlight.

  “Miss Moon?”

  The tiny high-pitched voice was instantly recognizable. “Billie. I’m sorry. I was sleeping in and didn’t hear the doorbell. What’s up?”

  Billy Piper’s mother had pulled him out this year to homeschool him. He spent his days earning money by doing odd jobs while other children his age were busy in school.

  “Uh yeah, so I was trying to collect for the paper from Mrs. Valanor,” Billy said, turning and pointing across the street at the house opposite hers, “but no one is answering. Do you know if she’s on vacation?”

  Shielding her eyes against the glaring sunlight, she looked at the house, noting the sagging roofline on one side. Billy was a sweet kid, but failed to notice things right in front of his face, like the six-foot tall ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard. “Mrs. Valanor passed away about two months ago, Billy. Did you not hear? They are trying to get the house sold.”

  “Oh, um, I didn’t realize that. I thought someone else was mowing her lawn, though, when I came by. Well, thanks, Miss. M.”

  Billy spun and ran back down her driveway. He hopped on his bike lying on the side of the road, and took off.

  Nancy
stepped out onto the sidewalk, keeping a hand over her eyes. She normally woke up before the sun and felt uneasy being in her bathrobe this late in the day.

  Gertrude Valanor had been quite the collector, as she called herself, but Nancy knew better. It had been a compulsion, and the house was filled to the brim with junk.

  Nick, Gertrude’s son, was a nice man, overworked with three teenagers, and living in Florida. It was too much for him to be up here personally to take care of his mother’s things, and as such had hired a company to sell off the property.

  Despite the sagging roofline, the yard was well-maintained and the broken window in the front had been fixed. The sign had been posted the day after the funeral, but Nancy had never seen anyone come by to look, even after companies had cleared out all the junk. It had taken the crew three days and twice as many trucks.

  Something looked different with the front yard, though, and Nancy realized it was the sign. There was a bright red SOLD plaque hanging from a yellowing chain underneath the realtor’s name. It swung in the breeze, the hint of a squeak barely making it to Nancy’s ears.

  She wondered who her new neighbors would be. She hoped it was a younger family, with kids. Too many people on this street were like her: alone, single, widows and widowers.

  Single. It was a derogatory term at her age. Thoughts of her long-time husband flooded her mind, but she pushed them out. He had done enough damage to her already by up and leaving four years prior. It had taken countless therapy sessions and a trip to a loss retreat for her to finally get over him leaving her. That was where she had met Edna, and her life had taken on renewed vigor.

  Remembering her friend brought forth the events of the previous evening. She turned and headed back inside. She needed to call Edna, but first, she wanted to take a look at the object Linda had given her.

  By the time she had gotten home the night before it had been nearly midnight, and for a woman who was normally in bed by nine, that was no small feat.

  Still the dreams had come, as they had since Richard left. Someone calling out her name, unseen. More a shadow than a person, always out of reach. Hints of blue and white, ruffles, and the scrape of bare feet on wood floor just out of sight around a corner as she turned her head this way and that.