Half-Moon Manor

by Darcy, A. J.

  Glancing over at where Olivia was sniffing the fresh-baked cookies, Henry wondered how she knew that. He started wondering about how she knew wherever something belonged, even if that meant having to move something else.

  “Henry, are you wearing a blue plaid shirt?” Victoria asked pointedly as she tried to sneak a hot cookie off of the tray. “Olivia, is that your blue top?”

  “Yes ma’am,” she answered.

  “And snickerdoodles?”

  “Yes.”

  Nodding her head, “It’s time.”

  Shaking her head, Olivia countered. “Five more minutes. The cookies aren’t ready yet. You said we were eating cookies and things don’t feel right yet.”

  This whole exchange between the mother and daughter seemed odd to Henry. Remaining silent he looked back and forth between them, wondering what was going on and feeling as if he was watching a tennis match.

  “You have to tell him,” Victoria insisted

  “Not yet. He isn’t ready yet.”

  “He needs to know. Things are about to get complicated.”

  “Please, not yet, Mom,” Olivia pleaded, knowing it was pointless. Victoria was right and it was almost time to tell Henry… or to confirm what he likely already suspected. There was no possible way that he had not already heard about her family.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t know that,” Olivia shouted before flushing.

  “I think I know more about knowing these things than you do.”

  Henry’s head began to spin as he started wondering just what was going on, wondering if he was ever going to find out what the Whitmores were talking about right in front of him. All he could guess was that it had something to do with him and some of the town’s rumors.

  This continued for about five more minutes, the cookies getting cooler on the metal cooling rack as Olivia protested, reluctant about revealing whatever it was that Victoria had deemed so important.

  Suddenly, grabbing a cookie from the sheet, “I can see visions of the future,” Victoria stated to Henry before leaving Olivia alone to handle the explanations.

  Olivia did not want to turn around and find out Henry’s reaction to her mother’s sudden pronouncement. What if he was freaked out? What if he decided he could not be friends with the town weirdo? What if she lost one of the most important people in her already disrupted life?

  Instead he decided to speak up first, “So, the rumors are true.”

  “Rumors?” she paused, wondering about what he had heard.

  “That the Whitmore women are witches.”

  “Talented,” Olivia corrected. “I know where things belong and can do some things with cooking, but I don’t know if that is because of me or because of the talent. It’s weird because Mom once gave me a book to read about a family like that. I really hope my life doesn’t turn out like that family’s did. And Mom has a darker turn with being able to see the future, but she can’t really change it. She sees things when they are on their set paths. At least the big things…” Olivia looked away, stopping in the middle of her rambling before she completely lost Henry’s attention. “And when I’m older and people take me more seriously I would make an excellent matchmaker.”

  “Like right now? I mean with the argument you two just had.”

  “Yes,” she answered, understanding what he meant. Then, turning away from him, “And it isn’t the Whitmore women, it’s the Mason women. The Mason women are talented. Grandmother just was lucky and married Grandfather.”

  “Is it true that your Grandmother could walk on water?” Henry asked, trying to lighten the mood while reaching for another cookie.

  “No, that’s just a tall tale. Grandmother could literally talk to the plants and make them grow or bloom or ripen. I heard she always had a full pantry of things that she had canned regardless of the season.”

  Henry leaned forward, aware that Olivia did not want to look at him or be touched. He had a million questions and now that the door had been opened he could ask about the history of the Mason women. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Olivia spun around so quickly that he became dizzy for her, “Because you already knew! You just didn’t know what I could do, what my mom could do. Because we both know that I can’t lie to anybody without blinking way too much. You are one of the most important people in my life and if you don’t believe that I know where things are supposed to be and when they are supposed to be together you are just going to get frustrated beyond belief.”

  He had a feeling this was more about what she was not saying than what she had revealed. Instead of asking her to clarify he waited.

  It felt like forever before she spoke again, “I need you to be willing to wait. If you don’t wait everything is going to be off and whenever something isn’t right it’s like a little buzzing in my ear until everything is where it is supposed to belong. It isn’t so bad with people because of freewill and everything, but with objects it can end up being a massive migraine level headache.”

  Later, still confused about what she was trying to tell him, Henry left Half Moon Manor with a plate full of cookies and went home next door to a nameless house.

  Chapter Three

  It was the last place he really wanted to be, but he could tell that everyone was where they were supposed to be based on Olivia’s calm demeanor. It just did not seem right that she was seated between the Hayes brothers. He might not have any of the talents that his wife, daughter, or granddaughter had but Mr. Whitmore had eyes. Henry was mentally suffering from the attention that Michael was constantly giving an unenthusiastic Olivia. Mrs. Hayes was planning a wedding from the look in her eyes, but to which son he was not certain. Mr. Hayes seemed to be distracted by something that was probably in his office since he was typically distracted by his unfinished work. Seated next to his daughter, he could feel Victoria’s uneasiness.

  Did he need to tell her that he already knew that she was pregnant? Should he let her know that it was not a problem? It was definitely better that she escape George before things became worse and before she was unable to leave. He had been trying to convince her to leave George for weeks before she finally made the decision.

  It was mildly amusing watching Henry grow frustrated. He did not notice that Olivia was constantly moving closer and closer to him to get away from Michael’s unwanted attentions. At least somebody could see through Michael Hayes’ charm; everyone knew that his parents were a bit blinded by their son’s charms.

  Finally, dinner was finished and Henry ended his imagined torture by asking, “Mom, can I show Olivia the library? I’ve always told her about how many books you have.”

  “Books!” Michael laughed, “I can show you more interesting things than books.”

  “I love books,” Olivia smiled as she grabbed Henry’s hand and did not let go.

  “Yes, of course,” Mrs. Hayes smiled, mentally switching her sons in her visions of an allegiance between the Hayes and Whitmore families. She had been switching between them all night. She never had believed that the Whitmore women were evil witches, mostly because they were Mason women before Emilia married Martin. And there was never a word against the Mason women, despite the lack of men and fathers in their lives. At least she had never heard anything interesting like they drank blood or danced naked under a harvest moon; although that last one sounded interesting and she secretly wished they did so that she could join in the festivities. She also desperately wanted to know if the rumors about the Mason women abilities were true.

  ‘Maybe Henry can tell me,’ she thought. ‘He probably knows; he spends most of his time over there when Olivia is in town…’ Right then she mentally slapped her forehead. ‘Of course. How blind can I possibly be?’

  Once they were out of the dining room, Olivia turned to look at Henry. She flatly stated, “I don’t know why you like me.” When he started to interrupt, she shook her head. “I’m analytical and everybody is going to think that I’m stringing you al
ong because I’m not going to let you declare anything other than ‘It’s complicated’ until the time is right.” Still shaking her head and looking away, “Your mom, Michael, your father, they will all think that I’m playing with your emotions.” Turning back around so quickly that Henry’s head spun, he found he had that feeling fairly often lately, “You are my best friend in the whole world; I know that and you know that.”

  “Friend zoned,” Henry mumbled, looking away.

  Olivia grabbed his face and turned him so that he was looking at her, “Not forever. Never forever. I can promise you that much. I think.” Pulling away, “There is just so much dangling and tangling up everything else up. Too many of buzzing noises where things are out of place and there is nothing I can do about any of it. Something big is needs to happen to get some of this static noise to disappear.”

  “How do you handle the static?”

  “Eventually it fades into the background.” Turning back to look at the books, “Please tell me your mother is going to let me borrow some of these,” she stated, trying to change the subject.

  Chapter Four

  Victoria had been gone for three weeks, two weeks longer than she had claimed she would be gone, and George was beginning to worry. Normally she would have called him to check in and tell him that everything was fine, but every time he called he was sent directly to voicemail. It was enough to send him pacing and he hated pacing. All of his plans would not be wasted.

  Occasionally he would throw something just to hear the sound of glass shattering against the wall. She should have told him before she left! She did not have to hide the test at the bottom of the trashcan in an empty box of tampons.

  It made the desire to throw things even stronger. It made him want to drink.

  He had already moved the rest of her things, mostly furniture, into his apartment. It was supposed to be a surprise for when she returned...if she ever returned. Her landlord understood too well when he went to move her things. He even vaguely said it would save him the trip of selling the stuff she had left behind, whatever that was supposed to mean. He had scolded George for making an unauthorized copy of her apartment key, as if it really mattered, but George ignored the man. He normally did anyway. Victoria would be back soon and she would be moving in with him and she had no say in the matter.

  And Olivia would join them when the summer was over.

  Then he could finish his plan.

  Dust covered everything; it was as if her grandfather had never come up into the attic since her grandmother had died. Both teenagers could barely stop sneezing.

  In the back corner of the room was a box labeled ‘journals’. The box was labeled with handwriting similar to her mother’s cursive, but it had been a dead end for Olivia’s search for the identity of her biological father. Reading the journal entries had turned out to be fruitless. Several pages had been torn out and they were not in either of the books or in the boxes.

  “Maybe she burned them,” Henry hesitated to say.

  Biting the inside of her lip, Olivia worried. The attic had been the only logical place where she could look. She already knew that anything belonging to her mother that was related to high school or college was stored in the attic. Any reference to ‘him’ would probably be on the pages that were torn out and thrown away. They were now lost forever in sea of trash and static. There was not even a mention of a crush between the yellowing pages.

  Slumping in the window seat, Olivia sneezed. She had stirred up a lot of dust during the hunt for her father’s identity. The window seat’s hidden compartment had been checked the summer before along with the box labeled ‘yearbooks’. Three summers before had revealed the box of clothes from the thirties that her grandmother had saved; they had made for a good Halloween costume that year.

  Out the window she saw Michael leading his latest ‘summer fling’ into the woods to his ‘secret’ make out spot: a tree house the Hayes brothers built when they were younger. Henry was watching them disappear into the woods with an odd look on his face.

  Tilting her head, Olivia wondered why she had never talked to Henry about this even as he helped with the search. She told him almost everything. It made sense that he might have a clue towards the identity of her biological father. It was easy to gather gossip in a small town.

  It took Olivia fifteen minutes to get cleaned up and get Henry stationed in her grandfather’s kitchen. A plate of the cookies from yesterday (a second batch) was placed in front of him as a bribe of sorts. All she needed to do was to figure out how to broach the subject. Knowing Henry as she did, Olivia decided to take the direct approach in bringing up this particular topic.

  “Henry, can I tell you something?” Olivia asked, playing with her glass of sweet tea but not actually drinking any.

  “You know you can tell me anything,” he smiled as he reached for another cookie that was on the plate. “These are really good.”

  “Thank you. Anyway, my father is from around here.” She continued looking at her glass and not at Henry. “I don’t know who he is or what his name is or anything. I don’t want to ask Mom in case he did something really bad and that’s why he isn’t around, like with the new baby and her fight with George. Or because my father just doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  Henry waited, guessing there was something more that Olivia wanted to say, and his patience paid off in more than just cookies.

  “All I know was that one night he climbed one of the trees into my mom’s room and nine months later Mom had me.”

  “Do you have anything else to go on?”

  “My eyes and hair; Mom has brown eyes and mine are green. Mom also has dirty blonde hair and mine is very dark.” She paused, “And I think he is going to be tall. Mom likes tall men.”

  Henry thought about this for a few minutes. “Have you looked in her yearbooks? If you look in her junior class yearbook you will have a list of people a year older and a year younger than your mom.”

  “I can’t find them. I was looking in the attic with the rest of her high school things and that’s when I found the last journal she had written in before college. The last page is about heading off to college and starting a new chapter in her life. She wrote that she would be starting a new journal. I don’t think that she knew about me yet.” Olivia looked out of the window. “There were also several torn pages before that last entry. I think she wanted to forget he ever existed for some reason.”

  He nodded his head. “That makes sense.” While grabbing the last cookie on the plate, he remarked, “There is plenty of time. You aren’t leaving once summer is over and more people return to town than they care to admit.”

  “It’s still a small town, Henry.”

  “People still return. It’s in their blood. They might leave for college or to chase after their dreams, but they return when they want to start having families because this is where their family already has roots.” Biting into the cookie, Henry held back his groan of appreciation before continuing his thoughts.

  “Take Officer Greene for example. He married Beverly Johnson and they moved to Nashville. After they divorced, he returned here, and she stayed there. Every Christmas she returns, with her new husband. Somebody once said that she overheard Mrs. Johnson say that Officer Greene returned only because he is waiting for somebody else to return and that’s why their marriage didn’t work out.” He paused, lost in thought. “She was bitter about it.”

  Henry looked down at his empty plate sadly and wondered how he had eaten all of the cookies on his plate before Olivia pushed hers toward him.

  “Thanks. Then there is his sister, Mrs. Melissa Kirkland. She’s four years older than Officer Greene and she went off to college, majored in drama and education, and now she teaches at the school. When she was first married, they went somewhere and she had a few roles on the stage. Every year when she tells the story to her students she reminds them that there is nowhere else that she would rather be than in the theatre teac
hing them about acting and putting on productions.”

  Henry went on to tell her about several other people in the town who had left and come back years later. When he was finished he reached for the last cookie on Olivia’s plate before realizing that he had already eaten the last one. “Those were really good.”

  “Thank you. It’s a talent.”

  “Like knowing where things go?” he asked in an attempt to get Olivia to look up at him. To see him instead of what she was looking at in the past.

  “No,” she whispered. Something felt off.

  Moving next to her, Henry pulled her into a hug, righting the off-centeredness that Olivia was beginning to feel. “It’s okay. We will find him. I’ll ask Winnie if her mom has her uncle’s yearbooks.”

  “Who is Winnie?”

  “Winnie Kirkland, Mrs. Kirkland’s daughter and Officer Greene’s niece. She’s the self-proclaimed drama queen of the school. She’s so good at acting that nobody can complain or say it’s because her mother is the drama teacher when she gets the lead roles.” Henry paused, “You might be able to give her a run for her money. I watched that link you sent me of your leading role last semester.” Tugging her arm to get Olivia to leave the kitchen, “Now come on; if we hurry we can make it to get some ice cream before Sebastian’s closes.”

  “Aren’t you full after all of those cookies?”

  “We’ll walk it off. Besides, you didn’t get any cookies.”

  “You ate them all when I was talking.”

  About an hour later, as he was watching two teenagers exiting the local ice cream parlor, Officer Weston Greene tried to place the girl. She looked familiar. He recognized Henry Hayes walking beside her and wondered if she was Victoria Whitmore’s daughter. He had expected somebody five years younger. Calling out, he caught Henry’s attention.

  “Afternoon, Officer Greene,” Henry greeted. “This is my friend, Olivia Whitmore. She just moved here from Memphis.”