Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  When I mentioned Nadine’s offer to my father, he flipped out.

  “I told you not to say anything!” he screamed. “Dominy, do you realize what you’ve done?”

  “Yes!” I said. “I reached out to my friends for help instead of following your lead and trying to handle it on my own! Look what that’s done to you.”

  He looked so wounded you would’ve thought I had just told my father that I hated his guts, that I never wanted to be like him, and that everything he’s done in his life was stupid and wrong and wasteful. Which is exactly what I did. I betrayed his confidence, but isn’t that what he did to me by not telling me about this curse in the first place?

  If only the rattling in the trunk would stop, then maybe I could think! My father is actually going to build a cage that he expects me to sleep in, just in case Luba is all-powerful and I become a werewolf. If I wounded him with my betrayal, he has royally screwed me up with his deception.

  I look over at my father, youthful and handsome, and I want to scratch his eyes out. If this curse turns out to be true then it is all his fault. He’s responsible, and yet he’s untouched. I’m the one who suffers because he was reckless and stupid and a really bad shot. The anger travels in my blood like a disease-infected rat that’s jumped into a fast-moving stream. It can’t fight the current; it can’t slow it down; it can only succumb to the journey. I’m about to let the poison that’s building up inside of me gush out when I feel the car slow down and see my father’s face. He’s white.

  “Daddy, what’s wrong?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer me; instead he looks around at the un-landscaped landscape, his eyes fearful but searching for something to emerge from the overgrowth. This must be where it happened. This must be where we were cursed.

  “Is this the place?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice is as soft as mine, and it scares me. The farther we drive from our home, from what I know, from what’s familiar, the closer we come to this unreal world where curses rule and werewolves are real. I don’t like it here, and if I thought I could convince my father to turn back and go home I would make a plea, but I know any debate is useless.

  About ten minutes later the trees and the brush become less dense. You can actually see beyond the first row of foliage to what lies behind it; the sight is like watching fog rise and float away or sunlight creep into a dark room. For the first time since we began our trek out here, I feel a bit hopeful. I don’t even care that it might be false hope; I’m desperate for a change, a diversion, so I latch onto it.

  Finally, the cabin appears in the distance. It’s a solid-looking log cabin resting on the crest of a hill. The land around it is flat and unpopulated, no trees, no bushes, no flowers. It’s as if the earth gave away, acquiesced to this intrusion, this foreign structure. My gut instinct—which I still haven’t determined is something I should trust or ignore—is that it may not be safe, but it is formidable. Suddenly, I want to get out of this car, put some distance between my dad and me and get inside. I want the sun to set, and I want the full moon to take over so I can know. I’m done with waiting.

  The path leading up to the cabin turns slightly, and out of nowhere another house materializes. Almost identical in appearance except this one is smaller, more like a bungalow. This must be the original cabin that Nadine’s grandfather built. I’m no architect, but the man must’ve been pretty handy with a hammer and power tools, if they had power tools back then, because it looks like it was constructed yesterday.

  Walking up to the house I can tell that my father is nervous. He’s taking deliberate steps, casually looking around, not at the scenery, but in search of intruders. He doesn’t trust anyone, not even his sixteen-year-old daughter’s friend. He puts the key into the lock and turns it slowly; when we hear the click, he freezes and doesn’t push the door open. Maybe he’s waiting for our invasion to cause the house to explode?

  “Can we, um, go inside?” I ask sarcastically. “It’s cold out here.”

  In response he gives the door a shove, but still doesn’t move. Is he once again waiting for something bad to happen? Have I never noticed, but is this how the poor man has spent his entire life? Always expecting danger, always assuming a threat is a clock-tick away? If that’s the case I need to learn from example and refuse to live my life like that.

  “Excuse me,” I say and brush against him as I enter the cabin.

  Once I am inside, the cabin doesn’t explode, implode, or show any signs of retaliating against unexpected company. It is, however, colder than it is outside. A visible puff of air escapes from my mouth when I breathe, but there’s a fireplace in the corner of the main room and a pile of wood, so once we get the fire going, it’ll be manageable. And hopefully fending off a night freeze will be our only worry.

  Even though there’s no heat, there is electricity from a small generator, but of course no Internet or cell phone reception. One of the first things my father does is check the landline, and it is working. I asked him why he was checking to see if there was a dial tone, and he said in case of an emergency. It was the first time we both laughed.

  The cabin itself is actually very cozy, really just one large room that’s sectioned off into kitchen, living room, and bedroom areas. There’s only one extra room, a small bedroom in the back with nothing more than bunk beds and a scuffed-up dresser and, thank God, a bathroom complete with a shower stall. I turn the faucet at the sink and watch with great relief as the stream of rust-colored liquid turns clear after a few seconds. If I didn’t have a doomcloud hanging over my head, this cabin would be an enjoyable place to relax in for a few hours.

  My father starts a fire in the fireplace, and I plop onto the big overstuffed couch and wrap myself in a multicolored quilt that was folded neatly and propped up against one of the arms like a pillow. I’m swathed in bright swirls of colors in a variety of geometric shapes, and I imagine Nadine, her mother, and her grandmother taking turns working on it as a family project. It’s sweet, and it conjures up the impression that her family is close-knit and traditional and loving. Then again the quilt could be store-bought and not an heirloom. Regardless, it’s warm.

  Kicking my shoes off I’m surprised that the large, oval braided rug in the center of the living room is soft underneath my feet. Guess after so many years of being walked on it’s lost its edge. It’s learned, like I’m learning, that time is both the enemy and the friend. Just like a father.

  “I’m, um, going to build the cage,” he says as nonchalantly as possible.

  While my father is in the small bedroom putting together the animal cage he expects me to crawl into before the full moon rises, I cling to the last moments of normalcy I may ever experience and make hot chocolate. Just when I don’t think I can listen to the clanging of the metal any longer, the whistle on the teakettle blows. I let the whistle continue for so long in order to drown out the commotion inside that my father is the one who turns off the flame.

  “You go deaf?” he asks, trying to make a joke.

  “Sorry, guess I wasn’t paying attention,” I mumble.

  My father pulls a bag of marshmallows out from his duffel bag and stuffs our cups of hot chocolate chock-full of marshmallows. The man really has thought of everything. Everything except something to say.

  Sitting on opposite sides of the couch we sip our hot chocolate as my father steals glances outside, making sure we move into the other room before the moon takes over the sky. Because the cabin is in the center of a clearing, there’s a steady, strong wind that travels past the windows, making them buckle and groan. The sound is comforting and fills in the silence that has latched onto the space in between my father and me. There’s so much to say, and yet neither one of us can find the will to speak. We just wait. Until he hears something.

  “What was that?”

  He turns his head toward the front door and mine follows. Uncontrollably, I feel my heart race even though I didn’t hear a thing; I was lost in thought, some d
aydream involving Caleb and the beach.

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  A few more seconds pass, a few more moments of thick silence. Then the windows rattle.

  “Mystery solved,” I say.

  My father looks at the window suspiciously; he doesn’t believe it was the culprit. He’s staring at it as if trying to connect with the glass; if he can only make contact, maybe the glass will confirm that it made the sound and my father can stop worrying. I look over at the window as well, not to connect with it, but to watch the light fade. I want to scream at my father that in about an hour we may have something truly important to worry about. But the time to worry comes earlier than I expect when we hear a knock on the door.

  Neither one of us can move. My father was right all along; his hesitation to enter this place was justified. It isn’t safe; we aren’t alone. We’re trapped.

  The second knock is louder and more aggressive. Whoever’s on the other side of the door knows someone is inside and is not happy about it. We feel the same way.

  My father puts his index finger to his lips, that cop thing he does to make me keep quiet. This time it’s an unnecessary gesture as I have no intention of making a sound, let alone speaking. But then he takes his cop thing a step further and pulls his gun out from his coat pocket, the gun that offers absolutely no solace or protection because it’s the gun that he’s admitted to me is not loaded. He then compounds what I perceive to be his insanity by waving his fake gun from me to the door. He does this three times until I understand what he wants me to do. He wants me to open the door and greet our unwanted guest.

  Without making a sound I move my lips to form one word: Me?

  Without hesitating, my father nods his head and grabs my arm to give me a jump start. When I’m standing an inch in front of the door, my father flattens himself against the wall to my left, so when I pull the door open he’ll be standing behind it unseen. He’s going to play cop-without-a-gun, and I’m going to play decoy. Brilliant idea.

  Just as my hand is about to grasp the doorknob, I hear another knock on the door. This time it’s more pounding than knocking, and I instinctively pull my hand back. Who’s out there? No one knows that we’re here except for Nadine, but why would she tell anyone? She offered the place to us, as a friend. My stomach churns and my intuition with it. Maybe she isn’t a friend; maybe she’s a traitor. I don’t know whether she’s someone I can trust or someone who would betray me.

  More pounding. From the other side of the door, from inside my chest, and both are loud and angry. I have no time to turn and make a run for it, for the safety of the bathroom, because my father grabs my hand, places it on the doorknob, and twists it to the left. In a flash the door is open, and before my eyes can register who’s standing in front of me I hear words.

  “What are you doing here?!”

  All I see is dark blue. The sun is gone. Night has come. The truth is only moments away.

  “Answer me, Dominy!” the voice shouts again. “What are you doing here?”

  This doesn’t make any sense. What is Caleb doing here? How did he find me? “You have to go,” I tell him, my voice sounding incredibly tiny compared to his shouting.

  “Not until you tell me why you’re shacked up here with Napoleon!” Caleb demands.

  “What?”

  Okay, now something makes sense. Caleb’s comment answers my first question; he’s here because he’s jealous. But why? And how the hell did he know to find me here?

  “You lied to me!” Caleb shouts.

  I’ve lied about so many things, Caleb. You’ll need to be more specific.

  “About what?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m not stupid, Dom!” he reminds me. “Bethany College is in Kansas, not Iowa!”

  My mind goes blank until I remember the conversation we had about my visiting potential colleges. I was trying to make our faux excursion sound real, and all I did was make a mistake. At least we’re getting closer to the truth, his truth for being here, but with a side glance at the sky I can see that we’re also getting closer to my truth.

  “I figured out that you lied to me, so I followed you,” he explains. “I can’t believe he made you take your father’s car!”

  The blue in the sky is getting darker.

  “Caleb, you’re wrong. Napoleon isn’t here,” I say, my voice starting to shake. “Now go.”

  “This is his cabin,” he replies, his voice solid and strong. “Nadine told me her family has a place near the edge of the hills.”

  My boyfriend’s done being polite, and he bursts into the cabin. He pushes the door open, and because I’m still holding on to it, because I’m afraid to let go of something stationary for fear of passing out, I move with it. My father is less than a foot away on the other side of the door, but I don’t see him. And neither does Caleb as he starts pacing throughout the room.

  “Stop being such a douche, Nap, and get out here!”

  When Caleb sees the door at the end of the small hallway, he pauses. He thinks he’s discovered Napoleon’s hiding place.

  “So you want me to come and find you? Is that what you want me to do, you coward?!” he cries.

  “No!” I scream.

  I race in front of Caleb and stand between him and the bedroom door. There’s no way I can let him see the cage my father built.

  “Get out of my way, Dom!”

  “Caleb, I’m begging you! You have to go!”

  The way I’m standing—with my arms out to my sides—it truly looks like I’m trying to prevent Caleb from entering the bedroom because I’m hiding someone in there, and that’s exactly what he thinks.

  “Oh my God,” Caleb sighs, completed dejected. “He really is in there.”

  Seeing his hurt expression, I don’t care if he finds out what we’re really doing here; I’d rather him think that I’m this disgusting, vile creature than think that I would ever cheat on him with someone like Napoleon. But I don’t get the chance to explain what’s really going on. My father takes the chance away from me. He comes up from behind Caleb and slams the gun down on the side of his head.

  My boyfriend slumps into me, and I stumble back, slamming hard against the door. I try to keep him upright, but he’s deadweight, and I’m unable to break his fall. I look down, and I see a bruise start to form on his temple, purple, and I think that it looks pretty against his blond hair, but I know it’s going to look ugly when he wakes up. If he wakes up.

  “What the hell did you do that for?!”

  My father looks at me like I’m some ungrateful brat and points toward the window. “Look outside!”

  I don’t have to move; from where I’m standing I can see it. The change happened so quickly it was hardly noticeable. The full moon has replaced the sun. One moment it was daylight, and the next it wasn’t. Usually it doesn’t matter, but tonight is not like any other night. Tonight the moon is going to tell my fate.

  “Get inside the cage!” my father screams.

  But I can’t move; I can’t take my eyes off of the moon. My father opens the bedroom door and starts to drag me inside, desperate to get me into the cage, but I don’t want to go; I just cannot go inside that thing. I feel like I’m spinning, like everything is completely out of control; I feel like I’m being dragged to my death.

  “Dominy!”

  I hear a voice somewhere off in the distance. I think it’s coming from a man; it sounds like a man’s voice.

  “Dominy! Come with me!!”

  The voice is lost to me; it means nothing so I don’t turn to it. I turn to the only thing that matters. The moon. I look out the window and see the glorious full moon against a backdrop of deep blue. So beautiful, so powerful, so understanding. I have no choice, so I willingly give myself up to the moon as I hear my mother’s sweet, angelic voice.

  Remember, Dominy, you are blessed.

  And then the transformation begins.

  Chapter 17 />
  My mother is wrong; her daughter is not blessed.

  The pain is excruciating, and the worst part is that it’s not the first time I have felt this way. It comes back to me in a blinding flash, a jolt, as if someone snapped an old-fashioned Polaroid camera, and an empty white light is followed by a crystal-clear image. Nothing, then everything. I remember everything that happened on my birthday, the night I killed Jess. I remember everything, because it’s all happening again. And because I can remember, I want to die.

  Just like before, the pain starts in my stomach, deep inside, where my soul is supposed to be, but I can’t have one; there’s no way I could feel such agonizing pain if I had a soul. It isn’t only physical; it’s emotional as well, and I know that my appearance isn’t going to be the only thing to change; my mind is going to become altered as well. I am going to become a very bad person. Or to be more accurate, a very bad thing.

  From the center of my body, the pain spreads out slowly in four directions and travels down my limbs. It doesn’t speed; it takes its time so my mind can assess what’s happening, so my mind can be aware and alert and afraid. It’s a cruel pain. Vaguely I’m reminded of the one time I had to have general anesthesia when I had my tonsils removed. A few seconds after the doctor put the needle in my arm I felt a burning sensation, and I could literally feel the hot liquid travel underneath my skin. That’s what this feels like, only amped up, ten times as hot. But whatever is attacking my body doesn’t want to shelter me from the pain; it wants me to be a participant.

  I look down at my left arm, and I can see something crawling inside of me, just under the skin, weaving, careful not to linger in one spot for more than a few seconds, but not in a rush. The pain wants to take its time; it wants to play.