Under the Moon

by Deborah Kerbel

  “S-someone was chasing me,” I manage to say.

  I feel him take my hands into his. His fingertips brush over the tiny rocks embedded into my palms.

  “You’re hurt.”

  The spinning is beginning to slow a bit. I try to sit up. “We better go. Whoever was chasing me is probably still out here.”

  His hand presses gently down on my shoulder. “Not yet. Just relax for a minute and catch your breath. There’s nobody else out here. Trust me, I was watching from my bike. I saw you running alone down the road.”

  My lids fly open. “No, that’s not true. There was a lunatic on my heels. I heard the footsteps.”

  “What you heard was probably an echo, Lily. The lake’s right beside us.”

  I peer through the darkness. The lake. Suddenly, the booming in my ears fades and I can hear the waves smacking against the rocks. Is there a chance he’s right? What if I was running away from my own footsteps? But I heard him running … saw his shadow … felt his breath on me. Was it another hallucination? Merde! The paranoia is finally taking over!

  This must be the end.

  Oh my God!

  “You’re still bleeding,” Ben says, holding my hands up to the light shining off his bike. “We need to wash these cuts out.”

  I feel an arm circle around my waist. A second later I’m on my feet.

  Whoa!

  The ground shifts slightly. The circle around me tightens.

  “Are you okay? Do you think you can walk?”

  Deep breath.

  “Yeah, of course.” I take a small step to prove it. “See?”

  But his arm stays glued in place. “Listen, I think the best idea is to take you to the lake and get you cleaned up.”

  I don’t argue. Ben starts herding me toward the sound of the water, holding me up the whole time. Squinting through the darkness, I can just make out a familiar lollipop-shaped dock a short distance up the shore. I point to it. “That’s my aunt’s place. We can go there. There’s a shallow beach and some first aid stuff inside if we need it.”

  Ben doesn’t argue. Hell, this is turning out to be the easiest conversation we’ve ever had. By a kilometre!

  Still clinging to each other like a pair of staticky, mismatched socks, we amble slowly toward Aunt Su’s. A question occurs to me.

  “So, what exactly are you doing out here, anyway?” I ask.

  “Looking for you.”

  Wait a second. Isn’t that supposed to be my answer? I waggle my head back and forth, trying to shake off the last of the spinning. It seems to work. I hold up a hand. “Thanks for all your help, Ben. I can walk fine now.”

  But he doesn’t let go. And I don’t try to make him. We’re just a few metres away from the water. I can practically taste the lake in my mouth.

  “I went by McCool’s and saw Jake Hudson in your crappy little cubicle.”

  Silence.

  “Why’d you quit?”

  Long pause.

  “Guess I decided my character was built enough.”

  More mysteries. I don’t like that answer. “No, really.”

  But before he has the chance to say anything else about it, we’re at Aunt Su’s dock. Ben leads me down the beach, straight to the water. He must be pretty freaked out about my injured hands because we don’t even stop to take off our shoes. The next thing I know, we’re walking into the lake. It’s so cold. My skin breaks out in an instant rash of goosebumps. Every instinct in my body is telling me to stop walking, go back, dry off, warm up. But still, I let him lead me further into the water. As soon as we’re waist deep, Ben takes my hands and plunges them under the surface. He swishes his hands over mine, oh-so-carefully extracting stones and cleaning out the wounds. It hurts a bit, but I let him do the job. When my hands come up a minute later, the stones are gone. And from what I can see through the darkness, the bleeding has stopped.

  “How do you feel?”

  I force out a shaky smile. “Thanks. I think I’m fine now.”

  “Still …”

  He keeps a tight hold on my hands. There’s no way in hell he’s letting go yet. Believe you me. And I know it has nothing to do with applying pressure to the cuts.

  “Lily, I did some more reading on the sleep thing yesterday …”

  I nod. The pain in my hands seems to be travelling to my chest.

  “Do you know you’ll die if you don’t sleep?”

  Another nod. And then I have to close my eyes before he can see the tears.

  “I’m not going to let that happen to you, Lily,” he whispers. “We’ll figure out how to get your sleep back. I promise.” His words make an echo over the water … over my ears … through my insides and back out again. Suddenly, a tall wave comes up behind me and nudges us closer. My eyes flutter open just in time to see Ben leaning his head down towards mine. I feel my heart pick up speed. Above us, the half moon peeks out from behind the clouds to watch what’s about to happen.

  “Ben …”

  “Lily …”

  My face is in his eyes. No, don’t fall in love with him, warns the nasty little voice in my head. What’s the point when you’re going to be dead any minute now?

  “I think I still have your jean jacket.”

  “Keep it.”

  I can hear his breaths getting closer as he slowly leans his head the rest of the way. My eyes drift closed. One of Ben’s hands falls on my cheek. And then his kiss on my lips. It’s like a feather sweeping over my mouth. It’s like Niagara Falls crashing over my head. Everything starts to spin again. My knees wobble. I grab on to his arms to keep myself from tumbling into the lake. His kiss tastes like Froot Loops. No, better than that. His kiss tastes like the circle of milk in the bottom of the bowl after the Froot Loops are gone. No, better than that.

  Pink, sweet, warm, delicious. Perfect.

  Silver waves rise up around us. His hand curves into the small of my back. My fingers climb up to find the soft curls at the nape of his neck. The bottom of the lake disappears and suddenly I’m floating. We’re floating. Together.

  Oh my God!

  So, yeah. Now I understand what all the fuss is about.

  TWENTY

  I guess perfection can never last long, can it? After lending us twenty minutes of awesome, the lake decided to shoo us away. The water was so cold it had sucked practically every molecule of warmth from our bodies. And as you can imagine, blue lips aren’t much good for kissing. Or talking, for that matter.

  “I think w-we better head b-back,” Ben says, lifting himself out of the kiss. I nod, too cold to speak. We’re both shaking like a pair of human earthquakes by the time we make it to the shore. I point to my aunt’s little weather-beaten cabin, glowing grey in the darkness. “L-let’s g-g-go inside and d-dry off,” I somehow manage to say between teeth clatters. My jaw sounds just like Aunt Su’s old manual typewriter when she used to be on a story bender. Wild!

  “S-so this is y-your aunt’s c-c-c-cabin?” Ben asks. His hands reach out to feel the wood. His eyes sweep over the structure.

  “C-c-can you help fix it?”

  He nods. “Sure I c-c-can. D-do you have a k-key?”

  “I’ll g-go g-get it. B-be right back.”

  Hugging my arms to my chest, I bound up the beach to get the key from inside the gnome. On the way, I pass Aunt Su’s herb garden and nearly trip over a new patch of black-eyed Susans that must have sprung up since my last visit. As I scramble to find my balance, my mind flies back to a warm day last June when Aunt Su and I planted the seeds. “Can’t wait for these to come up. They’re one of my most favourite flowers,” she said, pointing to the spot right next to the flagstone path where she wanted me to dig. I remember being surprised by that. “They are?” I asked, putting down the shovel to check the photo on the seed pack. How had I not known that? The flowers in the picture were bright yellow — not purple, her usual favourite. She smiled as she scattered the seeds gently into the dirt. “Well, we share the same name, don’t we?” I remem
ber being totally shocked at that. Aunt Su was named after a flower too? “And these Susans will grow to be strong, proud, and a little bit wild — just like me.” She leaned back on her heels and clapped the dirt from her palms. “They’ll come up when they’re good and ready — probably in the fall.” Then she reached to take my hands in hers. “They’re going to keep this garden alive when everything else around is long gone.”

  I remember at the time having the distinct feeling that she wasn’t talking about flowers anymore.

  I lean down and let my fingers brush over the soft yellow petals. Aunt Su was right: this little plant is the only thing left in bloom on the property. For a moment, I almost forget about my shivering body. But then a breeze blows in off the lake and my jaw is seized with a fresh round of teeth chatters. I drop the flower and rush off to get the gnome. When I reach the porch, I turn around to look at Ben one more time. Just to be sure I haven’t been, you know, hallucinating the whole thing. Against the backdrop of the morning sky, his tall body is a long shadow beside the wide, swaying lake. But he’s definitely there. No hallucination.

  Sigh.

  That’s when I see it happen. He doesn’t know I’m looking, but I see the whole thing. With one fluid movement, Shadowy Ben lifts the silver chain off his neck and hurls it into the lake. The metal of the initial ring flashes briefly in the moonlight before hitting the surface with a minuscule splash and disappearing under the dark waves. Shocked, I scamper off to get the key before he can catch me spying. By the time I pull it out of the gnome, Ben’s waiting for me by the back door of the cabin. Somehow he looks different without the necklace. For one thing, he’s smiling.

  I unlock the door and we drip over the threshold into the main room. Both of us are soaked through to our bones. I shiver as we stand there in the middle of Aunt Su’s stuff. My thoughts are feeling strangely sluggish and slow, like they’re wading through a giant jar of strawberry jam. I turn to look at Ben for direction. What now?

  “We really should take care of those scrapes on your hands.”

  Okay, yeah, that sounds logical.

  I lift my trembling arm and wave at the door beside us. “First aid kit’s in the bathroom. Under the sink.”

  Ben disappears into Aunt Su’s little bathroom and comes out a few seconds later with an armful of green towels and a small white box. He kneels beside me, dries off my hands, and covers up my shredded palms with a triple layer of gauze bandages.

  “Okay, next thing: we have to get warm,” Ben says, rising to his feet. He hands me one of the towels and wraps the other around his shoulders. “I think it’d be good if we could change into something dry. Any clothes here we can borrow?”

  Yup, another good idea.

  “First door on the left,” I reply, pointing a shaky blue fingertip. “Check the bottom drawer of the dresser.”

  He comes back a minute later with one of Aunt Su’s faded purple T-shirts in one hand and an old, fuzzy wool blanket in the other. He hands the T-shirt to me.

  I shiver and take it. “But what are you going to wear?”

  That seems to amuse him. “Your aunt and I aren’t exactly the same size,” Ben says, holding up the blanket. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine with this.”

  And so, in the dim moonlight that’s spilling through the lake-side window, we towel our dripping bodies off and strip down to our underwear. Then we hang our wet stuff up to dry on Aunt Su’s rusty old laundry room clothes horse. I try really, really hard not to fixate too long on the sight of Ben standing beside me in his wet boxer shorts. But it isn’t easy. The body I’ve only been able to see in my imagination is suddenly there in front of me in all its holy awesomeness. Even though my brain is still stuck in slo-mo, my heart is knocking wildly against my ribs. I can feel the pounding all the way up to my ears. It sounds almost the same as General MacArthur’s frantic shoe-tapping on the floor. Eventually, when Ben notices me noticing him, I turn away and pull the purple T-shirt over my head. Slowly, to give my cheeks a chance to turn back to their natural colour. As the shirt comes down across my nose, the smell of Aunt Su brings an avalanche of old memories crashing along with it. Just like that night in the mint patch. Only for some reason, this time the memories are coming to me through a thick layer of Fluffernutter. Weird. Maybe that’s why I’m able to hold back the flood of tears. They’re sticking to the fluff. By the time my face pops out of the neck hole, the sting behind my lids has disappeared.

  My eyes find Ben. He’s staring at me with a funny look on his face — like I’m some bizarre experimental art installation that doesn’t make any kind of sense. “Sure you’re okay?”

  Nod.

  “Why don’t we rest here for a bit? I’m guessing you’re not up for the walk home yet, are you?”

  Shake.

  “The sun’ll be rising in a couple of hours. We can hang out here and wait for the light.”

  Another nod. Trust me, when your brain feels like a squishy bowl of oatmeal, you’ll agree with pretty much anything. By this point, I’ve completely lost all track of time. And most of my senses too. What on earth is wrong with me? Am I suffering from hypothermia? Love sickness? Symptoms of imminent death by exhaustion? A panicked shiver suddenly passes over my skin. Yeah, that last one is probably right.

  Ben pulls the old quilt off the couch and stretches it out on the floor next to the giant window. We lie down side by side on the quilt and he pulls the woolly blanket up over us. I huddle next to him for warmth. He huddles back. The shivering is starting to ease off a little bit. The moon is still watching us from out on the water. I can see the waves rolling up the beach. And sliding back down again. One by one. In … out … in … out …

  Hypnotic. My body’s a helium balloon. A big, silvery blue one. Floating higher and higher …

  “Is your Mom going to be worried about you?” Ben asks, breaking through my trance.

  I take a few extra seconds to process the question through my sludgy brain.

  “No, she thinks I’m sleepin’ at Emmasouse.”

  “Emma’s house?”

  Nod.

  “What’s wrong with your voice?”

  It’s the slurred speech of the terminally sleepless, the voice in my head calls out. But I don’t want to scare him with the truth. “Jus coldlips,” is what I say instead.

  “Okay.” Ben huddles me closer.

  “What abouchor Dad?” I ask.

  “No. He definitely won’t notice I’m gone.”

  “What’see like?” I really just want to get him talking so I won’t have to. I’m so fuzzy-brained. It’s like a giant sheep is sitting on my head.

  “My dad?” Kilometre-long pause here. “Defeated. That’s what he’s like.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like I told you, it’s a long story.”

  “S’okay. I wanna hear it.”

  He doesn’t speak for a full minute. And when he does, his voice is hard as a giant block of concrete. “When the economy collapsed, my dad’s construction business kind of collapsed along with it. He lost it all. There was literally nothing left. Not enough to keep our home. Or our cars. Not even enough to pay my school tuition. Even my university savings were gone. My mother bailed and ran off with her new rich boyfriend. Everything we had in the city got auctioned off and we moved up here.”

  Everything they owned gone? Just like that? No home, no savings, no company left for Ben to take over one day? I don’t know what to say. So instead, I just huddle a bit closer.

  “I haven’t told anyone this, but it’s gotten really bad, Lily,” Ben continues. His block of concrete voice has suddenly shrunk down to small bag of pebbles. “After we got here, Dad had to take a second mortgage on the cottage. And right now we can’t even afford the property taxes on the place, let alone the payments. Dad’s … well, he’s having a hard time dealing with it. He won’t even get out of bed to look for work. I’m all he’s got. It’s all up to me, now.”

  Ben’s eyes drop away from mine. He starts twis
ting little fluff balls off the woolly blanket. “I sort of lied about the whole ‘character-building’ thing,” he says. “Truth is, I took the job because we need the money. Badly.”

  Something about this whole thing isn’t making sense. Even in my fuzzy-minded state, I can tell there’s a little piece of his mystery still missing. “So whydjoo quit McCool’s then?”

  “Had to. I knew there was no way I’d ever get through the school year half asleep. If they fail me, I’ll never get into university. Better just to take some time away from school until I can concentrate on my marks again. I was trying to find you and let you know.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Oh my God — Ben’s quitting school?

  “You can’t …”

  He holds up a hand to stop me. “Yes, I can, Lily. I have to. We need money. I need a job that’s more of a nine-to-five thing. Plus, someone’s got to be around at night to keep an eye on Dad.”

  I’m quiet for a minute, trying to take all this new information in through my Jell-O brain. Ben’s quitting school. His family’s in trouble. They’re running out of money. I glance down at the dollar store D’watch on his wrist and suddenly understand what happened to his other watch. And his iPod. And his leather jacket. Merde, this is brutal! He’s gone from big-city-private-school-golden-boy to penniless-sleep-deprived-small-town-dropout in less than a year. No wonder he’s grumpy! I can’t believe he’s been listening to all my problems while he’s dealing with this behind the scenes! What if they have to sell their house? What if they have to move away from Big Bend? Would he move to Vancouver to be with his mom? And then I remember about the necklace. The one expensive thing it seems he didn’t pawn.

  “Whooz SB?”

  “What?”

  “Th’ring. Sit your mom’s?”

  “The ring? No, it’s definitely not my mom’s.”

  “So?”

  Long pause. “The B is for my name and the S is the initial of a girl from my old school. Savannah Lawrence.”

  My heart flatlines. “Girlfriend?”

  “Ex, actually.”

  Savannah. A girl with that name is all fake suntanned skin and blond flowy hair. I hate her instantly. I nudge Ben’s ribs for more information. “So?”