Phantoms of the Moon

by Michael Ciardi

A full Moon materialized in the ebony sky over Belle Falls. It gleamed like a gilded guardian, casting a pale eye upon the snowy terrain with a muted tenderness. On such nights, when the Moon was unobstructed from Earth’s shadow, every other celestial offering was dwarfed by comparison. It was once whispered that some who gazed upon the unhindered moonlight experienced a radical transformation of their flesh and souls. Primitive urges prevailed, persuading their uncensored yearnings with sheer acts of depravity. Although the myths of the Moon’s provocative lure flourished primarily in the channels of one’s imagination, no one glimpsed upon its glow without shuddering at the notion of its legendary power.

  Tonight, Ryan’s dreams guided him through the moonbeams, and in the midst of his slumber he found himself standing back inside the tunnel of his nightmares. No refuge came to him here. The tunnel’s brightness intensified, nearly searing his eyes as he slept. Just as in his previous dreams, he observed a shadow of another person at the tunnel’s far end. He attempted to run forward, blindly stretching his hands out with a motive of capturing anything more tangible than air between his fingers. In the distance, his twin brother’s faint cries echoed. This sound drilled against his eardrums, but he proceeded with undaunted persistence.

  “I’m here, Robby! It’s me—your brother!”

  Progressing through the tunnel seemed like a minimal task, but no matter how many footsteps Ryan extended to the mission, he could not reach the place where he wanted to be. Despite his ineptitude in accomplishing this act, the cries from his brother still rebounded in his head—each one becoming increasingly more painful and deafening than the last. Finally, after nearly exhausting himself, Ryan watched the tunnel’s lights dim, and his eyesight gradually adjusted to a diffusing blue haze projecting from a portion of the tunnel where he could not previously reach.

  In the softer light, Ryan stepped gingerly toward a weeping figure bent beneath perpendicular strands of energy. The haze in front of his face made it impossible to see anything clearly, but he eventually discerned the shadow of who he first thought to be his brother. “At last,” said Ryan aloud, perhaps even mumbling the syllables in his sleep. “I can see you now, Robby. You’re here with me.”

  The sound of his brother’s relentless sobbing drew Ryan to the tunnel’s farthest point, where a shadow slanted against what appeared to be a translucent doorway. “It’s okay now, Robby,” Ryan called out, tenderly reaching his fingertips forward to comfort the distraught figure. “I’ve come to help you, Robby. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “You’re wrong,” a voice replied, but it no longer carried his brother’s inflection. This intonation was distinctly older, and as the figure suddenly turned toward a tint of light cast from the tunnel’s cylindrical walls, Ryan’s eyes widened with bafflement. It was not his brother crouched before him; he discerned only the old and withered face of his grandmother.

  “Grandma?” questioned Ryan with a perplexing stare.

  “Turn back,” Margaret Banner’s voice boomed. “Turn back now!”

  “Is it really you?”

  “Turn back,” the voice repeated in a haunting shrill. Margaret’s cracked, colorless lips did not budge, but her face appeared exactly as Ryan had last observed it at her funeral—gray and devoid of any natural expression. It warned him one more time. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Ryan’s eyes pivoted to a pale green light reflecting behind the figure; it was evidently a portal of some kind. Margaret held out her thin arms, blocking the opening from his eyes as best she was capable. “Beware,” her voice screeched, reverberating horribly throughout the tunnel’s entire length. “Beware…”

  “Beware of what?”

  “Beware of the Moon! Beware of the Moon!”

  At that precise moment, Ryan’s eyes peeled open, sending the images scattering in foggy remnants into his subconscious mind. Though in a state of half-consciousness, he sensed those same words forming on his own lips as he awakened from his nightmare. “Beware of the Moon!” he exclaimed, jarring himself from his sleep and toppling to the floor beside his bed. For a few seconds he could not regulate his own breathing. He heaved uncontrollably as a cold perspiration teemed from every pore in his body. After thrashing wildly upon his carpet, Ryan threw his hands over his eyes. He remained petrified for a few additional seconds, allowing his attention to drift to his bedroom window. The lunar light spilled through the curtains and shone directly upon his bare chest.

  In the wan moonlight, Ryan shivered when he noticed a silvery substance covering his hands. It coated his chest and abdomen too, but he did not bother to smear it from his skin any longer. Instead, he managed to get to his feet and then stood in front of his mirror, peering at a reflection he was just beginning to understand. Although he was in no condition to do anything other than return to his bed and wish the nightmares away, Ryan realized that something proactive was required in order to preserve his own sanity.

  Downstairs, rooted in his position in front of the television’s artificial glare, Frank Banner slurped down the last ounces of gin from a bottle unsealed just two hours ago. He required a state of inebriation tonight more so than he ever previously remembered. A buzzing sound invaded his head, but it seemed like a comforting escape from a wickedness stewing in the back of his mind. His thoughts grew more bitter and sickening with each passing second. Like a rancid odor emitting from a festering wound, the diseased tissue eventually pervaded over all others. Soon he was destined to proceed with an unwavering act of villainy.

  Frank’s hands, although quivering in his drunkenness, managed to drag the couch’s center cushion to the floor. Unlike his previous inspection of this hiding spot, he was more interested in the metal box stashed there than his daughter’s scrapbook. His palms fastened around a container he dared not to unlock for years. As the gin tainted his blood further, the grip of fear loosened its clutches on his inhibitions. He was now ready to open the box. Clasping the box’s rusty key proved to be a tedious chore, but after several attempts the old man’s fingers did not curse him.

  Dexterity was not automatic for an intoxicated man, and Frank proved this by fumbling with the key’s insertion into the metal box’s keyhole. The doddering drunk’s persistence eventually maneuvered the key into its intended slot. The lock clicked as he turned his wrist, and the lid separated from its steel housing. A smile only partly derived from pleasure extended through his gaunt features. Then, as if disarming an explosive device, he lifted the lid with a delightful expectation of what awaited his eyes.

  Meanwhile, Ryan had already changed into a short-sleeved shirt and slacks. He finished putting his shoes on and then turned his attention to the telephone set on top of his nightstand. Though it was shortly before midnight, he remembered Victor had welcomed him to call at anytime. Ryan never acted on this invitation, but he suddenly realized the importance of his friend’s voice tonight. He still trembled slightly as he picked up the receiver and dialed Victor’s cell phone number.

  Normally, Victor was sleeping at such an hour on a school night, but he stayed up late watching one of his favorite science fiction movies on television. At the film’s closing credits, he heard his phone chiming from inside a pocket in his book bag. He dashed to it quickly, hoping that the melody did not awaken his father. After checking the id display on his phone, Victor became quite concerned even before he answered the call.

  “Ryan…?” Victor said, flipping open his phone and pressing it snugly to his ear. He seldom demonstrated such urgency. “What’s wrong?”

  “Victor…it’s me…Ryan,” he said in a dreadfully forlorn monotone.

  “I know…why are you calling me so late?”

  “I need a ride—can you drive me?”

  “Drive you? Where?”

  “Please—don’t ask me questions now, Victor. I just need a ride.”

  “When?”

  “Right now.”

  Victor refrained from bellowing into the phone, but he certainly felt the urge to do
so. After taking a few seconds to regain his composure, he replied, “It’s almost midnight.”

  “I know what time it is,” Ryan returned, agitatedly. His voice then became implacably rigid. “Are you going to pick me up or not?”

  Victor had never denied his friend’s requests in the past, but without any further details he was content to reveal a stubborn disposition. “I can’t just leave my house at this hour without a good reason—not unless it was an emergency or something.”

  “Do you think I’d be calling you now if this wasn’t an emergency, Victor?”

  “Then tell me,” demanded Victor. “Tell me what the heck is going on right now.”

  As Ryan struggled with a decision on how much information to relay to his friend, Frank battled a predicament of equal severity. He had stored an item within the metal box for two years without ever opening it. Since his wife died, he contemplated using it numerous times. But the moment never seemed quite appropriate. He engaged in a war with the demons of his mind, yet somehow a glimmer of restraint permeated the darkness and managed to contain his sinful urges—until this evening.

  Frank clutched a 45-caliber revolver in his hand in the same deliberate manner in which he held a bottle of gin. His fingertips glided across the gun’s smooth, steel barrel. The longer he caressed this weapon, the more passionately he sought to use it. He had purchased the gun from a pawnshop and loaded its chamber with three bullets. He originally planned to fire it upon himself in order to extinguish the agony he endured from losing his wife. But there never seemed to be enough gin sloshing around in his belly to make him act upon his initial intent. Tonight, however, Frank determined that he could not die peacefully while the source of his torment still lived. With this notion pitted in his senses, Frank staggered to his feet. The huge revolver shook in his quaking hand as he started toward the room of his unsuspecting prey.

  Ryan’s own grip tightened around the telephone’s receiver as he pondered the dilemma with Victor. At this point, it made no sense for Ryan to withhold any detail from his friend. “I need to go to Glen Dale,” he said, tapping his fingers on the nightstand as he waited for Victor’s reply over the phone.

  Victor debated Ryan’s admission silently. When Victor finally managed to collect his thoughts, he spoke in a reserved tone. “What good do you expect to do there now?”

  “I have to go back…you don’t understand. It’s not too late to save them.”

  “Save who?”

  “My family.”

  “Ryan, this isn’t a good idea—at least wait until morning. I’ll drive you then.”

  “I don’t have anymore time to waste,” Ryan exclaimed, loudly enough so that his voice echoed down the corridor outside his bedroom. He also was too distracted to discern Frank’s lumbering footsteps progressing up the hallway. Ryan continued to talk into the phone heatedly, “They’re in danger, Victor. If I don’t do something, they’re going to die!”

  “Slow down and think about what you’re saying,” Victor insisted. “It’s been ten years, Ryan…ten years….”

  “Stop telling me how long it’s been! I know how long they’ve been gone. Do you think I’m totally crazy?”

  “Listen to me…did you talk to your doctor again? Call him first—ask him what you should do—”

  “No,” said Ryan solemnly. He then slouched to the side of his bed with the phone’s receiver dangling at his shoulder. Victor distinguished his friend’s sobbing over the extension, but he felt almost helpless to do anything.

  “Ryan…Ryan…talk to me…I need to know if you’re okay.”

  “No more doctors,” muttered Ryan. His voice suddenly reduced to a mere whimper. “I know what needs to be done. I can’t help my family by doing any more therapy. I need to go back to where this all started and confront those who’ve taken my family away from me.”

  “Please, think about this, Ryan. It’s just not logical.”

  “You can’t know the things I do, Victor. You were not there. But I can see it all so vividly now, and I can’t get the images out of my head. Somewhere in Glen Dale—and I see the place in my mind now—my family is suffering. They need me to go to them.”

  “Okay—just stay where you are,” Victor insisted. Although he attempted to stall his friend in order to devise a credible argument, he knew Ryan could not be persuaded to change his mind now. “Promise me you won’t go anywhere until I get there—please.”

  “Then you’re coming?”

  “Give me twenty minutes,” Victor answered, glancing at his wristwatch. “I have to make sure my dad is asleep so I can get his car keys.”

  Ryan hesitated before complying. “Twenty minutes, Victor—no longer.” He then hung up the phone. As soon as he put down the receiver, another noise drew his attention to the hallway. Too many thoughts stirred in Ryan’s mind for him to worry about what waited for him on his bedroom door’s other side.

  For Frank Banner, the wait was over. Ryan no longer shielded himself behind his grandmother’s protective shadow. Yet even two years after her death, the woman’s memory hung over Frank and caused him to cower at the prospect of forging an original thought. For too many years, Margaret had interpreted domination as a demonstration of love, but Frank suddenly loathed her abusiveness. In these seconds, he hated her almost as much as the boy she pandered to for all those years.

  While it was unquestionably evident that Margaret had reduced her husband to a sniveling imbecile during her lifetime, it was also irrefutable to proclaim that he was still physically alive. And for as long as his blood—no matter how tainted in origin—coursed through his wicked veins, he stood a chance at destroying the one thing she cherished more than anything else in this world.

  In a fit of rage, Frank twisted the knob of Ryan’s bedroom door. He assumed it to be locked, but the sheer energy behind his shove provided ample force to crack the door’s frame. The door flung open and Frank stumbled into the shadowed bedroom unannounced. The old man’s eyes blazed with a wrath that Ryan had only imagined possible. But now he stood before Ryan, brandishing a weapon equally unknown to the boy’s eyes. Ryan’s bewilderment transformed to shock as Frank swung his arm upward and pointed the gun directly at him.

  Frank wobbled further into the room as if he was balancing on a sheet of marbles, but he refused to lower his gun. Ryan froze in a crouched position beside his bed, watching his grandfather’s eyes scan the contents of his room.

  “Grandpa,” said Ryan, being cautious to keep his voice pitched to an unthreatening level. “What are you doing?”

  For reasons Ryan only fathomed, Frank appeared incensed to a degree that he had never witnessed before.

  “Going somewhere?” Frank sneered after noticing that Ryan had changed into his clothing and shoes. “It’s a bit late to be heading out—don’t you think?”

  Ryan did not immediately respond to the question. He was too preoccupied watching Frank wave his weapon around like it was a flag at a parade. Ryan then proposed a question tentatively. “What do you plan to do with that gun?”

  “Something I should’ve done a long time ago,” Frank slurred as he hobbled in front of Ryan with the revolver aimed at the boy’s head.

  “I didn’t know you had a gun in this house.”

  “Really,” snickered Frank. “Well, I guess you don’t know everything, do you?”

  Ryan rose to his feet slowly with his hands set palm-side out in front of his chest. His movement was purposely methodical so that he did not instigate a regrettable action from his obviously plastered grandfather. “I was just going to do a little stargazing,” Ryan offered, but his eyes shifted away from Frank as he spoke.

  “Is that a fact,” Frank tittered as he turned the weapon toward Ryan’s Dobsonian scope, which was set on its tripod near the window. Without hesitation, Frank squeezed the gun’s trigger and fired one bullet through the scope’s cylindrical casing. Upon impact, the scope’s lens exploded in mere fragments. The scope’s remains then fell in a heap of
tattered metal upon the carpeting, utterly destroyed.

  Ryan’s reaction was subdued by the fact that his grandfather had proven that the weapon was indeed loaded. “You don’t need to do this, Grandpa,” he said meekly.

  “There’s not going to be any stargazing around here ever again,” Frank grimaced. “It’s lights out time—for you, me, and the whole damn universe.”

  “Why are you doing this? I’ve never done anything to hurt you.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Frank sneered vehemently. “I should’ve killed you years ago—before you got inside my Margaret’s head.”

  “You’ve been drinking too much again,” Ryan observed. “Put down the gun so we can talk about this sensibly.”

  Frank laughed in a mocking tone and declared, “Now you want to talk. For the past nine years I got nothing from either you or Margaret. You ignored me as if I had been the one who’d already died. But they’ll be no more talking now—that time has passed.”

  “So you just plan to shoot me here in cold blood?”

  “Your blood was never warm to start with.”

  “Aren’t you even going to tell me why you want to kill me?”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” said Frank fiendishly. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed why I’m here.” Frank wielded the gun frantically as he continued. “It took me a long time to figure it out, but I finally put it all together. After Margaret died, I was able to see things more clearly. She always kept me unbalanced, but it was on account of my own blindness. I foolishly let her be my eyes, but I now know she was a part of it—a part of you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grandpa.”

  “Stop calling me that! I was never your grandfather!”

  “Why are you saying these things to me?”

  “I’ve been planning this out in my mind for years,” Frank confessed. “But I kept delaying—thinking maybe it was all in my head. My Margaret lived and died with every breath you took. The least you can do now is return the favor.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me!” Ryan exclaimed, peering at the core of Frank’s squinty eyes. “You don’t have any reason to kill me.”

  “There’s two bullets left in this gun’s chamber,” Frank explained. “One of those bullets has your destiny pinned to it—the other mine.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “If I’m wrong, maybe God will see to forgive my error. But if I’m right, then I’ll go to my grave in peace knowing that I put a stop to this lunacy.”

  Frank now held two hands on the gun to prevent it from shaking. He raised the gun’s barrel three feet from Ryan’s forehead. Ryan stood motionless as Frank’s finger edged on the revolver’s trigger, but he did not squeeze it fully.

  “You don’t really want to do this,” Ryan shouted again, while continuing to concentrate on Frank’s eyes with his own. “Let me try to help you, Grandpa. We can work through your pain together. You don’t need to hurt anybody.”

  In Frank’s mind he imagined himself pulling the gun’s trigger, thereby releasing a shot that would have surely torn Ryan’s head from his shoulders. But his vision by itself did not translate into reality. The longer Frank stared into Ryan’s eyes, the feebler his willpower became. The old man’s hands and body quaked feverishly in these seconds. After a few moments, it was evident to both Ryan and Frank that the oldster no longer controlled the situation. Frank sensed Ryan’s eyes piercing through his soul like two fiery darts, burning every notion of his premeditated attack to cinders within his brain.

  When Ryan spoke again his voice was much more composed than his previous statement. “You’re going to put the gun down now, Grandpa.” Frank no longer possessed the energy to finish the deed. While Ryan glared at him, the defeated drunk watched in fear as the moonlight seeped though the bedroom window’s curtains.

  “I want you to go back to your couch now,” Ryan directly Frank in a soothing voice. “We’re not going to talk about what happened here tonight. Do you understand?”

  Every involuntary nerve within Frank’s rigid soul sought to resist Ryan’s command, but his body and mind refused to cooperate. Frank gradually lowered his hands as if the gun was being magnetically summoned to the floor. Finally, though it went against every fiber of Frank’s existence, he dropped the weapon to the floor. The weapon hit the carpeting with a dull thud. Ryan kept his eyes trained on Frank’s face.

  “I have somewhere to go now,” Ryan told the man. “And what do you plan to do with the rest of your night, Grandpa?”

  Frank’s voice suddenly sounded as empty as one of the gin bottles that he drank from. “I…I need to go downstairs,” he stammered faintly. “Back to my couch.”

  “That’s correct,” said Ryan calmly. “You see how easily we’ve solved this problem?”

  Frank lowered his chin and nodded his chin before muttering, “Yes. I guess everything will be fine now.”

  Ryan then lowered his hand to the floor and picked up the weapon. He stuck it in his coat pocket without bothering to look at it. “I’ll get rid of the gun for you, Grandpa. There’s no sense of keeping it around the house any longer—someone might get hurt.”

  Frank nodded in agreement again and replied, “You’re right, Ryan. I should’ve known better.”

  With the friction between them now curtailed, Ryan readied for the task of what initially stirred him from his sleep. He left Frank isolated in his bedroom, but not before insisting that Frank clean up the debris of his telescope and discard it before he returned home. Frank complied with this order without hesitating. He felt completely powerless to formulate an original idea while under the influence of Ryan’s voice.

  As Ryan descended the staircase to await Victor’s arrival, he noticed a pair of headlights streaming through the windows at the front of the house. This was not typically the case, since it indicated that a car had turned directly into his driveway. Victor always parked on the street. Ryan peeked through the window’s curtains and was shocked to see Hailey’s Mustang idling in the driveway. Furthermore, she had already gotten out of her car and started for the front porch. Ryan seemed startled by her unannounced arrival, especially at such a late hour. He then assumed Victor must have informed her about his seemingly irrational behavior and had sent her to delay his departure.

  When Ryan opened the front door to greet her, his own anxiety was instantly matched by a sorrowful expression on Hailey’s face. Her eyeliner appeared smeared at the corner of each eye, as though she was crying. Ryan was not sure how he should have reacted to her present condition. Behind him, from upstairs in the house, a wretched scream forwarded from Frank. At the same time, the phone began to ring continuously, but no one answered it. Ryan stepped out onto the porch and guided Hailey away from the door’s opening. He did not have much time to extend to her emotions now. Hailey still sniffled as she glanced at Ryan as though she had committed an unpardonable act. Ryan wanted to wrap both his arms around her, but he resisted as she wiped another line of teardrops from her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong, Hailey?” Ryan asked her in a whisper. “Why are you here so late?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she sobbed. “You haven’t been at school for a few days…I…I feel like you’re avoiding me.”

  “No…it’s not that—”

  “I…I guess I’m just embarrassed by what happened last week. I…I…don’t normally sleep with a guy on the first date. I don’t know what came over me…it’s as though I couldn’t control myself.”

  “It’s okay,” Ryan assured her, nervously checking over his shoulder as he heard Frank calling his name from inside the house. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he continued, “and what happened between us was fantastic. I don’t regret it.”

  Hailey stopped crying momentarily. She then stared at Ryan with greater intent and discovered that something had unsettled his nerves as well. “You opened the door with your coat on,” she observed. “Are you going out?”

  When Rya
n could not think of a believable lie, he simply responded, “Yes. It’s because of my grandfather—he’s been drinking again. I can’t stay in this house.”

  “It’s freezing outside. Were you planning to leave on foot?”

  “Didn’t you talk to Victor?”

  “Not tonight—why?”

  Ryan was momentarily distracted by the garbled sound of Frank’s voice again. Though Ryan could not comprehend the man’s deranged gibberish, he knew that he was hobbling his way closer to the front door.

  “He sounds hurt or angry,” Hailey pointed out. Her tears rapidly froze on her cheeks as she asked, “Are you sure he’s okay?”

  “He’s never okay,” Ryan clarified. “Look, Hailey, this is not a good time for us to talk—not here, anyway.”

  “We can go somewhere else,” suggested Hailey, motioning to her car. “I’ll drive.”

  As Frank’s voice beckoned, Ryan realized he had few other options to consider. Since Victor was not due to arrive at his house for at least another ten minutes, Hailey’s offer struck him as a reasonable alternative. He pulled the door partially closed and said to Hailey, “That sounds like a plan—let’s just get out of here.”

  Ryan was already leading Hailey off the porch with his hand around her waist, almost causing her to stumble on the shadowed steps. “Where do you want to go?” she asked, maintaining her balance while striding toward her Mustang behind Ryan.

  “Just far away from here,” he muttered, “far, far away.”

  Hailey recognized Ryan’s fretfulness, but she was content to deal with it on his terms. If he required another location in order to relax, she was willing to do what was necessary to accommodate him. Besides, she had more to reveal to him tonight, and such a conversation could not take place in an adverse environment.

  As they entered the Mustang, the phone still rang unanswered in Ryan’s home. Instead of picking up the receiver, Frank hurled the remains of Ryan’s telescope at the disturbance, knocking the phone off a nearby table. Then, almost listlessly, he watched the Mustang back out of the driveway. He had no more words to utter. Tears of defeat slid through the pitted grooves of his cheeks. Before long, Frank staggered back to the couch. With no gin remaining in any of his bottles, he comforted his anxiety by holding his daughter’s scrapbook upon his lap. It provided no antidote for his sense of futility. His eyes still cast upon the empty metal box laid at his feet.

  Hailey drove her car for about two miles down the road before halting the vehicle on a side street. Ryan spent the last three minutes checking the rearview mirror, but no one had decided to follow them at this point.

  “Why did you stop?” Ryan asked nervously.

  Before Hailey responded, she noticed Ryan sweating profusely, although she still saw her own breath in the car’s interior. “You still haven’t told me where you wanted to go,” she said, trying to conceal her apprehensiveness.

  “I will in a minute—just keep driving.”

  “Tell me what’s going on, Ryan. I want to help you.”

  “You are helping me, Hailey—by driving.”

  Hailey gripped the steering wheel tighter, as though she aimed to redirect the tension surging within her body. She seemed to be contemplating a secret of her own. Her red fingernails tapped with a jittery cadence on the car’s dashboard. Ryan watched her actions heedfully in these seconds, being mindful to his thoughts as she was to her own.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” Hailey murmured, pivoting in the bucket seat to face Ryan. He sensed the sincerity in her tone as vividly as the moonbeams streaming over her left shoulder. Though he aspired to gaze directly into her eyes, his attention kept veering to the Moon’s silvery glow.

  “Trust me,” Ryan told her, “I’m not afraid of anything anymore.”

  Hailey appeared almost reluctant to present her next statement. “I thought I should tell you that I spoke to Neil. He told me what happened between Eric and him. Neil said he just lost control—”

  “I know what happened. I was there,” Ryan interrupted.

  “Is that the reason you’re staying out of school?”

  “It’s more complicated than that, but Neil has nothing to do with the way I’m feeling now.”

  “Then tell me what’s wrong,” insisted Hailey as she pushed her dark hair behind her shoulders. She sensed discomfort beaming from Ryan’s eyes, but this observation did not dissuade her from continuing with her own confession. “I started to tell you that I couldn’t sleep before, but I didn’t get a chance to tell you why.”

  “Okay,” said Ryan, exasperated by the realization that he had no way to alleviate Hailey’s concern at this point. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Us,” she answered faintly. “I keep thinking about our night together.”

  “I already told you not to worry about it. And I don’t want to pretend that it never happened, either. I enjoyed being close to you.”

  “It’s not that, Ryan—it’s something else.”

  Ryan appeared reluctant to hear what Hailey so urgently needed to tell him, but nothing he did distracted the girl from focusing on what she wanted to say. “I know this is going to sound like total bull crap and you’re probably going to think I’m stupid for telling you,” she started, “but before our night together, I never had sex before.”

  Ryan’s expression indicated that he did not entirely believe Hailey, but he could not fault her for trying to fib about the frequency of her promiscuous behavior. “Look, Hailey, you don’t have to say all these things to me now—it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you were with other guys.”

  “That’s my point, Ryan,” Hailey’s voice amplified with her contention. “I don’t sleep around. You were my first. The guys at school spread rumors, and the girls like to think I’m easy because I get most of the boys’ attention, but they’re all wrong about me.”

  “Hold on a minute,” said Ryan, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “If you’re not the type of girl they think you are, why do you put up with it? I mean, why do you let those rumors persist?”

  Hailey peered at Ryan sheepishly, as if she was ashamed of the true reason for this acceptance of lies. “I got caught up in it all,” she finally admitted. “I guess I wanted the attention—”

  “At the price of your reputation?”

  “It’s stupid, I know, and I don’t expect you to understand. You’ve always been content to just be yourself. That’s why I wanted to be closer to you.”

  “So this is the reason why you’re here tonight—to convince me that you were not ever with anybody else before we had sex?”

  “Not entirely,” said Hailey, pouting. “The truth is that I know we took it too far last week—for God’s sake, we didn’t even use protection. My whole life, I’ve plotted things differently. The people who really know me would say that I’d be the last girl in the world to lose her virginity in the front seat of a car. I’m not trying to make excuses for what happened, but I just wanted you to understand the truth about me.”

  “Look, Hailey, this explanation isn’t necessary—”

  “It is to me!” she exclaimed passionately. “I don’t care what those other kids at school think about me, Ryan. I have to live with the decisions I’ve made, and I’ve always done the right thing for my entire life.”

  “Until the other night,” said Ryan, now aggravated by Hailey’s disclaimer on their encounter. “Maybe it’s best if we just forget about what happened between us.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear it, Hailey.”

  Hailey edged closer to Ryan so that her breath mixed with his own within the car. “Listen to me,” she demanded, while clasping his face with her hands so that he could not turn away from her stare. “It might’ve seemed as if we made love for the first and only time last week, but in my mind we’ve been together much longer.”

  Ryan was thoroughly perplexed by this statement from Hailey, but then figured she was simpl
y fantasizing about being with him, which also left him confused. He was flattered by the notion, but not as flabbergasted as she seemed to expect. “I don’t know what to say,” he declared, throwing his hands up with an exaggerated sigh. “I was under the impression that we had a great time together.”

  “And we did. But for me it wasn’t like a first time.”

  “You just got through telling me that I was your first.”

  “God, this is so hard to explain,” she huffed. “It’s about the dreams I’ve had—dreams of us together.”

  “I see,” said Ryan. “So you’ve dreamt of us being together before we actually were—is that right?”

  “Yes, but this wasn’t a regular dream. It was the same dream every night, almost as if I had opened to a page in a book and read the exact words before falling asleep. For a month straight I envisioned us making love. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I saw your face as clearly as I’m looking at you now. The funny thing is, I hadn’t yet met you when I started having these dreams. Then I saw you at school—and I felt instantly drawn to you.”

  “And that’s when you started coming to the library?”

  Hailey nodded her head a single time and wiped another tear from her eye. “I know it sounds foolish, but it’s the truth. I wouldn’t lie to you, Ryan.”

  Hailey’s words might have impacted Ryan more intensely if he had not so many other things to contend with at the moment. He simply could not put aside his own fears until he found out the truth about his family for himself. “I want to hear more about your dreams,” he told her, “but it’ll have to wait until another time. I need to get to Glen Dale tonight.”

  “What’s in Glen Dale?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Ryan responded, but the energy exuding from his eyes suggested a promising venture. “On the other hand,” he stated, “this could turn out to be the most important night of my life.”

  After Ryan announced this possibility, Hailey’s expression twisted with a remembrance of this being his childhood home. Through her research online she had already determined the significance of this location. The circumstances made her uncomfortable in his presence. She hesitated before asking the obvious question.

  “Why do you want to go there, Ryan?”

  “Does it really matter to you?”

  “I know what happened there,” whispered Hailey, perhaps baiting Ryan to divulge more than he wanted to share. “I heard about your family,” she continued, “so you don’t have to hide it from me.”

  “Is that what you think my intention is?”

  “It’s okay,” Hailey assured him. “Whatever occurred is none of my business. I guess I’m just curious why you want to go back there tonight.”

  Ryan then gazed at Hailey as if he was inspecting her soul through the pupils of her eyes. “If I told you why I needed to return to Glen Dale, you’d probably think I was crazy.”

  “I told you about my dreams,” Hailey countered. “How can anything be crazier than that?”

  “We all have dreams, Hailey, and I’m hoping mine will bring me closer to my family—just as yours brought you closer to me.”

  Perhaps Hailey determined in her own mind that it was a more prudent choice to drive Ryan back to his house. But as he gazed at her so beseechingly, she sensed her own resistance dissolving like a fragment of ice on the tip of her tongue. Without mentioning anything further, Hailey swerved the car back onto the road leading out of Belle Falls. Glen Dale was less than forty minutes away.

  For now, Ryan was content to watch the moonlight linger in luminous glory over the snow-laden pastures. No trees blocked his field of vision along the country road. Despite his knowledge of all matters linked to heaven and space, Ryan was quite certain the full Moon watched over all that it glimmered upon tonight.