Page 72 of Blood Moon
Rena cradled me in her arms as we swayed rhythmically. The old rocking chair creaked, soothing me as a dashing glow of colors skimmed against my eyelids. Nearby, Bobby watched the television quietly in the background.
The three of us were in the living room, and I recalled that for a few weeks back then, I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t entirely remember why that was, just that whenever I woke, it felt as though someone was watching over me—bony fingers like thorned stems, ragged breathing like a vicious beast.
I was only five, wrapped in a quilt Rena had made a long time ago, listening to the way the rain and wind clacked against the fireplace as the thunder rolled in.
A hum in her chest as she sang. It was an old Bantu Lullaby in Zulu. She’d told me once that parents sang it to their children to keep the monsters at bay while they slept.
“Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo,
Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo,
Abiyoyo, yoyoyo, yoyoyo,
Abiyoyo, yoyoyo, yoyoyo.”
She kept the song going until my muscles fell languid, with twitching fingers and toes, and at the end, she added, “I’m always going to watch over you.”
CHAPTER36
For centuries we lived like this. The peace was almost overwhelming.
Article IV, Lost Letters from Aadan the First
Before my eyes opened, I felt the rising and falling. It was like drifting in a glass sea, the waves gradually pulling me with the current. The sensation was unrelenting.
A flutter, and daylight rushed to meet my gaze. Below, a laugh from someone on the Campus Center, the sound echoing and slipping through the cracked window. A warmness against me. The smell of charred eucalyptus, and the weight of an arm wrapped around my waist, pressing me in like a cocoon.
I’d had a hand on his chest, fingers hiding between the folds of the shirt he wore last night. My head had found a space beneath his shoulder, resting in the curve of it like we’d been carved together.
In the morning sun, his hair twisted in soft ringlets against his pillow, and here, right now, he looked more human than ever. It was an innocence that stilled me, pinched at my navel. How strange to think that Julian and I moved and breathed in the same world. A thought that seemed impossible.
Seeing him like this made me want to stay, made me want to cling to him and wear him around me, never unfolding. Made me want to wait it out until the sun fell and rose again and again. A loophole, we’d find. A disturbance to the ether. Time would be so very disappointed if it knew.
How had we gone from enemies to this? Knotted like a bundle of weeds with no starting point. It’d only been a night in this new reality, and I’d never felt so much peace.
I allowed myself a final look before undoing myself and carefully climbing over him. I collected my things that had been scattered nearby, slipped on my shoes. In a whisper, I leaned beside him to say, “Thank you.”
Somewhere between sleep and the present, Julian reached for my hand. It was only for a second, a gentle squeeze before letting go. Then he moved onto his stomach and fell back into slumber.
Only then did I realize I’d never found out how that movie ended.
As I trailed the sidewalk outside, I pulled out my phone to call Bobby. He agreed to meet me at a local coffee shop on Strawberry Hill, and when he asked if I needed a ride, I turned it down, telling him I’d find my way.
I called for a car after I was dressed, and safely tucked in my bag was the letter Rena sent.
The shop was filled with the whir of busy bodies, expected for a Saturday before noon. Bobby was seated at a table toward the back, a steaming cup of coffee—black, no sugar—on the table before him. Held up with both hands was theKansas City Star, the local paper. He was the only person I knew that read it.
At the counter, I ordered an iced coffee. It wasn’t until I collected it that I sat across from him and cleared my throat.
Bobby folded the newspaper, and when our eyes met, a fatigued smile set on his face. Lines creased in the corners of his eyes and the middle of his forehead. He patted the table before he stood to his feet and opened his arms. “Bring it in, Bug.”
When I embraced him, I bit down hard, clenching my jaw in hopes it would prevent the tears from coming. Bobby and I never really fought, not like we had a couple weeks ago, nothing ever serious or life-changing. When we lived together, he frequently got on my nerves, but it was always in the “I love you, you need to hear this” kind of way.
Never would Bobby abandon me. Never would he leave me in the dark or let me fall on my own, which was why I needed to knowif he knewthe same truth that I did. I wanted to know if he was aware of Rena’s troubled family tree. Because if he was, and he’d been hiding it, it would obliterate me.
He kissed my forehead before letting go. When he returned to his seat, I saw the quiver in his lips, the lines piercing at his glassy eyes. Bobby was such an emotional sap; I wouldn’t change it for the world. In contrast, Rena had been more reserved. Not necessarily unkind or remorseless, but at times emotionally distant. At times, difficult to understand in that I felt I was getting more riddles than answers. More questions than solutions.
Bobby and I took a shared breath and sipped from our respective cups.
