The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Chapter 15

Emily stuffed her hands in her shorts pockets as she walked down the sidewalk that night. There were no cars out, but she kept listening for them, stepping into the darkness in between each streetlight and pausing, waiting for some indication that Win had invited the whole town to this, like her mother had done.

Since coming to Mullaby, Emily had discovered that her disbelief could be suspended further than she ever thought it could, and there was a small part of her that wondered, what if it was true? If giants exist, if wallpaper can change on its own… why couldn’t Win do… what he said he could do? If it was real, that meant this wasn’t about revenge. This wasn’t about what her mother had done. The closer she got the more she wanted it to be true.

When she reached Main Street, she stopped on the sidewalk by the park. No one was there. Gray-green moonlight illuminated the area, and the shadows from the trees in the back looked like brittle witches’ fingers reaching across the grass toward her. She took a step into the park, then made herself walk to the bandstand.

She stood a few feet away from the main staircase and stared up at it, all the way up to the crescent moon weather-vane, then she turned back to the street, to see if Win was coming from that direction.

“You came. I didn’t think you would.”

His voice startled her, coming out of nowhere. “Where are you?” she called into the park, her eyes darting around, the shadows playing tricks on her.

“Behind you.” She spun back to the bandstand. Her hands had started shaking, so she curled them into fists, her fingernails biting into her palms. Looking closely, she could finally make out a figure in a dark pool at the back of the stage.

She felt her heart sink.

“You’re not glowing.” she said, and it was an accusation, like he’d forgotten her birthday or stepped on her toe and didn’t say he was sorry. It hurt, and she felt stupid for letting it. There wasn’t anything supernatural to this. It was simple, and simple was good. Easier to understand. That was why she’d shown up tonight, after all. To let him play his trick on her. To try to right some wrongs.

She saw him rise, his white suit standing out against the shadows. He walked to the steps and slowly descended. He stopped on the grass, a few feet away from her. She met his eyes defiantly. Give it to me, she thought. I can take it.

It took a moment for her to realize that Win looked nervous, unsure. That’s when it happened. Like blowing on embers, a light began to grow around him. It looked like he was backlit, but of course there was no light source around him. It was as if radiant heat was emanating from his skin, surrounding him in waving white light. He looked like a dream of daylight in the middle of night. His light was almost alive, undulating, reaching out. It was utterly, terrifyingly beautiful.

He stood there and let her stare at him. His shoulders seemed to relax a little when he realized she wasn’t going to run away. But it wasn’t because she didn’t want to. She simply couldn’t. Her muscles felt frozen.

He took one step toward her, then another. She could see the light as it began to stretch toward her. Then she felt it, those ribbons of warmth. It was usually comforting, that feeling, but it was a decidedly different experience to actually see what was happening.

“Stop,” she said, her voice thin and breathless. She was finally able to take a few steps backward by leaning back, as if to fall, and her legs instinctively moved to keep her upright. “Just stop.”

He stopped immediately as she stumbled away. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Was she all right? No, she wasn’t all right! She turned her back on him and put her hands on her knees. She couldn’t get enough air.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Emily.”

“How are you doing that?” she demanded. “Make it stop!”

“I can’t. But I can get out of the moonlight. Come over to the steps. Sit down.”

“Don’t,” she said, looking over her shoulder and seeing that he was making another move toward her. “Just do what you have to do to make it go away.”

He took the steps two at a time and retreated into the shadows of the stage. She gratefully tripped to the steps to sit. She put her head down and tried to concentrate on something random. The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

She eventually lifted her head as the spots faded from her eyes. She felt chilled from her cold sweat.

“I didn’t mean to make you panic,” Win said from behind her. “I’m sorry.”

It helped not having to turn around to look at him yet. “Are there people here watching? Are we being filmed? Is that what this is all about?”

“This isn’t a trick,” he said, an ocean of heartache in those words. “It’s who I am.”

She took a deep breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. If this was real… then she understood why the town was so shocked when her mother brought Win’s uncle out at night.

Strange and wondrous things, indeed.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “Can I get you something?”

“No, just stay there.” She finally stood and faced the bandstand again. “Everyone here knows?”

“Everyone who was there that night,” he said from the darkness. “My family made sure no one has seen it since.”

“But they know that you’re the light in the woods?”

“Yes. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but plenty of my ancestors did it before me.”

“Why did you want me to see it?”

He hesitated, as if he wasn’t entirely sure now. She suddenly felt horrible, like she’d let him down. Her mother had raised her better than this. She’d raised her to accept and respect, to help and to never be afraid to get involved. All her life had been leading up to this, and she’d failed. She’d failed Win. She’d failed her mother.

She was still in the history loop. She was scared now, scared for herself, scared for Win, knowing how this had turned out last time.

“I’ve never known how to step up to people and say, ‘This is me. Accept me for who I am,’” Win finally said. “I knew from the moment I met you, I was meant to show you. I thought you were meant to help.”

“How?” she asked immediately. “How can I help you? I don’t understand.”

“You can tell me that, now that you’ve seen this, your feelings are no different than they are in the daytime. That’s all.”

She squared her shoulders and backed farther into the open park. “Come down here, Win.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He walked back down and his skin started burning again. He looked ready to bolt back up the steps if necessary. She held her ground, even though her stomach was leaping.

When he finally made it to her, she reached out and took his hand in hers right away, to steady herself as much as him. She was surprised that his hand was simply warm, as warm as it always was, not scorching hot. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“No.”

She swallowed. She was trembling. Could he feel it? “I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

He stood there, glowing like the sun, and stared at her like she was the unbelievable one. He angled closer to her, and the closer he came, the more the glowing seemed to stretch out to her. It felt like walking into sunshine from the shade. His light surrounded them both, jumping around as if saying, Together, together, now! She saw him tilt his head slightly.

He’s going to kiss me, she suddenly thought. She knew it in a way she couldn’t explain. Like how you know a certain day is going to be good the moment you wake up. She’d thought about this a lot, more than she cared to admit, but somehow she’d never imagined it quite like this. It was nothing like she’d expected. And yet… it was strangely perfect.

But before it could happen, they jerked away from each other, startled, when they heard quick footsteps. Win’s sister was running across the park toward them.

“Win! What are you doing?” Kylie said breathlessly, skidding to a stop on the dewy grass. “Dad wants you to come back inside. Right now.”

Emily and Win exchanged glances. She wasn’t used to seeing him this unsure. “What happens now?” Emily asked.

“Now we deal with the consequences and move on. Just like last time, only-”

“Better,” she finished for him.

He touched her cheek and smiled, then ran across the park toward his house. Emily and Kylie watched him go. What a ravishing sight he was.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kylie said.

Emily turned to her warily, surprised she was being so nice to her now. “Yes,” she said softly.

“I would love to do what he does. He has no idea.” Kylie paused. “All my life, I’ve heard stories of that night with my uncle and your mother. I thought you’d be like her. I’m glad you’re not.” She smiled, like she’d just given a compliment. Emily took it in the spirit it was intended, but would never get used to how the town thought of her mother, even now. The broken circle of history should have let all the animosity pour out. But it didn’t. Emily might fit in here now. Her mother never would, though. “I better go see what’s going on in there. I’ll see you around. With Win, no doubt.”

With no light to her skin, Kylie soon faded into the night. Emily stood there for a while before finally walking home.

EMILY WOKE to the sound of someone pounding on the front door. She sat up quickly. She’d been too stunned, too exhausted, to turn on her MP3 player before she’d gone to bed. When she looked around, the new phases-of-the-moon wallpaper took her aback for a moment. That’s when it all came rushing back to her, everything she’d seen last night.

He glowed.

Then, out of nowhere, the thought: He almost kissed me.

The pounding continued and Emily climbed out of bed. She’d slept in her clothes, so she immediately jogged to her bedroom door and down the stairs.

To her surprise, the first thing she noticed was that the front door was closed. Vance usually left it open when he went to breakfast. She’d just reached the bottom stair when the accordion door to Vance’s room swung open. Grandpa Vance walked out, comb marks still in his wet hair. He hadn’t left for breakfast yet. How early was it?

Vance didn’t notice her on the staircase as he walked to the front door and unlocked it.

“We need to talk,” Morgan Coffey said from the porch. His white linen suit was rumpled, like he’d been wearing it all night. His dark hair, normally gelled, was falling across his forehead. It made him look younger, more like Win.

“Morgan?” Vance said, obviously surprised. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Believe me, I would have been here earlier, but I had to wait until light.”

“Come in.” Vance stepped back and Morgan entered the foyer. “What’s wrong?”

Morgan noticed Emily right away and stiffened. His hatred rushed at her in one great wave. She actually took a step back up the staircase. “I take it your granddaughter hasn’t told you yet,” he said, nudging his chin at her. His stare was so hard that Vance put himself between them, as if protecting her. “Why did you let her come here in the first place, Vance? Hasn’t your family done enough to hurt mine?”

“What happened?” Vance demanded.

“It happened,” Morgan said. “Your granddaughter lured my son into the park last night. Just like last time.”

“Emily had nothing to do with it,” Win said from the porch. He opened the screen door and stepped inside. “I asked her to meet me there. And it was nothing like last time. Emily and I were the only two in the park.”

“I told you to stay at home,” Morgan said.

“This has to do with me. I am going to be here for it.”

Grandpa Vance looked confused. He turned to her. “Emily?”

“I thought I would show up and he would do something to humiliate me, to get back at my mom for what she did. I didn’t believe him when he said he glowed. I didn’t believe him when he said to meet him and he’d show me.”

“Child, why did you go if you thought he was going to humiliate you?” Vance asked incredulously.

“I thought it would help make up for-”

Vance held up one skillet-sized hand. “Stop, stop right there. You don’t have to make up for anything your mother did. Morgan, this ends now.”

“You’re letting her off the hook, just like you did your daughter.”

Grandpa Vance’s face tightened. He was angry. And an angry giant was a sight to behold. “I never made excuses for Dulcie, and I have always accepted blame for what happened, for not being able to control her. But listen to me well, my granddaughter is not Dulcie and I will not have her treated this way.”

Morgan cleared his throat. “I’d feel more comfortable if you sat down, Vance.”

Vance didn’t give an inch. “No one is ever comfortable around me. You, of all people, should know how that feels.”

“I want her to stay away from my son.”

“I’ve been watching your son in the woods behind my house for a while now. Emily staying away from him isn’t the problem,” Vance said pointedly.

Morgan shot an angry look at Win.

“You can’t make me stay away from her,” Win said.

“Did you learn nothing from your uncle?” Morgan asked him.

“Yes, I did. I learned from him that it takes courage to love someone your family doesn’t approve of.”

“You don’t seriously love this girl,” Morgan said with clear disbelief.

Emily couldn’t take her eyes off him. He loved her? But Win simply stared at his father, a power struggle going on.

“My brother committed suicide because of her family,” Morgan told Win. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It was his decision,” Win said, and she was amazed by how composed he was. Morgan Coffey was a force to be reckoned with, but so was Win. She wondered if Morgan knew that, if he understood. So much that was incredible about Win seemed to be because of his father. “But I think ignoring what he sacrificed is stupid. He gave us an opportunity to live normal lives here.”

“My life has not been normal since it happened! Your mother has never forgiven me for not telling her.”

“And you want the same for me? I wanted to show her. I didn’t want it to be a secret. And the world didn’t end. She didn’t reject me, Dad. This isn’t you and Mom. This isn’t Dulcie and Logan. This is me and Emily. It’s an entirely different story.”

In the silence that followed, Vance said, “Let them live their lives without our baggage, Morgan.”

But Morgan wasn’t going to let it go. He pointed to Emily. “Your daughter lured my brother into that park that night! She tricked him! She ruined everything.”

“Lower your hand, Morgan,” Vance said. “I’ll say this only once more. My granddaughter is not Dulcie, and I will not tolerate you blaming her for her mother’s sins.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

Vance took a single step toward him. “I’m going to tell the truth. You’ve made Logan and your family out to be the victims, and I let it happen because Dulcie wanted it that way. She left knowing she would be vilified. She left to make things easier on you, which was the first selfless thing she’d ever done.”

Emily, who had been staring at Win all this time, suddenly turned her head sharply. “What are you talking about, Grandpa Vance?”

“Let’s go, Win,” Morgan said quickly.

“No, I want to hear this.”

“Logan was troubled long before Dulcie came into his life,” Vance said. “He’d tried to commit suicide several times, something no one but his family knew. But Logan told Dulcie. He and your mother were in love. At least, your mother was in love with him. I’d never seen her like that before. All over town, she carved their initials onto every wooden surface she could find.”

“Wait, Mom carved those initials?” Emily asked. “Not Logan?”

He nodded. “She was smitten. She was usually such a forceful girl, always getting her way, but she was very deferential to Logan. He was very shy in public, but he could control her like no one else in private. Knowing how angry it would make her, he told Dulcie that they couldn’t be together because his family didn’t approve of her. He said his family had too many secrets and wouldn’t let him marry just anyone. But there was a solution, he told her. So Dulcie went along with inviting everyone in town to a so-called performance by her, aware that it was a ruse, an opportunity for Logan to come out at night in front of the whole town. But she thought it was simply going to be his symbolic declaration of love for her. Dulcie had no idea that the reason the Coffeys didn’t come out at night was because they glowed. She thought, as we all did, it was just one more thing they did to keep themselves elite, to keep themselves separate from the middle-class masses in town. In fact, I can still remember when several of the more important families in town wouldn’t come out at night just because the Coffeys didn’t.”

“She didn’t trick him?” Emily asked.

“If anything, he tricked her. Dulcie was as stunned as the rest of us. Logan reached out to her after it happened, but she didn’t want to talk to him. I don’t know if it was his plan all along to commit suicide after he exposed his family’s secret, or if he was just overcome with remorse afterward, possibly fueled by Dulcie’s rejection. Only his family knows that. I do know he wanted to reveal himself. He wanted people to know.”

Emily couldn’t help but think of the parallel to Win. His family had obviously been trying for acceptance for who they really were for generations.

Morgan’s face had raspberry-red splotches on it now. “No one is going to believe you. They’ll never believe Dulcie was an innocent party. And I will always maintain that she could have stopped him. She could have stopped him from stepping out onto that bandstand. She could have stopped him from killing himself. He did love her. He gave her that family heirloom.” He pointed to Emily’s wrist, to the charm bracelet. Emily automatically put her hand over it. “Our mother gave it to him to give to the woman he married, like it had been given to her on her wedding night. That he gave it to Dulcie had to mean something But if he had fallen for someone less selfish, and more sympathetic, he might be alive today. Our secret might still be a secret. The way it was always meant to be.”

“Emily knows the truth now,” Grandpa Vance said calmly. “That’s all that matters. I have no intention of telling anyone else.”

She didn’t know why it was so important for Morgan to have people believe his brother was tricked. Maybe it made dealing with the death of his brother easier. Or maybe it helped his family, knowing the town didn’t think Logan was troubled or manipulative. It could only help, she thought, that there wasn’t a stigma like that attached to their glowing. It probably made it easier for the town to accept what they’d seen, to sympathize. Emily realized that her mother had known this. That’s why she’d taken the blame. And it had been her first step into the life of someone different. “I won’t tell anyone, either,” she said.

Morgan turned to Win. “I’ll think about it,” Win said.

“You’ll think about it at home. You’re grounded.”

Morgan turned and walked to the front door. He held the screen door open for Win. But Win walked over to Vance. “I’d like to take your granddaughter on a date when my punishment is over, if I have your permission.” Win held out his hand.

“Win!” Morgan said.

Vance seemed as surprised as Morgan, but he slowly held out his hand and shook Win’s.

“Win! Now!”

Win turned, but not before he looked up at Emily, who was still on the staircase, and said, “I’ll see you soon?”

She nodded. He gave her a reassuring smile, then turned and left.

Morgan let the screen slap shut loudly behind them.

Emily and Vance didn’t move for a few moments, both of them staring at the door. Emily finally turned to her grandfather. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning?”

“She made me swear not to tell anyone.” He looked tired. He walked to the staircase and sat on the stairs, sinking like an anchor. She was still standing, but he was so large that he was taller than she was, even when he sat. “Lily had a cousin who lived in San Diego. I arranged for Dulcie to live with her. To go to school there. I gave her a large chunk of cash, and she left the day before Logan’s funeral. She tried to make it work, but I don’t think she knew where she fit in after what happened. She quit school after a few months. A few months later she ran away. I got postcards for a couple of years. Then nothing.”

“Why didn’t you look for her?” Emily said.

He shrugged. “Because I knew she didn’t want to be found. She knew that if she contacted me, I would give her anything. But she didn’t want that anymore. A good, decent life for her was only possible if she left everything behind. The Coffeys, Mullaby… me.”

“She could have come back and told the truth!” Emily said. “And then everyone would have seen what a good person she became. She could have been redeemed.”

“I think she found redemption in other ways,” Grandpa Vance said, looking down at his clasped hands. “When she left, she told me that when she had children, she would never raise them the way I raised her. She said she would teach them responsibility. She said her children would be nothing like her. I like to think that at some point in her life she forgave me. But I deserve it if she didn’t.” He took a deep breath. “One thing is for sure, she did raise a remarkable daughter.”

Emily paused, then sat beside him on the steps. She put her hand on his. “So did you, Grandpa Vance,” she said.

And for the very first time, she thought maybe it was okay that they were the only two people here who knew that.

The point was, they knew.

VANCE DEBATED whether or not to go to breakfast that morning, but ultimately decided to go because he didn’t want to answer questions about his absence. No one had to know what had occurred that morning.

When he came in from breakfast a few hours later, he was exhausted, and not his normal exhaustion, the kind he felt minute by minute. The tension from the confrontation with Morgan had manifested itself into a feeling of having survived a collision. His neck muscles ached and his joints were stiff. He was more than ready to lie down and take a nap.

But instead of going straight to his room, he went to check the dryer.

He hadn’t meant to get so angry at Morgan. He didn’t often get angry at other people. There was no sense in it. The person you were angry at was rarely ever repentant. Now, getting angry with yourself had some merit. It showed you had sense enough to chastise the one person who had any hope of benefiting from it. And he was plenty angry with himself.

For many, many things.

For letting this go too far. For living too much in the past. For not being a better parent to Dulcie. For missing so much of Emily’s life already.

He walked to the laundry room and opened the dryer. He reached down, bending at the hip, and tried not to groan at the effort. He felt like such a small man, carrying around a body that was too big for him.

He reached in and expected to feel the smooth, cool curve of the dryer drum. Instead, his fingers brushed something slimy. Something that moved.

He jerked his hand away and stumbled back.

Out jumped a large frog.

He stared at it, frozen.

He watched it hop to the laundry room door, and for a moment he expected to see Lily’s shoes. His eyes actually traveled up, hoping she would appear, standing there, laughing, like she had last time.

But no one was there.

He looked back down and saw that the frog was gone. He quickly stepped out of the room, and when he crossed through the doorway, he felt like he’d walked through a fragrant breeze. His hair even moved. The sleeves of his shirt billowed.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Lily.

The air was sprinkled with her spirit. He stood still for a long time, not wanting to lose her. He took deep breaths, his heart aching as, with each breath, the scent faded.

And she was gone again.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the frog sitting at the kitchen door. It turned and wiggled through a tear in the screen. Vance automatically followed.

He opened the screen door to see the frog hop across the backyard. He walked after it, all the way to the back of the property. The frog stopped at the gazebo and stared at him.

Vance hesitated, then looked around. Emily had obviously been back here, trimming the boxwoods around the gazebo. He suddenly remembered that Dulcie had done that, too, after Lily had died. She’d tried so hard to keep things going on her own, and she’d only been twelve. He should have been there for her, he should have taken care of things, instead of throwing money at her. But he’d fallen apart, and everything around him had followed suit.

Lily wouldn’t have wanted things like this. Maybe that’s what she was trying to tell him. The last time she’d put a frog in the dryer was to tell him to stop dwelling on the way things used to be, to stop being afraid of change, of what came next.

He had to stop squandering what time he had left. He had a granddaughter to take care of.

He took a deep breath and nodded to the frog in agreement to a silent question. Okay. He would call his old gardener. He knew landscaping was still in that family. He’d get this place fixed up. He turned to look at the house. It looked nothing like when Lily was alive. He’d hire a roofer. A housepainter.

Yes.

And he’d give Emily an allowance. He’d have a talk with her about college. Maybe she would go to State, where Lily had gone, which was only a short drive away. Maybe she would want to come home on breaks. Maybe she would want to live here after she graduated.

Yes.

He would build her a house on the lake, as a wedding gift, maybe.

What if she married Win Coffey?

It wouldn’t be a nighttime wedding, that was for sure.

Or, knowing Win, maybe it would be.

He smiled when he thought about how Emily would look on her wedding day. Lily’s wedding dress was in the attic. Maybe she’d want to wear it.

Julia, of course, would make the cake.

He gave a short laugh at how far ahead of himself he was getting.

He might be tall enough to see into tomorrow, but he hadn’t looked there in a long, long time.

He’d forgotten how bright it was.

So bright he could hardly stand it.

SEVEN DAYS later, Emily felt like she was living in a bubble, waiting for Win’s punishment to end. She began to wonder if his father had grounded him for life.

Not that there wasn’t plenty to distract her. Vance was suddenly on a home improvement kick, which was a good thing, except every morning Emily woke up to hammering on the roof, or the roar of a lawn mower in the backyard, or the sharp, pungent scent of house paint. When Emily asked Vance what was the hurry, he told her rain was coming and he wanted all the work done before then.

A heat wave had hit Mullaby that week, so Emily couldn’t believe rain was coming any time soon. But every time she would come downstairs, irritable from the heat, Grandpa Vance would tell her not to worry, rain was coming to cool things off. When she finally asked him how he knew, he told her his elbow joints told him so. She didn’t argue, because she really didn’t want to get into why he was talking to his elbow joints.

Every day, when Vance took his afternoon nap, she would go next door just as an excuse to spend some time in an air-conditioned house. It didn’t exactly work to her favor, though. Despite the heat, every day Julia made a cake with her kitchen window wide open. When Emily asked her why, she said she was calling to someone. Emily didn’t question this. That Julia believed it was good enough for Emily. While Julia baked, Emily told her about Win, and Julia seemed glad that Emily now knew. Emily knew that Julia had forgiven her mother for what she’d done. Julia seemed to be doing a lot of forgiving lately. She’d lost a lot of her restlessness.

At five o’clock every day, Julia would leave with the cake she’d made, just as Stella came home from work. On the seventh day of this happening, Emily finally asked Stella where Julia was taking the cakes. At first she’d assumed she was taking the cakes to her restaurant, but she became curious when she realized Julia never returned in the evenings.

“She takes them to Sawyer,” Stella said.

“Does he eat all that cake?” Emily asked.

“Don’t worry. He burns it all off.” Stella looked shocked at herself. “Erase that. You didn’t hear that. Crap. I need a glass of wine. Remember, do as I say, not as I do.”

Emily liked sitting on the back porch with Stella after Julia left, the slow pace of the day as it turned into evening, waiting to go eat dinner with her grandfather. Stella would sometimes talk about Emily’s mother. She was a champion storyteller and had a wild past, which was a great combination. Emily never sensed that Stella was anything but happy with her life as it was now. She got the feeling the stories were worth more than Stella’s desire to go back and do anything differently.

As she headed back home that evening, she realized that, if possible, the heat made things in Mullaby move even slower. There were still plenty of tourists, but the neighborhoods were quiet, with only the occasional hum of a window fan or air conditioner gliding from houses as she passed them. It was as if everyone was in stasis, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, that night, it did.

A terrific thunderstorm erupted just as darkness fell. It came on so strong that Emily and Vance had to race around the house closing the windows. They laughed as they did so, making a game of it, then they stood on the front porch and watched the sheets of rain. The ending of that day felt like she was coming to the end of a story, and suddenly Emily felt sad. She made excuses to stay up with Grandpa Vance. They played cards and looked through photo albums Vance magically produced, full of photos of her mother.

Finally, Grandpa Vance said he was tired and she reluctantly said good night to him. She went upstairs and walked into her room, and realized that she’d forgotten to close her balcony doors. Rain was flying in and the floor was soaked. She spent nearly an hour wiping down the floor, the doors, the walls, and all the nearby furniture. She dropped all the wet towels in the bathtub, then stripped out of her wet clothes.

She put on a cotton nightgown and fell into bed. The temperature had dropped sharply, and it felt almost decadent to cover herself with a sheet. The clatter of drops against the windows on the balcony doors sounded like raining coins.

A few hours later, she woke up as she was unconsciously kicking the sheet off. Everything was quiet, a strange sort of quiet that felt like an unfinished sentence. The storm had passed and it was uncomfortably hot in her room now.

She opened her eyes and saw that moonlight was now filtering in through the gaps in the curtains on the closed balcony doors. She slowly got out of bed and went to the doors to open them. The limbs of the trees were so heavy with rainwater that some of them almost touched the balcony floor. The heat of a typical Southern summer night was back, the humidity oppressive, but the moonlight reflecting on the wet surfaces made the neighborhood look like it was coated in ice.

All this had been so foreign at first. She hadn’t known, when she’d first arrived, that she would grow to love this place like she did.

There were a lot of things she hadn’t known when she’d first arrived.

Strange and wondrous things.

The light from the moon shone along the door casing and spread across the walls a few inches inside, far enough for her to suddenly notice that the phases-of-the-moon wallpaper she’d been living with all week was gone. It was a now curious dark color she couldn’t quite make out, punctuated by long strips of yellow. It looked almost like dark doors and windows opening, letting in light. The wallpaper was usually some reflection of her mood or situation, but what did this mean? Some new door was opening? Something was being set free?

When she finally realized what it meant, she spun around, her eyes darting around the room until she found him.

Win was sitting on the couch opposite her bed. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.

“My punishment ended as of midnight,” he said.

Her heart began to race. It was so good to see him. And yet, she felt unexpectedly awkward. “So… so you were just going to sit there until I woke up?”

“Yes.” He stood. It made a swishing sound in the silence. He walked to the balcony doors. She was standing in a square of moonlight, and he stopped just short of it, like it was a line he couldn’t cross.

“I’d almost forgotten what you looked like,” she said, joking. A bad joke. Why was she so nervous?

Because he had almost kissed her.

“I spent all my time remembering what you looked like,” he said seriously.

“I had people hammering and sawing and mowing all around me. It was hard to concentrate.”

He gave her a funny look. “That’s your excuse?”

“And there’s no air-conditioning in this house. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when you don’t have air-conditioning?” She needed to stop, but couldn’t seem to.

“Your grandfather had the largest limb of the oak that stretched to your balcony cut down. I had a hell of a time getting up here this time.”

That finally drew her up short. She stared at him in the shadow. “How many times have you come up here?”

“A few.”

She suddenly thought back to the day she’d arrived in Mullaby. “The day I arrived, my bracelet on the table…”

“I knew you were coming in that day,” he said. “I was curious about you. I found the bracelet on the front walk.”

“You don’t have to sneak in here anymore,” she said. “Everything’s out in the open now, right?”

His answer was to step into the light in front of her, so close they almost touched.

Nothing happened at first. But then, like it was growing so hot it became white, the glow around him started to blaze. She looked up at him and he was watching her closely.

“I lied,” she whispered.

He looked concerned and started to step back. “About what?”

She reached out and stopped him. “About forgetting what you looked like. I could never forget this. I will never forget this,” she said. “Not in all my life.”

He smiled and took her face in his hands.

Then he finally kissed her.