The Mayfair Moon (3 page)

The beast lunged at the naked man, burying its massive teeth in his shoulder. An agonizing scream pierced the air and then became a menacing, guttural growl.

I backed my way to wherever I could, gripping the ground with my hands, feeling the tips of my fingers pick up grains of rock and shove them underneath the bed of my nails. My body jerked forward and I fell face down on the asphalt. Blood pooled behind my lips; the warm, disgusting thickness coating my teeth and slipping down into the back of my throat. Something was pulling me backward, fingers digging into my ankle so aggressively. I struggled to kick my way free, but it dragged me slowly off the pathway and onto the dirt. Tiny pieces of rock and grit stung my elbows and ribs.

“Shhh!” demanded Alex. “It’s me!”

Relief washed over me, but we were far from being safe. We crawled further away and crouched low behind a tree, paralyzed and out of breath. Blood smeared in Alex’s hairline, I noticed momentarily.

I watched wide-eyed, my heart banging violently against my chest. My legs quivered uncontrollably; I thought I would faint at any moment.

The naked man stood from the ground, pushing the beast off him and sent it crashing through the forest; tree limbs whipped violently around its body. And then the man began to change. His skin began to ripple grotesquely as though something seethed beneath it. He craned his head and pulled back his arms, his fists balled tightly behind him, his stance battle-ready and terrifying. His face began to protrude; a snout with terrifying fangs jutted out; the cracking and crushing of bone sent what was left of my nerves completely over the edge. His human skin changed color and long, black hair grew within seconds covering most of his massive body.

I think I did finally faint at that moment.

I couldn’t recall what happened immediately afterwards. I couldn’t guess how I did finally get to my feet and begin running through the woods. I couldn’t say how Alex and I made it to the freeway, or how the cars swerved to miss us, or even if maybe we
had
been hit because when I did ultimately ‘wake up’, I was in a litter-filled ditch with Alex on top of me. A crumpled soda can and an empty plastic water bottle jabbed me in the small of my back. Cars buzzed by on the freeway above, the booming echo of wheels going over a nearby exit bridge.
Clu-clump
!
Clu-clump
!
Clu-clump
! I welcomed the repetitive nuisance. It was strangely comforting, as if it helped me believe that the nightmare in which made the frightening sounds before it was somehow not real.

“Alex?” I said, squeezing myself out from under her carefully. “Are you alright? Alex!”

She didn’t respond and I panicked, putting her bloodied face in my hands, feeling for her pulse and listening for the sound of her breath. More blood. The collar of her shirt had soaked it up like a sponge, the ends of her hair clumped together in a sticky mess. Finally, I saw her breathe as bubbles of red formed in her nostrils—her nose had been busted—and I noticed a gash on the side of her head as she began to stir, groaning.

“Alex!” I hugged her close to me.

She opened her eyes in a jolt. “Where is it?” she screamed. “It’s going to kill us!” She had never looked so distraught. The whites of her eyes seemed whiter; the skin stretched over her forehead tight like plastic. She dug her nails deeply into my shoulders and would’ve broken the skin had they not been protected by the fabric of my shirt.

“No, no, calm down!” I tried to get her to relax and finally held her still.

“It’s gone, Alex.” I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay; we’re going to be okay.”

A part of me felt like I was lying to her….

Getting home that night proved mentally and physically exhausting. Alex and I hardly spoke; too traumatized to talk about what happened.

I cleaned up; taking the longest shower I think I’d ever taken in my life, watching fragments of dirt and rock and blood disappear hauntingly down into the drain. Lifting my gaze to the mirror, at first I was relieved that a thick layer of moisture prevented my reflection. Tiny bubbles of liquid gray covered the glass in a sheet of delicate humidity, threatening to evaporate at any moment and reveal the devastating truth. The truth I had already begun trying to twist into something it wasn’t. My hands were propped solidly against the edge of the counter. My whole body throbbed, stung, ached. I had to see. And so I swallowed hard and wiped away the veil with the palm of my hand. A girl with a busted lip and a heavily bruised face stared back at me. I didn’t look like I’d been punched in the eye; I looked like...well, like my face had been bashed against a tree.

I was so tired, but too afraid to sleep. I laid in bed for hours, taking greater notice to every little sound around me, every movement. Mrs. Willis’ headlights shining directly on my
Supernatural
poster above my desk as she pulled back into the drive. The every-other-night Bentley Family cat fights underneath our house. The summer song of crickets and frogs. The remote control hitting the floor in the living room after Jeff had passed out on the couch.

I knew all of these sights and sounds intimately, yet they still managed to put me on edge as though completely new. But this was nothing like the night we saw the horror movie; this time the horror was real.

I
know
what I saw.

I know what attacked us, but to say it aloud was like verifying it, sealing the deal, confirming that I believed in something so insane. I wasn’t ready yet to admit it to myself. There had to be an explanation. There’s always an explanation, right? I just didn’t know which I wanted more: to find it, or forget about it all completely.

Two days came and went and we didn’t go to school. Alex never went further than the restroom or her bedroom. She still wasn’t speaking, at least not about what happened. She hardly said two random sentences to me, like how the heat was too much for her (our air conditioner was broken) and something about a fly in her room that was driving her ‘bat shit'. But as far as I know, she never made any effort to plug the fan back behind her dresser, or get the fly swatter and smack the insect into oblivion.

On Wednesday, there was an unfamiliar knock at the door, which made me alert in my room just down the hall. I knew it was someone I’d never met before, someone important, or maybe a delivery driver.

“They’re both in their rooms,” my mother said. “They haven’t been feeling well.”

My mom was never the type to invade our privacy. We could get away with playing the sick card.

I couldn’t let her see my face.

“Yes ma’am, I called the school yesterday and told them my daughters were sick.” I could easily detect the offense in her voice, the same way she sounded when our neighbor, Mrs. Willis, would show up at our door after a Jeff and Rhonda Bradley fight.

I heard a woman’s voice say, “If you don’t mind, we’d like to speak with your daughters. It will only take a minute and if everything is fine we’ll be on our way.”

I knew exactly where this was heading....

Child Protective Services took me away that day. I protested futilely—shockingly, Alex said and did nothing. I even made up an elaborate story about how Alex and I were attacked by a group of girls in the park. Useless. They didn’t believe that our bruises were not the work of Jeff Bradley.

“Would you like to file a police report?” the social worker said to Alex as she sat impassively with her back pressed against the wall of the Child Protective Services building.

“No,” Alex said simply.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something in her eyes haunted me. Her face held no emotion. A single strand of hair lay stretched across her nose in a way that even made
me
want to move it out of the way and scratch the area it had been. She did nothing.

She was eighteen and free to go if she wanted, but not me. I was officially a ward of the State of Georgia.

I overheard them talking in the sterile-white hall of the building, something about a witness and a written statement. I knew then that Mrs. Willis probably had everything to do with it. She was who called the police many times before. I was sure she told the police that Jeff beat us.

I spent six days in the care of the State and on the seventh day, I was sent to live with my Uncle Carl and his new wife, Beverlee, in Hallowell, Maine.

Thankfully, Alex left with me. I guess she got her wish to be out of Jeff’s house after all.

I HATED EVERYTHING ABOUT moving a thousand miles away from home in Georgia, except for the weather. Of course I loved my southern summers, but September in Maine was like heaven. The rest of it, I quietly kept to myself, I wanted no part of. I loved my Uncle Carl, but really, the last time I saw my dad’s brother was when I was twelve. It wasn’t as if he sent Christmas cards every year. Now, with the new wife and all, I wasn’t sure how well this would go over.

I have to admit, Uncle Carl’s place was nice. He lived in an isolated two-story Victorian-style house mostly surrounded by woods. It wasn’t a rich place by any means; the outside could’ve used a new coat of paint and by the looks of the yard, Beverlee wasn’t much the gardening type. The plants hanging in pots on the porch were mostly dead and what might have been a little garden on the east side next to the shed, was nothing more than a square patch of dirt overrun by weeds.

Most of the time, I spent outside on the enormous dusty porch in a particular wooden chair furthest from the front door. But when Beverlee started thinking of excuses to join me, I found the solitude of my upstairs bedroom more comfortable. I was careful not to say or do anything to hurt her feelings—it turned out that she was actually nice and seemed genuinely concerned, but I still wasn’t ready for all the bonding stuff.

Alex and I both had our own rooms, and just like at home ever since ‘the incident’ she said little and did less. In her room, on the other side of the locked door was where she stayed. And unlike me, Alex was not so careful with Beverlee’s feelings. The onetime Beverlee knocked on Alex’s door to offer breakfast, Alex responded: “If I was hungry, I’d go downstairs and
make
something.”

I didn’t know whether to be mad at her for being so hateful, or to worry if she’d ever pull out of it. I think it was a little bit of both.

“She needs more time,” Beverlee said sitting on the chair on the porch next to me later that afternoon. “She’ll come around. What you two have gone through is a lot to deal with.”

That was a serious understatement.

It only took about a week seeing how Alex treated Beverlee, to make me feel good about sitting out on the porch again. The sooner I let the changes in my life happen, the faster the awkwardness began to wear off. Before I knew it, I was eating dinner downstairs with Uncle Carl and Beverlee and watching TV with them in the den.

I always thought about my mother though. I worried about her constantly. Apparently, Jeff only spent a few days in jail before they released him. I asked Uncle Carl if my mother was who bailed him out (it didn’t matter to me that he didn’t actually do anything this time).

Uncle Carl didn’t answer.

~~~

School. I dreaded it. Getting used to a new home is simple compared to getting used to a new school. I never dressed much like the in-crowd; preferred casual stuff and made it habit to shop at thrift stores. Average girl with white,
white
skin and freckles; and I hardly ever wore make-up. I admit no one ever accused me of being ‘ugly’, so I must’ve been doing something right. Don’t know what it could’ve been though; definitely wasn’t my chest size because it was as flat as my back. And my idea of fixing my hair was a quick, sloppy wannabe bun, or a barrette on each side to keep my long bangs out of my face.

Uncle Carl agreed to let Alex and I settle in before sending us to school, but a few more days was the limit. The only thing I had going for me was I wouldn’t be starting too far into the year. Alex refused to go to school. Kind of ridiculous when she would be graduating this year. Everything about my loving sister had changed.

“Not sure about the trends right now,” Beverlee said as we walked into a clothing store. “But I’ll give you the run of the place.”

It wasn’t exactly my kind of fashion, but we had been driving around Augusta for three hours, stopping here and there and I was just ready to get ‘home’ and relax.

I never imagined shopping could be so exhausting, or that there was more to it than one store. No, apparently
real
shopping involved heavy amounts of conversation, critical observations of patterns and how one’s butt looks in at least six different brands of jeans. Oh, and sales. Lots of sales. I think Beverlee spent more money trying to take advantage of every sale than she would have if she would’ve just ignored them altogether.

“Oh, Adria,” she said, holding up a strange ruffly-looking top. “This would be so pretty on you. It’s half-off.”

I knew why it was half-off, but I thought I’d let her down easier than with the truth.

“Nah,” I said, wrinkling my nose enough to indicate disagreement rather than outright revulsion. “I never looked that great in blue.”