Wolf Moon Rising (8 page)

time with Quentin now, had stopped buying her clothes. When

she was a little girl, they played, took long walks, sang songs to-

gether. She remembered one and hummed it to herself:

Black is the color of my true love’s hair

His kiss is something wondrous fair

Th e truest eyes and the bravest hands

I love the grass whereon he stands.

Would she ever have a love like that? As she often did, she

thought of her past lives in bleak and foggy Salem where she had

been in prison, and in sun- drenched Martinique where she had

met Barnabas. She had inside her something no one could see—

only the doctors, but they hadn’t been able to blast it out of her.

She stared out the window and softly sang the words.

I love my love and well he knows

I love the ground whereon he goes

If he on earth no more I see

My life would quickly fade away . . .

-1—

Jackie could smell the pot coming from the back of the bus,

0—

and it reminded her of her mom still in bed that morning and

+1—

48

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 48

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

hung over, her mascara blurred and hair a mess. Th

ey had ar-

gued again about the missing portrait.

“You did so much of the renovation,” her mom had insisted.

“Don’t you remember a thing?”

It was true that Jackie had taken an enormous interest in

the Old House. Th

e burnt- down mansion had so captured her

imagination that she had become obsessed with restoring it,

taking off on one of her manic highs for weeks. Her mom had

driven her to neighboring towns and dropped her off at fl ea mar-

kets where she searched all day for replicas of fi xtures and fur-

niture, or she combed old hardware stores for matching wallpaper

and fl ooring. She had even used a spell or two when nothing

else worked, and now she was paying for it big time.

“It must have been you,” her mom said. “You moved ev-

erything around. And I’ve always wondered, how did you fi nd

all the things you found, the rugs, the lamps, the pieces of

cornice?”

“In antique stores . . .”

“Sure you did. Th

en why can’t you fi nd the picture?” Her

mom’s tone grew sarcastic. “What about your visions?”

“I can’t do that.”

She had tried to see it, and all she could fi nd in her mind’s

eye was a dark place, closed away from the world. It could have

been any locked closet, or any tomb.
Where are the tombs of my

childhood where the deep roses grow?

Her mother made an exasperated sound. “Well, you’re the

one with the magic, not me. Find it, do you hear me? Don’t go

to school. Stay home until you fi nd it.”

But she had not wanted to miss her painting class. Her

teacher, who was an old man in his fi fties, and who smoked pot

like her mom— she could smell it— had had some New York

shows. He wore overalls covered in paint, and he told her she

was talented, something she already knew. Today she was work-

ing on a still life: an apple, a shell, a goblet half full of wine, and

—-1

a rose, all gathered together on a Chinese tapestry, but dragons

—0

—+1

49

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 49

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

kept coming to life in the weaving, and fl ying birds fl uttered

under her brush.

“Hey, bitchy, itchy, witchy girl, come cast an evil spell on us.”

By the lame taunt and the nasal sound in the voice she knew

it was Paul Dingleton, the wimpy one, the sick rabbit. He was a

follower, always straggling behind, but maybe even more an-

noying, since he always had to prove himself. He wasn’t smart

and he wasn’t muscled. She shivered if she caught him looking

at her, with his puff y cheeks and pale pink eyes. Most of the time she thought it could be her imagination, as she had reckless and

free- ranging suspicions and was given to all kinds of freakish vi-

sions she had to keep under control; but when she looked into his

mind, she knew he was plotting to do her some kind of harm.

Th

e air in the bus had become thick with chewing gum

breath, candy bar saliva, and pot. She felt trapped, as if she were riding in a cattle truck on its way to a penitentiary. She wiped

the mist from the scummy window with her fi ngers, and stared

out at the woods. She tried to drink in winter’s artistry, but in-

stead she only felt despondent. Th

e dark trees thrust their

branches into the air with such ferocity, and the mounds of snow

on the rocks looked to her like bodies wrapped in shrouds.

Th

e snowy woods took her back to Salem. It had been cold

like this, she remembered, misery in every house and fear in

every heart. Th

ey had hated her there, too. She had worked until

her hands were raw. She had swum to the beavers’ den. And she

had died on the scaff old with her bleeding child in her arms.

Better to dream of Martinique, where she had been a mer-

maid curled in a blue cave, feeding the fi sh that dove in and out

of her fi ngers.
White the foam where the fi sh feed, dark the waters.

Don’t drift.

She shook herself and brought her thoughts back to the

present. She looked out the window and tried to reassure herself

she had her tabula rasa
,
her blank slate, and everything she saw

-1—

against the white world was etched in black ink drawn on the

0—

purest paper. She thought when she got home, she would try to

+1—

50

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 50

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

duplicate it, every cobwebby twig, every thick trunk. Th

e ink

spilled and spreading across the parchment.

She had tried to tell them she had lived before. Past lives

were more real than the one she was living now. Th

e vinyl on

the bus seat made her think of the padded white walls, the gur-

ney she was strapped to. Th

ey shot her up with electricity— the

synapses in her brain pulling apart. Her time in the sanitarium

had left her balanced as delicately as a slack ropewalker on

a spider’s web. She had been diagnosed— schizophrenic—just to

give them a name for it. Shock treatments were meant to blast

from her brain all her memories. And all her powers.

Deep in the ground like a rock lodged in the roots of a tree. Deep,
in the sea, circling. Something waited.

She had told them— although they did not believe her—

that fi rst she had been born out of the earth, so long ago, and

the trees had been her protectors. She remembered fl ying among

the trees— the souls of her ancestors. Th

en she had been born of

water and the sea her heart’s home. Th

e caves beneath the foam.

Th

ose were the happy days before she was taken away. And who

was she now? She watched the trees slide by like ghosts and she

was a black swan swimming at the far end of the pond. A red

beak. A moth fl oating through the trees, a fl ying fi sh in the air.

Air. Ah, she was air, invisible. A mobile kissed by a breeze. First the earth, then water . . . then
air
.

Whap!
Th

is time it was a wadded- up piece of paper that

came fl ying from the back of the bus and landed in her lap. She

knew it was a lewd note and she knocked it on the fl oor. It was

probably Petey, the one who wrote insults but never spoke to

her. Several times over the past month one of the other boys had

threatened to get off the bus when she did, and walk her home.

She always ignored them. She refused to even acknowledge

they were there, tried never to look at them.

But for some reason, they did not ignore her. Th

ey followed

her down the hallway between classes, found ways to jostle her

—-1

in the cafeteria. Today she had been groped in the lunch line

—0

—+1

51

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 51

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

and she had almost spilled her soup. All this week things had

been slipped into her locker or left on her seat in the classroom:

bugs or slimy slugs, rotting fi sh heads, stinking sea urchins. Th

e

week before it had been pornographic photos of women copu-

lating with goats or posing naked except for garter belts. Th

ere

were scrawled notes which read, “Snooty bitch,” “Trash!” and,

always, the word “Witch!”

Because she was strange and they were a little afraid of her,

they called her a witch, but little did they know. Th

ey thought

witches were people with character fl aws, like sociopaths or

thieves. It was only another insult in their book.

“Hey! Who’s the ugliest girl on the bus? Yeah, who gets the

prize?” One boy, she thought it was George, sniggered and she

knew he had pointed to his crotch because the other boys

whooped.

“Jacqueline? I have something for you,” he was sing- songing

the words like a lullaby. “Yeah, I got a nice fat popsicle just for you.”

One of the girls turned around and said, “Shut up, asshole!

You’re sick.” But George was only encouraged by her remark.

“Hey, Jackie,” he droned on, “what are you? Some kind of

kook? Come on back here for once and talk to us.”

“Yeah,” Ernie yelled. “We won’t hurt you. You know you

want me to get you off .” Th

e boys exploded with laughter at

Ernie’s bravado, and even the girls giggled. But then they stopped

abruptly because she was standing in the aisle at the back of the

bus as if she had fl own there.

“Whoa!” said George. Th

e two boys squirmed to fi nd her so

close to them all at once, and they looked at each other sheep-

ishly. Th

ere was a fl ame inside her she knew she should snuff

out, but the heat was rising to her face, burning her cheeks. She

had in her hand something left over from her lunch, a wadded-

up peanut butter sandwich and that would have been enough,

-1—

but, if she couldn’t stop herself, it would take only a small

0—

push— a pulse that would shiver through her— for her to turn it

+1—

52

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 52

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

into dog shit just before she shoved it in George’s mouth and

smeared it all over his face. She almost smiled a little, thinking

about her triumph. Th

e sandwich was gummy and warm in her

fi st.

George kicked out with his heavy boot and nudged her

shoe. She shrank back and he laughed. She looked over at him

and then, holding very still, she bit out her words in a dry whis-

per.

“I know things,” she said, and once again the boys quieted.

“I know things I could tell the whole school. For instance I know, Paul, that your dad likes to dress up in your mom’s underwear

and prance around in front of the mirror.”

Paul’s face collapsed in shame and he couldn’t look at his

friends until he laughed and threw up his hands like it was a

joke. “Where’d she get that shit?”

“And you, Ernie, you get under your bedclothes at night

with a fl ashlight and a porn magazine, only it’s not
Playboy
, it’s naked
men
. And I know what you do.”

Ernie glanced back and forth at his buddies, his face afl ame,

muttering, “Th

at’s a lie. What? Are you gonna believe
her
?”

“And you, George,” she whispered. “Oh, there are things I

could tell everybody about you. You act like such a macho pig

but what kinds of things do you do with those chickens your

mom keeps in her back yard?” It was awful but she couldn’t re-

sist. “Are those little snatches the right size for your tiny prick?”

George’s face grew pale. “And Petey, what about your mom, who

goes down to the Blue Whale every night and picks up guys—”

George lunged for her and grabbed her hair, punched at her

shoulder, missed, then tore the sleeve of her coat. She jerked

away and ran to the front of the bus, her heart pounding as she

slunk down behind the driver. Just as she had known he would,

he yelled, “Hey, what’s going on back there. Stay in your damn

seats or I’ll report every one of you creeps to detention!”

She leaned into the cab. “I want to get off here.”

—-1

“What, on the side of the road? No, it’s not a stop.”

—0

—+1

53

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 53

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

She looked back at the boys who were staring at her, and

George was giving her what he thought was the evil eye along

with the fi nger while he mouthed, “Bitch!”

“Not a good idea to get out here,” continued the driver.

“Th

ere’s been reports of wild animals in the woods.”

“It’s a shortcut,” she said. “Over to my house.” She caught

his eye in the rearview mirror and hissed a command. “Now.”

When the bus roared then wheezed to a stop, she dashed