Blue Moon (2 page)

The steady anxiety Tor'Vanith had felt since before he left home faded. Sabin did not have the Stone.

"You've been with me all this last year,” she said. “You know all my secrets."

Her voice was made strong by bitterness, and he understood “this last year” had not been pleasant.

The adversary said something in a crude, cruel voice, and she twisted against the ropes.

"I don't know. Please, Sabin, I swear I don't know."

The Terfa laughed and touched the skin of her thigh.

Tor'Vanith stood and came around the chest.. Something about the tree-man's action, combined with the woman's barely contained fear, outraged him. The feeling puzzled him, for it was not in the nature of dragons.

"I could conduct a banishing,” he said, “but I think I will just kill thee."

The woman turned her head at the sound of his voice, and the Terfa reached to take a long knife off the table. Gathering lightning out of his bones, Tor'Vanith thrust his hands out, pointing the staff at the Terfa. Power surged down the staff and arched toward its target. The smell of burning wood and flesh filled the air as the lightning engulfed the creature.

Tor'Vanith dropped the stick, now little more than charcoal, and turned to face Sabin.

"Who in the second hells do you think you are?” Sabin yelled. He picked up a stone from the table and threw it at him. It hit Tor'Vanith's shoulder hard, and it burned. Another followed it, but he jumped forward, slamming Sabin to the ground. Sabin hissed a few words then punched the dragon under the chin and pushed him off.

Tor'Vanith crouched on the ground, pain and something else fragmenting his mind, replacing thought with odd shapes and colors. He shook free, forced himself to see through the haze. Sabin stood over the woman, and he knew that, no matter what the price, he could not let harm come to her.

He struggled to his feet and gathered the last of his magic, the last of what resources lay ready in his bones, and cast burning lightning at the figure by the table. Sabin threw his arm up, trying to protect himself, but the fire enveloped him. The low ceiling had also caught fire, and flames ran along the old beams.

Tor'Vanith moved to check on Sabin, but the growing crackle of fire changed his mind. He ran to the table where the young woman lay blinking, blinded by the lightning flash. He undid the ropes. A tattered blanket had been thrown over some of the furniture, and he grabbed it and shook the filth off it. He wrapped her in it, murmured something soothing. She clung to him as he took her in his arms—she seemed so delicate and light.

Now that he no longer needed silence, he made better time through the basement and up the steps, but the fire had already begun to smolder through the main room's floor. The cooking room, on the opposite side and still damp from past rains, was the safer area, but its exit was blocked by rubbish. He set her down and took her hands and placed them on the counter. She balanced herself while he looked around for something to break out the remaining glass from the kitchen window frame. He ripped off his shirt and, wrapping the cloth around his hand, slammed his fist against the frame.

The rotten wood gave away, and he was able to push it out. With the dragon pin in his hand, afraid to let go of it, he picked her up again and lowered her out the window, trying not to place her directly on the broken glass. He wiggled out feet first, and was relieved when his boot soles touched the ground. This time, he picked her up because it was easier than trying to lead her through the rubbish. He did not want her to step on something hidden in the weeds.

He only stopped when he was out of sight of the house, where he placed her against a tree. Sirens, voices, told him her kind was near, and would help. Still, he was reluctant to leave her side. Something in her stirred all of his instincts, human and dragon, and he wanted to watch over and protect her. He smoothed her dark hair away from her face then took the pin and used it to fasten the blanket more securely.

She grabbed his hand, and he thought about taking her away with him. She spoke, and he paused, his mind tired and having trouble understanding the words. He was not quite as talented as his father at looking into other minds, and his personal resources were stripped bare. The fight with Sabin had hurt him deeply, and he needed rest to regain his strength.

"I am fine,” he assured her. “I must leave you here. I think that you should be safe."

He stood and walked away, tripping over something in the path and catching his balance against a tree. He was shutting down inside, and it frightened him, because if he didn't hold on, didn't get back to the spot whre he had entered this world, he didn't know what would happen.

He would probably die.

She said something else, but he could not understand.

"Your people come,” he said, to comfort her, over his shoulder. He could hear them approaching. “Stay where I have placed you."

Relying on memory to guide him, as his map was gone for good, he started back to the place of entry. If he made it there, someone might be able to sense him and come get him.

He did not even make it back to the highway.

It's coming, Libby thought, with a little regret. Summer had fled before she'd had time to contemplate what she wanted to do with it, and now fall was turning the trees.

Winter, she thought, and worried over her mental checklist.

When she first moved into her grandparents’ cabin a few winters before, she hadn't been fully prepared for the weather. It was much harsher than she remembered. She ran out of heating oil and had to wait two days for the truck. Never again, she had promised herself, making sure now the tanks were full enough that she'd make it through the winter, changing the filters and checking to make sure the furnace was all right.

It took her a while, slowly unscrewing the cap from the oil filter to change the gaskets. Then she had to put it all back together while simultaneously trying to determine if there was a leak, if she'd crossed the threads or not made everything tight enough.
Too tight, and you'll crack that cheap cast iron casting
, she could hear Grandpa Halstead say.

She always tried to do things herself, at least indoor things. Sometimes, she hired people to clear the brambles from the woods, to cut back the tall goldenrod and the tree saplings that sprang up like weeds. While they were there, she kept to the inside, and she kept her German shepherd, Dashiel, with her. Libby could not trust anyone; the secret she protected in the basement would not allow her to.

She knew the men who did her yardwork laughed at her skittishness, but she reminded herself, even when the tall younger brother of the foreman trimmed some roses and left them on the porch rail for her, that Sabin could get to anyone. It played hell with her social life.

This morning, she had curled up in bed and written in longhand, finishing a chapter of her book. Afterwards, she'd typed it into the computer—she was working under deadline and needed to keep up. The sun had broken through this afternoon, and now she was out with her wheelbarrow. She gathered wood and sticks—whatever she could handle by herself or with a hatchet, since she didn't trust chainsaws, either.

She liked to keep some wood piled up so that if the power went out, she'd be able to cook, maybe heat the house a little during the day. She never bothered keeping it inside the house, because the need was rare, and because she only burned it during the daylight hours, since she didn't like to leave the damper open on her chimney after dark. You never knew what might crawl down inside, and she was happier to do without than risk it.

"Dashiel!” she called.

The dog paused, wagged his tail and looked at her.

"Don't go too far from me, okay?"

He wagged his tail a little faster then took off.

She loved her dog. He had large, intelligent brown eyes, and the way he acted, he seemed to almost understand her words. Sometimes, it even looked like he answered her. He was definitely her best friend.

It was a beautiful day. Fall days, Libby thought, were the prettiest, although if it were spring, she then admitted to herself, she would think the same thing. The leaves were just starting to turn, and the few grasshoppers she encountered had already traded in their bright coats for olive drab. Caterpillars hid under pieces of bark and in the crevices of the stone wall her grandfather had built to mark the orchard's boundaries. She looked at the chest-high wall, thinking there was something about walking in the woods and finding a wall, lichen-covered and crooked in places, that felt mysterious.

She carefully picked up a fox-colored woolly bear, holding the coiled caterpillar until it relaxed and began crawling again. Its fur was incredibly long, and she rubbed the rust fluff against her cheek before carefully putting it back down.

The gate was an old one—all twisted wire and rusted cast iron—mounted between two posts. Its latch was a loop of rusting wire, and she carefully lifted it over the post to let herself in.

The orchard was a shambles—the workmen were only hired to clear away mess, not take care of fruit trees—and she felt slightly ashamed of her neglect. The trees had grown too tall; the apple trees in particular were covered with suckers, and the fruit that did manage to grow was small. She picked up some branches and placed them in the barrow. Fruit wood was supposed to smell the sweetest when burning, but she wasn't sure she had ever really noticed a difference.

She looked at the twisted trees, and the apples, small, green and tart, that covered the ground. She used to love apples, and in the past, she would have picked the good ones up and stuffed her pockets full. She'd peel and stew them, make applesauce. She sighed, because even memories of her grandmamma peeling apples, of the sweet smell of sugar and cinnamon, did not help overcome her revulsion.

She moved on, touching a tree here and there as she passed. The trees were innocent. She should not neglect them just because of their fruit.

The wall had fallen in near the back of the orchard. She paused to try and fix it, stacking the rocks haphazardly back on top of each other. The end result wasn't very good, but hopefully it would do. She looked up at the two pear trees that stood next to the gap, their branches intertwined. The pears were large—sweet-looking despite her neglect. She smiled and reached up to pick one, and saw in her mind's eye, without meaning to, another hand, long-fingered and strong, reaching up and caressing the fruit but not taking it.

She pulled her hand back, collected some twigs and rolled the wheelbarrow home. Fruit could be poisoned just as easily as people, and with even worse results. She imagined a bite of pear lodging in her throat, knowing she would not preserve as well as Snow White. Sabin would do it. He'd do it with great glee, happy to punish her.

She shuddered. A shrink would have said something like “You can't let an abusive relationship make you paranoid. He's been gone how long? Elizabeth, it's time to go on with your life."

But the psychiatrist didn't know what it was like living with a monster. Not just a man who was so terrible he was monster-like, but an honest-to-God not-quite-human monster. Plus, Sabin was capable of anything. She had to remember that before she unlocked her door, before she started her car, before she put food in her grocery cart. Was someone hiding outside? Had someone tampered with the car? Was the container still perfectly sealed?

She dug up her gladiolus bulbs and hung them in the cellar. She stacked the wood against the back of the garage, well away from the house—no need to give things a home to hide in right next to the door—and looked in her cupboards to determine what she'd stock up on tomorrow. Lots of soup, shampoo and paper towels and cleaning supplies, and TV dinners, of course. Libby wasn't much on cooking. Oh, sure, once in awhile she'd get a taste for something, but not often enough to really make the effort. She didn't eat much, and hated to waste.

In preparation for a bounty of TV dinners, she cleaned out her freezer and plugged it in. She refused to use it during the summer, lest she become too much of a hermit. Getting out, she reminded herself, was fun.

"So, baby,” she said to Dashiel. “What should I get you for the winter?"

He put his head against her shoulder, and she petted him, amazed at the softness of his hair, enjoying the feel of his skull under her hands. She knelt and scratched him behind the ears, because he loved it, and whispered endearments.

When the floor got too hard and cold for her knees she stood up. After tomorrow's paycheck-disappearance run, she'd be prepared for the coming snows. She savored the thought of having everything completely locked up for days on end, only going out when she needed something at the store or thought she ought to pick up her mail, the snow deep around her house. She'd spend the days wrapped up in blankets and writing and reading, the silence broken only by the furnace coming on or the refrigerator.

She worked best in winter, she thought, because winter had an introspective feel to it, a feeling of quiet, snowbound living that she loved. To tell the truth, though, it wasn't much different from summer. She would go out less, and she didn't have to guilt herself into yardwork, but that was about it. Still, she could not wait for it to be truly cold, for the snow to settle into thick piles.

She put the heavy wooden bar in the brackets on either side of the door and closed the thick iron shutters. She barred them as well then checked to see if the little sliding window on each pair was completely closed and hooked. She undid one hook, slid the window cover back and peeked through the five-by-three-inch hole. Everything quiet, she thought, sliding it back shut and securing it.

She shut the window and turned the latch, and then, so she wouldn't have to see the depressing gray of the shutters, she pulled down the blind and drew the lace curtains.

"I wrote almost two thousand words today,” she said to Dashiel, even though he was in the other room, lapping up some water. She always spoke in his direction, feeling it was a little saner than talking to herself directly. “I think I'll cook a TV dinner and watch whatever's on the telly tonight."