Dwelling (14 page)

“No, it’s okay Bobby. I cooked it for you. I’m just impressed you ate it all in one sitting.” She turned back and offered to refill his mug. Bobby turned her down.

“So,” she started in again, “where did you go just now? You got pretty quiet there for a while.” Luna wasn’t sure if Bobby would tell her the truth or if she even wanted to know it, but she asked because she
felt
it was the right thing to do. And if there was one thing Luna always tried to do it was to trust her intuition, just as her grandfather had taught her to.

“Nowhere important,” Bobby said distantly. He looked into his empty mug.

“You’re a bad liar, Bobby Weeks,” Luna retorted, but she pressed no further. She knew Bobby’s type, with or without the illness; he was a loner through and through. Very much the man of her grandfather; she could sense his good heart neatly tucked away, sequestered from the claws of his
madichonnen
alter ego.

Lycanthropy
is a nasty curse.
But if he would just open up and accept what has happened to him, to keep him grounded to what’s in front, then maybe, maybe, we can manage his condition better. Give him a life other than sleeping on the streets. Drinking his liver to rot. If he would just face his fears maybe the wolf would stop digging.

Wait—we?

When did this become—we?

—Oh, who you fooling, girl?

She heard her grandfather’s voice calling to her in some beyond memory of a better yesteryear.

You knew the moment you saw him. There was something there. Some spark or as those trashy romance novels your Nana used to read called it, chemistry.

But I hardly know him. What if—

—What? What if he’s dangerous? Lemon-drop, you’ve known he’s dangerous all along, yet you jumped on that train without thinking. So what’s stopping you now?

I don’t know.

Luna could hear his soft warm laugh, chuckling from some celestial place.

Luna—why don’t you look for yourself? Look into Bobby and find out what’s going on. What’s holding you back?

No.

—Why?

You know why.

The other voice said nothing. The part of her that spoke for her grandfather—hell, maybe it was her grandfather—knew why she detested
looking
into people, especially those she loved.

Loved? Do I really love Bobby?

—It wasn’t your fault, girl. You should know that by now.

Luna closed her eyes. Shut out of the voice, tried to stop the rush of memory, but the storm was already at her door step. Images of her parents and the night the big rig crashed into them. Her
vision
giftwrapped inside a bad dream and how she made such a fuss her parents were called to come pick her up.

It was all my fault!

Her grandfather’s voice was a mouse fighting against the torrent.

It wasn’t your fault, girl. You were just a kid and you saw something terrible.

But if I hadn’t said something, they never would have been called to come get me. They never would have been on the road that night. They wouldn’t have died—and it was all because of me.

—Hush! You know it’s not true. Stop blaming yourself, lemon-drop. You have a gift. You can help people.

The storm and powerful blowing winds began to subside; dawn broke through in heavenly beams of light. Her grandfather’s handsome and strong face shone, pushing away the dark clouds.

But what if—I see something. Something that can hurt him? Or me?

—You’re worried about warning him?

Yes. What if it’s my warning that—?

—Trust yourself. Trust your intuition. Trust that
spark
.

He smiled at her. His image dissolved like mist on a warm summer breeze.

Luna could smell the late bloom of bluebonnets coming in from outside the kitchen window. She turned and watched a pair of cardinals dancing around the bone-colored pedestal birdbath in the garden.

“—anyways, I’ll never go back to
Star of Hope
again. You know, some of the guys I’ve run into call it
‘Star of Dope?’
Hilarious, right? Kinda sad actually. Supposed to be this
Christian
outreach shelter. But they run it like a prison and kick anyone who doesn’t confess back out on the street. Hell, I think I’d rather be on the street then listen to their hypocrisy. Heard a rumor that the
Beacon and Way
shelter was run by good people. Going to have a big Thanksgiving celebration. I don’t know. I just…I want to be alone, you know,” said Bobby.

Had Bobby been talking this entire time?
Luna wondered. She blushed.

Bobby didn’t seem to notice. “But we’ll see, huh? I think I’m going to make my way toward St. John’s Church up in Houston. Heard they’re doing this ‘Blessed Friday’ thing. Jimmy, from the El Dorado underpass, will be there. Told him I’d met up with him if I was in the area. Share a bottle and our woes, as they say.” He grinned awkwardly into his mug.

“Bobby, do you trust me?” Luna asked, almost in a whisper.

“Huh?” he said.

“Do you trust me?” she enunciated.

Bobby looked at her. Searched her face. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you’ve helped me a lot with…you know. So yeah, I trust you.” He eyed her suspiciously.

Luna looked into the eyes of this man who had been nothing but a stranger only a few short months ago, naked in a field on the edge of her grandfather’s property, a man who carried an old faded photograph of a group of five kids and the words
‘
Suicide Squad—1995’
written on the back, a man petrified to be around people, terrified he’d hurt them. The man with sad eyes, brown as earth and kind, but if you looked deeper with what those gypsy Cajun mystics called an inner eye, they turned yellow, yellow as the Devil’s eyes.

Luna looked away. “Bobby, I’m glad you trust me.” She fought back the sudden rush of tears and fear, the uncertainty of it all, the uncertainty of
looking
into him.

Bobby cocked an eye, confused.

“I want to try something, okay?” she said, mocking confidence.

“Try what?” he asked apprehensively.

Luna hesitated.
What am I supposed to say?
“Hey, Bobby, I’m going to take a little peek inside your head. What’s that? Yes, I said it right. I’ve got a gift. Didn’t I tell you?”
But instead of saying that, Luna took his hand and led him into the living room. She pushed the mahogany coffee table that sat in front of the couch out of the way and gestured with her hands for Bobby to join her on the floor.

“So—what the hell are we doing?” asked Bobby, taking an uncomfortable seat.

Luna said nothing. They faced each other. She took both his hands into her own, resting them on her crossed legs, and closed her eyes.

“Luna?” Bobby injected again.

“Just shut up for a minute, will ya!” she barked and fell back into her meditative trance. There was only dark red light penetrating the folds of her eyelids. She could feel Bobby stirring uncomfortably, but his hands remained stationary, strong, and warm. They were surprisingly soft and gentle. Not so surprisingly hairy, but tender nonetheless. She pulled them closer into her palm. Felt his fingers brush at the center where the
line of life
is read by palm readers. The red light around her went dark. It had begun. She had the strangest recollection of sitting inside a red brick house in an upstairs room. Nirvana and NIN posters hung on the walls. Lavender incense burned on a dresser drawer. The Eurythmics were droning from a boom box in the background, something about sweet dreams and traveling the world on the seven seas.

And then the music faded into a distant echo and there was some white girl with long, wavy brown hair sitting in front of her on the floor, in front of a twin bed with Star Wars sheets. Luna found herself leaning over, kissing this other girl nervously on the lips.

“Seriously, Luna. What are we doing?” Bobby interjected into the dream. His voice came over her like a loudspeaker at a grocery store.

“Hush!” Luna fired back.

The adolescent picturesque romance vanished and was replaced with darkness. She moved beyond, to some other place deeper inside Bobby’s mind. It was warm here, even though she couldn’t see it, she felt the sun shining above her. The breeze smelled like pondweed. Suddenly water appeared. Lapping waves of a lake touched her toes. An older, balding man sat next to her.

He looked plump, but kind. A fishing pole in one hand, a beer in the other. He was smiling at the sky. She was smiling as well. And then dark clouds rolled in. The sun disappeared behind them. She looked at the man, who had dropped his beer and his fishing pole, grasping at his chest.

She was on her feet, coming beside him. She could feel the cold surge of panic setting up shop in her heart. She shook the old man, but he wouldn’t move.
Why isn’t he moving? Why? Why?
And then blackness came over her again like a blanket or bag tossed over her head,
or a body bag
, she thought on a river of cold that ran up her spine.

Whatever it was, she couldn’t breathe. She felt trapped, contained. She pushed against it but could not find her way out. The rattling of gunfire exploded into life around her, but all she saw was utter nothingness. Men were shouting words she couldn’t quite understand. More explosions. Screams of pain. Whimpering. This place smelled and tasted like sand. There were a few last crackles of gunfire and then nothing. But there was something, a growl and then silence once again.

It was suddenly cold. She was shivering all over. The bag dissolved and she was standing in some sort of cave.
No—not entirely. The walls are too smooth and structured to be just a cave. This place was engineered by someone.
Strange,
alien
drawings covered the walls around her. The light seemed dim, powered only by the small flashlight in her hand. In front, an enormous wall which her light could not entirely touch. A queer idea struck her that the wall could have very well been a door, though she had no clue how something of that size would open. But it did—the door was opening. Now, right before her eyes! Slowly coming apart. The jagged crunch of rock grinding against rock. There was something else, something from inside.

It was moving. Buzzing, chirping, whirring, and stridulating in a congruent dreadful chorus. Large, bulbous eyes glared back at her from inside the behemoth stone structure, thousands strong. Luna wanted to scream, to run, but she couldn’t, she was frozen with four other teenagers standing next to her. She recognized them without knowing them.

From the picture!
The one Bobby carried around with him. These are them!
Then one of them shouted and they were running together, running fast away from those terrible eyes and nightmarish chattering. The noise reminded her of the cicadas in her backyard. They came in swarms during the spring and ate their weight in tree fluid. Luna ran. And then she was free and breathing in warm, summer air, panting and looking at the children around her, all sharing the same look of shock and joy and fear and excitement. And confusion.
What had they been running from?

And then nothing. Luna watched the children walk toward some dirt gravel road, leaving her behind. She looked around and found a house, a two-story white house with a poorly made porch and bones, thousands of bones piled high in mounds surrounding the landscape, circling the house. Suddenly, the house grew and stretched upward unnaturally before her. With monstrous mandibles it snarled and gnashed and lunged toward her. It was hungry—
hungry! Granddaddy, it’s hungry! It’s so hungry! It wants…it wants…

***

Bobby

Bobby wasn’t sure what to think. Luna dragged him in the living room, holding his hand like some grade-school crush. But then all she did was sit and close her eyes. Still holding his hand. He watched her silently, especially after she
shh
-ed him. He could see her eyes moving around behind her lids. But now they seemed to be dancing franticly.
REM in fast-forward
, he thought nervously. And then she started making sounds. Whimpering at first. Now, crying.

“Luna,” called Bobby. Still holding her hands.

She remained in her trance, breathing like some rabid dying dog.

“
Luna!
”

Luna’s eyes shot wide, but Bobby could only see the milky white of her sclera. She was looking at him, but not looking at him—through him, in some other place and time.

“
Kay la se lanmò—kay la se lanmò—kay la se lanmò—kay la se lanmò—kay la se lanmò
,” she chanted in a gurgled voice.

“Luna? Wake up!” shouted Bobby, yanking his hands away, taking her by the shoulders.

Luna began to tremble something fierce, her voice moaning in a deep bass Bobby had never heard before.
Jesus, what is this? What’s happening to her?