Moonglow (22 page)

“You're going camping?” Nadine asks, justifiably flabbergasted.

“I know!” I reply. “Do I look like a girl who even knows how to unzip a sleeping bag?”

“Well, as my Christmas gift to you let me save you from sleeping under the stars,” Nadine begins. “I think you should use my family's cabin.”

Sleeping in a warm bed in a cabin is a lot nicer than sleeping in a bag out in the cold. But wait a second, my father and I aren't going on a vacation; we're setting out on a mission. Nadine completely understands this.

“It's secluded and away from town,” she adds. “So you won't be near any people on the very slim chance you do turn into this . . .”

I don't need to finish her sentence, but I do need to thank her.

“That's very nice of you,” I say, genuinely touched.

“So you accept?” she asks anxiously.

“Well, I'll suggest it to my father and let you know.”

She takes out a folded-up piece of paper from her coat pocket and gives it to me. “It's a map so you can find it,” she explains. “There are two cabins on the property, the main house and a smaller one that was the original cabin that my grandfather built.”

“Which one should we use?” I ask. “You know, if we decide to take you up on your offer.”

“The main house is a lot larger,” she replies, then reaches into another pocket of her coat and takes out a key. “Dominy, I really think this is the perfect solution.”

When Nadine gives me the key, I could swear she's just handed me a prickly sharp needle, and I flinch. After she leaves I look at my fingers, certain that I'll see blood and a puncture wound. Nothing. Next, I hear a voice in my head congratulating me for following my instincts and confiding in Nadine. She's turned out to be trustworthy, supportive, and generous.

If all that's true, then why do I feel like I've just been stung by a bee?

Chapter 16

“I hate you two!” Barnaby yells from the backseat of the car. “Why can't I go with you guys this weekend?”

“Because you would be bored stiff, and I don't want to hear you complain nonstop for the next two days,” my father replies.

We've devised the following plan: My father and I are allegedly going to Iowa to look at a few colleges, and while we're away my brother is going to stay with Arla and her dad. It's totally believable because what little brother wants to traipse around Iowa looking at colleges with his father and big sister? He doesn't even want to come with us, but now that we're pulling up in front of Arla's house, he's getting nervous.

“I won't complain,” he protests.

“Barnaby, you're not coming,” my father says firmly.

If his words aren't definitive enough, he gets out of the car and slams the door shut.

“This is all your fault,” Barnaby seethes. “You're nothing but a BFK.”

Whipping around to face him, I ask, “What's that stand for?”

“Best friend killer.”

Harsh, vile, kind of clever, and yet, most likely, accurate. It takes me a moment to rebound from that comment. Actually, I take more than just a moment, and I only return from my daze when I hear my father knocking on the window.

“Come on, Dom,” he instructs.

By the time I get inside the Bergeron house, Barnaby is the center of attention, like a long lost child instead of an overnight guest. Louis is telling him how he's going to challenge him to an Xbox marathon, first man whose thumbs bleed loses, and Arla is flirting with him. She's only doing it to tease him because she knows he's developed a crush on her since he joined the varsity track team of which she's a starring member, but it's still, oh what's the word? That's right, icky.

Out of Barnaby's line of vision, Arla winks at me. That wink conveys so much girlfriend-to-girlfriend information.
Don't worry; my flirting is completely harmless. Don't worry; your brother is in good hands. And don't worry; you won't want to kill yourself after spending forty-eight hours with your dad.
Well, two out of three ain't bad. By the end of our trip, I may very well want to kill myself, and it will all be because of my dad.

A few minutes later we leave a tongue-tied Barnaby and set off for our fictitious confabs with the deans of several prestigious Iowa colleges. I should be worried that Barnaby might slip and tell Arla or worse, her deputy sheriff father, about what he knows of our lies, but I'm not. I've got too much to think about. Now that it's just me and my father in the car, I don't have to keep up appearances; I don't have to act as if everything is okay and that I'm not scared out of my mind. Surprisingly, though, fear isn't the strongest emotion I'm feeling; it's anger.

When I mentioned Nadine's offer to my father, he flipped out.

“I told you not to say anything!” he screamed. “Dominy, do you realize what you've done?”

“Yes!” I said. “I reached out to my friends for help instead of following your lead and trying to handle it on my own! Look what that's done to you.”

He looked so wounded you would've thought I had just told my father that I hated his guts, that I never wanted to be like him, and that everything he's done in his life was stupid and wrong and wasteful. Which is exactly what I did. I betrayed his confidence, but isn't that what he did to me by not telling me about this curse in the first place?

If only the rattling in the trunk would stop, then maybe I could think! My father is actually going to build a cage that he expects me to sleep in, just in case Luba is all-powerful and I become a werewolf. If I wounded him with my betrayal, he has royally screwed me up with his deception.

I look over at my father, youthful and handsome, and I want to scratch his eyes out. If this curse turns out to be true then it is all his fault. He's responsible, and yet he's untouched. I'm the one who suffers because he was reckless and stupid and a really bad shot. The anger travels in my blood like a disease-infected rat that's jumped into a fast-moving stream. It can't fight the current; it can't slow it down; it can only succumb to the journey. I'm about to let the poison that's building up inside of me gush out when I feel the car slow down and see my father's face. He's white.

“Daddy, what's wrong?” I ask.

He doesn't answer me; instead he looks around at the un-landscaped landscape, his eyes fearful but searching for something to emerge from the overgrowth. This must be where it happened. This must be where we were cursed.

“Is this the place?”

“Yes.”

His voice is as soft as mine, and it scares me. The farther we drive from our home, from what I know, from what's familiar, the closer we come to this unreal world where curses rule and werewolves are real. I don't like it here, and if I thought I could convince my father to turn back and go home I would make a plea, but I know any debate is useless.

About ten minutes later the trees and the brush become less dense. You can actually see beyond the first row of foliage to what lies behind it; the sight is like watching fog rise and float away or sunlight creep into a dark room. For the first time since we began our trek out here, I feel a bit hopeful. I don't even care that it might be false hope; I'm desperate for a change, a diversion, so I latch onto it.

Finally, the cabin appears in the distance. It's a solid-looking log cabin resting on the crest of a hill. The land around it is flat and unpopulated, no trees, no bushes, no flowers. It's as if the earth gave away, acquiesced to this intrusion, this foreign structure. My gut instinct—which I still haven't determined is something I should trust or ignore—is that it may not be safe, but it is formidable. Suddenly, I want to get out of this car, put some distance between my dad and me and get inside. I want the sun to set, and I want the full moon to take over so I can know. I'm done with waiting.

The path leading up to the cabin turns slightly, and out of nowhere another house materializes. Almost identical in appearance except this one is smaller, more like a bungalow. This must be the original cabin that Nadine's grandfather built. I'm no architect, but the man must've been pretty handy with a hammer and power tools, if they had power tools back then, because it looks like it was constructed yesterday.

Walking up to the house I can tell that my father is nervous. He's taking deliberate steps, casually looking around, not at the scenery, but in search of intruders. He doesn't trust anyone, not even his sixteen-year-old daughter's friend. He puts the key into the lock and turns it slowly; when we hear the click, he freezes and doesn't push the door open. Maybe he's waiting for our invasion to cause the house to explode?

“Can we, um, go inside?” I ask sarcastically. “It's cold out here.”

In response he gives the door a shove, but still doesn't move. Is he once again waiting for something bad to happen? Have I never noticed, but is this how the poor man has spent his entire life? Always expecting danger, always assuming a threat is a clock-tick away? If that's the case I need to learn from example and refuse to live my life like that.

“Excuse me,” I say and brush against him as I enter the cabin.

Once I am inside, the cabin doesn't explode, implode, or show any signs of retaliating against unexpected company. It is, however, colder than it is outside. A visible puff of air escapes from my mouth when I breathe, but there's a fireplace in the corner of the main room and a pile of wood, so once we get the fire going, it'll be manageable. And hopefully fending off a night freeze will be our only worry.

Even though there's no heat, there is electricity from a small generator, but of course no Internet or cell phone reception. One of the first things my father does is check the landline, and it is working. I asked him why he was checking to see if there was a dial tone, and he said in case of an emergency. It was the first time we both laughed.

The cabin itself is actually very cozy, really just one large room that's sectioned off into kitchen, living room, and bedroom areas. There's only one extra room, a small bedroom in the back with nothing more than bunk beds and a scuffed-up dresser and, thank God, a bathroom complete with a shower stall. I turn the faucet at the sink and watch with great relief as the stream of rust-colored liquid turns clear after a few seconds. If I didn't have a doomcloud hanging over my head, this cabin would be an enjoyable place to relax in for a few hours.

My father starts a fire in the fireplace, and I plop onto the big overstuffed couch and wrap myself in a multicolored quilt that was folded neatly and propped up against one of the arms like a pillow. I'm swathed in bright swirls of colors in a variety of geometric shapes, and I imagine Nadine, her mother, and her grandmother taking turns working on it as a family project. It's sweet, and it conjures up the impression that her family is close-knit and traditional and loving. Then again the quilt could be store-bought and not an heirloom. Regardless, it's warm.

Kicking my shoes off I'm surprised that the large, oval braided rug in the center of the living room is soft underneath my feet. Guess after so many years of being walked on it's lost its edge. It's learned, like I'm learning, that time is both the enemy and the friend. Just like a father.

“I'm, um, going to build the cage,” he says as nonchalantly as possible.

While my father is in the small bedroom putting together the animal cage he expects me to crawl into before the full moon rises, I cling to the last moments of normalcy I may ever experience and make hot chocolate. Just when I don't think I can listen to the clanging of the metal any longer, the whistle on the teakettle blows. I let the whistle continue for so long in order to drown out the commotion inside that my father is the one who turns off the flame.

“You go deaf?” he asks, trying to make a joke.

“Sorry, guess I wasn't paying attention,” I mumble.

My father pulls a bag of marshmallows out from his duffel bag and stuffs our cups of hot chocolate chock-full of marshmallows. The man really has thought of everything. Everything except something to say.

Sitting on opposite sides of the couch we sip our hot chocolate as my father steals glances outside, making sure we move into the other room before the moon takes over the sky. Because the cabin is in the center of a clearing, there's a steady, strong wind that travels past the windows, making them buckle and groan. The sound is comforting and fills in the silence that has latched onto the space in between my father and me. There's so much to say, and yet neither one of us can find the will to speak. We just wait. Until he hears something.

“What was that?”

He turns his head toward the front door and mine follows. Uncontrollably, I feel my heart race even though I didn't hear a thing; I was lost in thought, some daydream involving Caleb and the beach.

“I don't know,” I answer. “I didn't hear anything.”

A few more seconds pass, a few more moments of thick silence. Then the windows rattle.

“Mystery solved,” I say.

My father looks at the window suspiciously; he doesn't believe it was the culprit. He's staring at it as if trying to connect with the glass; if he can only make contact, maybe the glass will confirm that it made the sound and my father can stop worrying. I look over at the window as well, not to connect with it, but to watch the light fade. I want to scream at my father that in about an hour we may have something truly important to worry about. But the time to worry comes earlier than I expect when we hear a knock on the door.

Neither one of us can move. My father was right all along; his hesitation to enter this place was justified. It isn't safe; we aren't alone. We're trapped.

The second knock is louder and more aggressive. Whoever's on the other side of the door knows someone is inside and is not happy about it. We feel the same way.

My father puts his index finger to his lips, that cop thing he does to make me keep quiet. This time it's an unnecessary gesture as I have no intention of making a sound, let alone speaking. But then he takes his cop thing a step further and pulls his gun out from his coat pocket, the gun that offers absolutely no solace or protection because it's the gun that he's admitted to me is not loaded. He then compounds what I perceive to be his insanity by waving his fake gun from me to the door. He does this three times until I understand what he wants me to do. He wants me to open the door and greet our unwanted guest.

Without making a sound I move my lips to form one word:
Me?

Without hesitating, my father nods his head and grabs my arm to give me a jump start. When I'm standing an inch in front of the door, my father flattens himself against the wall to my left, so when I pull the door open he'll be standing behind it unseen. He's going to play cop-without-a-gun, and I'm going to play decoy. Brilliant idea.

Just as my hand is about to grasp the doorknob, I hear another knock on the door. This time it's more pounding than knocking, and I instinctively pull my hand back. Who's out there? No one knows that we're here except for Nadine, but why would she tell anyone? She offered the place to us, as a friend. My stomach churns and my intuition with it. Maybe she isn't a friend; maybe she's a traitor. I don't know whether she's someone I can trust or someone who would betray me.

More pounding. From the other side of the door, from inside my chest, and both are loud and angry. I have no time to turn and make a run for it, for the safety of the bathroom, because my father grabs my hand, places it on the doorknob, and twists it to the left. In a flash the door is open, and before my eyes can register who's standing in front of me I hear words.