The Moon Tells Secrets (20 page)

Because I saw, my darling.

He had it seen it, too, heard it now, and he could never forget it. The Jim Beam called him. He could feel the quick, pleasurable burn of it as it hit his throat, the warmth it brought to his belly as it headed there through his chest. The sweetness of it. He closed his eyes against it, his mouth, his nose, and pictured Dennie in his mind, before it had butchered her and destroyed his life, and in that instant, even before the thought had left him, he knew what he had to do.

Dennie's books. Dennie's notes.

He no longer doubted what Raine had told him. It had come back for his wife, and he knew now it would come back for her and her son like she'd said it would. He'd heard it himself, that dog that Dennie must have heard, and opened the door just to check because that was her way with all lost things.

I will show you when we meet again.

And it had shown her, too, in those moments before she died. She had mentioned the white ash on a silver bullet in passing and it had scoffed at the silver, but not the ash. Had she known more about killing them than she'd said? That must have been so, because Dennie's research was always meticulous; she wouldn't have asked the question unless she knew the answer.

Her office held no fear for him now, and he began with the notes on her desk, reading each and then starting with the three folders stuffed with transcriptions from blogs, each label identifying its subject:
SKIN-WALKERS
,
WEREWOLVES
,
SHAPE-SHIFTING
.

“My God, Dennie! What the hell were you into?” he said aloud, angry and at the same time amused. The blogs gave nothing, mostly ramblings and half-baked theories from writers who used only one name or an odd pseudonym: Witch Hazel, Wolf's Breath, Dancer of Death. He doubted she'd taken them seriously, if you could take any of this stuff seriously, he thought, then chastised himself for his doubts. If he hadn't been so doubtful, so dismissive, maybe she would have told him about what she was doing, maybe she'd still be … No, don't go there, he told himself. But these blogs, some with e-mail addresses and claims to special knowledge, may have been where she got her subject's name. She would never have told him.

Dennie was a scholar, so he turned next to her bookcases, scanned the volumes on skin-walkers and werewolves stacked one upon the other in random order:
Some Kind of Power: Navajo Children's Skinwalker Narratives,
M. K. Brady;
Meeting the Medicine Men: An Englishman's Travels Among the Navajo,
C. Langley;
Werewolves, Shapeshifters and Skinwalkers,
K. Marika;
Navaho Witchcraft,
C. Kluckhohn. Piles of them, some dusty with wear—gotten from God knew where—some clearly self-published, others long out of print.

One in particular littered with Post-its caught his attention:
The Secretive Life of the Skin-walker,
A. S. Doggett. It was a slim black volume of a hundred or so pages published in the 1930s by a press long gone. Short passages were underlined on nearly every page, and he eagerly searched for the answers he knew must be there and finally found the passages marked on various pages with Post-its and highlighted with the pink highlighter Dennie favored.

These are beings who have gained power by committing an act of horror upon the members of their tribe, by breaking a cultural taboo that will forever deny them inclusion in the community. Often it is the murder of a blood relative.

It is believed that they steal the skin of another human being and absorb parts of that person into their person. It is believed they steal the soul or sight of a victim by the theft of their heart or eyes. They are considered the most evil of the supernatural beings, homicidal and violent to their very core.

Although they can change or shift into many creatures, the dire wolf, now extinct, or a wolfish dog is their favorite. They also adapt the habits of these creatures. They kill their victims only when they are alone.

Anger, greed, envy, and revenge are the emotions that spur their attacks. It is believed that blood once spilled must be revenged.

The skin-walker, as the wolf or vicious dog, is territorial and will not allow another of its kind to live within its territory, which can extend from forty to four hundred miles. It will seek and kill interlopers, first locating, stalking, encountering, and finally rushing to the kill in much the manner of the animal it emulates.

According to old legend, the best way to kill the creature is to scream its human name, then shoot it with a silver bullet dipped in white ash. It is also said one can defeat the creature's power by making it speak a loved one's name while in animal form, thus causing it to lose forever its ability to shift. If the creature remains unchanged, its evil runs too deep and it will die.

Dennie had tried to kill it. She must have shot once, then twice, aiming for its head but didn't know its name so it had made no difference. Her instincts told her to load the gun with bullets and she'd done that, her father's gun, that old .38 found beside her on that terrible day. There had been no gunfire residue on her hands because there were no hands left, no bullets in the barrel or anywhere in the room, and if she'd wounded something, it had left no blood.

By the time Cade was ten, his father had taught him to shoot. Hunting was one of the things they did together, but they'd stopped going after his father in a drunken rage pointed a Saturday night special at his mother because she wouldn't turn down the TV. But Cade wasn't scared of guns. He didn't like them but he knew how to handle one, and he handled this one with ease. God knew he'd been taught to do it, and seen his father do it—lock and load—find your stance, aim, shoot.

Dennie had shown him five silver bullets that day, he was sure of that, because he remembered her crack all those months ago about five bullets being enough to kill anything that growled in the dark, about how they'd cost a pretty penny. He was only half-listening, hadn't thought much about it then, but silver bullets would have had to be specially made for this old .38. She'd taken the time to find out who made them and bought them because she'd thought she might need to use them.

Why hadn't she told him? He answered the question for himself: Because she didn't want to hear his relentless, dismissive teasing. He placed the gun and the three bullets left back in the manila envelope, leaving them on top of the desk.

Then he went into the kitchen to call Raine.

 

14

raine

I woke up before Cade and lay there watching him sleep like I used to do with Davey when he was a kid, like I used to do with Elan. I thought about how vulnerable men looked when they were laid out like little boys, breathing deep and soft, defenseless against any evil that lurked and snuck their way. Elan's voice came back to me then, that last night we stayed together, Davey kicking hard inside my womb.

Time for him to come out, he'd said, and he rolled on top and kissed me, careful not to hurt the baby, although I'd told him a dozen times that if babies came out that easy, nobody would carry to term, but he was always so gentle about everything, one of the reasons I loved him so. We'd made love then, silently and soft, so as not to wake Anna in the other room, so sure that our love and the baby would make things good for the rest of our lives, no sense of what horror would meet us, crouching in the dark, awaiting its chance. Anna had warned us to take care before the baby was born, and we'd listened but ignored her like we always did, so sure that our love would protect us from everything that could hurt us.

Why hadn't he told me about the dangers? Did he think I would leave him? And maybe I would have, looked out for myself and our baby, gotten away while I could. That had been part of my grief, anger at him for saying nothing, for keeping the secret that he carried inside him, the threat that would destroy him and try to kill our child.

Cade shifted in his sleep, and my thoughts came back to the man beside me, as gentle in his own way as Elan had been. I doubted he believed what I'd told him, although I hoped he did. I doubted he would forgive me now, but I hoped he would do that someday, too. He stirred, reaching out for me, his arm falling against my breast, and I picked up his hand, careful not to wake him, kissed each of his fingertips and eased my body away from him and out of his bed.

Quickly, as soundlessly as I could, I scooped my clothes off the floor and hurried into the bathroom down the hall to change, noticing for the first time the layout of the house. Two bedrooms on this floor, separated by the large bathroom I'd entered. A room for a baby, that second room, the child that would never be born, and for that instant, I thought about climbing back into bed with him, being a part of the life he'd lost that he had seen me returning to him. I had no doubt that grief played into how he felt about me, how could it not? But I knew—and feared—that all I could bring him, me and my son—who was changing daily into someone neither of us would know—was more grief, adding to his sorrow. I'd seen scrap paper on his desk earlier and I crept into the living room to write a short note explaining as much as I could, then went back upstairs and placed it on the bureau so he would see it when he woke up. He slept soundly, his breath even and peaceful. I bent down and kissed him lightly on the lips, whispering good-bye; then I left the house from the back door, glancing once around the kitchen and locking the door behind me.

It was dawn, and the world was bathed in the pink of first light. I paused between Luna's and Cade's homes, pulling the morning air deep inside me as I tried to rid myself of doubts that remained. A new day with new beginnings—each one a chance to renew. I squeezed between the bushes, sat down in the swing, rocking back and forth, letting its rhythm calm me as I waited for the sun to come up.

A new day was here, and I could define how I would live it in any way I choose, a new start for me and Davey, wherever we ended up. I promised myself that I would find a way out of this for both of us, until he was old enough to battle what I now knew he must. But he wasn't old enough yet; I was sure of that, despite what secrets Anna had whispered, perhaps still did. I would find a way.

As soon as Davey was awake, we'd go. It never took him long to get over his anger; he'd be fine by the time he got up. Packing would be easy. I'd stored our bags in Luna's attic, and Davey had outgrown most of his clothes anyway. He'd changed so much in the past few months, I wondered if he'd even want to bring the things he'd packed in the spring. We'd leave what we could with Luna to send to us when we were settled. We'd head north this time. I'd heard the schools were good in Massachusetts, and with Cade's tutoring over the summer, he would find his way. He'd need to say good-bye to Cade, in his own way, or perhaps he'd decide that was too painful, like it had almost been for me. When we settled, when I was sure we were safe, he could write him. Things would work out; they always did. Because as Davey got older, so did the thing that stalked us. He had youth on his side, and if he never fought, never was drawn into a blood battle with it, he would simply outlive it, and that part of his nature might never come out, despite all Anna's warnings and talk of revenge.

But even as I imagined it, I knew it could never be. This was part of Davey and it always would be—boy, youth, man—but he and I together would find a way to control it. This move would give us time, but I knew it would not be the last one, not for a while. I peered through the hedges at Cade's house and remembered the drawings I made of the flowers the day that Davey, so terrified and weeping, had told me it found us. He hadn't heard the dog since then; at least, he hadn't mentioned it. But I had seen it at the carnival, pretending to be something else, and as the sun rose and shone on the backyard, I remembered something else Anna had told me.

They fool you because they move faster than any living thing you can imagine—so fast, it seems they can be in two places at once. One thing one time and someone entirely different each time you look. Because they take over anyone they want to. All they need to do is stare at someone hard to absorb that person into them, become them, wear their skin like it's their own.

And that was what it had done.

Luna was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea, when I came in through the back door.

“I thought you might still be at Cade's.”

“No. I left before morning. I've been sitting outside for a while, just swinging and waiting for the day to start good so I can wake up Davey.”

She held up her cup, as if toasting me. “So it's one for the road?”

“I guess so,” I said, more sadly than I'd meant to, knowing this would be the last time we'd be together like this. Luna turned the kettle on and measured tea into a pot.

“That old swing is going to miss you all, between the two of you, you gave it quite a workout. You know where you're going this time?” She was stirring honey into her tea and avoiding my eyes, and I didn't look into hers when I answered.

“Boston, maybe. Davey likes the Celtics, so maybe he'd like to go there. I don't know, Luna. So much has happened so fast—Cade, my feelings about him, and then that … thing showing up when she did.”

“She?”

“I know who it is,” I said, no longer avoiding her eyes. “I knew it when I saw her in that carnival, but I wasn't sure until you told me she was here.”

“Doba.”

“At first I thought it might be her father, because of the way he was shunned at Anna's funeral and maybe it was at first. He may have killed Elan, maybe the two of them did that together or maybe she killed him alone, but I'm sure it's her.”

Luna drank her tea meditatively, taking little sips like it burned her lips, sipping at it like she had that Bloody Mary when I told her about Davey that night, but when she finally spoke this time, it wasn't with the conviction she'd had then, the certainty that we could beat it. Maybe she knew too much about what we were fighting, or maybe that gift they said everybody in our family had told her what I already knew.