The Waking Moon

Chapter Twenty-One

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I’d been dropped from a building. I’d iced the spider bite the night before, and it was looking better, but my knee was stiff and swollen. Even worse, every breath I took felt like shards of glass against my ribs. My forearm was bruised and likely fractured, so Rhodes splinted it with two rulers, an old sock, and some duct tape.

 His dad, apparently, was a workaholic, and wasn’t likely to be a problem.

“If you actually see him,” Rhodes said, slipping on his trench coat and grabbing his satchel, “you should immediately call the papers. It would be crazier than a sighting of Sasquatch.”

After Rhodes left for school, I picked up the phone in his room to call my dad. I was scared and beaten up and I wanted my daddy. But as I was dialing, it struck me what a bad idea it was. In the first place, we needed money. If it took dad a little time to get it, I shouldn’t drag him back early. But the other problem worried me even more. Dad saw everything through the eyes of a scientist. He called dreams “psychic garbage.” Astrology was “medieval nonsense for airheads.” And people who believed in ghosts were “mentally stunted at summer camp.” He would think I’d lost my mind.

He picked up almost immediately, panicked and loud. When he heard my voice, he sighed dramatically.

“I nearly called the police, Paulie,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve left a hundred messages. I couldn’t track you. Your phone is dead.”

“I’m sorry, dad. Everything’s fine. I stayed at a friend’s house last night. I must’ve left my phone at home.”

“A friend?” he asked, not even bothering to conceal his surprise. “What friend?” I’d been on the outside of things for so long, he probably forgot I was capable of making friends.

“This guy named Rhodes. He goes to Penrose.”

“A guy?” Dad got quiet for a moment. I could almost hear the cogs spinning in his brain, searching for the right thing to say. There’d never been a boy in my life before. “I don’t think your mother would like the sound of that.”

“He’s just a friend,” I said quickly. A friend who’s had to help me out of my clothes. “I swear it. And his dad is here. They have a big house on Wood Avenue with lots of room. I was just a little freaked out at home alone.”

Dad took down Rhodes’s name and address, and told me to call him to check in every night. When I asked whether or not Uncle Dave would loan us the money, he sighed again. “It’s been a long weekend. Just keep your fingers crossed.”

That afternoon, Rhodes left school at lunchtime and drove me home to pack an overnight bag. I was dying to have my own clothes, and I needed to find my cell phone.  But the moment we pulled into my driveway, the hairs pricked up on the back of my neck. I sat in the car staring up at the picture windows, where the curtains had been left open. It was always our habit to close them whenever we went out, and now the house looked strangely vulnerable and exposed.

“What’s up,” Rhodes asked.

“I don’t have a house key,” I said, stupidly, knowing the door would be open.

“Under the doormat?” he said. “Flower pot? Garden gnome? Everybody’s got a hidden key somewhere.”

I shook my head, even though he was right. Mom kept a spare key in the birdhouse hanging from the porch roof. Just get it over with, I told myself. Without a word, I pulled the handle and climbed out of the car. The towering blue spruce had lost its symmetry, with the shade side gone ragged under branch-loads of frozen snow. A small band of grackles foraged on the patchy, yellow lawn. I took a deep breath and headed up the steps of the side porch, treading carefully over the ice patches clinging to the paint-chipped concrete.