Wolf Moon: A Grazi Kelly Novel: Chapter One

CHAPTER 1

“Mama, tell me again. Please Mama, tell me, tell me, tell meeee!” My voice sounded childish even to my ears. I must have been only two or three. I could almost make out my mother’s face, but it remained infuriatingly blurry. I snuggled down in my tiny bed with its pink and white quilt. My favorite rubber ducky was on the pillow next to my head and I held my little hand sewn rag doll tightly in my chubby little hands. I loved that house. My room was pink and white and there was always a mess of toys scattered across the floor, but Mama never seemed to mind. She and Daddy would get down on the floor with me and play princesses anytime I wanted.

“Okay, okay. Ti amo, Maria bella, ti amo del mare alla stella!” Her soft chestnut hair tickled my face as she bent to tuck me in. I giggled. My mother smiled and kissed me several times on my cheek. I could feel her. I clutched at her with my tiny hands and breathed her in. I loved her smell, baby powder and Ivory soap and just Mama. She took my hands gently from around her neck and kissed both of them before placing them on the blanket.

“Tell me what it means, mama! Tell me, tell me! Pleeease!”

“I will, I will. Hush now, my baby.” She tucked in the blanket all around me and placed the statue of Mary on my nightstand, “Okay, now. You all snug, good! It means I love you, my beautiful Maria, from the sea all the way up to the stars!”

“I love you too, mama! Up to the stars!”

“I know, baby, I know. I love you so much! Now you must promise me that you’ll run when I tell you, Maria! Run, Maria! Run! Run! RUN!”

Cold sweat clung to me as I sprang up in my bed. My hands tangled in my long loose hair as I struggled to turn on my bedside lamp. This was a recurring dream or nightmare or both. I guess it depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes I was so grateful for it and other times I’d just be so frustrated I couldn’t fall back asleep. I never understood why I couldn’t see her face. I mean I had photos of her, I know what she looked like, but in my dream I never saw my mother’s face. But her voice, that I heard perfectly. I could hear her as clearly as if she was in the room. Her voice yelling for me to run would sometimes ring in my ears for hours. Weird, but not the weirdest thing to happen to me. I guess I should introduce myself.

My name is Maria Graziana Kelly. People call me Grazi (grah-tzee). I am trying to make sense of everything that has happened to me over the last few months. How I became the person I am now. A good story has a great beginning. Something that draws you in. Well, I am not trying to impress anyone. Nor am I drawing anyone in to some sort of fictional world. This is real. I guess you could consider my tale a warning. There are things out there. Things you and I never dreamed existed.

At a time like this I always go with the classics. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” That’s my absolute favorite Shakespeare quote. Good old Hamlet. Of course the first time I read it I had no idea how right he was. There was a time I could lose myself in a good play or book and forget the world. Escape from all my so-called problems. You know what I mean. Family, high school, my social life or lack thereof. I should start at the beginning. Give you a little background info.

Both of my parents are dead. My cousin is right when she calls me an orphan. Technically I am one. Mom and dad both died when I was three. I don’t remember much about them, but I try. My recurring dream about my mother started when I was about nine. It used to happen only once in a while, but it picked up in frequency as I got older. I live in a suburb in northern New Jersey with my grandmother, Nonna Rosa. It was just us for a few years. Then about eight years ago my Uncle Vito and his family came to live with us when they lost their house down the shore due to a freak hurricane. It was supposed to be temporary, but here we all are. We share a renovated Victorian house on a cul de sac. Vinyl siding, huge yard, white privacy fence, the works.

Nonna Rosa is my maternal grandmother. I never met any of my dad’s family. I know he was Irish, that’s about it. Anyway, she came to the U.S. from a small town in Southern Italy when she was just a kid. She’s a devout Roman Catholic and has taken great pains to educate her family in the tradition of her faith. I have been in Catholic school since pre-k. The same school my mother and uncle both attended. We go to Mass every Sunday, holidays, and all of the Holy days. Our parish priest, Fr. Verrell, is a frequent presence in our house. Nonna and he often play checkers or cards. He comes to most of our holiday dinners. Not that I blame him, my grandmother can seriously cook.

We keep Climbing Clouds in our front yard. They’re these tiny white roses that burst out all over, like clouds. The bushes surround this three foot high, blue and white plaster statue of the Holy Virgin Mary. My grandmother loves those roses. We keep the shrubs immaculately trimmed and weeded. There is another statue of Mary in our back yard garden. That’s where Nonna grows rows and rows of organic vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Every spring Julianna and I, mostly I, weed and till the dark soil until Nonna tells us it is ready for planting. And every fall we bring in our modest harvest. It was almost harvest time and there I was working away another Saturday morning.

“You can finish this, I am so outta here,” Julianna threw down the rake and her gardening gloves on one of the benches we had set up in the yard. She stormed off without another glance. She hated yard work and gardening. She always complained about having to do the same chores as me. She's a year older than I am, a junior to my sophomore. The only thing she likes about the Catholic high school we attend is that it happens to be coed. Her father told her he was going to send her to an all- girl academy when she graduated from grammar school and she had a fit.

I picked up her stuff and put it back in the storage shed. At least now I’d have some peace while I worked. Even though I am technically a sophomore I placed out of American Literature and Algebra II so I take both classes with the juniors. That means I get the joy of her company for most of my classes at school too. Sr. Diane, our principal, said if I tried hard enough I may be able to graduate early, but I’m not sure I want to. Julianna hates that too. She either ignores me or knocks my books down when we have class together. I try and sit in the back, keep my head down, but it doesn't matter. The teachers call on me and I answer. I don't see the point in not answering or trying to get it wrong. Some things just come easy to me.

English Lit is my favorite class. Mrs. Theodore, my teacher, is a middle aged woman with cat eyed glasses like you see in fifties movies. She has short brown hair and wears a different color sweater set every day with a long khaki skirt underneath. “Pop quiz,” are her favorite words. A chorus of groans usually follows. I don’t mind, but then again I am probably the only student who ever finishes the required reading. Anyway pop quizzes never bothered me though I admit that teachers get pretty creepy when they announce them. One side of Mrs. Theodore’s mouth, which was usually coated in an unflattering shade of orange lipstick, tended to curve up into a mockery of a smile whenever she uttered those words. It was enough to send any student of hers running down the hall and screaming for help. Not that any resorted to that, just average looks of horror and disgust.

That very first week of my sophomore year we had a pop quiz in English Lit. I looked at my sheet of loose leaf to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes and wrote a five paragraph essay comparing and contrasting the Bronte sisters. Our summer reading had been Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I will cop to totally loving them both. In fact I had finished both books before the second week of summer. I completed the quiz in all of fifteen minutes. Mrs. Theodore let me go early with a pointed glare after grilling me on the benefits of taking one’s time when preparing a writing assignment. I waited for her to finish then left class and walked down the empty corridor straight to study hall. An hour later I saw Julianna at lunch. She knocked my tray over. An accident of course. Soggy pizza and milk are a pretty sorry excuse for lunch anyway. That was about as bad as one of my days could get. But that was when things were ordinary. When I was ordinary.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when my life changed. But looking back on it, I would have to say it all started that Saturday in the backyard. Julianna had stormed off about ten minutes after starting and I was weeding the herb garden. The sun was beating down on my shoulders and I wished for the hundredth time I had worn a tank top that morning instead of a black t-shirt. It was, after all, September and should have been cooler. But this was one of the driest, hottest summers we had ever had. Nonna called it an “Indian summer”. Not politically correct, I know, but according to Google it was an apt description. Every time I turned on the TV, local anchors reported on the drought and how it was affecting the entire Garden State. The price of eggplant and blueberries around the world had already skyrocketed. Nonna's prize winning tomatoes were shriveled and hard this year and I, I couldn't tell the weeds from the herbs. Everything was brittle and the same shade of pale yellowish green. Not the vibrant dark leaves I was used to. I did my best, but didn’t feel like I was accomplishing much.

"Maria, come have some iced tea, cara," Nonna called from the large wrap around porch my Uncle Vito had built himself. Seven years old and it still looked as if he had just finished laying the wood. I know this because every year I helped clean it with a power washer, sand it down, and slather it with a natural stain in the few weekends of sunshine we had after Easter and before Memorial Day. Every year I worked by my uncle’s side and listened to him grumble about the blood and sweat he put into the thing just to make his wife happy. And you guessed it, she never even sat out there. Aunt Theresa was never happy. At least never when I was around.

I was grateful for the respite and ambled over. I took my gardening gloves off before I extended my hand to take the cool glass from Nonna’s wrinkled old one. Such strength she had in such a delicate looking hand. I’ve seen her weed, plant, clean, cook, sew, heal, nurture, and pray with those hands. She smiled at me and brushed my damp hair from my forehead. I drank the sweetened tea with its delicate hint of our homegrown mint and fresh lemon juice.

"Where is your cousin? She helped already, si?"

"Sure, Nonna, Julianna helped before she went to cheering," I spoke the fib with practiced ease. I usually tried to avoid confrontations and if it meant a white lie here or there to spare my grandmother then fine. Lying never sat very well with me, but confrontations were worse and I didn’t want to fight with my cousin over some weeding.

"No, my girl, she left you to do it alone again, huh? My poor girl, always the good one. Well, that is that. Anything we could salvage nel giardino?" She nodded towards the herbs and I didn't have the heart to tell her we'd never get a decent harvest this year.

"Maybe, Nonna. Let’s wait and see if it rains this weekend."

"We can put the hose on at night. Mrs. Kelly can mind her own business, you know!"

I hid a smile and kissed Nonna on her head. Her mostly white hair was cut short and the springy curls brushed my cheek. I love my grandmother with all my heart. She became both mother and father to me when I lost my own parents. I love her Italian accent and the way she said my name, mah-rree-ah. She made it sound pretty. I love her food! She had to be the best cook around. Especially her Sunday sauce and homemade manicotti. I love the way she yelled out all the wrong answers while watching Jeopardy and the way she sang off key while she cooked. It is important for you to know this because defying her was something I never thought possible.

I mean I would do anything for her, but she was right. Mrs. Kelly, no relation, would report us to the neighborhood watch if we put on our sprinkling system or even our small gardening hose. We were in a drought and were not allowed to use our water for anything other than the necessities. Washing the car, watering the lawn or garden, even filling pools were prohibited during a drought.

I glanced at our yard and over the fence at our neighbor’s yard. It was sad really. Lawns that were once green and lush were brown and dry around the whole county. Probably the whole state. Nonna took my glass and shooed me off to finish the weeding. I pulled my gloves back on and got back to it. The sun was unforgiving. It beat down on me in my t-shirt and jeans relentlessly. I hadn’t seen a cloud in weeks. During the next hour I made sure the unusually tiny sections of basil, oregano, fennel, chives, rosemary, thyme and sage were weeded and the wire fence to keep animals out was secure. Yes, we get all kinds of animals in New Jersey, deer, rabbits, squirrels, cats, crows, even the occasional black bear. I never understood those jokes about the New Jersey Turnpike. I mean, yes, there are seriously industrialized parts of the state, but it is also one of the country’s leaders in many areas of farming. I lived in a suburb and only saw the turnpike when we went to the beach, which was maybe once a year. I ran my hand along the brittle leaves of a lemon verbena plant and walked to get the watering can. I used the last of the barrel of rainwater on the herbs, but it was nowhere near enough.

Scanning the sorry rows of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and eggplant I shook my head. Usually this garden was bursting to life. Bright colors and poignant fragrances. Not this year. Despite all the Novenas she prayed and the statues of St. Patrick and St. Fiacre that Uncle Vito added to the garden there had been no rain for weeks. It seemed as if there would be no end to this dry hot summer. Nonna even had Fr. Verrell over twice to bless the statues and the garden itself. That night she was going over to our Church, the Church of the Sacred Heart, for a special Mass and as usual I would accompany her. In retrospect I can say that Nonna seemed anxious. Tense even. Early that morning I had found her hanging several bundles of sage and fennel stalks in the kitchen on her drying rack before we left. Some bunches from our garden, but more she had bought. I should have guessed something was up then. Nonna never bought anything she could grow.

I always enjoyed going to Mass with Nonna. She kept a roll of cherry lifesavers in the huge black leather purse that she carried. After receiving Communion she'd shove one of those sweet red candies at me. She whispered under her breath in a mixture of Latin, English and Italian. In her hands she’d hold her ancient rope of rosary beads, made from black pearls worn smooth by years of prayer. When I was small she would let me hold them and as I got older she showed me how to pray to the Virgin Mother. I was named for Mary, the Graziana part was a thank you to Mary that I was born happy and healthy. Nonna told me I should always be proud of my name. As long as I can remember any time I even thought of Church I thought of cherry lifesavers and pearl rosary beads.

Some of the girls at school started wearing rosary beads as an accessory the first week of school. Sr. Diane put an end to that real fast. She held all of the female students after school in the library and had us research the origins of rosary beads and why they were not to be worn as decoration. Sacrilege if she ever saw it. Julianna was one of those girls and she was not happy that her newest accessory was off limits. I happened to enjoy the research. I had never heard the story about a twelfth century saint, Saint Dominic, who was given the first Rosary by an apparition of the Holy Virgin Mary. It was an amazing story. I have prayed the Rosary many times with my grandmother. Repeating the devotional prayers sometimes helped me to clear my mind. Whenever I thought of my parents and how much I missed them Nonna told me to pray. She believed praying would help me through my anger and my need for answers. I wasn’t always so sure, but I tried.

After my weeding was finished I headed inside for a shower. There wasn't much I could do to help the garden, but maybe a few prayers would help at Church. I was a little dubious, but I’d go. I mean praying was great, though my way was a little more unorthodox. It was like mental texting, but you know not to a friend from school or anything, to God. Or more often than not, to my parents, who according to Nonna, were angels in Heaven. You know, fighting the good fight against the devil and his minions. At the time I had no idea that she actual meant that. When I prayed it usually went like this:

So yeah, it's me again. Idk if u have the time or anything, b if u could send a little rain this way to make Nonna happy I'd appreciate it. I miss u guys. Wish u were here or I was there but u know just for a visit. School is good. I got an A on my summer reading report. Btw I was looking at ur wedding photo today. I have it framed on my wall, it’s so awesome. Mom u look like a movie star with all that make-up and sequins and lace and dad ur hair was soo long and blonde. I am still trying to figure out which one of you I look like. Nonna says I look like you mom. It’s hard for me to see it tho. I wish you could answer me. I wish-, well anyway, I love you. Ttyl xoxo

It may sound lame, but I always felt like they could hear me. I crept upstairs trying to block out the yelling coming from my aunt’s and uncle’s room. They had been fighting for months now. Aunt Theresa was always harping on him for one reason or other. Uncle Vito would rather be fiddling with his plants than trying to get into the Morris Garden Country Club which was just about all Aunt Theresa wanted out of life. It was a recurring fight. That and me of course. My mother was Uncle Vito’s little sister and he always had a smile and kind word for me. Aunt Theresa on the other hand hated me. I never really understood why, but she pretty much ignored my existence. I wish her daughters would do the same. Rebecca was only ten and she was already a brat. Julianna hated me with a burning passion. Now I just tried to ignore them, but I didn’t always feel that way. When they first moved in I was thrilled. I thought I would finally have a best friend, but Julianna despised me from the very second she laid her perfect blue eyes on me. I learned to hide that it hurt my feelings at a very early age.

That evening Nonna and I went to pray the Novena the Church was holding to end the drought. I love the smell of Church, incense and candles. The stained glass windows gleamed after having been scrubbed and I could smell the wood polish used on the curved, solid oak pews. The Church held a fundraiser a few years ago and had all of the pews reupholstered. Every August they were cleaned with a rug cleaner. I swear I could still smell the shampoo they used on the sturdy maroon fabric even though it had been cleaned weeks ago. I made sure the kneeler was down and Nonna and I knelt and got ready for the prayers to begin. I noticed Fr. Verrell had a new priest on the altar with him. He was youngish for a priest, in his late thirties maybe. He was blonde haired and blue eyed. He didn’t speak during services, but his gaze never seemed to leave us. I thought it must be because I was the only person there under sixty. Nonna had gone rigid at the sight of him.

“Maria, pass me the prayer book,” I did as she asked, but wondered why she needed one. Nonna knew the Rosary by heart. She never missed a Mass or prayer service. I watched her as she refused to make eye contact with the altar. I had never seen her like this. She spent the rest of Mass purposely ignoring the new priest. Now, normally she’d seek out new members of the clergy and introduce herself and invite them over for a Sunday dinner, but not this time. After Mass ended she grabbed my hand and pulled me outside to wait for Uncle Vito. We didn’t even wait in line to speak to Fr. Verrell. I shrugged, she must be really worried about the damage the drought was doing to the garden. I didn’t know any better yet.

Reviews

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

Love the style
Love your story write more

[M. Mae Ringquist]

I read the chapter and then read it again. You make it clear and easy to read, there is no questions to be asked when it concerns what you are trying to say. I only have on e problem wit it, and that is the speed. I know that my writing go's really fast, sometimes to fast, but your story takes to long to get to the story. You spend to long with intro. and take forever to actually start the story. I know it sounds like I hate the story but I don't, I love the story and want to read more! Keep writing!