Chapter Eight

It was cold.

 

Todd turned on the tall, alien space heaters on the back patio and the green, glowing lights in the pool. Some people dipped their feet into the heated water. Others sat with their hands splayed out behind them, staring up into the night sky.

 

Craig needed to see this to the end now. He stood off to the side, as far away as possible, and was not missed by the other guests. With the moon already half-shaded by the shadow of the Earth, already darkening, making fun of him was no longer the distraction needed. He stood, staring in half-horror at the spectacle.

 

But, beyond the fear, was awe. The moon was dying, being dragged into the dark abyss of night, a veil being dragged across its face, but there was something beautiful in the stoic nature of its downfall. Stars that were hardly seen by the city dwellers were suddenly appearing as the moon’s bright face dimmed, its large life allowing for the life of a myriad smaller others. The moon, then, as martyr.

 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

 

Craig turned to find a shockingly beautiful woman standing next to him. She was about his height with pale white skin that seemed to glow in the diminishing moonlight. Her hair was either dark brown or black, it was hard to tell. But, it was her eyes that captivated him when he turned to her. They were a dark golden color, the color of honey, a clear auburn brown.

 

“Uh yes,” he said.

 

She’d startled him but for some reason he wasn’t embarrassed by her. There was a kinship that was instant. Of all the people at the party -

 

But had she been at the party? How could he have not noticed her before? It was impossible. She must have slipped in when he wasn’t paying attention, another late arrival like Mathew. He would have noticed someone like her.

 

“An auspicious night, don’t you think? Anything can happen on a night like tonight,” she said.

 

Craig nodded.

 

“Yes, I suppose you could look at it like that,” he said.

 

Her head tilted to one side and she smiled at him. It sent a thrill through him but he didn’t have the presence of mind to turn away from her.

 

“How would you look at it?” she asked.

 

“As bad omens, omens of death. Red blood on the moon, the moon dying, the longest night of the year, and all of it happening during the mockery of the miracle hour. How can you not see it as portending doom?” he asked. There was no hostility in his voice with her, not with her, but curiosity.

 

She laughed.

 

Was this what it was like to fall in love? He didn’t know. There had never been a woman in his life - or a man, for that matter - that had made him feel this sense of kismet.

 

There had been the fixation, now he saw it for what it was, a fixation with no passion or substance, with Fiona, but that was nothing. When she laughed, her voice twinkling like the stars, he knew that later on he would say that was when he knew.

 

“You could see it that way, but that‘s so dreary, don‘t you thin? After all, without death there couldn‘t be life, right, so isn‘t death just the beginning of life?” she asked. She looked up at the moon, now almost entirely gone, a sliver of it still pale and gleaming.

 

“You see the moon dying, and maybe she is, but we are born in blood, aren’t we? She could be being born. And the sun, sure today is the longest night of the year, but how grateful we are for the few moments of daylight,” she said.

 

Craig stared at the woman, stunned to silence by her, and also wanting, almost needing, to contradict her. Yet, there was nothing to contradict. She was saying what he knew and what he’d been saying all along, only the reverse.

 

“It’s happening,” she said.

 

The moon was now completely covered and shone a dull red like old blood, a film of dusty, almost shimmering, red. Craig wasn’t watching the moon, now. He was watching her with her pale face still glowing white though everyone else was suffused with the bloodstain.

 

“You’re not watching,” she said. She turned to him and smiled.

 

“You’re right,” he said.

 

She paused for a moment and watched him. There was a moment as the moon hovered between life and death and in that moment, Craig hovered. He watched her.

 

“You want to leave? All this? All your friends?” she asked, quietly.

 

Craig looked at all of the people who, he supposed, might be confused for friends. They were all frozen as they watched the spectacle, not even laughing now, not talking, but watching the moon with that thrill of supernatural wonder. For a moment, in each of their otherwise logical and scientific minds, the mystical was touched and they wondered if the moon might not come back. They were holding their breath.

 

“They never understood me,” he said. There was no self-pity in the statement. It was simply a statement of fact. They never had understood him. “I feel more comfortable with you, though. I feel like I’ve known you a long time.”

 

He wanted to add the word intimately at the end of the sentence but she was a lady and he didn’t wish to be rude.

 

She smiled at him and touched his arm. She was cold but he knew better than to offer her a jacket.

 

“It would be nicer if more people saw me as you did,” she said.

 

He blushed slightly.

 

“I see you as you are,” he said. “An angel.”

 

“Of mercy?” she asked. Her impish face was tilted in a half-joke and he chuckled with her.

 

“If you wish. But, you’re an angel nonetheless. To me, the Angel of Life,” he said.

 

There was no humor in her smile then, only gratitude. It had been a long time since someone said that to her. A very long time.

 

“Shall we, then?” she asked.

 

He nodded. He took her by the arm, as a gentleman should, though she was leading, and they walked out passed the others. If the moon was ever reborn, it was nothing to either of them.

 

Craig was finally alive.