Sarah Allen - The Girl Who Chased the Moon

She took a deep breath of the sweet evening heat, and began to get sleepy.

She only meant to close her eyes for a moment. But she dozed off almost immediately.

WHEN SHE woke up, it was still dark. She blinked a few times, trying to figure out what time it was and how long she’d been asleep.

She looked down and saw the yearbook had fallen from her lap to the leaves on the balcony floor. Her back stiff, she leaned down to retrieve it. When she sat back up, her skin prickled.

The light was back! The light Julia said people thought was a ghost.

Frozen, she watched it in the woodline beyond the old gazebo in Grandpa Vance’s backyard. It didn’t disappear like it had last night. It lingered instead, darting from tree to tree, hesitating in between.

Was it… was it watching her?

She quickly looked next door. There were no lights on. No one to see this but her.

She turned back to the light. What was that?

She made herself stand and slowly walk into her room. She set the yearbook on the bed and paused for a moment. She didn’t know what came over her, but suddenly she took off in a run, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood floors. She slowed down so that she’d be more quiet as she went down the stairs and past Grandpa Vance’s room, but then she took off again. She was briefly foiled by the locked kitchen door, but after fumbling with the lock, she finally opened the door and ran out.

The light was still there! She ran after it, into the wooded area behind the gazebo. The light quickly retreated and she heard footsteps in the leaves.

Footsteps?

Ghosts don’t have footsteps .

After about five minutes of chasing it through the gloomy, moonlit woods, her hands up to swat away the low-hanging branches, it began to occur to her that she had no idea where she was going, or where this patch of trees ended. When the light suddenly disappeared, she felt the first twinge of real worry. What was she doing? But a few more steps and she unexpectedly broke through the trees. She stood there for a moment, out of breath and painfully aware that she was barefoot. She lifted her foot and saw a fine trickle of blood. She’d cut her heel.

Out of the quiet came the distinct sound of a door being closed.

She jerked her head up and looked around and realized she was on the residential end of Main Street, standing in the middle of the park facing the old brick mansions. The woods behind Grandpa Vance’s house must zigzag through other neighborhoods in a crazy labyrinth, ending here, by the bandstand with the crescent moon weathervane. She looked up and down the street, then she looked back into the woods. Surely she saw the light end here?

She limped back home the long way, taking the sidewalks. Her mind was whirling. She couldn’t believe she’d just run through the woods in the middle of the night, chasing a so-called ghost. This was so unlike her.

When she reached Grandpa Vance’s house, she remembered the front door was still locked, so she had to go around back. She saw a hint of light as she walked to the corner.

The back porch light was now on.

Obviously, Grandpa Vance had heard her run out and was waiting for her. She sighed. It took running around at night to get him to come out of his room. How was she going to explain this? She hobbled up to the kitchen porch and almost tripped over something as she approached the door.

She bent and picked up a box of Band-Aids.

A crunching of leaves invaded the quiet, and she turned with a gasp to see the white light disappearing back into the woods, as if it had never left.

And she would also soon discover that Grandpa Vance had slept through everything.

F rom his bedroom window the next morning, Win watched Vance Shelby walk down the sidewalk toward the business end of Main Street. He was an interesting specimen, if you looked at him scientifically. Win didn’t often look at things scientifically. Proof was something he’d learned not to expect from anyone, nor anyone from him. But Vance Shelby looked like a praying mantis, as if biologically suited to grab things, to hide things, to shield. He wouldn’t like Win’s interest in Emily. It was unfortunate, but it couldn’t be avoided.

“Win!” his father called from downstairs. “It’s light. Let’s go.” Win left his room and walked down the long marble staircase to where his father was waiting in the foyer. Although frequently bored, he didn’t mind these outings with his father so much anymore, not like he did when he was a boy. Morgan Coffey liked to get out bright and early to greet shop owners and tourists. From the time Win was about five, Morgan took him with him on these PR treks, to groom him, Win guessed. To let Win know what was expected of him. They went to a different restaurant every morning, where Morgan chatted up everyone. Win just liked the opportunity to get out of the house as soon as possible, at first light. If it had to be with his father, then that was a small price to pay.

“Ready?” Morgan asked when Win met him by the front door.

“If I said no?” Win said as his father opened the door.

Morgan inspected Win, from his red bow tie to his loafers. “You look ready.”

“Then I suppose I am.”

Morgan took a deep breath, reining in his anger. “Don’t get smart with me,” he said.

And Win had to concede that it really was too early in the morning for such antagonism.

They walked down the sidewalk. Vance had disappeared-no easy feat for a giant. This morning, Morgan had decided to go to Welchel’s Diner. When they entered, he scanned the room quickly, then led Win to a table by the door. Morgan liked to greet people as they came in. He liked to zero in on the tourists, on the people he didn’t recognize, first. Win often watched him in awe. For someone so seemingly content with his cloistered life, Morgan Coffey was genuinely thrilled to meet new people. It gave Win hope that, in the end, his father would understand why Win was going to go through with his plans. That’s what these mornings were really about, after all. They might be masked in public relations, but it was really all about acceptance.

Win didn’t know how long they’d been there-not long, he supposed, because their breakfast orders hadn’t arrived yet-when he saw her.

Emily walked past the diner, staring straight ahead, the sunlight at her back. Her arms and legs were long. She didn’t favor her grandfather in any way but this one. But where Vance looked like he’d grown too long, Emily looked… perfect.

Win turned to see if his father had noticed. He hadn’t. In fact, Morgan had left the table without Win even being aware. He was across the room now, shaking hands with someone. Win turned back to the window, leaning forward to watch Emily walk away. With one last look at his father, he took his napkin out of his lap and set it on the table, then he pushed his chair back and quietly slipped out of the diner.

He followed Emily at a distance, noticing she had on flip-flops that morning, and a Band-Aid on her heel. He stopped when she reached the bench outside of J’s Barbecue. She didn’t go in, and he wondered why. She didn’t look faint, like she’d looked yesterday morning. No, she was waiting. Waiting for her grandfather to come out. The gesture was both charming and uncomfortably lonely.

He was only two or three storefronts away from her, close enough for Emily to look up when Inez and Harriet Jones approached him from behind and said in unison, “Hello, Win!”

He returned Emily’s stare before reluctantly turning to Inez and Harriet. They were spinster sisters who lived next door to the Coffey mansion on Main Street. The sisters went everywhere together, wore matching dresses, and carried one purse between them. Long ago, when the Coffeys wanted to put a driveway between the two houses in order to reach the garage behind their house without having to drive around to the next street, the Jones sisters agreed to it on the condition that the Coffeys invite them for drinks every third Tuesday of the month. So, for over thirty years now, the elderly Jones sisters were a fixture on the Coffeys’ couch between four and five o’clock, once a month.