Sarah Allen - The Girl Who Chased the Moon

“She takes them to Sawyer,” Stella said.

“Does he eat all that cake?” Emily asked.

“Don’t worry. He burns it all off.” Stella looked shocked at herself. “Erase that. You didn’t hear that. Crap. I need a glass of wine. Remember, do as I say, not as I do.”

Emily liked sitting on the back porch with Stella after Julia left, the slow pace of the day as it turned into evening, waiting to go eat dinner with her grandfather. Stella would sometimes talk about Emily’s mother. She was a champion storyteller and had a wild past, which was a great combination. Emily never sensed that Stella was anything but happy with her life as it was now. She got the feeling the stories were worth more than Stella’s desire to go back and do anything differently.

As she headed back home that evening, she realized that, if possible, the heat made things in Mullaby move even slower. There were still plenty of tourists, but the neighborhoods were quiet, with only the occasional hum of a window fan or air conditioner gliding from houses as she passed them. It was as if everyone was in stasis, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, that night, it did.

A terrific thunderstorm erupted just as darkness fell. It came on so strong that Emily and Vance had to race around the house closing the windows. They laughed as they did so, making a game of it, then they stood on the front porch and watched the sheets of rain. The ending of that day felt like she was coming to the end of a story, and suddenly Emily felt sad. She made excuses to stay up with Grandpa Vance. They played cards and looked through photo albums Vance magically produced, full of photos of her mother.

Finally, Grandpa Vance said he was tired and she reluctantly said good night to him. She went upstairs and walked into her room, and realized that she’d forgotten to close her balcony doors. Rain was flying in and the floor was soaked. She spent nearly an hour wiping down the floor, the doors, the walls, and all the nearby furniture. She dropped all the wet towels in the bathtub, then stripped out of her wet clothes.

She put on a cotton nightgown and fell into bed. The temperature had dropped sharply, and it felt almost decadent to cover herself with a sheet. The clatter of drops against the windows on the balcony doors sounded like raining coins.

A few hours later, she woke up as she was unconsciously kicking the sheet off. Everything was quiet, a strange sort of quiet that felt like an unfinished sentence. The storm had passed and it was uncomfortably hot in her room now.

She opened her eyes and saw that moonlight was now filtering in through the gaps in the curtains on the closed balcony doors. She slowly got out of bed and went to the doors to open them. The limbs of the trees were so heavy with rainwater that some of them almost touched the balcony floor. The heat of a typical Southern summer night was back, the humidity oppressive, but the moonlight reflecting on the wet surfaces made the neighborhood look like it was coated in ice.

All this had been so foreign at first. She hadn’t known, when she’d first arrived, that she would grow to love this place like she did.

There were a lot of things she hadn’t known when she’d first arrived.

Strange and wondrous things.

The light from the moon shone along the door casing and spread across the walls a few inches inside, far enough for her to suddenly notice that the phases-of-the-moon wallpaper she’d been living with all week was gone. It was a now curious dark color she couldn’t quite make out, punctuated by long strips of yellow. It looked almost like dark doors and windows opening, letting in light. The wallpaper was usually some reflection of her mood or situation, but what did this mean? Some new door was opening? Something was being set free?

When she finally realized what it meant, she spun around, her eyes darting around the room until she found him.

Win was sitting on the couch opposite her bed. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.

“My punishment ended as of midnight,” he said.

Her heart began to race. It was so good to see him. And yet, she felt unexpectedly awkward. “So… so you were just going to sit there until I woke up?”

“Yes.” He stood. It made a swishing sound in the silence. He walked to the balcony doors. She was standing in a square of moonlight, and he stopped just short of it, like it was a line he couldn’t cross.

“I’d almost forgotten what you looked like,” she said, joking. A bad joke. Why was she so nervous?

Because he had almost kissed her .

“I spent all my time remembering what you looked like,” he said seriously.

“I had people hammering and sawing and mowing all around me. It was hard to concentrate.”

He gave her a funny look. “That’s your excuse?”

“And there’s no air-conditioning in this house. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when you don’t have air-conditioning?” She needed to stop, but couldn’t seem to.

“Your grandfather had the largest limb of the oak that stretched to your balcony cut down. I had a hell of a time getting up here this time.”

That finally drew her up short. She stared at him in the shadow. “How many times have you come up here?”

“A few.”

She suddenly thought back to the day she’d arrived in Mullaby. “The day I arrived, my bracelet on the table…”

“I knew you were coming in that day,” he said. “I was curious about you. I found the bracelet on the front walk.”

“You don’t have to sneak in here anymore,” she said. “Everything’s out in the open now, right?”

His answer was to step into the light in front of her, so close they almost touched.

Nothing happened at first. But then, like it was growing so hot it became white, the glow around him started to blaze. She looked up at him and he was watching her closely.

“I lied,” she whispered.

He looked concerned and started to step back. “About what?”

She reached out and stopped him. “About forgetting what you looked like. I could never forget this. I will never forget this,” she said. “Not in all my life.”

He smiled and took her face in his hands.

Then he finally kissed her.

M addie Davis adjusted the backpack on her shoulder as she walked down the sidewalk. She’d arrived in Mullaby yesterday and was staying at the Inn on Main Street. Her parents had arranged it. She’d wanted to do this alone, but she understood that her parents were worried, and if paying for her stay at a swanky inn made them feel better, then she would suffer through it and diligently eat the chocolate put on her pillow every night.

She hadn’t slept well the night before. The full moon had poured through the window in her room, and she’d spent most of the night curled up in a chair, staring at the park across the street from the inn. At breakfast, the innkeeper had told her that the full moon in August was called the Sturgeon Moon. It made people restless, she’d said, like there was too much to do, too many fish to catch.

After breakfast, Maddie had talked to her mom and had tried to keep it light. But her mother had still sounded nervous. “Maybe my sarcasm will finally be explained,” Maddie had joked. “Maybe it’s simply hardwired. That means it’s not your fault.” Her mother hadn’t laughed. Maddie should have known. Her parents were the kindest people she knew, but they didn’t share Maddie’s sense of humor. She’d learned early on to temper her smart mouth around them.