A little holiday gift for my blogger friends who might not have read my novel, "When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing," yet:
Natalie hadn't realized how close the holidays were until
Bobbie invited her to go home with her for Thanksgiving. She declined, but
started to think about Christmas. She was saddened to realize that her
Christmas list had only three entries: Bobbie, Mildred and Henry, and Dr.
Persky and his wife. By the time she decided what to get each of them, the ink
had started to run in the tears that kept falling on the paper. Christmas must be the worst time of year when you've lost someone. She thought of a dozen things she'd
like to get Grammy, but Grammy wasn't going to be here this Christmas or any
Christmas for the rest of Natalie's life.
When Natalie dropped off Dr. and Mrs. Persky's gift about a
week before Christmas, they invited her to spend Christmas with them. “My
sister has children just your age,” said Mrs. Persky, “and I know she'd love to
have you.”
Natalie had turned down an invitation from Bobbie, and she
turned this one down also. Her mood, she feared, would just ruin the holidays
for anyone around her. She mailed a package to Mildred and Henry, then went
home and sat alone in her apartment listening to the silence. Most of the other
tenants had gone to visit family and friends. Even traffic sounds had
diminished, since most of the people living in this area were students. She
tried to study, but couldn't concentrate. Why
am I so restless? “Because you're lonely, you idiot,” she said aloud. “See,
you're even talking to yourself.” Finally she threw her books aside, “Oh, the
hell with it.”
She
went into the bedroom and got the metal box out from under the bed. Taking it
into the living room, she dumped it in the middle of the floor. Then she put
all the birth certificates, marriage licenses, and other legal papers together
in one stack and the letters in another. She arranged the letters from earliest
to latest postmarks and started to read.
Most
of the letters were chit-chat: births, deaths, marriages. Some of them sounded
as if they were written in a kind of code, as if the writer feared someone
besides Grammy was reading them, and occasionally it sounded as if one was
missing. Not unlikely, coming out of Russia back then. Finally
Natalie came to a letter not more than ten years old that seemed more than a
little strange.
It
is good that you raise your granddaughter so carefully, but I beg you, tell her
soon of the Family. If she should come into the Inheritance without
understanding what is happening, it could be very dangerous for her, you know
this. She must be taught soon how to control its comings and goings so she can
protect herself.
As
for the questions you now ask, even I do not know much of these matters. I must
recommend that you write to another cousin who is a Keeper of the Family. I
regret that she does not know English, but she does know German, and I recall
that you know that language also.
There
followed an explanation of how to get in touch with the cousin who was Keeper
of the Family. The whole thing about the Family and the Inheritance struck
Natalie as melodramatic, but the letter that now interested Natalie was the
thick envelope that came from the named cousin. It was, indeed, written in
German, and while Grammy's German had been quite good, Natalie's was barely
adequate. She went to her bookcase and found the German-English dictionary left
from her undergraduate courses and started the struggle.
Ilona has written to me of your problem and
your interest in the history of the Family. I first must say that I agree with
her that you must soon tell your granddaughter of the Family lest she by
accident discover the Inheritance. You have had good luck that it has not
happened already. It is very important that she understand what she is. Beware
especially the full moon.
How
the Family came into the Inheritance is hidden in time. I heard different tales
from different Keepers when I was young. Some say it just happened. Others say
we have been here since the beginning of time. One story is that long ago our
ancestor lived in Persia, where he angered an ancient king. The king ordered a
witch to curse him and all his descendants. He fled into the savage lands to
the north, but at the next full moon the curse afflicted him. Still, he
married, some say to the daughter of the king who was the cause of the curse,
and had many children, and for years it seemed that was the end of it. But when
cousins married, several of their children inherited the curse. Many bands of
marauders roamed that area then, but seldom did one attack their villages
because of the stories of what happened to those who molested the villagers.
They
say that for a long time the Family was feared but respected. Then, as
Christianity spread across Europe, some called us Children of Satan, and many
of us died at the hands of priests. There is another story about two young men
of the Family in those times...
Natalie
stood up and stretched. She was surprised to discover that she had been working
for two hours. The hard work of translating was more than offset by the strange
story that was unfolding. A curse that worked like a recessive gene, an
Inheritance that helped the Family protect their neighbors, then was turned
against them. Children of Satan.
Well, people who had epilepsy used to be thought of as possessed by demons.
Natalie picked the letter back up and continued.
Nikolai
and Alexei were members of the Family who had the Inheritance. They were raised
on neighboring farms and were very close. When they were youths and had just
come into the Inheritance, they ran together in the forests near their homes. As
young men, Nikolai married a young woman of the Family who did not have the
Inheritance, Alexei fell in love with one of the village girls, and she loved
him in return though she knew what he was.
Then
one night Alexei was running alone and was seen by a farmer who was a follower
of the priests. The farmer made the mistake of attacking Alexei with his
scythe. In defending himself, Alexei killed the farmer. Alexei was heartsick.
This was proof, he thought, that he was, indeed, a Child of Satan as the priests
said. If his soul had not been lost when he was born or the first time he
changed, it most certainly was lost now. He could not take his own life, so he
decided that the only way to atone for his sin was to spend the rest of his
life in a nearby monastery. The monks there were as much of the old religion as
the new, and they would protect him. He said good-bye to his beloved Katerina.
But
when he went to say good-bye to Nikolai, his boyhood companion told him he was
a fool, that he had only been protecting himself. “Katerina's father will give
her to some rich, old farmer and she will spend her life bearing children for a
man she does not love.” He told Alexei that his newborn son had been born early
and with hair on his body and that he would raise him to be proud of the
Inheritance. And he said, “We are as much creations of God as mankind is. But
if the priests will not let us serve God, I and my family will surely serve
Satan.”
The
legend says that Alexei spent the rest of his life in the monastery and lived
to be very old. Katerina was given to a rich farmer and bore many children. She
was a dutiful wife and a good mother, but very sad, especially when there was a
full moon. Nikolai and his wife had many children also, but because of his
pride, he let himself be seen one night by a priest, who gathered the villagers
and hunted him and his son and killed them and burned their bodies. Then they
gathered the rest of the family and burned them. As the flames caught around
her skirts, the oldest daughter cursed them in the names of God and Satan.
Within a year, the plague swept across Europe and everyone in the village died.
Natalie
put down the letter. Gooseflesh played up and down her arms. She had been born
early and covered with hair. She remembered Grammy saying that. Natalie had
thought nothing of it because premature babies are sometimes born fuzzy. The
hair falls off in a few weeks. But this Inheritance was serious enough to have
gotten an entire family murdered by fear-crazed villagers. What could it be?
Whatever it was made Alexei powerful enough to kill a man who was armed with a
scythe and the villagers frightened enough to burn women and children at the
stake. Alexei thought his soul might have been lost the first time he changed.
They talked about the villagers as mankind, as if they were something
different. And at the beginning of the letter, the Keeper had said, “Beware
especially the full moon.”
Natalie
suppressed a giggle. No, it couldn't be what she was thinking. That was a silly
story to frighten children, not something a modern young woman would even
consider. This “Family” had played a cruel joke on Grammy. In anger, she swept
the papers and letters up and threw them into the box. But as she did, a paper
folded in a small square dropped out of them onto the floor. Natalie stared at
it. On the outside was written “by Ursula Kisel.” Natalie's hands trembled as
she picked it up. It was old and fragile, and she unfolded it carefully to
discover a short poem written in a small, neat hand:
The midnight moon, icy
white,
Rides the clouds across the
night.
Its leering face is full
tonight
Above a world misty bright.
The whimpering wind is damp
and cold,
Laden with stench of leafy
mold.
Brown leaves race across
the stone,
Chased by demons of their
own.
In those of us who bear the
curse,
Again awakes the ancient
thirst.
The changing swells within
our breasts
As, howling, were-men turn
to beasts.
In
a kind of collage, the events of the last couple of
months flashed through her mind, and she remembered. She remembered climbing out the window at Grammy’s house
and running under the full moon, and she remembered leaving the lab that first
night under the full moon. She remembered the two men stalking her across the
parking lot, reaching for her as she shook with terror, and her satisfied rage
as she turned and attacked. And she knew what the figure beside her name meant.
Natalie
rose weakly and stumbled to her desk. Somewhere, she remembered, she had a
calendar that showed the phases of the moon. She dumped the desk drawer onto
the floor.
The
calendar wasn't there. She started emptying the bookshelves, casting the books
onto the sofa, the coffee table, the floor. Finally she found it and flipped
through the pages until she found December and the next full moon. It would be
tomorrow night.
Available for Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/886lsrv
and for Nook at http://tinyurl.com/7zn72bz
