Waking the Moon

Hasel laughed. “Shave you? Man, there’s nothing left to shave—”

I walked over to him. “Oliver,” I murmured, and touched his poor ravished scalp. I thought it would feel prickly and rough, but it was soft, the little hairs like velvet. “Jesus. Looks like you got a haircut the hard way.”

Oliver tilted his head. Unexpectedly he flashed one of his crazy smiles, then grabbed me and hugged me to him, held me so tight I couldn’t breathe, so tight I could feel his heart slamming against his chest as though it would fly out and into my body like a bird seeking shelter. I could smell the drugs seeping from his pores, a falsely sweet smell like vitamins, the fresh scents of lavender soap and shaving cream and beneath it all a meaty odor that I knew must come from his swollen foot.

“Sweeney?”

The smell filled my nostrils until I couldn’t breathe, he was dragging me underwater and I was drowning, drowning. I tried to move, I needed to get away, though at the same time I wanted to stay there in his embrace, could feel how he was willing me to stay—

Save me, Sweeney…

Abruptly he let go. I fell back, gasping. When I looked up Angelica stood beside him, frowning as she ran her fingers across his head.

“Oh, Oliver. What a mess.” She made a face. “Well, you’re definitely making a statement.” She peered behind her, looking for the rest of us. “Should we meet you guys outside?”

Baby Joe shrugged. “I guess we’re ready.” He and Hasel headed for the door. I started after them, then paused.

“Annie?”

Annie shook her head. “I—I don’t think I’m in for this one,” she said slowly, adding in a low voice, “This is starting to look too weird, Sweeney. I’m going back downstairs.”

“You sure?” I said anxiously. Because it was looking a little too weird, even for me. There was Hasel, eerily oblivious to Oliver’s misery, and beer-sodden Baby Joe in his ragged suit, ashes trailing him like a bad reputation. And me in my old cowboy boots and Oliver’s shirt; and finally Angelica and Oliver. Angelica radiant as ever; Oliver in his skewed formal wear. We really did look like some deranged wedding party; though whether Oliver was lunatic preacher or runaway groom, I couldn’t guess.

“I’m sure.” Annie squeezed my arm. “And Sweeney—if things get too out of hand, promise you’ll come back inside, okay? Promise you’ll come get me?”

I nodded and watched her leave, then went to help Baby Joe with the beer.

“Okay,” said Hasel. “We’re on the buddy system: everybody got a beer? Let’s go—”

Hasel had discovered a set of ancient rusted fire stairs that cascaded down the outside of the lodge. Probably we could have just gone right out the front door and no one would have bothered us, or even noticed, but something made us furtive. One by one we went down the zigzag steps until we reached the lawn. A faint wind stirred the upper branches of the trees and sent a few dead leaves spinning drunkenly to the ground. I sat down for a few minutes, and tried to calm myself by looking at the stars. The chill air magnified them until they seemed huge, brittle flowers waiting to be torn apart by the wind. Finally I stood.

A few yards downhill waited Hasel and Baby Joe, their heads craned to stare at the sky. We were on the far side of the lodge, facing the woods. Without a sound, Angelica appeared beside me.

“Let’s go that way—” Her voice rang out as she pointed to where the silvery grey lawn flowed into darkness. “Someone told me there’s a pond there.”

“Kinda cold for skinny-dipping,” called Hasel. “But I’ll keep you company!”

He laughed and gave Baby Joe a shove. The two of them loped on down the hill. Angelica nudged me and I looked back to see Oliver. I started to call out to him, but he hurried after Hasel and Baby Joe.

Angelica gave an angry sigh. “I hate the way he looks. Why’d he do that to his beautiful hair?” She spun on her heel and started down the hill. “Sometimes I really think he’s crazy.”

It was a cold, nearly windless night. What breeze there was smelled of rain-washed stone and mud. When it shifted it brought with it the tang of woodsmoke from the lodge, the harsh scent of marijuana smoke. There was still no moon. I understood nothing of lunar phases, else I would have known it was the darkest quarter, the fourth of four nights when the moon is absent from the sky. But that only meant the stars shone all the brighter.

We turned before we reached the trees. We were in rank pasture now, bordered by a tumbledown stone wall covered with matted clumps of kudzu and wild grapevines.

I slowed my steps, wondering how Angelica could walk so surely and quickly among the stones and clumps of burdock. But she merely lifted her long skirt and went on. Occasionally Hasel’s slow stoned laugh floated back to us, or Baby Joe’s. Angelica walked alone, mad at Oliver, I thought, or maybe she just wanted to be by herself.

Suddenly she stopped. She lifted her arms and let go of the ends of her skirt. A few yards away Oliver and Hasel and Baby Joe halted and stared at her. Angelica turned to me, smiling.

“Here we are, Sweeney.”

We were at the top of a wide shallow depression, a sort of bowl in the surrounding meadowland. The ground was covered with very short dry grass, as though it had been mowed or heavily grazed. Everywhere myriad tiny stones were strewn like the stones in a gravel pit, and the fragile stalks of burdock and milkweed rustled softly where we walked.

At the center of the hollow was a small perfectly round man-made pond, what in farm country they call a tank. It was like a hole cut in the fabric of the night, and so black that I was surprised to see stars floating in it, innocent as lilies. Certainly it had been put there for watering cattle, though there were no cows anywhere that I could see, and the Euclidean symmetry of the pool gave it a strange, almost supernatural appearance. It seemed unlikely that it would be spring-fed, and I saw no streams running into it. But it didn’t have that neglected-fishbowl smell I associated with small ponds. Instead the water smelled sweet, wonderfully sweet: like spring rain and apple blossom and oranges, charged like a storm ready to break. It smelled so insanely wonderful that I jumped back from its edge as though I’d seen moray eels there waiting to tear me into ribbons.

“Sweeney? What’s the matter?”

Angelica stood on the bank and watched me. She had removed her sandals and was probing the black water with a toe. The sweet fragrance was so strong that my hair stood on end—not just the hair on my scalp or neck but everywhere—every filament of my being a wick ready to burst into flame.

“Sweeney?”

About her head runnels of violet light streamed like water. I stared at her, as frightened by her matter-of- fact tone as by everything else. “What’s wrong, Sweeney?”

“Hey, ladies. Wait for us!”

Behind me I heard shuffling footsteps, Hasel’s soft drawling laugh. Out of nowhere rose a strong wind. The cropped grass at my feet rippled, and dust rose and wheeled in grey clouds.

“Sweeney—could you help me with this?”

In front of me Angelica stood with her back to the pool. She was pulling up her dress, but it had caught on a spike of dried milkweed. “Sweeney—?”

She was only inches away from me, her arms upraised, hair a long tangle of dark gold. In the starlight her skin was so pale it was as though her body was a rift in the night.

“Sweeney: please. Take the dress.”

Her voice was a whisper but also a command. I gathered her hem between my fingers and raised it. Warm velvet spilled over my knuckles like foam, and with it her scent, sweet oranges and sandalwood rushing into me like a drug. I fell to my knees, leaned forward until my lips brushed the skin just below her thigh. I kissed her, pressed my mouth against her flesh, until I could taste sweet salt and oranges, the soft pressure of her skin giving way beneath my teeth and the velvet of her skin softer than anything. The folds of her dress slipped from my fingers and I started to fall forward, pulling her down with me. But then her voice rang out sharply.

“Sweeney.”

I stumbled to my feet, cringing as though I had been struck.

“My dress.”