Chapter 26 When the Moon Drinks
"You alright? You've got that look."
Jen looked at Tilly curiously. "What look?"
Tilly's head bobbed to each side a couple of times, the alcohol making her feel bubbly and light, as she thought and replied, "Like you're carrying more than you're letting on. And most people wouldn't catch on, but I'm your person."
Her smile was closed-lipped, and Tilly could feel the sadness. The truth was that she might not have noticed that Jen had something going on had she not felt a sudden desire for a rainy day, accompanied by a meal of popcorn, cheese, and apples.
It was distinctly Jen. She would get pink lady apples and a bar of dark chocolate with flaky sea salt from Dark Sweets on Main Street. It was her thoughtful food and mixed with the melancholy of a grey, northeastern rainy day; she watched her friend closer.
"Come on," Tilly urged, lightly bumping her shoulder against Jens.
Woods light aster lined the dirt trail, their purple-blue heads a merry guide along the darkness. The illumination from their moonlight jars swung in gentle arcs as they walked, drinking their summer-sweet drinks.
But Tilly laid a hand on Jen's arm until she stopped walking and turned to face her.
"Talk to me."
Jen sighed. "It's silly."
"I doubt it. And I like silly. We could use more silly right now."
"Isla."
A person could say the name of their lover and, in just that one word, say everything. Tilly felt the lead weight of the two-syllable name fall to the ground. She watched Jen struggle with wanting to pick it up or leave it be.
"Something happen?"
Jen bent to pick one of the purple-blue flowers, twisting it between her fingers. "I ended it."
Tilly thought back to Jen's opening night.
"I'm sorry, friend."
"I know that I can be brash, and I have hard boundaries, but that's how I keep my peace."
She loved that about Jen. She was bold in everything she did, including recognizing her faults. Tilly had never quite grasped the skill of underlining her shortcomings without also sacrificing her self-worth.
Maybe a portion of Tilly's anxiety lay there in the cracks between humility and her self-deprecation.
"Did she feel left out? Did we leave her out?"
"No," she shook her head, her hand reached out, grabbing Tilly's in a firm hold. "I know you all would be welcoming to her. You'd be protective in your ways, but ultimately you would respect my decision."
"Always. Though if she hurt you, hexing would not be off the table." Tilly smiled.
Jen's laugh was nice, a little louder with the help of rum. "It's nice to have someone who knows you so well."
"Yeah, it is," she replied.
Tilly hooked her arm through hers and lay her head on her shoulder.
They had stopped walking and were looking over a rolling hill that would lead to a riverbank. Tilly knew that by following along for about ten minutes, she would end up in someone else's woods, and just the thought of him made something move inside of her.
Pain. It felt like an animal.
"That tightness on your face for the hot vampire chief?"
"What? No," she quickly defended, then relaxed, not realizing it materialized on her face.
It was Jen's turn. "Talk to me."
"It's silly," she smiled.
"I doubt it. And I like silly. We could use more silly right now."
Friendships were alchemy.
"He felt different. Tess was right. I think I can feel people and their emotions. They become part of me if they're strong enough, which can be overwhelming."
"I cannot imagine. I don't even like feeling my own feelings sometimes."
Tilly hummed. Then her eyes took on a dreamy look.
"But whenever I was around him, it stopped.
All of the noise inside of me, all of the buzzing of trying to decide what is mine and what is someone else angry with their spouse, a woman depleted from motherhood on her last thread, a man suddenly overcome with lust."
"Seriously?" Jen asked with raised eyebrows. "You could bottle that knowledge and help some women out."
Tilly laughed and sighed. "He made it go away. I was just me. Tilly. With my own complicated emotions."
"How complicated?"
"I should not have stopped counseling," she said deadpan, and Jen let out a bark of laughter that got tangled gently in the tree limbs.
"You and me and every other person I've had to meet." She looked softly at her friend. "But he made that all go away, and it was just you and him, and I imagine that felt like a restful place."
"It did." The reminder pulsed in her chest painfully.
"Do you believe that he kissed Astra?"
She shrugged. She thought of what Bess had said. "My fears are loud."
Jen considered her for a moment. "I know you're not a kiss-and-tell kind of person, but as your best friend, I would love it if, after you let the big bad vampire take your body, you'd at least give me the Cliff's notes over pie."
Tilly's head turned toward Jen sharply, her look of surprise drawing out a warm laugh and a raise of her nearly empty, sweating glass from Jen. "Your fears are loud. But my hope for your happiness is steady."
And that was sometimes all a person needed: for someone who had listened to the cadence of your heart in good and bad condition and could look you in the eye and tell you it would find its beat.
She suddenly felt free. She felt nothing of the fear and uncertainty that had tangled themselves up in her mind.
Jen was lending her her bold peace.
Tilly laughed; the sound ricocheted in the open space, and it sounded alive; she felt alive. She hadn't felt this alive in a long time. The coconut rum was dancing happily in her mind.
"I promise."
"Coconut cream pie," Jen added. "Eloise said she added it to The Black Cat and now it's stuck in my head. Can you get desserts stuck in your head like songs?"
"Yeah. I think that's one of the best things to get stuck in your head."
"Much better than It's a Small World."
A few moments of silence passed as they looked over the night-drenched valley, crickets and frogs singing.
"Damn it," Tilly said softly.
Jen pursed her lips. "Yeah, it's in my head now, too," she said apologetically.
Tilly took another long bath underneath the fall leaves, iridescent bubbles holding the smell of crisp apples baked with cinnamon and clove when popped.
She lay her head back, her black and emerald hair thrown on top of her head in a long ponytail that hung over the edge of the white porcelain like a rope that Tom Hanks swatted at lazily.
The perfect melody played softly, matching her insides. It was melancholy with notes lifting the mood at just the right moment, leaving quarter notes of hope floating along the bars of sadness.
She didn't know what she thought or felt.
And that didn't change when she lay her head against the dark pillowcase and closed her eyes.
Hours later, when the night and the morning were holding hands, Tilly lifted her head from a deep sleep.
She didn't know what she was doing when she slipped on her diaphanous red robe and padded out of her room, down the hall, and through the kitchen, grabbing a fresh pitcher of coconut mojitos magically left on the island.
The night pulsed with something heady, and she could feel it like invisible forces wrapping around her body, which was kept in a protective cover of warmth as she slid through the back garden and along the wooded path, sipping her cold cocktail. Bobbing lights bounced above, lighting her way.
She didn't know why she was out here, but she felt pulled by the hidden moon and the stars and something darker.
When she came to a clearing where the treetops praised a blanket of starlight, she looked up, watching their winking bodies.
She wondered if they had called to her as she sat on a fallen tree.
The moon kept herself hidden, her star children holding court for the night, but she could feel the moon's pull, the softness of her song.
She'd always found a kinship with the moon, her tendency to come and go gently, without announcement.
She smiled a tipsy smile as she remembered childhood conversations with the moon, speaking to her like a friend.
"You know, I feel your soul. You have this ethereal way about you, pulling us in and out, letting the sun light the darkest parts of you, crashing the waves, drenching us in beauty or darkness.
I always admired how it never felt like you were hiding, just releasing the world for a bit so that you could recharge.
" She smiled up at the dark sky, speaking to the moon in a soft tone, her inner child voiced with love and admiration.
"I think I always had this impression of you that you know exactly how much to love the world and keep us at a distance so that you can love yourself.
" Her eyes followed the shadow of Portia's wings fluttering, then stilling as she sat next to her on the log.
Another sip of her drink slid smoothly down her throat, coating her thoughts and words in a buttery hope.
"Maybe the secret is...maybe the secret is that when we get older we fall in love with ourselves, and then everyone else has to measure up to that.
Is that it? The ancient secret the dark parts of the world hopes we don't learn?
" She smiled lazily and dipped her finger into her cool drink before offering it to Portia, who hopped happily closer to lick it off, making Tilly laugh.
"I wish my magic made me braver," she said in a sobered voice, an earthy wish wrapped around her ribs.
She felt uncertain, and she felt anxious. She heard the slithering voice tell her she had no right to be bold, to have any magic of her own.
Then she remembered the notes from the inn, and the way that Bess told her she was learning how to be kinder with Tilly living at The Lost Souls House.
She heard Jen promise to witness her heartache, and these women love her through storms. She thought of leaving Brent years ago when her heart felt quartered and her knees weak. A picture of her squaring off with Theo filled her mind, and his half smile when he looked at her bloomed.
She heard her voice cut through the lies. The uncertainty dissolved, and the intruding anxiety frowned as a door closed on its lying voice.
She then lifted her glass to the night curtain as it shifted, and out peeked a silvery white sliver. The moon had paused its hiding to give her this moment of bravery, a reminder that she needed no permission to be who she is.
Truth could starve anxiety if you gave it breath.
"To you, lovely moon." As she lifted her glass high, a brush of cool wind wound around her and Portia, who was now sitting on her shoulder, the smell of buttery coconut lifting to mix with apples and moonshine as the sliver filled out into a half moon.
Tilly laughed, soaking in the blessing, closing her eyes in a holy moment, until she opened them and the black curtain was once again closed and only the stars winked down on her.
Her holy moment popped when she heard something off to the side in the thick of the woods.
She was alone.
She was foolish for having come here barefoot in nothing but a nightgown and robe. Her heartbeat sped up, and she remembered waking up in a forest after the Fourth of July festival. She was just as alone and just as vulnerable now as she was then.
That memory brought back the fear that had riddled her body, and she startled, knowing she had made a great mistake.
Five quick steps back the way she'd come, and a hand grabbed her arm, pulling out a small gasp from her, and before a scream could follow, another hand covered her mouth as she was pulled back into a hard chest.
She was immediately blanketed in calm. It was strange, almost drug-like, the way that her body flipped from flight to feeling safe.
And protected.
And then a mouth pressed against her ear, breath hot, and just one word was whispered darkly, taking her from calm and protected to something else entirely.
"Tilly."
His voice was deep, gruff. Her name sounded like it had been pulled from somewhere deliciously dark inside of him.
She had been planted in him.
The way that he held her body against his was firm, his hand that grabbed her arm now splayed across her stomach. She was breathing shallowly, her heart kicking against her ribs, not in fear, but in excitement.
When his open mouth touched her ear, she couldn't hold back the soft gasp that escaped her parted lips, and she closed her eyes against the delicious sensation. Something was warring with her desire. Something niggling at the back of her mind.
But before she could grab onto it, he turned her in his arms so she looked up at Theo.
He stood there looking down at her, his dark eyes moving over her face as his large hand slid to the side of her neck, thumb brushing over that place that pulsed.
He watched it, his eyes becoming darker before he looked directly into her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she got out. Her words were breathy.
"You seem to find yourself coming to me, little witch," he replied darkly, and she looked around, realizing she was in the exact spot where weeks ago he had caught her before.
Before.
Before he had charmed her, made her feel safe, and kissed her.
Before he had kissed Astra.
A look crossed her face, hard and angry, which he understood as her hands pushed against his chest, his grip on her impossibly strong, not giving her an inch of purchase.
"Let me go," she demanded.
He smiled. The smile was wolfish. She swore she saw a flash of something sharp. And then her eyes widened when he responded without hesitation, without an ounce of uncertainty.
"No."
And then her eyes widened further as she was pulled fully against him, and his mouth crashed against hers.