Sometimes By Moonlight (10 page)

I heard Marie-Rose start to sniffle. “I don’t know how she slipped away. Please, it’s not my fault.”

A lump formed in my throat. Marie-Rose was going to be held responsible for my sneaking off? I considered sliding out from under the bed right then and surrendering. But, I didn’t actually do it. I wasn’t that crazy.

“I’m doing this job very well,” Marie-Rose said in a defiant tone. “I’ll find her.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
A job?
What the heck did that mean? Watching me was a
job?

I heard a huffing sound of protest and then Marie-Rose left the room. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I crawled out from under the bed. I could hear the sound of water draining from Lemmon’s tub. She’d be out any second. I hurried into the hallway, just in time to see Marie-Rose disappear around the corner.

I dashed down the back steps and into the kitchen. While the cook’s back was turned, I grabbed an empty cup from the cupboard and filled it with cold tea from a pot sitting on the counter. I paused outside the swinging doors, calming myself down. Then, I strolled toward the living room, where everyone was gathered.

“There you are!” I heard Marie-Rose call. “I was worried about you.” She rushed over, her frown full of sisterly concern.

“Oh, were you looking for me? I had to get something to ease my stomach,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “I’m going back upstairs to bed now.”

Miss Kovac and Madame LaCroix stood at the foot of the front staircase, below the picture of Duke Steinfelder. They wore almost matching scowls.

“Good night,” I said with extra cheer.

Miss Kovac put her hand on my shoulder as I tried to pass. “Shelby, wait,” she said, reaching her other hand toward the middle of my back. “You have a, how do they say, dust-bunny?”

I felt my cheeks color, but I kept on moving. “This place is full of them,” I said nonchalantly. And then I took another step, and then another, until I was in my room. Although now I wasn’t sure of how safe I was, even there.

***

Marie-Rose slunk into our room that night, just a few minutes before Mrs. Lemmon called for lights out. I was already in bed, flipping through the Swiss history book I’d borrowed from Patricia after hearing her paper in class. I wanted to read anything I could about Duke Steinfelder now. I wanted to know about his connection to Muldania, and what that might mean for Austin and his family. For me.

“Hi,” Marie-Rose said.

I shut my book and rolled over so I faced the wall.

“Does your stomach still hurt?”

“Yeah,” I said. And actually, I wasn’t lying. My stomach was turning over and over, probably from a combination of the foul-tasting bratwursts we’d had for dinner and stress.

“Sorry,” she said.

I rolled back toward her as she clicked off the light between our beds. “Why do you feel responsible for me?”

“What?”

“Earlier on the ski trail, you said what I do affects you. What did you mean by that?”

Marie-Rose pulled her covers up higher over her flowered pajamas. “A friend worries.”

“But about the affecting part…”

She gave me an uncomfortable smile. “I told you before, if my roommate gets into trouble, then I, by association get into trouble.”

“So you say.”

“Oh, you no longer believe in the horrors my
maman
will inflict? You think I am making them up?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Marie-Rose’s face eyes went stony. “I have pressures on me you cannot imagine,” she said. “And I know you weren’t in the kitchen the whole time tonight.”

“What difference does that make?” It was hard to keep the anger from my voice.

“Just be careful,” she said. Before she rolled on her side away from me, I saw the slightest bit of fear on her face. And I
smelled
it, which is a very weird thing to say about a roommate’s emotion, but there it was. My nascent wolfy senses were completely activated. What was she afraid of? Or who? Maybe that was the better question.

She couldn’t be afraid of me because she didn’t know about my situation, and anyway, I still had a few weeks before the full moon would come again to Steinfelder. A few weeks before all would be revealed. By then, most of the other students would be home with their families. I shuddered, imagining what would happen if I were going home to Beverly Hills only to turn furry for the first time.

Marie-Rose’s breathing changed as she drifted off into sleep. I lay awake for a little while longer, watching the shadows and knowing that I was destined to be a part of them eventually. I had to talk to Austin. I could only hope he’d gotten the e-mail from Lemmon’s laptop and would try to meet me the next night.

***

The chocolate cake is decorated with Oreo crumbs and my favorite gummy worms in that funny cake-that-looks-like-a-garden-patch way. The summer breeze blows my hair all around me and the rose beds of our house in Beverly Hills are in full bloom. Sunshine streams down onto the patio, reflecting sparkles from the crystal plates and glasses. Honeybun laughs as she cuts Dad a huge slice of cake. Next to the glass table, a little boy rocks in a baby chair, a fistful of chocolate and frosting smeared around his lips.

As I lift another forkful of the confection to my mouth, Honeybun smiles with delight. She’s made the cake herself, the mothering instinct for me finally kicking in. The birthday candles abandoned on the side of the cake plate are coated with buttercream frosting, and I pick them up one by one, licking the sweetness from each.  I smile at Honeybun, the chocolate mellowing me out and a feeling of comfort, almost like love, welling up inside of me. This is my family. I set down the last candle and reach out for more cake with my fingers, forgoing the fork. I want to consume it, to drown myself in the chocolatey goodness, in the love.

“Locke.” I hear a guttural whisper that doesn’t belong on my patio. “Locke!” It comes again, and then there is a tug on my elbow.

I try to shrug whatever it is away. I want to stay at the party. I take another scoop of chocolate cake with my fingers, right from the center, making sure to get a few gummy worms. Honeybun giggles and claps her hands together, so happy I am literally digging her cake. My dad looks at all of us—his family—and beams with pride.

Slap!

I opened my eyes.

Mrs. Lemmon was staring at me intently, her hand raised. “I’m sorry, dear. You were sleep… walking, I guess you would call it,” she said.

I rubbed my stinging cheeks and felt wetness. I pulled my hands away, realizing they were smeared with something dark. “Where am I?”

Mrs. Lemmon put an arm around my shoulders, surprising me with her gentle touch. “You’re in the kitchen.” There was a tenderness in her voice, which made me wonder what was really going on.

I stared down at my hands again, turning them over in the pale light coming from the bank of windows. I couldn’t tell what was on me, but it didn’t smell like chocolate cake. “What is this?”

“Ah, yes.” Mrs. Lemmon released me. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, handing me one of the cook’s kitchen towels.

I took it from her, still unsure of what was going on. “Should we turn on a light?”

“No need to wake anyone with lights. It’s one o’clock in the morning, Shelby.”

“It is?” I lifted my semi-dried hands to my nose and sniffed at the heavy, metallic odor. “Blood?” I said, the alarm in my voice unmistakable.

Mrs. Lemmon nodded and reached out for the empty plastic tray on the kitchen table. “Found you eating some of the cook’s raw steaks for the staff lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Looks like maybe two or three, you had.”

“Omigod.” I rushed over to the sink and began scrubbing my hands with soap. Austin’s words, “
Don’t trust anyone,
” were ringing in my brain like a fire alarm. I was covered in blood and Mrs. Lemmon had caught me.

“Now, let’s not panic,” Mrs. Lemmon said, bringing the empty tray over to the draining board. “I’ll tell the cook I came down for a glass of milk and found the tray toppled over at the bottom of the walk-in, the steaks coated in filth. God knows the dirty bird never sweeps out the thing. She’ll believe it.”

I ran my hands under the tap, watching the bloody water swirl down the drain. But my shock at the realization I’d been sleep-eating was nothing compared to the shock of Mrs. Lemmon’s kindness. At any minute I expected her to flip on the lights and scream for Madame LaCroix.

“I, uh, thank you,” I mumbled, stepping back.

She nodded and patted me on the cheek. “You been sleepwalking your whole life, then?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Mrs. Lemmon rinsed the meat tray in the sink. “My first husband, Eddie, he did it all the time. He’d make phone calls and not remember them. One time he cooked a roasted chicken dinner, complete with mash and English peas.” She gave me the first smile I’d ever seen on her face. “You can live a perfectly healthy life. Eddie did, at least until he was shot down in a Royal Air Force plane. But that had nothing to do with his sleep habits.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, you know, about Eddie.” I dried my hands on a clean towel and watched Lemmon scrub down the tray with bleach.

She didn’t look up at me as she worked. Maybe she didn’t want me feeling sorry for her about Eddie. “That should do it,” she said, setting the tray in the empty sink to dry.

“Mrs. Lemmon, I don’t know how to explain this. I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, halfway telling the truth.

“Don’t you worry yourself about it. I’ll be discreet. This kind of problem can be very embarrassing.” She shook her head. “And I see what they feed you girls. I’d be craving a bit of iron myself if I were a student. Especially around that time of the month.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Huh?”

“I heard you had stomach problems earlier, Locke. It’s not hard to put two and two together when you’ve been working with girls for this many years.”

“Oh. Right,” I said, playing along. “You’ve been at Steinfelder forever probably?”

Mrs. Lemmon’s posture straightened. “Steinfelder, no. I’ve just come here this term, like you. But I’ve got a long history in the schools,” she said.

“You’ve given your whole life to help students. That’s, you know, a really cool thing to do.”

I saw another glimpse of the smile, and then Lemmon grabbed a spray bottle and spritzed the kitchen table. I picked up a rag and swabbed up the little blood spatters.

“You know, it’s always you brash ones that need a little kindness,” Mrs. Lemmon said, throwing our dirty towels in the hamper near the door. “There’s something painful in your lives that make you girls the way you are.”