Waiting for the Moon

into her glass. Milk sloshed over the sides and spilled across the table. The relief was instantaneous and she was proud of herself for remembering the remedy. She smiled.

Maeve gently eased Selena's hand from the glass and gave her a flat metal strip with a round end. A spoon, Selena remembered suddenly.

Maeve kept her fingers coiled around Selena's and showed her how to dip the spoon into the soup, pick out a chunk of fish, and bring it to her lips.

Selena recalled what "eat" was. She breathed in the thyme-sweet scent of the stew and smiled. She opened her mouth, then recalled the burn on her fingers. "Hot," she said, pulling back.

"Good," Maeve said. Then she blew on the broth in the spoon.

Selena watched in fascination as the clear, reddish liquid swirled and rippled in the silver hollow.

"Not hot," Maeve said. "Eat."

Selena could barely contain her excitement. This felt so normal, so right, as if she'd done it a million times in her life. She could almost bring those pictures to mind, almost remember eating before.

She leaned forward and tasted the soup.

Nothing. There was no taste at all. She frowned. Something was wrong. She turned to Maeve, trying to find the words to ask the question and failing. 'Taste," was the only word she could manage.

Maeve smiled brightly. "I know. It's good. Now, eat up, child; you need some strength."

Selena shook her head. "No ..."

Maeve looked her directly in the eyes. Her smile faded slowly. "Eat."

Selena felt a sharp stab of fear. She didn't want this beautiful lady to turn away from her, too. Then she'd be utterly alone. What difference did it make if the food had no taste, if something about that seemed wrong? She gazed into Maeve's hazel eyes and nodded slowly.

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I'll be good, she thought. Don't leave me. Leaning forward, like a good girl, she took another sip of the flavorless stew.

Maeve's smile returned, filling Selena with immediate relief. She brought a cold hand to Selena's face, pressed it to her cheek. "And don't worry, child. I won't leave you if you're bad." Maeve looked away suddenly. Her pale lips trembled slightly. "I know how much that hurts."

Later, long after the tasteless food had been eaten, long after she'd watched Ian's carriage disappear into the darkness of the night, Selena lay in bed with the covers drawn to her neck. The room was dark, so dark. She wished they'd left her a candle, a lantern, anything that would cut through the blackness and make her feel less alone.

But they hadn't trusted her. She'd understood enough of their too fast conversation to know that. Edith had been afraid she'd burn herself again, or torch the bloody house.

She twisted slightly and stared up at the window. The glass sheet seemed to hang suspended in the darkness, lit for a glorious second by a trembling wash of moonlight.

The light was gone almost before it came, and the blackness swallowed her again. For a strange, elongated moment, it seemed as if she'd disappeared altogether, or perhaps had never existed at all. She lay there, breathing hard, trying not to cry, waiting for another shimmer of light.

None came. A brief wind grazed the window, made the glass shudder. The night seemed suddenly filled with noise, when only moments before it had been too quiet. She heard footsteps shuffling back and forth behind her locked bedroom door, heard a dull ebb and flow of voices. Frightened, she huddled beneath the protective coverlet.

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Nameless, faceless people, just outside her door. They were out there, talking, walking, laughing, whispering. It made her feel even more isolated, more ugly and stupid and alone.

"Help ... me," she murmured to the strangers, but her voice was weak and reedy, even to her own ears. "Please ..."

But there was no answer, not even a break in the murmur of their voices. She listened to the restless shuffling of their feet and wanted so badly to join them, but she didn't belong with them and she had nothing to say. All she had was this empty room with its one window to the world.

She eased the heavy quilt back and got to her feet, feeling her way along the bumpy painted walls to the window. Just then a cloud broke free of its moorings and drifted across the distant half-moon. Pale, bluish light slid through the pane and cast an eerie glow in the darkness.

A tree shivered outside, the branches creaked. Tiny black leaves studded the stark limbs, reminding her suddenly that it was spring, the time of year when life began anew. But not hers. She was different, somehow, shut off from the world. So alone in the dark room.

If only he'd come back. If only he hadn't left.

Didn't he understand? Didn't he care that he was all she had? That without him, the world was a frighten-ingly strange place, cold and lonely and empty?