Keith looked right at me. “I told them the cuts were an accident, okay? That’s just between us. Got it?”
I nodded, slid off the bar stool, and switched on the television in the living room. Pokémon was on, which I liked, but when Keith came in and sat next to me with a bowl of popcorn, I changed over to a baseball game. Only the Braves weren’t playing. It was the Red Sox, whom we both hated.
As the day faded, the front door opened and the rest of our family streamed in, loud, exhausted, and sunburned from hours at the lake. My grandfather and uncle both grabbed beers from the refrigerator and joined us. They were Boston fans, naturally. Charlie and Anna bounced around and talked about driving into town to see a movie because Anna had just gotten her license. My dad marched upstairs without a word or glance in my direction. My stomach started to hurt. I looked at Keith.
“It’s not you,” he whispered. “I think something happened while he was in New York. He got asked to leave that fellowship. That’s why he’s here. The only reason. So you just stay out of his way. You hear me?”
I nodded, but my body felt overinflated, like I’d been filled up from the inside. I clawed self-consciously at my chest, my neck. My skin flaked at the touch, a sloughing of dried blood and dust.
I felt filthy.
“I need to take a bath,” I said, and Keith nodded, only half listening. He was trying to get Charlie’s attention.
I headed back to the nautical room and entered the bathroom. I switched on the light, took my clothes off, and waited for the water to fill. The room swirled with steam. Moisture collected around my hairline.
I grimaced at my blurry reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. I hated what my body looked like. I always had. Part of the problem was an umbilical hernia that my parents declined to have surgically fixed. It stuck out like a button. I poked at it and pictured a piece of my innards pushing back out, trying to escape containment.
The tub was full. I turned the tap off and stepped in. The heat felt good on my grimy skin and I sank against the tiled wall, careful not to get my bandages wet.
I closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep.
*
We were in agreement for once.
My dreams wanted to trick me.
I wanted to let them.
My eyes opened hours later. Day had turned night and the bathwater cold. That made me angry. Why had nobody come to check on me? I could have drowned. I’d heard of people not waking up until after they’d already slipped beneath the water. Some even died. Our neighbor Lee tried to tell me that drowning in the bathtub was just a myth, that all those people had actually been murdered by some undetectable poison; but considering the source, I had serious doubts.
Goose bumps rose across my skin as I stepped out. Wet feet on cold floor. My teeth chattered. I grabbed a towel and hustled back into the bedroom. The window remained wide open from earlier, pale curtains fluttering. I went to close it. I didn’t want anyone to see in. I didn’t want anyone to see me.
As I leaned forward, my gaze lit on the sight of the full moon. It hung deep in the summer sky, more amber than white.
My pulse picked up.
I heard something.
I leaned closer.
The sky was very blue and very dark, like the paint on my father’s luxury sedan. I’d never seen a night like it. I kept staring. The stars twinkled back in a way that let me know they saw me, too.
I held my breath. So I had heard something—the language of the stars.
Listen to the moon, they said. Listen.
Yes.
I did not hesitate. I slid belly first out the window and into the night. I ran toward the New Hampshire forest with my bare feet slapping along the dirt trail, getting all sticky with sap and all stuck with pine needles. The towel slipped from my waist as I reached the tree line, but I didn’t care. I kept going. My strange body, with its jutting bones and too-long limbs and way more height than it knew what to do with, had a mind of its own.
I set my gaze on the stars again.
The moon, they told me. Keep going. Keep listening.
Fear snapped at my ankles because I couldn’t see the moon anymore. It sat too low, hidden by the trees. But I kept running. The stars said I had to.
I traveled deeper.
Farther.
Darker.
The trail before me rose suddenly, a steep pitch. I fell forward onto all fours and scrabbled my way up, using hands and feet like I was climbing the rock wall in the school gym. I grasped at roots and stones, and my legs struggled, working hard.
At last, I ascended.
I looked up.
A small clearing sat before me, full of swirling mist and bathed in a silver glow. I crept forward into the light and sighed, relieved.
I’d found the moon.
I sat back on my haunches. I strained to hear something, someone, anything, anyone, but my ears rang with the barren song of absolute silence.
I lifted my head, opened my throat, and howled.