Under the Blue Moon

Five

Somewhen else

Silence, all is silent here. Unless I sing to myself or drop something there isn’t a sound in the word. Signals don’t seem to reach this area, no TV, no radio, no internet, and the old mobiles that my parents left don’t get any signal either. To break the silence I have to play my old Walkman or the even older record player in the living room at home. The music is repetitive, but it breaks the never-ending silence at least.

I’ve been on my own for five years now, Mum and Andy stayed until I was 14. When Mum got sick, we started to try in earnest to get out of the village, it took 6 months to discover that Andy could go beyond the border where I just couldn’t. On the day they left I wished that they would live their lives without me, or any pain at having to leave me. I saw the blankness in their eyes as I finished my wish and knew at that moment that I had successfully removed myself from their memories. As Andy carried our frail mother over the invisible border that held me captive, I wished him far away with all they needed to live a happy life. As his foot hit the ground they blinked out of sight, and I hoped that my wish had worked.

Since that day I have created little routines to keep myself sane and useful, I keep the garden looking beautiful and filled with useful flowers, herbs, and vegetables. I keep the house clean and try to redecorate where it starts to look tatty. I’m not too great at laundry though, when I can just go and pick out a new outfit from the eternally empty shops, washing seems a little more boring than even my empty days can cope with. I write in my journals and walk around the neighbourhoods from my childhood. The marketplace in the village centre stands forever empty now though, my little wolf boy never comes to play.

I have tested wishing for company, but it appears that mum was right on that point, when I wished that everyone would just leave us alone on that horrendous day when the hunters came to take my baby brother, I had just made the wish too strong. She had taken me through every spell, every incantation, and every wish that she knew to help me try to break what I set in place that afternoon, but nothing worked. I had been quite simply, quite perfectly left alone.

The only fear I have is that on the day I enchanted my mother and brother to send them over the boundary, I was sending them into nothing. That my spell actually emptied the world and not just the small village in which I had grown up. Still it was take the risk or watch mother slowly die with nothing and no one to help her. I have visions of Andy going to school now, making friends and enjoying life not knowing that he had a big sister who ruined his life or at least the first nine years of it. Mum will be working in a bookshop or a library with the books she always loved so much, perhaps life is calm enough to let her write the novel that she always wanted to.

And I am here, gardening, writing my journals and wandering about places that make me feel even more lonely.

Lately I have fallen into a truly maudlin habit, I say lately, I don’t actually know how long I’ve been doing it, the days slip into each other. I wonder into the packhouse and find my friend James’s room, Wolfie-bear is still where he left it on the day, I made him disappear, sat on his bedside table. I curl up on his bed to sleep and try not to dream about the day they came for Andy. In the mornings I shower in his bathroom, leaving nonsense messages to my long-gone friend in the mirror. “Come and Find me”, “I miss you” and other such self-indulgent nonsense. I made the world disappear and now I was exactly where I had asked to be. Alone.

Around three years ago, I think it was 3 years, at least when I count the seasons up in my journal it seems like three, so yes let’s say three years ago, odd things started to happen in the village. Things would move, my messages would be wiped clean, my vanity was not how I left it. I started to hope I wasn’t on my own, but no one ever appeared.

The disturbances seemed to come in cycles, the first cycle lasted the longest it was the one that drove me to start sleeping in James’s old room, home just didn’t feel safe anymore. After the third or perhaps forth home invasion I found a blank sheet of notepaper in my vanity, it smelled of chocolate and cedarwood. The smell was so comforting that I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Each night before I left for the pack house, I would smell the paper before placing it reverently back on top of my journals and leaving.

I had increased the protections on the house over the years, making sure that anyone who found us, or me lately would be so confused by the time they reached me that I could simply pat them on the behind and send them away. Mum had left her journals and spell books for me, well she didn’t take them with her, and I was slowly picking my way through them. I had discovered a number of protections spells, luck enchantments, and masking spells over the years and I would practice them on most days. Having little else left to do, practicing the talents that had accidentally left me a prisoner in an empty village seemed a sensible choice. One day I may find a way out.

Today is Thursday, it feels like a Thursday so it’s a Thursday. The beauty of living in your own world you can decide what day it is whenever you need it to be a day. I am heading to the woods to pick mushrooms and wild garlic. My sourdough starter is ready, and I picked up some nice artisan flour at the farm shop out on the other side of the village. So tonight I am planning on bruschetta with garlic mushrooms. I’m already salivating at the smell of the dough raising in the kitchen. I caught sight of the laundry room after I tucked the dough in to rise and felt more than a little embarrassed.

I spent half an hour sorting the piles into an order, the last basket I left untouched it had Andy and Mum’s clothes in it still and dealing with them was more than I can deal with. I know there is another basket in my bedroom but there’ll be time for that tomorrow.

I run the warm water over my breakfast dishes, letting them soak before washing later, I would need to pick up some washing up liquid on my travels. Picking up my loose knitted bag I head out into the woods behind the cottage feeling bright and happy. I’ve always liked Thursdays.

The woods are pleasant and green as I wonder through the trees, there are plenty of good crops of mushrooms, some good for eating, others for my research with mothers’ books, others were to be avoided altogether as they were poisonous. I collected a good selection, placing each variety into a separate section of my bag so that I don’t mix them up later on. The wild garlic is a little harder to find and as I’m looking, I find that the world starts to swim around me, the air crackles, and splits as I watch a small white dog yip and race across the path in front of me. I blink hard and the air has knitted back together when I open my eyes. The little dog is gone.

I shake myself, to clear my mind, maybe this is it, five years equals insanity. The lure of garlic mushrooms soon resettles my mind and I start my search for wild garlic leaves again. Twenty minutes later I’m heading back for home when the world crackles around me again, the noise roars through the crackles, people, cars even an aeroplane up in the sky. A blue car flies by on the road alongside the woods, and I can hear the sound of the children’s playground on the other side of that road. I drop my bag and start running to the sound of laughter, my breath is soon lost as I sprint across tree roots and through the long grasses. As the crackle in the air closes in around me, the world falls quiet again and I fall to my knees screaming at the indignity of showing me a glimpse of the world I left behind.

The sky is dark when I finally lift my head from the soft ground, the tears have dried into crusts of salt on my cheeks, my throat is hoarse from the screaming obscenities I had howled at the all too silent world, but mostly I feel empty. I head back along the route trampled by my crazed dash to the noise of children in the park, stopping briefly to pick up my bag before I drudge miserably back home.

Walking through my back door I can see signs of my mystery visitor again. It’s been quite some time since they were here last, I rush upstairs to find the sheet of notepaper on the top of my vanity, the scent is stronger than ever. Looking at it and almost not daring to touch it for fear that it will be ripped from me the way the sounds were, I notice something new. At the bottom left of the sheet the number 7 is written in blue ink. There is no denying the visitor now, they have left a mark on my world, not just a misplaced bear or a missing shirt, this is something that they have left for me.

Leaving the scented sheet in my bedroom I head out to check over the rest of the house, has anything more been left?

As I step out into the hall a splash of red at the door to the bathroom catches my eye, it’s a drop of blood. My inner witch almost dances, I can find out who they are. Stepping over the threshold carefully to avoid the tiny drop I select a single sheet of toilet paper and bend as close as I can to the droplet, dipping the corner of the sheet into the tiny dome and watching it soak up into the paper. Holding the paper as though it is a precious gemstone I head through the rest of the house, setting the tissue down in a clean bowl in the kitchen I scout through the remaining rooms. The only room that seems to have been disturbed downstairs is the laundry. The dryer has now finished so I will need to empty it and fold the contents. The basket of mum and Andy’s clothes is askew with clothes spilling out of the top. A quick scan tells me that a shirt, cardigan, and a pair of Hello Kitty knickers are gone. Maybe my visitor is short on clothes and doesn’t know how to get fresh clothes from the empty shops.

I will show them once I find them, I decide. Now I have their blood finding them will be easy!