Bound By Moonlight

The fog of morning held to the cobblestones of Windmere as secrets too afraid to speak. Liana Rivers pulled her woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders as she hurried down the winding streets toward the marketplace, her leather satchel bouncing against her hip with each hurried step. The town was already stirring with shopkeepers sweeping their stoops, children running chickens through puddles, and the ever-present hum of gossip standing around the well. "Mark my words, something is not quite right with that girl," Mrs. Pemberton's voice pierced across the square, as fresh as the air. "Twenty-two years old and still single, spending all her time on those peculiar herbs." Liana's feet faltered momentarily, but she pushed forward, pretending not to have heard. She had grown accustomed to the murmurs that followed her throughout Windmere like ghosts. The people meant no harm, she told herself, but their constant chatter about her still-unwed state and strange profession chafed on her nerves like water on rock. The herb stall filled the rear corner of the market, squeezed between a fishmonger whose wares already had the scent of last night's catch and a blacksmith whose hammer struck out a beating rhythm. Liana began setting out her neatly dried bunches of lavender, chamomile, and sage on the wooden bench, each step deliberate and practiced. The morning routine focused her, gave form to days that otherwise drifted as shapeless as the mist. "You're early today." It was the voice of the morning's first visitor, Thomas Hartwell, son of the baker, whose arrivals at her stall had been much more regular in the past month. He stood before her stall, a wedge of bread propped under one arm and a presumably pleasant smile plastered on his face. "The herbs have no time of day in mind," Liana said, not glancing up from her arrangements. "They're either strong or not." Thomas chuckled, even though she hadn't meant to be funny. "You always say things in such a delightful way. Say, there's a harvest festival coming up next week. Maybe you'd…" "I don't attend festivals." The words had been a little abrupt, and she softened them with a quick look in his direction. "But thank you for asking me." His face fell, but he nodded and proceeded to annoy the fishmonger instead. Liana got to her feet and watched him go with a cross of relief and something that could almost have been regret. Not that Thomas was not suitable so much as that he was the exact opposite. He was kind, stable, and reliable. Precisely what a rational woman would wish for in a husband. And yet the thought of settling herself into such a dull life made her chest tighten with a nervousness that was almost panicked. The morning crawled along slowly, punctuated by familiar customers who sought remedies for insomnia, headaches, and the various ills of small-town life. Mrs. Ashford got her go-to remedy for her sore joints, complaining the whole time about the weather. Peter Mills, a small boy, spent coins on peppermint oil to soothe his mother's queasy stomach with the meticulous deliberation of childhood responsibility. It was nearly lunchtime before Aunt Millicent arrived, her hair graying escaping its pins as always, her apron smeared with the residue of morning baking. She examined Liana's stall with the critical eye of a woman who'd brought up an orphaned niece for the bulk of twenty years. "Slow business," Millicent said, dropping her considerable frame onto the wooden stool Liana kept at the back of the counter. "It's Tuesday," Liana said, as if that settled it. "Always something with you," Millicent said, her voice patient with the exasperation of much practice. "Tuesday, Wednesday, the moon's in the wrong phase, someone gives you the side-eye. When I was your age…" "You were married to Uncle Robert with three children on your hands." Liana finished the familiar poem without malice. They'd gone over it countless times before, every iteration a tired but familiar dance of anxiety and denial. Millicent sat in silence for a minute, her fingers fiddling with a loose thread on her apron. When she began to speak again, her voice held an unusual seriousness. "Your mother was your age when she met your father. She told the strangest things about dreams, about having the feeling that she was waiting for something she couldn't explain." Liana's fingers went still around the bouquet of rosemary she'd been readjusting. Millicent never spoke about Liana's parents, describing the memories as hurting her. But the tone in her aunt's voice suggested that there was more involved than grief. "What kind of dreams?" Liana asked hesitantly. Millicent's eyes wandered, her thoughts elsewhere than in the crowds of the market square. "She said she had a dream about wolves. The same dream night and night of chasing through woods that didn't really exist anywhere within miles of Windmere. Awakening with her heart racing, vowing she still could scent pine and earth on her skin." A chill had run down Liana's spine that was not brought on by the chilly morning air. Her own nightmares of late had been getting worse, full as they were of silver eyes and the sensation of racing through moonlit forests on legs that didn't fully belong to her. She'd attributed them to too much isolation, to hours spent studying the old volumes of folklore that covered her bedroom walls. "Did she ever discover what they said?" Liana's words had been softer than she'd intended. Millicent swung around and stared at her directly, and for a moment, Liana thought she'd seen something that was almost fear flicker across her aunt's face. "She said they'd broken up after your father and she met." Before Liana could ask another question, there was a commotion near the fishmonger's stall. A tall, broad-shouldered man had pushed into a basket of apples, and they went rolling in every direction across the cobblestones. He was clearly not from Windmere and dressed in better clothes than the inhabitants, dark leather and wool that bespoke travel and money. What hit Liana most, however, was his eyes. Standing as far away as the other end of the square, she could tell they were an unusual pale gray, bordering on silver. When his gaze crossed the market and located her, she felt whatever existed in the middle of her chest awakened to a recognition that didn't register given the fact that she was certain she'd never seen him before. The stranger stood up, his gaze upon her with a ferocity that caused her to become aware, in a shock, with each breath she took, each thud of her heart. The noise of the marketplace became distant, and she was left to hear only the thud of her own pulse drumming in her ears. "Liana." Millicent's voice sounded far away. "Liana, dear, are you ill? You've turned white as a sheet." The magic was dispelled when the stranger inclined his head away, bending to help gather the fallen apples. Liana blinked and shook her head as one would shake cobwebs away. "I'm all right," she managed, though her hands trembled as she lifted her water bottle. "I just felt dizzy for an instant." But even as she talked, she realized that she was lying. Whatever had been between her and the stranger, it was not all right. It was that kind of moment that divided life into before and after, but she did not yet realize how or why. The stranger finished helping with the apples and faded into the crowd once more, but Liana couldn't help looking through the market, hoping to see another flash of those silver eyes. As Millicent began to speak again of home concerns and evening plans, Liana nodded in proper proportion while thoughts raged through her head. As the day drags on and her supplies are dwindling, she can't help but feel that something fundamental has shifted. The wolf dreams, her mother's mysterious history, the stranger whose gaze had spun her world around on its axis are all pieces of a jigsaw puzzle she hadn't realized she'd been trying to assemble begin falling into place in her mind. By the time she packed up the final remains of her herbs and headed off down the walk home, the mist had dissipated, but Liana couldn't shake the feeling that she was feeling her way deeper into fog rather than emerging from it. Windmere streets that she knew by heart seemed somehow altered, as though she was seeing them from some different angle or as though they were seeing her differently in turn. The small house she shared with Millicent sat at the edge of town, where cobblestone streets turned to dirt roads and neat rows of houses turned to unfenced pastures. It had always been a sanctuary for her, a place where she could escape the weight of gawked stares and whispered speculations. Tonight, however, it was more a hiding place than a refuge. Spreading the garden gate wide, Liana noticed motion along the tree line and meadow. For an instant, she would have sworn she saw the dark shape of a large animal larger than any dog she'd ever known standing there in the dark. But on a second glance, all she observed was the gentle swaying of leaves in the evening wind. At home in the cottage, Millicent was preparing supper, humming softly to herself an old tune that Liana recognized but couldn't name. The domesticity of the evening should have been comforting, but it was strangely remote, as if she watched another woman's life from behind a window. "You're awfully quiet tonight," Millicent said, sitting down to her meal. Liana pushed vegetables round her plate, appetite having entirely deserted her. "Just thinking." "About that boy in the market, I'd bet." Millicent's knowing smile would have been maddening at other times, but tonight it was almost dreamlike. "What boy?" Liana answered, though she knew well who her aunt meant. "Don't be playing games with me, sweetie. The one who had you gaping like you'd seen a ghost. Good-looker, I'll grant you that, but he didn't look like he was from around here." Liana put down her fork, her hands still trembling slightly. "No, I don't think so." The conversation drifted on to other topics: the neighbor's new baby, the cottage roof that needed work, plans for winter preserves. But beneath the comfortable rhythm, Liana felt the presence of suspense, as though the very air was holding its breath. That night, when she lay in her tiny bed and heard the groans and creaks of the cottage falling into position, Liana lay staring out the window into the moon. It was close to the full moon, with silver light pouring across the meadow and turning the distant forest almost mystical. She'd always adored moonlight, but tonight it seemed to be beckoning to something deep inside her, something she'd never faced before. And when finally sleep did come, it was filled with dreams more vivid than any she had ever experienced. She was running through the woods, her bare feet on the moss below, her heart pounding with exhilaration instead of fear. The trees flashed by her in darkness and far away she heard a sound of howling which was wild and beautiful and somehow fatally recognizable. She woke up around dawn time with tears on her face and the stern conviction that her peaceful life in Windmere was coming to an end soon.