She Waits in The
Moonlight
by Dustin LaValley
(owned,
written, and copyrighted by Dustin LaValley, used by permission.
Previously published in issue 83 of "Bewildering Stories")
It shines through the
window that rests within the arched attic wall and creates an eerie shroud
that seems to embrace her. She sits on a small stool. Its ragged,
mix-matched colored cloth and putrid cotton hang torn underneath her tiny
buttocks. Blonde hair hides her neck and drapes her shoulders, perfect,
except for being slightly frayed at the ends. She wears a silk nightgown,
which is too big to be her own. It smells of the damp cardboard box it had
been stored inside, and had obviously been stored so for some time. The gown
is an unattractive shade of gold, trimmed with lace that once was white and
now blotted with small, crusty smears and faded splatters of brownish red.
She glances at her
feet, which are dangling, forgetting her present state and thinks of her
mother. She's always thinking of her, wonders if she was pretty, wonders
about her life and all those questions she had learned early on not to ask
her father. With a fragile, pale finger she traces the lace near her ankles,
she doesn’t feel the cloth, but feels the loss it holds within itself, and
knows it's real.
The stairs suddenly
give with their usual squeals and groans under the bulk of living lard known
to her as father. His breath is heavy and his forehead has quickly become
coated with sweat; A bead slides through his thick eyebrow, down his wide,
blemished nose and falls and lands left of a dark stain on a yellowed
undershirt, just above the dark mass of hair that has taken over his
enlarged gut. He grows more exhausted with each step, feels the quickening
of his heart and knows what it wants. He's known for some time.
Only her lovely blue
eyes move. They look away from the trail of her finger upon the lace and set
themselves into the moonlight. They are not afraid this time; they're not
worried or anxious…. They know.
The breath on the
stairs grows deeper and the pauses between each grow longer.
She waits in the
moonlight, pondering upon those thoughts she's forbidden to speak. Her
finger moves unconsciously up the gown and she feels her skin through the
torn silk, it's smooth and warm and she's startled by the sensation. She
places her palm against her belly and the sensation increases; her eyes
close as she inhales deeply, completely unaware of the silence from the
stairs.
He stands still, a
cringe on his face, grasping the flesh upon his chest. Wondering what
horrors lie ahead.
It does not
startle her. Her eyes remain closed as he tumbles from the stairs to the
floor; the sensation inside her belly flutters upwards and tickles her
throat as it rises, she exhales and opens her eyes. And she knows he's gone
forever.
