When Adam was four, everything that belonged to his parents was delivered to his Grandmother's house, along with himself. His Grandmother sat him down softly and told him that his parents had passed away in a boat accident and that he was going to live with her from now on. Adam could remember the way the bells on her shawl jingled whenever she moved, the way all of the dried herbs looked terrifying, the way the symbols chalked over the doorways and on some of the doors looked like threats instead of safety measures. Adam had run away the following night.
They found him on the beach, several miles from her house, sobbing for his parents under the glare of the waning gibbous moon. After that, Adam and his Grandmother had a talk about why he had run away, and, more importantly, about the fact that he should never, ever leave at night. This was the first night Adam was introduced to the full moon and what it meant. His Grandmother told him that he was lucky the moon was waning, and that something terrible could have happened to him if he had run away when the moon was full. His parents were gone, his Grandmother had told him, but he was still here and so was she. She would take care of him. All he needed to do was follow her full moon rules, and he could do almost anything else he wanted.
The first rule, the most unbreakable rule, the rule that had struck up a flickering match of fear in his Grandmother's eyes, was to never, ever, leave the house once the sun set on a full moon. The other rules were all along the lines of not bothering his Grandmother as she did whatever she did and cloistering himself within the walls of his room. The final rule was the rule that no matter what, even if he had the stupidity to break every other rule of the full moon, Adam had to make sure that he never broke, was to never step foot on the beach. He had agreed to the rules after a little thought, asked for ice cream for dinner, and then received it. Adam had not run away from his Grandmother's house since.
But tonight, as he watched his Grandmother lift her talismans up into the corners of the room, he wondered why she was bothering. She muttered nonsense under her breath as she swept around the room, sealing and blocking and protecting, or whatever she was doing.
He slowly washed his plate in the sink, watching her.
"Adam, dear, could you hand me some of that cloth? I want to block up the edges of this window." She was taping black tarp to the windows, something she had never done before. He handed her the cloth and watched her stuff it into the cracks of the window so that no moonlight could possibly enter the house. Her shoulders lowered slightly with relief once the night was no longer visible from the window.
"Come on, we just have to do this with the other windows and then you can go on to bed," she told him. He began taping black tarp to the other windows, blocking out any light of the moon.
"Grandmother," he said suddenly. She was too busy focusing on the windows and muttering things under her breath to turn and face him.
"How did my parents die?" he asked. Her shoulders tensed and then immediately relaxed, conscious of his eyes on her.
"What do you mean, dear? You know they died in a boating accident. It was a terrible, terrible tragedy." Her voice was calm and her delivery of this statement was practiced. She looked at him, her eyes overly innocent.
"I was doing some digging and, you know, there's no record of them renting a boat. And we don't own one. There's no record anywhere," he said. He had caught her. Her eyes blinked once, twice. Satisfaction stretched languidly and settled down into his stomach, but it didn't feel quite right.
"You and I both know they didn't die in a boat accident, did they?"
"Adam, I don't have time to talk to you about this. I have to get this house protected from the full moon. I don't know what you're expecting to discover... The police report says it was a boat accident. Do I know better than the police? How would I know? Just help me cover up these windows. That's what you should be concerning yourself with. That's all you should be concerning yourself with," she said. There was a misty, suspicious quality to her rebuttal and it made him all the more sure she knew exactly what had happened to them. He shoved a few more rags into the window cracks and then turned toward her, his jaw jutting out slightly, like the jab before the right hook he was about to send her way.
"They died on the full moon," he said, and then, because he was horrible, he tossed in the kicker, "Just like Blue."
She didn't freeze this time. In fact, she didn't react at all.
"Darling, I have to protect the house."
"You have nothing to say about their suspicious full moon death? About Blue's full moon death?" he asked. He was starting to get angry now, though he couldn't tell whether it was at her or not. Her face was away from him, turned out towards the shiny black tarp covering the windows. She placed a piece of tape on the edge of the tarp, where it was bulging out slightly and allowing a miniscule sliver of the moonlight to shine on the table. Her hands shook slightly, sending tiny ripples across the tarp.
"You don't know anything, right? You never know anything. You put up the rocks and the spices and you spread the smoke and you cover the windows. You won't let me leave. But you don't know anything about anything. Nothing about the full moon or my parents or Blue. You can't even call me the right name. I'm Adam, you know. Not Finn. Adam. Finn is dead. Your son is dead. And you know nothing about that, right?" He wanted to turn and flee from this house the way he had done when he was four and when things were somehow simpler than they were right now.
"I don't know anything, Adam. I..." She turned to him, her face twisted slightly. She was clearly putting quite a lot of effort into holding back everything. Because he knew that she knew it all and she knew that he needed to hear whatever she was holding so close to her heart. Why his parents had died and how. Why Blue had died. She knew and she wouldn't tell him. Her eyes were shining, glistening as if pieces of the moonlight she was desperately blocking out of her home had caught in her eyes. They held eye contact for just a moment. For just a moment, she was going to tell him all that she knew. She was going to cry with him, tell him why the world had done this to him, and help him figure out where to go next. For a moment, they were equals. And then, her expression closed off, and they were strangers amongst each other again and he was sent off to drift in this sea that life had created for him in a boat without paddles.
"I don't know anything more than what is in the police reports. The boat ran into bad weather, they crashed, and they were gone. There's nothing more to say. Blue drowned. There's nothing more to say. This full moon superstition is just a superstition held by silly old women and a town with more misfortune than other places. There is no magic answer to loss, Adam. It just happens."
"Yeah. Of course not. Of course there isn't a magic answer, or any real answer at all. There never is. We just work our stupid jobs and put up our stupid garlands and block the light of the moon like everyone else. We bury empty coffins. Mark their empty graves with the same regular, normal symbols. Of course. Do you ever get tired of lying? Do you ever wonder what would happen if you just told me the truth? I'm not six anymore. I'm not-you know what? Never mind. I'm going to bed."
"Adam-"
"I'm tired, Grandmother." He ducked under a garland of sea glass and herbs his Grandmother had hung up by the stairs and headed to his room. His feelings were all over the place. Why was the town so afraid of this stupid full moon? All these deaths, this abnormally high rate of accidental ocean deaths, brushed away. Why was everyone so unbothered by this? He was starting to feel crazy. It wasn't right. It wasn't normal, no matter what his Grandmother said. Something had to be going on here. How was he the only one who seemed to care about the dead? About Blue? He wondered briefly if the town was secretly full of werewolves and then felt the need to smack himself. Werewolves. They didn't exist. It was probably some unhinged serial killer or something, some ancient town secret. Or worse, it was absolutely nothing, and the sea was just rougher here and the people were just weird. He slammed his door extra loud so that his Grandmother could hear how passive aggressively angry he was at her.
His phone was lit up when he entered, which was rather unusual for a Sunday night. Chase usually expected to see him online a little later than this and Chase was frankly the only friend who was probably brave enough to contact him right now. He crossed the room and picked it up. The screen was full of missed calls and text messages from Chase. At the bottom of the feed was an audio message dated a handful of minutes before Adam had entered the room. He clicked on that message first, ignoring the other texts in favor of the most recent contact.
"Hey... Adam, I know you're busy with your Grandmother... or you would have texted me back. Unless you're doing that thing again where you just disappear until I see you in person or something. Fuck, I hope you're there. I'm freaking out. Beth's gone. We can't find her anywhere. I know I'm not supposed to... but I'm out looking for her right now. My mom's freaking out. She keeps like pacing and stuff and I'm just not willing to wait around. I know we're not supposed to go out right now. I just... What if it's Blue all over? I'm freaking out. I can't find her. I don't see her. Fuck. If you get this, please, please help me look for her. Check the beaches and stuff. I wouldn't ask you but I'm freaking out. I'm going out of my mind. My parents won't leave the house to look for her. One person isn't enough. I don't know who else to ask. I'm sorry, I don't know what else to do. Ok. I'm still searching. Sorry. Sorry. Call me."
The message cut out.
Adam stared down at his phone. One rule: don't leave the house. That was the one rule. The one rule that Blue hadn't followed. That Beth hadn't followed. That Chase was now not following. He texted Chase and told him not to worry, that he was leaving the house right now to go look for Beth. Unease was snaking through his veins, settling uncomfortably in coiled knots in his stomach, writhing. He shivered as he put on his shoes. He was breaking the rules. He slid his widow open, grimacing at the slight noise it made as he lifted it up. He pushed at the screen in the window, harder and harder until it popped out, and clambered onto the roof, feeling the roof groan slightly under his weight. He couldn't bear to face his Grandmother if she were to hear him now, sneaking across the roof, on the only night he was not supposed to leave. The unease in his stomach slithered around itself and he felt nauseous. The breeze was soft and cool. It was a beautiful night out. The moon gazed unblinkingly at him as he lowered himself down onto the front porch, the only witness to this terrible crime he was committing. The glass charms hanging from the rafters clinked softly. He walked slowly down the front steps. He shouldn't be doing this. He turned and looked back at his house. It sat proudly on its little stilts, surrounded by the softly waving grass. The windows were completely, eerily dark. He had never seen his house that dark since... ever. He turned slowly away from the house, squeezing his hands into shaking fists, and started down the empty road.
The town was silent, empty, and hung all around with the same kinds of charms that his Grandmother had decorated their home with. Garlands of herbs and sea glass, piles of shells and salt decorated every house on the row, and every door was probably as firmly locked as his own door probably was right now. The roads were covered in a light dusting of sand, which didn't move despite the breeze playing with the ends of his hair.
"Beth?" His voice was too loud. There was no response. There was no movement in the town except for his own. The moon glared down at him mercilessly.
And then, in the darkness, splitting the silence, was a voice, singing beautifully.
Adam slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, cocking his head in confusion. It was definitely a girl's voice but it was unrecognizable to him. It definitely wasn't Beth's voice, as she couldn't carry a tune to save her life, and it was coming from the beach. The voice tumbled through the darkness, sharp, crisp, beautiful. His stomach churned again as he peddled towards the beach, his Grandmother's final, unbreakable rule sinking its teeth into the lining of his stomach, double fanged and poisonous.
"Beth?" he asked, though he knew inherently that this beautiful voice did not belong to Beth. He hovered at the beginning of the path that led to the beach, his feet safely on the concrete just before the beach. That unease that was undulating in scaly waves in his stomach was preventing him from taking that final leap, that final step away from his Grandmother's rules.
The girl's voice continued to sing, harmonizing with the night itself, wordless and beautiful. There was something haunting about it, something threatening, something undeniably alluring. Adam stepped uncertainly onto the sand, trying to see the owner of the voice, if it was someone he knew. The moment his feet touched the sand, his body wrenched itself from his control, pulling itself towards the inky waves in jerking movement. He struggled to regain control, to do something, but his body continued its march to the sea. He couldn't even scream. There was something eerily familiar about this desperate march to the sea.
The first step into the waves was shocking. The surf felt incredibly cold despite the heat of the August air. The waves battered his shins. Still, the voice continued to sing and his body continued to jerk forward, possessed, like he was nothing more than some limbs hung on the silver strings of moonlight, urged forward by that beautiful, wonderful voice. The waves smashed into his chest and his body tumbled down, spinning among the water. He couldn't even struggle against the waves as he was battered in circles, his cheeks and arms scraping painfully against the sand at the bottom of the ocean the way they had done a week ago. He tumbled out of the waves back onto the shore, skin smarting, sucking in gasping breaths. He was a backseat driver in this traitorous body of his and it picked itself back off of the sand and plunged forwards into the waves. The water sprayed, smacked him in the face. It seemed so incredibly dark and cold. There was no way for him to fight against what this voice was doing to him. He had been hopelessly ensnared since he had heard the first notes. This time, instead of ending up back on the beach, gasping for air, he surpassed the thunderous waves and swam out. He was headed for the moon, for the moonlit edge of the water, where the horizon line was. Only, it didn't really look like the horizon line anymore as he swam on and on and on. Spray and salt slammed against the skin of his face, sticking to his eyelashes and dripping off his cheeks. The notes of the song were ringing in his ears.
Abruptly, his body stopped swimming.
He dropped down, joining the soft sway of the ocean's currents. His lungs were filling up with water. Still, he couldn't move. He was going to die, but this time, it seemed unhurried. There was no panic, no horrible sinking feelings. The song filled him up the same way that the ocean did, expelling all of the air from his lungs.
A pair of hands reached out and lifted him up. He could see her face so clearly. She was so familiar, so perfect. She had the same eyes as him, the same slightly uneven curve to her smile. She was smiling at him comfortingly. He had not seen her face since he was four years old. He had almost forgotten what she looked like. He was probably crying, his tears mixing easily with the water around him. He wrapped his arms around her, felt her freeze up briefly in surprise and then relax in his grasp.
"Mom!" His words were just empty shapes mouthed by his lips. He had no more air to make words with. She looked so perfect. He reached his hand out and cupped her face. She seemed surprised, but she leaned into his hand, her expression relaxing.
"Mommy, I missed you so much. I missed you so much."
His body had reached equilibrium. Everything was cool, dark, black. He buried his face into her neck, holding her close one last time. He couldn't tell where he ended and the ocean began. It didn't really matter anymore. The ocean seemed blissfully still.