Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (30 page)

I walk over to the dry sand near the cliff, spread my towel out and sit down. I pretend that Daniel is sitting at my feet with his head in my lap while I stroke his hair. Then I lie back and shut my eyes and dream of Daniel, of lying beneath him in the soft warm sand as he holds me close, kisses me sweetly, and gently enters me, everlastingly.

T
he sun is setting as I make my way down the cliff leading to Shell Beach. I sit in the sand at waters edge and watch the reddish-orange sphere slip slowly into the colossal blue sea, beneath an opalescent sky laced with thin clouds.

I sit with outstretched legs. The beach is unoccupied, but for me. The south side beach is out of my view, but the tide is rising and it’s getting dark so I assume no one has ventured there.

I’d phoned Mr. Christie after cashing Mrs. Hartford’s check, and Mr. Christie suggested I hire a private detective to locate Sarah. Not a bad idea. The suggestion has provided me with some hope, temporary, because now all I can feel is shivery despair. I cannot shake my fear of never seeing Sarah again.

I’m not angry at life. I don’t have a death wish. I’m simply filled with a disquietude that casts a grim shadow on my heart. Since meeting Sarah, I’ve felt rooted in contentment, spending time with her, conversing with her on the phone, and then, as if by some contrivance of The Evil One, it was all yanked out from under me. It seems I’ve been put under a spell where the only effective charm is Sarah’s kiss upon my lips. Without her, my world is a wasteland in the aftermath of war: parched earth and twisted metal and blackened bones.

For a few minutes I become absorbed in the motions of the tidewaters. Its rhythms make me aware of my own solitude. I ask myself, If there’s a God, why did He take Sarah from me? I conclude that perhaps the Lord, ha-Shem, has nothing to do with it, perhaps He is like the sea itself, flowing eternally, awesome in His unlimited power, yet boundlessly indifferent.

How quiet it is; the whole world appears at rest. I gaze up at the beauty of the sky, contemplating God’s creation in rapt awe. There You are, I find myself thinking, I’ve been waiting for You all my life. Suddenly I feel a profound humility before the infinite vastness of the universe, all created by ha-Shem, and I realize how different God must be from me, yet I sense a certain closeness I haven’t felt before. I see myself connected somehow to all that exists, a solitary yet inseparable star wandering far out across the long night of eternity, where question and answer become one.

For what seems a long time I sit, watching the light fade against the sky. I wonder, If what I’ve done in my life is wrong, will God grant my redemption? I raise my eyes to the heavens questioningly, but there’s no answer, just the sound of a train whistle from afar. The long melodic cry somehow wrenches at my heart, beckoning me.

As I rise mechanically to my feet, my fears have subsided. There’s a strange and sudden silence, like with the cessation of a great symphonic piece. The sun has set, and everything is calm. My sense of loneliness, without Sarah, is more intense than ever, but I will never stop looking for the girl I love, and I know I will find her. I can feel it in my bones, as I breathe freely and walk back towards the cliff to leave the beach and get a motel room.

I
lie supinely on my towel at the base of the cliff on the south side of Shell Beach, eyes closed, still dreaming tearfully of Daniel, dozing, thinking ...

The sun has set so I’ll have to go soon.

What if Daniel has actually left me? When someone has been in a place for a long time, I reflect, and no one sees him off, it’s like he’s never been there, like he never knew me. I begin to cry again, but then I stop.

I decide to say a prayer. “Please God,” I whisper, still lying on my back, “bring Daniel to me. I don’t care if that makes my mother a liar. One
can
believe in things that seem impossible. And God, please give us a sign that we aren’t brother and sister. Amen.”

But it isn’t really a prayer at all, there’s no understanding that it’s reached God, only the sense of my words falling away on the air like dissolving mist.

I just want to wish away even the slightest possibility of being Daniel’s sister, and I want somehow to change my mother’s unreasonable attitude about my future with Daniel. When people tell lies, it’s because they fail to understand themselves. My mother has failed miserably when it comes to understanding herself, and when it comes to understanding me, too.

Where Daniel is concerned, my mother hasn’t taken into consideration my feelings at all. After all, I’m not just a child, trivial and unimportant, driven by the ebb and flow of adult lives.

Whenever something seems bad or evil, it’s because we have only a partial understanding of things. I read that in a philosophical treatise of the seventeenth century, for English class.

Yet I cannot help thinking that if Daniel has truly gone away, he’s taken a part of me with him, and now I’ll slowly bleed to death without him. I will die at heart from the withdrawal of his love.

I’ve gotten so emotional that my breathing becomes really shallow, like I’m panting or something, and my heartbeat is unusually rapid. Suddenly I feel oh so tired. I begin to doze off again, fall into a deep sleep, and then just moments later, I think, I wake with a start, sit up quickly and cry out, woefully, “Daniel, my Daniel!”

H
alfway up the cliff, on the footpath leading away from the beach, I stop in mid-step. In the corner of my consciousness it seems I’ve heard my name called, from afar, a lament befitting the final act of a classical tragedy. Am I hearing things? The sound was like talk buried deep in dreams, dim and fleeting, and had apparently carried up to me on the wind from the beach below. It was Sarah’s voice; I know it in every fiber of my being. But that’s impossible.

It must be, I think, that I
was
just imagining it, like before, when the unreal voice of my mother would steal in upon my consciousness, often, after her death. What the hell, more than once I’d even glimpsed the ghostly essence of my mother, or so I had thought. I’m probably imagining things now, but I want to be sure.

I look down at the beach and see no one. My heart beats violently. I climb back down the cliff and look around. Nothing. I’ve simply been hearing voices again. I turn back towards the cliff. I had considered checking the south side beach, but now the foamy tidewaters extend landward well beyond the end of the promontory, making it extremely unlikely that anyone is there, so I decide not to bother.

Yet there’s something pulling at me. Changing my mind, I stop and remove my moccasins and roll the legs of my jeans up to my knees. Carrying my shoes, I wade through the ankle-deep water and peer around the end of the natural barrier. I freeze. On the tiny beach near the base of the cliff lies a lone female wearing a pale blue dress. It’s Sarah! But wait. I must be either hallucinating or seeing a ghost lying on the beach. This is too good to be true! Miracles don’t really happen, do they?

I experience a sense of well-being that overwhelms me in the way certain songs heard at just the right moment can do. It’s as though I’ve discovered my own immortal soul.

A receding wave erodes the sand beneath my feet, tickling my toes. My mouth hangs open, like the mouth of a child staring at his gifts from Santa on Christmas morning.

Sarah is lying on her stomach, her face smothered in her hands and her shoulders heaving. I walk over to her very quietly and kneel by her side. I want to touch her, but only with my fingertips, for fear that she really is a ghost and might vanish.

I place my hand gently on her shoulder. Surprised by my touch, she turns over quickly and looks up at me, her flushed face blazing with the ardent emotion of instant recognition, her lips wet, her eyes bright with what I can only call true love,
our
love, pure and magnetic.

Sarah has summoned my entire being. I want to hold her and lie with her forever, let her bring back the part of me that’s been missing so I might become real again.

She wraps her thin arms around my neck, pulling me close, and she whispers in my ear, “Make love to me, Daniel, now, please ...”

D
aniel and I keep silent, drinking in breathlessly the huge event that has just taken place.

With the increasing darkness comes a quarter moon rising over the quiet ocean, a few faint stars, Venus shining brightly through the soft haze, high in the sky.

I’m lying on my back, my face wet with kissing. I feel the warmth of Daniel’s body beside me as his hand moves beneath my dress. I am breathing open-mouthed in a kind of shuddery way, fearful and delighted at the same time.

He pulls away and I want to scream, “No!” But then I realize he’s only taking off his jeans. His body is beautiful, spare and muscular. There’s no way this godlike creature can be meant for me. I’ve never seen an actual penis before, a membrum, just a drawing of one in sex education class. I’m pretty sure Daniel’s is gorgeous, thick and heavy in its state of excitement, protruding from a nest of dark frizzy hair.

I sit up and peel off my dress, remove my bra and panties. I feel a little bewitched, possessed. When I lie back, Daniel gets on top of me and he’s kissing me again, on the lips and on my neck. He massages my thighs delicately and I begin to tremble. I grope for him, sort of like the way a baby’s hand goes out to clutch an outstretched finger.

He eases himself down upon me and enters me, slowly, gently, and I melt into his flesh. He moves his hips, going deeper and deeper. It hurts a little, but I don’t want him to stop. I want to have his baby.

Soon the pain subsides, and Daniel begins to move faster. It sends chills all through me. His body shakes with giving, and my body shakes its acceptance. I lace the fingers of both my hands with his, above my head, and I squeeze and do not relax, for we might be pulled apart again—our bond must not be severed.