Page 1 of The Moonlight Healers

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

2019

1

LOUISE

Louise stood in the quiet of the orchard where she’d been born. Around her, the mountains rose against the pink skies. The tree branches were ripe with fruit, the light of a thousand fireflies glowing beyond them. She knew there was someone up ahead, out of sight, just on the other side of the tree line. She had caught a glimpse of a woman in a long, white nightgown, her hands trailing the branches.

She tried to follow but her body wouldn’t obey. She was stuck, anchored in place, her legs heavy. From somewhere behind, she heard the distant sound of sirens, muffled, as though she were under water. She squeezed her eyes shut as the noise grew louder, clearer.

When she opened them again, the orchard was gone. She was alone, in the passenger seat of Peter’s car, blinking into the bright June sun that streamed through the windshield. Only it wasn’t a windshield anymore. The center was gone. All that was left were shards of glass along the edges.

Her head throbbed, her thoughts jumbled. She tried to sortthrough the confusion and find something real. Peter had been in the car. He was driving. She knew that. She clung to the solidity of that fact like a lifeboat.

But he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, despite her chiding. She remembered the van swerving into their lane, Peter’s voice shouting her name, a white flash as the airbag exploded, and then only silence.

Louise continued to search her memory, moving up from the depths that surrounded her toward the light of the surface, and her stomach twisted as the previous night crashed back on her. The reason she hadn’t wanted to open the door for Peter this morning. A bright, moon-drenched sky, the blue-green glow of the pool lights in the backyard of Kyle Tan’s house, hundreds of voices, laughter, lukewarm beer in sweaty cans.

And Peter.

Peter at the end of the night, standing in front of her, saying the three words she used to want to hear more than anything, but years too late for her to be able to believe him.

Louise didn’t want to open her eyes again. She didn’t want to see the empty driver’s seat, or the broken windshield.

She pushed her mind back to the night before.

She had been awkward at first at the party, unsure of which circles to join. But then she and Peter took a shot of coconut rum, followed by another. Louise recalled the blooming affection, the rush of nostalgia for people she had barely spoken to over the years propelling her into conversations and games of flip cup, into one more beer, then another, her desire to leave early receding as the night went on.

They had been there for hours when Peter asked her to take a walk, pulling her to the edge of Kyle’s backyard, his hand firm around hers. She wasn’t sure if he had ever held her hand. If he had, it had been years, since the days of pretend play and tree houses.

They were both drunk by then, and they laughed as theystumbled over enormous old magnolia roots that raced across the ground like primordial snakes. The branches were dotted with soft, white flowers, their sweet scent hanging in the air as Peter stopped abruptly and gazed down at her.

A preemptive sadness cut through the haze of alcohol. She knew what he was doing. She was leaving in five days for New York to attend Summer Start, a six-week program for incoming freshmen at NYU. This would be their first summer apart, the first summer in years they wouldn’t be counselors together at Camp Staunton Meadows, where they had cemented their friendship as kids, sitting on warm grass under a glittering sky, drinking flat Cokes from the camp store.

Louise knew he was going to tell her goodbye, or good luck, or some other horribly meaningless phrase that would signify the end of the world they had shared since childhood.

But when he looked at her, there was no sadness, only a question. “I think, maybe… I love you,” Peter said.

Louise’s mouth curved up into a smile even as it hit her that he wasn’t joking. After all these years she knew what his voice sounded like when he was being real.

The pause lasted for hours. Music from the party shook the ground beneath them. There were loud splashes from the pool, the distant sounds of glass breaking inside. She wanted to turn away, but he held her eyes in a way that made it impossible.

“Oh right,” she finally said, widening her smile. She felt frozen, trapped between two worlds. One was the safe, dependable life she knew, where Peter was her best friend. And the other was a future she had long convinced herself she didn’t need, where Peter loved her the way she loved him, an unbearably wonderful but fragile idea.

She grasped for words that could defuse the tension, though she knew how false they would sound. “Isn’t that how it always goes in the movies? Graduation-party declaration of love.”

Peter watched her, his expression still hopeful. But then hisentire body seemed to fold inward. He looked down at the ground and cleared his throat. “Right.”

When he looked back up at her, he was smiling, but even in the dark she could tell it wasn’t genuine. “You’re too smart to fall for it, though.” He glanced back toward the house, the boisterous noise of their classmates. “I need another drink. You want one?”

She nodded blankly, and he turned and walked back to the party.

* * *

In the car, Louise opened her eyes. With a shaking hand, she groped for her seat belt. It was her fault. All of it. But she could fix it. If she could only find him, she could put everything back together, make it whole again.

Louise leaned against the dented car door, but it wouldn’t shove open. The guardrail was in front of them. They must have hit it. She slammed into the door harder a second time, with all her weight, and this time it gave. She pulled herself out with a wince at a soreness in her shoulder.

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