Page 1 of The Sun and the Moon
Chapter One
Cadence
Nature can’t be tamed. Neither can a Connelly woman.
My mother’s reason she would never marry, couldn’t hold down a normal job, and didn’t volunteer for the PTA. She was a wild thing, untamable, elusive—a wolf in the wilderness, not simply a woman. She wanted me to be just like her, and I wanted to be anything else. After years traversing the rugged landscape of North America, living among the untamed wilderness that has been claimed by man’s hands, by land deeds, by acts of conservation, and, in many cases, by human greed, I have seen firsthand how the wilder the thing is, the harder it fights to remain free, even in the face of captivity.
If I am as wild as she always claimed, as wild as her, she really has only herself to blame for how things have turned out.
I crouch down, placing my hand on the edge of the rock in front of me. My eyes scan the plateau, looking for the creature. A flurry of white and gray, majestic and mysterious. It hasn’t shown itself again, and I don’t know if that’s because Devin is a heavy mouth breather or because it’s moved on already. I pinch my lipswith the pointer finger and thumb of my other hand, signaling for Devin to shut his. He clamps them closed and then flips me off. He’s holding the camera with the long scope, and despite the photographic evidence I’ve been able to capture on my iPhone, he remains skeptical.
I am happy to prove him—and our supervisor, Nika—wrong.
There’s fifty bucks and a day off on the line, after all.
Acadia National Park is home to a vast ecosystem of wildlife, protected within the boundaries of the park as best we can. The main predator to the natural world is human, tourists being some of the most destructive. The rangers created sighting competitions as a way to keep up morale throughout the year and keep eyes focused on the changes in the park that need our attention. I’ve never won, but this could be my chance.
The first snowy owl in October.
Even though it’s September.
Which is why, of course, no one believes me. I cite climate change for bringing us a snowstorm that kissed Sargent Mountain with a dusting of white and might have urged the bird this direction early. Predicting the patterns of nature gets harder every year.
My mother would say it’s fate that I saw the owl. A sign. A prompt for me to trust my intuition, lean on that still-small voice inside.
But I don’t believe in fate anymore, and I never rely on my intuition.
So. Climate change it is.
“You can tell me if you’re lying,” Devin says.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I wouldn’t lie about this. I wouldn’t lie about anything.
“Look, it’s just convenient that you saw it on your own, is all,”Devin says, fiddling with the long-range lens. “And you have an old-ass phone with a shit camera, so the pics are ragged.” We’re tucked into the tree line with a good view of the rocky summit where I spotted the owl yesterday while doing a trail inspection.
My supervisor, Nika, is encouraging me to start leading tours, giving instructional talks, literally anything more public-facing, because there’s room for growth. But I didn’t get into this job to be close to people.
The opposite, really.
I came here to get away from people.
“And your jabbering will undoubtedly scare it away,” I tell him in a low whisper. Devin is what one might call awork friend. Someone I get beers with sometimes, who once invited me to a barbeque, and who tried to set me up with his sister before he knew me well.
Untamable as I am, dating isn’t my strong suit.
You are a restless, wild thing.I shake the words away, just like I do every thought that gallops through my brain in my mother’s deep, mellifluous voice.
Madame Moira, the enigmatic neighborhood psychic.
My mother.
My mind conjures an image of her rambling, supposedly haunted two-story Craftsman. Named Kismet—by her—becauseall living things should have namesand because it’s a place of business, not just a home. The neon sign on the wraparound porch advertises readings for $99.99 an hour; the formal living room’s walls are lined with built-ins and packed with crystals, incantations, tarot decks,anythingmildly metaphysical that she can sell to unsuspecting souls who walk through the front door.
Her home—my home, once—is magnetic and mythical in away that feels fairy tale–made. Her life once cast a shadow over every part of mine. Now she’s mostly been reduced to memories that pop out in Technicolor when my vigilance drops.
I force my focus back to the cobalt-blue sky. Cloudless today and windy. The gray of the rocks contrasts against it in a beautifully stark sort of way.
“And it was just one?” Devin asks, still with that unmistakably skeptical tone.
