A Moonlit Task Read online

  Nancy smiled.

  Edna sat down on the couch underneath the dingy front window. “Well, what do you think? I don’t like curry, but the smell in this house, with this getup. Oh, I love it.”

  The creak of rusty metal caused Nancy to turn to see the young woman wheeling in a positively ancient looking woman. She must have been at least a hundred years old if she was a day. Her darkened shriveled skin hung off her delicate frame. She was so skinny that it was as if she hadn’t eaten in a month.

  “Guru!” Edna squealed.

  The old woman grimaced. She pointedly avoided Nancy and instead looked at Edna.

  Her gaze was downright piercing with a hint of something behind those eyes that Nancy could only describe as immense prescience, something she had remembered seeing in Anca.

  Despite the woman’s aged look, Nancy got the impression that she was positively dangerous. Nancy’s sense of caution skyrocketed instantly, causing her hands to become moist with sweat.

  “Sit already. I’m not going to get up for you,” the old woman croaked. It was the voice of someone who had lived a couple lifetimes surrounded by cigarettes—hoarse, scratchy, and driving. Nancy wanted to turn and leave, but despite her will, her muscles refused to obey.

  “Sit,” the woman commanded again.

  Nancy sat.

  Ushageeta raised her head slightly to address the young girl that seemed to be her caretaker. “You can leave us.”

  The girl gave a small curtsey and filed out of the room.

  “What was so important that I had to get woken up at the shit end of midnight?” She continued to address only Edna, hadn’t so much as flicked her eyes in Nancy’s direction.

  Edna replied, “It's actually only four in the—”

  Ushageeta cut her off. "I know what time it is right now. I'm referring to getting woken up in the middle of the night by a drunk latent." She remained locked onto Edna.

  Nancy noticed something strange about the woman's eyes. It was like electricity was coming off them, little tiny bright blue sparks danced across the surface of her dark brown and bloodshot eyes. Nancy blinked, and the sparks where gone. She blinked twice more, realizing just how bad her eyes were playing tricks on her in the evening light.

  Nancy could do nothing but stare openmouthed at the old woman. Everything about this situation was screaming for her to get up, grab Edna, and leave. None of her muscles would so much as twitch in response, despite her inner mind screaming at her to do so.

  Nancy realized Edna hadn’t said a word in response. Nancy turned to look at her friend, amazed that her head still worked, but Edna wasn’t moving. She sat on the couch next to her, hands clasped in her lap, mouth half open as if she was ready to spout off some new quip, but her eyes were out of focus and hollow, like the lights had been flicked off and she was hypnotized, sitting there slack-jawed, awaiting a command to turn her into a chicken.

  Terror mounting in her mind, Nancy turned slightly back toward Ushageeta, expecting her to still have her eyes locked on Edna, but they weren’t.

  Ushageeta’s searing eyes lay completely focused on hers. “Hello, Nancy Moon. So nice of you to come into my home.”

  Nancy couldn’t move. Her mind halted. She tried to turn back to her friend, to see if Edna’s frozen state was just a figment of her imagination, but Nancy found she couldn’t so much as flex her jaw.

  Ushageeta pulled up a bony arm with dripping brown wrinkled skin and raised it to Nancy’s forehead.

  Nancy didn't know what she should do or if she could do anything at all. What the hell was going on?

  The woman wheeled herself closer, placed her thumb in the middle of Nancy's forehead, and spread out her bony fingers over the top of her head, pressing forcefully. Her fingers were abnormally warm to the touch, and continued to grow in heat. Her breath was starkly sour and pungent. Nancy wanted to cringe, to shy away but sat there unable to move.

  "Edna didn't tell me you were a latent. Oh what fun this is. Why did you come here?"

  Nancy wanted to respond, wanted to scream, cry, yell, throw things, and run away, but she wasn't able to move or even think clearly. The warmth spread from the woman's fingers into her head, filling her cranium with a heat that was almost unbearable before a coldness seeped in to take the edge off. The warmth seemed to mingle with the cold in a spiral of power that proceeded from her head down her spine and out into her extremities. Her fingers and toes, even the three on her right foot that hadn't had feeling in years suddenly became alive with activity.

  All at once the heat was gone. Ushageeta was sitting back in her wheelchair with a wide grin plastered on her face. The half a dozen missing teeth seemed appropriate for this woman.

  The terror she had just had moments before abated. She was back. She was present. She could move.

  "So you don't know, do you?"

  Nancy wanted to turn, look at her friend, wake up Edna and leave, but she felt compelled to answer.

  "Um, know what?"

  Ushageeta folded her hands in her lap, pulling the blanket closer while she shook slightly. "I do apologize for that little show. You have probably never had it done to you, but I had to know why you were here.”

  "What did you do to me? What did you do to Edna?”

  The old crone shrugged and smiled again as she nodded her head at Edna. “I’ll tell you how I did it if you answer my questions to my satisfaction.” Ushageeta smiled again, the grin seeming to be wider than a Cheshire cat’s. "Oh deary, you have so much to learn about so many things. My little look into your mind told me that you have a lot of questions."

  She rearranged the blanket again and looked back up at Nancy, her dark brown eyes somehow softer with a hint of yellow or gold.

  No longer did she seem to be a scary woman. She just looked like a frail centennial in a wheelchair fit for someone twice her size.

  Nancy looked over to Edna, who still sat in the dazed stupor, as if in suspended animation.

  "Oh, don't worry about her. She's fine. Call it … hypnotism, if you will. I just felt like you would be more willing to discuss things if she wasn't listening."

  Nancy swallowed. It was too true. Despite her reticence to talk to a complete stranger, somehow that was better than talking to her best friend. At least she could leave here and never see Ushageeta again.

  Nancy felt defeated even though she didn’t know she had been in a war. Like a battle had just taken place without her knowing. She swallowed and tried to clear her mind.

  "Can I ask you to unfreeze Edna? She needs to hear this as much as you, probably more so.”

  This seemed to please the old lady. “I like that. Tenacity and putting others first. Those are good things to have.” She snapped her fingers and Nancy heard Edna’s exasperated breath behind her.

  "So spill it,” said Ushageeta. “I don't have all day."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nancy laid out her story to Ushageeta. She started with the tiger on the car, finding Linda in the alleyway, along with her request to find someone named Peter and give him a message and a jade figurine. She tried to tell everything word for word as well as she could remember it.

  Ushageeta tended to nod along and agree with a grunt most of the time, but she did ask for clarification and more details about when Peter had passed out, including the things he had said. Ushageeta was also very keen on knowing Edna's reaction to the whole scenario, something Nancy also did while glancing occasionally at her friend.

  Through it all, Edna remained silent as a mouse, nodding along with a gleam in her eye. Nancy knew it was probably killing her to stay silent.

  After mentioning the note Peter had left her, Nancy was about to bring up the book but stopped herself before she did, remembering Peter’s request that she not share her knowledge of the book with anyone else. She decided, for sake of trust with him and because she didn’t fully understand the book’s purpose, to leave it out.

  Edna had already read the note, but didn’t know what i
t was referring to, much like herself before she found the book.

  Thinking about the note made her think of Anca, and how she had missed their meeting.

  "Something on your mind?" Ushageeta asked.

  "No, uh, I just realized that I missed an appointment with someone this afternoon." She didn't want to admit that it was Anca, but the meeting had not crossed Nancy's mind all day after the events of the dream and this morning with Edna.

  She concluded with as many details as she could about the dream, from meeting a younger Linda, to the Chinese woman who she was increasingly convinced was Peter's mother. She even told Ushageeta her suspicions that somehow Peter still wasn't safe and that she had failed as his protector.

  Her story all told, Nancy sat back, wishing she suddenly had a cup of tea or something stronger to drink. Her mouth was parched. Her mind was clean, or was it simply more weighed down now that she had reconstructed all the oddities in her life over the last week? Either way, she felt like she could think clearly now.

  She worried what Ushageeta would say about this. Nancy was prepared to listen, however. Edna was right, lot of strange things had been happening and she would take answers from just about anyone at this point.

  Ushageeta sat back in her wheelchair, her intertwined, emaciated fingers tapped her pursed lips repeatedly while she hummed to herself, like she was carrying on a conversation in her mind of which only the deepest notes were vocalized and wafting through her chest.

  "Well, it is a lot to think about, is it not?" She turned her head slightly to Nancy's left. "What do you think, Edna?"

  Nancy turned her head. Edna was sitting there in a similar leaned-back position. Her hands were folded in her lap and she looked calm but alert.

  Nancy opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. What was she going to say? Why had she withheld this from her for so long?

  “I’m so sorry, Edna. I should have told you earlier about all this stuff. You were right. I need to not bottle things up like I tend to do.”

  Nancy braced for a retort but all she got was a smile. "It's okay. I knew that you were struggling with things, and I know how hard it is for you to open up. I only wanted you to be able to say what you wanted without fear of my opinion or judgment. I’m confident Guru will be able to help you.”

  Edna put a comforting arm around Nancy’s shoulders before continuing. "I'm glad you were able to get it out." She turned to the old woman in the wheelchair. "So what now?"

  Ushageeta was still tapping her lips with the tips of her paired-up index fingers. She stopped tapping and frowned.

  "There are many things going on here, and some of it I'm not prepared to discuss with you quite yet. I will need to consult with others on it before providing you with an answer, but what I can tell you is this."

  She put her hands on her knees and leaned forward. The brightly colored yellow and red blanket that seemed to be the only thing keeping this frail woman from freezing to death fell off her shoulders, and Nancy resisted the urge to get up to put it back.

  "Anca Petran is a dangerous individual. You were right to be concerned about her and this Peter boy. I can't tell you if he is safe. You said he was taking a bus back to his family, is that correct?" Nancy nodded, which Usahgeeta echoed. "Then there is not much you can do about him now. Hopefully, he will reply once he has arrived and will be able to fill you in on his situation."

  She leaned back a little bit more and folded her arms across her chest. "As for the dreams, I cannot say. Dreams are a strange thing. Sometimes they are simply the mind trying to process all the detritus we deal with as humans, other times the spirits beyond the veil may try to use that avenue to communicate with us."

  Nancy spoke up. "So it could be Linda trying to talk to me?" Half of her thought it was ridiculous that she was even taking the notion seriously, but after the last week, Nancy was starting to wonder about her own sanity.

  "Or it could just be a guilty old lady who is feeling bad that she didn't watch the boy she was trying to help actually get on the bus," Ushageeta stated, shrugging her shoulders.

  Nancy was impressed with the woman’s insight. She half expected Ushageeta to blame it all on some mystical mumbo jumbo, but guilt was a insightful notion. Still, Nancy was more inclined to believe that it really was Linda’s ghost. Nancy became aware that Ushageeta may have intuited that from her, or from Edna explaining about her friend, and thus phrased the answer as such to help build trust.

  She didn’t know how to feel about that; it could either be endearing, or creepy.

  "The important thing is that I know Anca, and I know she is dangerous," Ushageeta continued.

  "How do you know her?" Edna queried.

  "She and I run in some of the same circles. I knew Linda Hamada. She was an amazing woman. So kind. She sold herbs, I sell palm readings." She nodded at Edna, the corners of her mouth twitching up slightly. "Or in her case, I milk her for all the money I can get."

  She winked at Edna, who smiled back with a big dopey grin.

  "I can't answer all the actual questions you have, but yes, I saw them all in your mind. The spark, the eyes. You are not crazy. You are latent. I can't go into it all right now, but you have a power inside of you that has not manifested until now. Maybe it was the shock of finding Linda in the alleyway, maybe it's the alignment of the moon and stars. I cannot tell without further investigation, but your dreams are not just yours alone. They are real, and you are being called upon from beyond the grave."

  Nancy's mind reeled. What was she talking about? Eyes? Did Ushageeta mean the golden eyes she'd been seeing lately in various people, including her?

  Next to her, Edna made a noise that reminded Nancy of a kid who just couldn’t contain their excitement but knew she wasn’t in a place to express it the way she wanted. Edna was ready to explode. Ushageeta had just told Nancy she had powers. She needed to know more.

  “Power, like magic?”

  “Yes, magic.” She paused, tapping a fingernail on the metal frame of her wheelchair for a moment before leaning forward. Her eyes had that dancing electricity she had seen earlier. “What do you see in my eyes?”

  Nancy swallowed, was she ready for this? Did Ushageeta mean to call her out on the fact that she saw the sparks? Nancy suddenly felt very small and very young. It was like hormone-driven puberty all over again.

  “I see little lightning bolts in your eyes.”

  Ushageeta smiled then gave a small nod to Edna, whose own eyes looked like they wanted to burst out of her skull.

  “Nancy Moon, you have something inside of you that has been dormant for far too long. You are a witch, and you lack instruction.” She leaned back again in her wheelchair, the sparks in her eyes gone. “Again, I don't have time now to get into it, but you are special and I will have to schedule some time to help you understand the world around you.”

  Nancy heard a humming sound and looked to the side for its origin.

  Nancy smiled at her friend. “You okay, Edna?

  Edna nodded furiously. Her tightly curled hair bounced as she rocked back and forth on the couch. Finally Edna couldn’t contain it any longer. “My best friend is a witch!”

  Then Edna was on her, hugging, crying, laughing. The two shared a cathartic moment together now that everything, or at least most of everything, was out in the open. Nancy suddenly felt drained, and wanted to get home.

  "I think it's time to go. I want to lie down."

  Edna seemed confused. She glanced at Ushageeta and seeing the earnest look in the old woman's eyes, agreed. "Of course, let's get you home."

  Nancy stood then bent over to shake Ushageeta's hand. "Thank you for your advice." She started to turn then stopped. "Guru," she added.

  Edna snickered behind her.

  No words were shared between them as they left Ushageeta’s home and loaded into Edna’s car. They drove in relative silence, only breaking it with small talk and chitchat about the state of the buildings.

  Ever
ything, well nearly everything, was out on the table now. Nancy didn’t know if they needed to discuss this into the ground or if it was best to let it sit for a while. Either way seemed wrong, but also right.

  Saying there were butterflies in her stomach was a gross understatement. It felt like a den of moles had setup shop in there and were busy remodeling the place just in time for guests.

  No other cars stirred on Nancy’s street as they drove up and parked.

  Edna finally broke the excruciating silence. “You okay?”

  Nancy shook her head. Her mind wouldn’t stop working, refused to calm down. She didn’t want to believe she was a witch. It was too much to process. She needed a night off to think through things.

  Edna seemed to read her mind. “We don’t need to talk. We really don’t. Today’s been a, well, interesting day. I think it needs time to soak in. More of that wine is in order, don’t you think?”

  Nancy felt like she was going over the edge. If she was a witch, did that mean her parents were too? Should she call and ask them? She would have to re-think certain things. Did she need to attend meetings? Would she need to stock her cabinets with eye of newt and wing of bat? Where would one even find that?

  She knew she was losing it and refocused on her friend who had been so nice about it all. “You always know what to say.”

  They ventured inside and Nancy made tea. As she filled the teapot and put it on the burner, she couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the library, thinking about the book.

  Everything else had been brought up today, but why had she held back on that? She felt like she needed to finally come completely clean with Edna. She deserved it, and Nancy needed to move past this hiding of the truth. Not telling Ushageeta about the book was one thing, but Edna was her friend, and she deserved to know.

  “I have one more thing I need to show you, in the library. I didn’t bring it up with Ushageeta because, well, I haven’t been able to really figure it out myself yet.” She stole a glance outside, noting the lack of sunlight. That was perfect. Maybe a car would pass by and Edna could see the same face. “But given everything else, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.”