The Moonriders

Noni said the Moonriders weren’t bad or good.  She said they were figments of our imagination brought to life by dreams.  She said Moonriders shaped themselves into forms of our subconscious – the things that take the forefront when we’re in the other world.  People, she said, rarely remembered their Moonriders.  The Shara, though, battled with them daily.

We were sitting in the abandoned rink, an immense, deeply shadowed space with dusty bleachers and a wide, decrepit platform, which used to hold the ice.  I was directly beside Noni, her moist skin slick against mine, our flashlights lit and coupled.  Noni said it used to be called The Geilles, and that it had been a joyful place, filled with people and infectious laughter.  She had fallen in love here, she said.  He’d been charitable – a warm boy with big, emerald eyes."

“Grandpa?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “His name was Annon.”

Noni was a tall, silver-haired Shara, but to me she was grandma.  She baked M&M cookies and had jars full of change.  She hung horseshoes in the doorways and crystals in the windows.  She danced at sunset and cooked at dawn.  She was, I suppose, mildly eccentric.

She tried not to use her gift around me.  I was lucky, she said, because the Shara had passed me.  She said if I saw all that she could do, I would wish to do the same.  And wishes weren’t good, because sometimes they came true.  She knew I hadn’t forgotten the monkey and the way he’d appear whenever she cried.  Or the time grandpa was ill and the outlets had sparked, and the room overwhelmed with familiar scents.  Patchouli, she’d said, like grandpa’s cigars.  And then he was better, but Noni’s sight became dim.  The cost, she had warned me.  But I wasn’t deterred.

I’d found her Book of Shara in the basement.  There was a recipe of tea and catmint, and a fire needing to be made in the woods under the flowering dogwood.  I hadn’t read carefully; I’d missed the loose-leaf tea, and I was chanting the words out of place.  Then, Noni was in front of me, a soft glow framing her, and she told me I had called for her, even though I didn’t know it.  She said I’d been careless – a stupid, stupid girl.  So, she brought me to The Geilles to see for myself; to decide.

The dust was settling on my tongue.  “I’m tired,” I said, “Maybe we should do this another time.”

“Is it fear I smell?” she asked.

“No.  Just sleepiness.”

She laughed, her voice traveling.  “You’re not really tired,” she said, “It’s them.”

Then, the air was lighter, and I found myself sucking it up and holding it in.  There was a crisp, minty perfume at my nose, and then more laughter.

It seemed that I blinked, and all was alive: the glistening white floor, the blades slicing against it, the music, soft at first, and then distinct – a snappy piano tune.  Round and round.  The shapes were everywhere, unrecognizable, and then erecting into men and women and children, gold and silver, holding hands, dancing and spinning like figurines on a music box.

I stood, unable to contain my own laughter.  I was propelled onto the ice, the skates at my feet – could I skate?  Yes!  And Noni was beside me, the same Noni as yesterday, and then she was younger, smooth-faced with aureate hair and grand, wide ears spread out like the others.  Together, we sailed with the Shara, and some of them reached for us, long, shiny fingers sparking at our skin. 

“I want to stay,” I said to Noni.

And then there was a different feeling, and some of the faces changed, the mouths twisting into perfectly round holes.  There was a strong rumbling, a wet-grass scent, and then the horse was flying past me, it’s wings fanning.  The red-black cloud rose from the ground and there were shapes again, familiar shapes – a boy without a mouth, the one-eyed imp.

“Make it go away,” I said to Noni. 

A Shara’s sword was raised and the horse rose against it. 

“Make them leave!”

But I knew they couldn’t leave.  The Moonriders would always be, because they were my thoughts: My mute baby brother who hadn’t lived past six; the monster I woke from each night around three; the flying horse who took me through light, and then dark.  They were always around, just lost in my memory.

“Noni!” I called, because she wasn’t beside me.  And then she was floating past, dancing with a green-eyed boy, and then he was a monkey, and then he was a boy again.  Her Moonrider, I thought.  Annon.

The music was mixing with other sounds; sounds I didn’t want to hear.  I was skating fiercely but staying in place.  “I don’t wish for this.  I don’t wish for this.”

Then, I was in my bed and Noni was herself again.

“Did I dream it?” I asked.

She slid The Book of Shara out from beneath me.  “Of course,” she said.  “There’s no other way to get there.”  She kissed my forehead.  “Rest now.  The fever will come – because there’s always a price.  But it will leave you by week’s end.”

She turned from me, the book tight in her grip, and she left the room humming a snappy piano tune, imagining, perhaps, the boy from her dreams dancing amidst the gold and the silver.