Behind the Lace and the Lies

4 - Thinly Veiled Lies: Luna

The moon.

A woman with coal-black hair. Lord Wyatt.

Concerned. Fear.

Makeup. Dresses. Jewelry. Hiding.

Covering. Concealing.

The woman. Hand outstretched.

Help. Hide.

Alone. Twilight sky through silhouette of a window.

Fear.

Wyatt. Light reflecting off a crystal chandelier.

The woman. Eyes wide.

Fear.

Luna was scared. And worried. But the fear was stronger. It blanketed her, suffocating and squeezing. Tighter and tighter and tighter till she couldn't force her lungs to expand and allow her to breathe.

At some point the fear was no longer a blanket. Instead, she absorbed it. It melted into her skin, staining her, becoming part of her. She couldn't rip it off, escape from its weight. It was constant, aching, soul-draining. She just wanted to breathe.

The light of the moons was bright, too bright. Azura was nearly full, it would probably only be a couple more weeks until it was a perfect circle. Its light blocked out the other little moon high in the sky. She couldn't even tell which one it was. She wondered how obvious it was that her and Leo were sitting here.

Leo. She looked over at him, then followed his gaze to the qarant. It was cute; its eyes were wide and expressive, antenna twitching. She could only think of little rows of qarants on the table, empty sockets for eyes, their cooked skin golden and waxy. Their antenna still there – they were considered a delicacy. Her husband was so proud that he had caught that many – he had boasted that qarants were so hard to catch because they could teleport. She remember thinking that they could only teleport short distances, but hadn't been brave enough to say it. She felt sick.

Wyatt. She knew she should be beside him, arms interlocked as they smiled along to something. But she was tired. And scared. She didn't even exactly know of what anymore.

Her presence would be missed in time, not soon, but eventually. But she had things to do before she joined her husband in socializing.

She gathered the many layers of her dress and stood up, slowly, carefully. The qarant stared at her with round, glossy eyes. But it didn't blink away.

Leo looked at her, briefly, then for a longer moment. She didn't need words to say she was leaving, he understood. She walked away, dress swishing over blades of grass.

She needed to find Bella.

She knew what she was doing was wrong. But she hadn't done anything wrong. But if someone finds out what she had done and is doing, they would certainly view it as wrong. So it was wrong.

She wanted to laugh wryly, chuckle to the situation she found herself in. But instead, she wiped away the worried look from her smile and smiled. She had only herself to blame for her situation.

But that didn't matter because she had Bella. Luna knew where Bella would be, without a doubt. She hurried through the maze of fruit trees, walking up and down little pathways carved into the wall of nature. The clicking of her heels on stone at some point transitioned to a much softer sound as she walked through leaf munch, soft mud, and fallen fruit. She ducked through an entranceway; low-hanging branches pulled at her hair.

Am I going the right way? She questioned, then pushed off the doubt. It was fine, everything was fine. She had spent much of her childhood at the Goldski's house. She remembered playing with a young Alyssa, and Brandon, and a baby Marie. And Wyatt. She hadn't been so worried then.

The walls of leaves and trees fell away from her and opened up into a circular clearing. The grass was neatly trimmed, the dirt still had imprints of rake marks.

The moons shone down, casting a circle on light onto the floor and highlighting the reddish streaks in Bella's near-black hair. Bella kneeled, back to Luna, hair hanging down in loose strands. Her hands were clasped her lap. Her eyes stared on the sets of stone rings upon the ground, but her mind was somewhere else.

Everything was a bit less frightening.

Luna walked forward, no longer caring that her dress was dragging on the ground, that her hair loose and puffed up around her head. She kneeled on the ground beside Bella, the moist and mud soaking through her dress and dirtying her knees. That didn't matter. She bowed her head.

There were many stone rings. Some were little, barely even a dozen marks. Others were so large, so many uncountable marks, so much death. Luna knew that all that protected them from the gifted races that went rogue, that abused their gods-given powers. It protected them from the humans that refused to bow, and allowed her husband to have obedient ones to rule over. It protected them from the goblins. It ensured her safety. But there was so much death.

Luna reached over and grabbed Bella's clasped hands. They were warm against her own cold hands. Luna knew they were calloused and rough from holding weapons, but could not feel their strength through the satin gloves.

Bella sighed. She kept a single hand interlaced with Luna's, but the other hand wandered, down to the stone rings. She brushed her fingers along the outermost ring, the paleness of her gloves contrasting with dark stone.

"I could be on this," Bella said, her voice breaking the heavy covering of silence.

"But you're not," Luna replied, softly, but with certainty.

Bella rocked back on her heels.

"Marie's older brother's here. And Ezra's mom." Bella ran her finger across a mark, slowly, nail digging into the bottom. "I bet he's this mark."

Luna squeezed Bella's hand. "And we honor their sacrifice and mourn their death alongside their families. But you're not on that, you're still here, with me. Live."

"I can't."

Luna squeezed her hands again, then released them. Her hand slid out from her glove smoothly. Luna's hand appeared so pale in the moonlight, each little crack and ridge casting a dark shadow. Bella, at last, looked away from the stone rings.

"You can," Luna whispered. Bella stared at Luna's hands, faintly shaking. Bella's eyes darting up to look at Luna. A mirror covered by layer and layer of water, of cerulean indistinctness. Bella pulled away from the stone rings, slowly, but with certainly. She slid her hand out of her glove. The glove fell to the ground with a ripple like water. This was wrong, her husband was waiting, but Luna wasn't scared.

She wasn't scared.

For once in her life, she wasn't scared.