"Shouldn't we be going over there?" I yell to my Dad. He's too busy unloading the folding chairs from the back of his muddy green Peugeot 305, the rust barely visible in the dark of the beach.
We'd driven far enough into the sticks that it felt slightly wrong being here, this felt like the kind of place one went to bury a body. Grass and yellow brush sprouted from deadened grass, fading to meet a stoney shoreline. We stood staring at the kind of beach that wasn't made for sunbathing.
Throwing me one of the chairs, I consider broaching the question again, really really hoping he'd say something along the lines of:
"Oh, yeah. What was I thinking of course we can go over there," *pointing* "to the Carnival where the fun is happening."
But no, my daydream was cut short.
Dad's far away look told me he was thinking of nothing by the Moon. On the way over, he jumped at every little sound, keeping one eye trained on it at all times. I watched his eyes flick over the small brick houses as we passed them, as the low hanging Moon disappeared behind it, properly staring at any group of youths or elderly person walking their dog.
He smiled at me, the edges of his dark eyes crinkling, "Tomorrow." he promises, setting off in the direction of the water.
Cold air whips at his hair, grey and way too long for his aging face. Aunt Ellie says he's let himself go, his long body paunchier than it used to be, his brown eyes like mine darker.
While I'm staring at him, he hands me a flimsy slip of wool. A hat I was almost too old for now, knitted by a Grandmother I've never met. I frowned at the thing, pure embarrassment flooded my mind at the thought of having to wear it.
"Put it on." He tells me, "You'll catch a cold without it."
Personally, I think my hair was big enough to keep me warm. It flew over my ears and into my eyes in wildly curling ringlets, frizzy from the nap I had taken an hour ago; back when I knew what it felt like to be warm.
In the end, Dad snatched it from my hands and forced it over my ears, smiling triumphantly as it fell over my ears.
"Come on." he tells me, taking my hand in his free one. It's very very dark, the only light shimmers from the glowing orb that is the Moon, though the light it provides is red as if someone had stained it accidently. I'm glad he's holding my hand, I walk close to him, my looking about, my eyes frenzied by fear.
The wind rolled off the sea in sheets, it was February. Ice froze my nose and the tops of my cheeks, that weird sickness you feel in your throat when your aberrantly cold was like a weight hung around my neck. Dad's hand was thick from the burglar-esque gloves he wore, my own barely able to grip onto it in my own fingerless gloved ones.
The sea transformed into something terrible as soon as the darkness hit, the water no longer something I wanted to paddle in.
Now; a tumultuous monster.
I'd seen a moon like this many-a time, having my Dad be as he is, I had been forced on trips like this from a young age. It hung in the sky like a garnet stone, on this cloudless night, the water below it mirrored it perfectly.
A part of me itched to paint it. My wind worked to wonder if it would be better painted in oils or watercolours. The water itself I would paint in impenetrable black with slick oils, I decided, threaded through with pinks and yellows, the crest of the waves peaked with green.
A further mirror of the Lunar Carnival that warbled behind us.
Somewhere a little further back from us, the rest of Liberty were having fun. If I strained my ears hard enough I could hear them, excited crowds, families and teenagers. That's how I should be spending my Thirteenth birthday.
This was my prize for having an astronomer for a Father. Once upon a time, that title had been official, but since small towns like Liberty and the last 3 towns we had lived in previously also did not employ those sorts of people. So now, he was unemployed for now.
Dad said he was sure to find a job in one of the shops or the cafes and I hoped that was true.
Unfolding the chair on the sand, its metal legs cracking under the stones, Dad and I perched on the edge of them. He removed one of his smaller telescopes from his inside coat pocket and held it up to his eye. He looked like a pirate so I felt glad that there was no one around to see us.
