Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich Read Free Book Online Page A

there at all? The entire point of the supernatural was the willingness to fool yourself. So had he succeeded in fooling himself about the breeze and the lips on his ear and the voice? He cleared his throat.
    Bill sighed and raised his head. Elizabeth opened her eyes. Lewis pushed up from the table and turned away.
    “Well, that was weird,” Bill said.
    “Where’s Marilyn?” Elizabeth stood up.
    “I’m wondering the same thing,” Stuart said.
    Lewis poured himself a fresh drink. “Maybe she just went to bed,” he said without turning back to them.
    Stuart looked around the dining room and then the rooms immediately connected to it, but Marilyn was not to be found.
    “Frankly, I’m a little worried,” Elizabeth said. “She did look pretty green even before she became a ghost.”
    “Okay,” Stuart said. “Let’s split up and look for her.”
    “That’s what they always say in the movies,” Lewis said.
    “Oh, shut up, Lewis,” Elizabeth said.
    Outside in the corridor there was a hum that Stuart hadn’t noticed before. Maybe he had not been perfectly still and listening before. “I’ll go this way,” he said.
    He checked all of the rooms and passages on his way to the missile hole. When he got to the hole itself and saw her standing there in the wedge of light from the corridor, he was surprised at how unsurprised he was. She had changed into her nightgown and white silk robe. She was barefoot and her feet were faintly blue. She was looking straight at him. She hardly ever looked straight at him these days. Maybe becoming a ghost had given her new knowledge, new strength, a kind of cosmic aikido. He approached her. If he were to reach out and touch her, his hand would pass right through her.
    He put out his hand and pushed. She fell back into the hole. A moment later he heard the splash.
    In a single instant, belief became reality. He turned away and moved to the door. She might have been feebly calling his name had she really been down there, but she wasn’t really down there. Marilyn couldn’t swim which was probably why they had not yet swum with the sharks on xmas eve. She wouldn’t be anywhere near a hole filled with maybe a hundred feet of cold water. He closed the corridor door and walked slowly back toward the dining room.
    You can believe your life into any state you want, he decided. Reality is plastic. You mold it. You pretend things into existence.
    There would be big changes to make back home. He’d take some time off school, surely all of next term. Maybe go to Europe to get over this.
    Maybe buy a BMW.
    Bill came out of the shadows like a sudden psycho. He had a crazy grin on his face.
    “Bill,” Stuart said.
    “We found her,” Bill said. “Hey, here she is now.”
    Elizabeth came into the corridor pushing Marilyn in ahead of her. Lewis appeared with his drink.
    “Safe and sound,” Elizabeth said.
    Marilyn’s feet were still blue. She still wore her white silk robe over her nightgown.
    “Doesn’t she make a good ghost?” Elizabeth said.
    Marilyn didn’t speak but she didn’t turn her eyes down either.
    “Well, it’s been fun, kids,” Bill said, “but I’m for bed.”
    “Me, too,” Elizabeth said quickly.
    “Not me,” Lewis said.
    “Oh, you can stay up all night drinking if you want,” Elizabeth said.
    Marilyn moved away down the corridor toward the bedrooms. Stuart followed. What else was there to do?
    Once in the bedroom, he sat down on the bed and tugged off his shoes. Marilyn hadn’t moved away from the door. He could feel her eyes on him, but when he looked up at her, she switched off the light, leaving nothing but an afterimage of sadness and contempt.
    He could hear water dripping on concrete.
    He felt buried alive in the absolute darkness. Was she still there by the door? Had she ever really been there?
    “Say something,” he said.
    Nothing.
    “Please,” he said.
    Maybe he had imagined her, after all.
    “Boo,” she said.

Mom’s Little Friends

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