The Slow Moon by Elizabeth Cox Read Free Book Online

just go off by yourself. Why do you think we’re sending you?”
    “I still want to take it, just in case,” Johnny said. “I’ll do all the other stuff too, Dad.”
    “Suit yourself.” Carl acquiesced. Everything about Johnny looked like Carl. Their hair, arms, and walk were identical, but their temperaments were markedly different. Carl wanted Johnny to be more like himself, more like Crow. He worried about Johnny’s ability to fight for himself. The idea that anything might happen to him made his knees weak.
    On the day Johnny left for camp, Carl sent him off with a hale and hearty goodbye, waving largely from the yard. Then he went back into the house and closed his study door. Johnny could see his father’s head on his desk before riding off on the camp bus.
    He called to his mother. “Tell Dad I’ll be all right,” he said. Helen nodded, waving.
    Johnny felt that he had two selves: one outside and another moving beneath his skin. Whenever he remembered the inside boy, as he liked to call him, his heart and chest throbbed with delight, but the outside boy could not follow the clues given from his heart. His outside self always seemed to be walking down strange streets, seeing odd Stop signs.
                      
    On Sunday night when Carl picked up Johnny from the survival trip, he continued to downplay the seriousness of Crow’s ordeal. He said only that Sophie Chabot had been hurt. He did not mention that she was in the hospital.
    Johnny felt the worry in his father’s voice and could not imagine why it was more important for him to climb a rope and spend another night with a group of guys than to come home when things seemed bad.
    “Why do you treat me like a mental case?” Johnny asked.
    “I don’t. I don’t do that.”
    “You worry about me because I’m not like you.”
    “I just worry.” Carl’s voice had an edge.
    “I won’t break just because I’m different,” he said. “I’m doing it all, Dad. I’m hiking, rope climbing, camping out all night, getting bit by mosquitoes, the whole bit. I’m keeping a journal. You can read about it.”
    Carl didn’t know what to say to this son. He had always wanted to make Johnny more like him and Crow—but now he wasn’t sure exactly what Crow had done, and though he knew how to apply pressure where it could be felt, he wasn’t sure if he could get Crow out of this trouble.
    “I’ll be all right,” said Johnny, trying to be adaptable.
    Sometimes, in Johnny’s dreams, an animal figure appeared, small and birdlike. He recognized the gentleness of the figure; but he knew, even in the dream, that this creature would not have an easy life.

Seven
    W HEN S OPHIE C HABOT awoke in the woods, her underpants felt cold and the voice she heard did not sound like her own. She had awakened several times already, falling back into a haze. Somebody was putting clothes on her, covering her. Once she had heard Crow’s voice calling to her. She had seen him. Was it Crow? She knew she was hurt.
    A male and a female police officer leaned over her. “Don’t you worry,” the man’s voice said. And the woman officer kept telling her, “You’re all right now. We’re getting you to the emergency room.”
    Sophie was told later that when she saw the two police officers, she began to scream and did not cease screaming until the doctor tranquilized her. She didn’t remember making any noises.
    When she awoke those times in the woods, striations of light fell through the trees. Was it light from the moon? The ground was wet and she felt rocks beneath her back. Her leg felt numb and she kept thinking that she had been in an accident. She wondered if she was paralyzed.
    She knew that when Crow had kissed her, a wave of something (was it love?) had risen in her chest. She couldn’t speak. Even the first time she had seen Crow in town with his friends, she felt a turn inside her, a small whirling that kept on returning. Before she even knew his