Bedful of Moonlight by Raven Held (audio ebook reader .txt) 📕

the country, so when I heard yesterday…” She widened her eyes meaningfully.
“It’s probably just a rumour,” I said. “You know, this estate has a penchant for that.”
“Probably.” She shrugged.
“Do you want him to come back?”
“Frankly,” she said, with a long pause. “No.”
We left it at that and headed down for breakfast. I knew something was wrong when I saw the Burnsteads at the breakfast table early. My parents were trying hard to make conversation, and Mr Burnstead was trying just as hard to seem as though nothing was wrong, but Mrs Burnstead had a pinched look on her face and her movements were jerky as she reached for toast and milk for her coffee.
Caleb had just emerged from his room, his hair still wet from the shower.
“Caleb,” Mrs Burnstead said, her voice so brittle it chipped the word. “Sit. We have much to talk about.”
We shared a look. Behind us, Reilly slammed her door shut in her customary way and joined us at the stairway.
“You guys, we have to be at the marquee earlier. Aunt Mimi is on the planning committee this year, and I promised her I’d be there early to help.” She stared from us to the breakfast table and back again. “Maybe I should leave now.”
“You will join us, Reilly,” Mrs Burnstead said, her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you know something about the matter too.”
For once, Reilly did not protest. Instead, she asked, “Did I miss something?”
“We have heard some disturbing news,” Mrs Burnstead said, “about something that happened yesterday. I don’t know whether to believe it, but it can’t hurt to ask if any of you know anything about it.”
“Know anything about what, exactly?” Reilly asked, crunching blithely on toast.
I concentrated on gulping down my orange juice.
“Your father was rumoured to be at the craft fair held at the marquee yesterday.”
Reilly stopped chewing. “Dad? He’s here?”
“I was hoping you might know the answer to that.” Mrs Burnstead turned to Caleb and Jade. “Do either of you know?” I noticed how she kept stirring her coffee, careful not to clink the spoon against the glass.
Jade shook her head, and a second later, Caleb did so too, slowly. But it was too late. I saw the flicker in Mrs Burnstead’s eyes as they rested on her son.
“He doesn’t belong here with us. Not anymore.”
No-one said anything.
“Things have changed,” Mrs Burnstead muttered, rapidly stirring her coffee. “He doesn’t belong here with us anymore.”

*

We were the first few to arrive at the marquee. My parents held hands in the car, and I did not know how I felt about that. Part of me – a bigger part, I suppose – was happy, but then I was afraid she would get out of the car any minute. How could you ever be sure, after all, that you won’t get left behind again?
The first thing I heard when we got out of the car was a twangy Elvis song. Jailhouse Rock. Mom always swung to it. She did so now, too, nudging my hip with hers and she raised her arms and kicked her legs.
“Annabel. Gabriel.” a lady with coiffed hair approached the Burnsteads and extended her hand. “That was a wonderful fete you held last Saturday. I had hoped to see you at the craft fair yesterday to tell you both about Jimmy’s new project, but I didn’t see you there. Now, he came up with the proposal last night, and…”
They left, the pair listening to the lady yammer on about Jimmy’s ground-breaking proposal, as usual, while we were left there helping ourselves to refreshments.
“This is such a lovely place,” mom said, scanning the crowd. “Daddy and I were talking about moving here.”
I stared at them. “You were? So you’re really coming back for good?”
She smiled. “I said I won’t leave this family again, Kristen, and I will keep to that promise. You’ll see.”
My father was beaming brightly, like a child. It reminded me of what Caleb said, about how every time someone found something, another person would have lost something of theirs. It was all about balance, after all, and gaining and losing was the easiest way to maintain that. He had found mom again.
American Pie came up next, and my mother tugged on my father’s hand excitedly. He got up obligingly and joined the crowd that was swinging merrily.
“It’s working out, Kristen,” Caleb said, bumping my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
“This music’s driving me nuts,” Tate said, as he and Reilly joined us.
“That’s because you have such a parochial taste in music,” Reilly said.
Jade glanced over at her parents, now speaking alone. Or at least, Mrs Burnstead was speaking. Gabriel was just nodding accommodatingly. “Doesn’t this remind you of their wedding day? At the end of the day, mom said the most satisfying thing was having gathered more contacts than they had expected. Contacts. for work.”
“That was why I saw no point in attending,” Reilly said.
The Burnsteads approached us, staring stone-faced at Caleb, Jade and Reilly. “We need to speak to you three.”
Hyde came at that moment, looking mildly annoyed to see Mrs Burnstead. “I need to talk to you both.” He pointed at me and Caleb. “About the book fair.”
“I’m sure that can wait,” Mrs Burnstead said. “We have something more important to discuss.”
Hyde ignored her. Turning to me with a roll of his eyes, he said, “You first, then.”
“So you’re finally speaking to us?” I asked, smiling.
“This is strictly business,” he said grudgingly. “We’ll be ready for the book fair on Monday. I’ve sorted out the books with Belle, and you two just have to make sales. We’ve earned a fair bit from the craft sale, but it’s only enough for the revamp.”
I looked past him at Caleb. His face was unreadable and he was not moving an inch. Meanwhile, Jade’s face was as scarlet as Reilly’s, as both of them yelled something at the Burnsteads that I could not hear.
“That’s … great, Hyde. I’ll let Caleb know.”
Hyde watched me for a while, and I turned back to him.
“Look, we’re sorry we didn’t tell you. We just wanted to keep this as low-key as possible. Caleb didn’t tell me either. I found out myself.”
“What’s his plan for now?” He crossed his arms.
“I don’t know.” I wondered if I should tell him about Gareth hitting Caleb, but that, I was sure Caleb would say, would be making a mountain out of a molehill. If there was one thing I had learnt about him, it was that he didn’t like people fussing over him.
“Kristen?”
Hyde was still watching me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but Mrs Burnstead and Gabriel suspect something, and…” I shook my head. “Will you report Gareth?”
“Not if it gets Caleb and Belle in trouble,” Hyde said. “I’m still trying to work that out. But if that person makes another move, I’m going to the police, and that’s for damn sure.”
If Gareth went back to jail, what would happen to all of us? Somehow, our lives were all interrelated now. Invest too much of yourself into the people around you, and soon you find yourself trapped in a one-lane street, with everyone else behind you. Anything they did would bring about a chain reaction that, no matter what, would make us careen forward, tail-spinning.
“I’m sure Gareth isn’t completely a bad person,” I said.
“No, but he’s a bad father. I don’t know what he fed Reilly and Caleb to make them such great fans of his.” He glanced at Belle, and then said, “Listen, I’m going to go talk to Belle. If anything crops up” – he shot me a meaningful look – “let me know straightaway.”
By the time Jade and Caleb had come back to us, Hyde had reached Belle’s side. Don McLean was done singing and the Beatles took over. Reilly, for some reason, had stormed over to where Tate was, with a bunch of his friends.
“What happened? Reilly looks ready to murder Tate,” I said.
“Oh, she’s ready to murder someone, alright,” Jade said, watching her go as she sat down next to me. “But it isn’t Tate.”
“What happened?”
“Mom and Gabriel are talking about moving,” Caleb said. His eyes were dark as he stared ahead at the stage, where the skinny old lady from the craft fair was strutting about, giving orders.
Meanwhile, I realised that I was shaking. “Moving?” I waited until he turned to face me. “Moving … where? For how long?”
“We don’t know,” Jade said. She was actually huffing. “They’re the ones making the plans. It’s just so unfair. They didn’t even discuss it with us. Everything and everyone is here! They can’t just uproot us like that just because they don’t want dad to find us.”
“Is that why she wants to leave? So your dad won’t be able to find you?”
Caleb just stared at me, his face still and unfathomable. His gaze flicked to my shaking hand as I ran it through my hair.
“I may be on mom’s side, like I always have been,” Jade proclaimed, “But I say he has the right to see us. If he wants to, that is.”
The words came out unconsciously. “I’m sure he does.”
Caleb shot me a look.
“So when will you leave?” The key was to keep my tone light. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t even know if I want to leave with them,” Caleb said. “But … Monday. That’s when we’re scheduled to leave for California. Gabriel’s based there, and he’s been persuading us to migrate since… since we moved here, I guess.” He shrugged.
“They’d already bought the tickets!” Jade screamed. Her cheeks were flushed. “That is just so typical of them. No room for questions or negotiations. We buy the tickets and you pack your bags.”
“To be fair, they said they were giving us a choice,” Caleb said. “We don’t have to leave if we don’t want to.”
“Choice. Sure. You know they’re going to do whatever they had in mind all along in the end. So all this choice business is just …” She grunted.
“Monday.” I watched as my parents paused for breath, laughing. Everything was going on nonetheless, like it always had. “So soon.”
“I know, right?” Jade shook her head and crossed her arms. “They’re being so paranoid I’d laugh if I weren’t so mad at them.”
We sat silently, watching the celebration play on.
“So what happens now?”
It was strange how, whenever that question was laid out in the open, no-one ever had an answer to it.
“What did Hyde talk to you about?”
“The book fair.” I relayed to him what Hyde said about it. “So. Big day, Monday.”
He didn’t look at me. “Yeah. Big day.”
I was not sure what exactly he was referring to.


Twenty-five


“Lying is done with words and also with silence.”
~ Adrienne Rich (American poet and essayist, 1929 – present)


It had been a long time since we had sat together like that, watching the last of the pink dusk blend into an expanse of indigo. I wasn’t even sure it had really happened before, or if it was just a myth, a fantasy I had grown too used to clinging on to.
“It’s lovely here,” mom said, taking an appreciative breath.
“It is,” I said. “I thought it was too bright when I first came here.”
“Ah, but this time of the day,” mom said, smiling at me sideways. “Not too bad, right?”
“It’s even better after a thunderstorm.”
“For someone who used to cry endlessly when she heard