Luna
Ingrid Barnes
In the
afternoon, Luna came to the garden, and found that it was
good. It was just grass and a clump of scraggly pine trees
out on the headland, but it was good. The garden was
bordered by a pile of huge broken boulders that tumbled
down onto the smooth sand of the beach. The sea was like a
small child today. It patted the sand softly, creating
small splashes and sprays, then it cooed with pleasure.
Luna smiled. It was good.
The first thing
that struck her was a climbing rose bush growing by one of
the trees. How a rose bush got out here, Luna
couldn’t fathom. It had covered the tree with its own
branches, engulfing it like ivy, and it was now reaching
out to the other trees. It wanted to consume them too. Long
sprays of bedraggled pink flowers stuck out from the tree
at odd angles. They bobbed knowingly at Luna, sending wafts
of perfume through the air.
A cool breeze was blowing, lifting Luna’s hair off
her sweaty neck. There was a tinkling noise from the
branches of the pines. She looked and found strings of
jangling things woven through the branches, like the web of
a strange spider. She examined them closer. All kinds of
beach comber’s treasure: shells, coloured glass,
beads, feathers and tiny pieces of broken mirror, were
knotted onto string and tangled through the branches. She
pulled at a bunch of feathers, tugging so that the string
fell straight. The mirrors were encrusted with dust and she
rubbed them clean. She wondered vaguely about the person
who had hung this here. What sort of person would make
these things, and why?
Luna made a small fire beside the pine tree clump. The dry
branches she used burned easily and smelled of pine. The
little fire was self-absorbed, preoccupied with its own
beauty, in a friendly, busy way. Luna wondered if she were
going slightly mad. She had no-one else to examine, the
fire would have to do. The afternoon drifted into evening
in a languid, extravagant way, the sun spilling orange and
purple across sky and leaking a little into the sea where
it spread. Luna found a small clump of white daisies and
made a daisy crown for herself. She justified her
childishness. What better to do. As the sun finished its
performance and the night became cooler, Luna felt a twinge
of discomfort. She thought she heard noises, felt strange
breezes. But ah, it was the fairies. Yes. This was just the
place fairies would be, it had that magical feel to it.
Fairies, though essentially good, are a little mischievous.
The perfectly imagined fairies, the bustling crackle of the
fire, and the tinkling of the strange tree hangings gave
the evening a party atmosphere. Like the bonfire she and
Annie had gone to a few weeks ago, with Chinese lanterns
and corn on the cob.
Luna lay, curled by the dwindling fire, her eyelids moving
slower and slower as she listened to the sounds of the
garden. The beads and mirrors still tinkled charmingly as
wind lifted the branches gently. The sea had now grown old.
The calm, rhythmic lapping on the sand, was like an old
woman, quietly knitting.
Luna rose
softly up out of her body. She hovered in the night sky
above the garden, looking down. Suddenly, she saw all, and
understood. The sea was a huge creature, angry, monstrous.
The jagged rocks of teeth protruded from the sandy lips and
the garden, the garden was its mouth. She was in the mouth.
Luna was back on the ground when she felt the pine needle
fall onto her shoulder. She saw that the pine trees were
bending over her, stretching their branches down to her and
shaking, shaking. She didn’t understand. Then the
needles were falling like rain. Their sharp points pricked
her skin. In her mouth, her ear, inside her clothes.
Covering her, smothering her. She was squashed, crushed
beneath the needles. The hungry earth was sucking, sucking.
Warm red blood enriched the dark moist earth. She was
rotting away, decomposing, her flesh feeding the garden.
She was consumed.
All was quiet and still. The sea sparkled softly. Luna
brushed the pine needle off her shoulder.
Then there was
wind. Beads and glass rattled and chattered viciously. She
tried to get to her feet. Her hands went into the fire.
Cold ash crumbled onto her palms. She was caught by a spray
of roses. The thorns pulled at her hair. A spider web bound
her eyes and mouth. She ran across the wet grass and onto
the beach. The sand was cold and damp.
Luna sat, tightly holding herself in, not breathing, just
listening. Her heart beat fast, filling her throat and
pounding in her ears. She was sure she was being watched,
but by what, she wasn’t sure. She wanted to pin down
her fear, like pinning the spider to the board. One swift
stab, the cold metal piercing the fat, black body. She
looked over her shoulder. There was nothing there. But
there must be something. An animal, maybe, or a person. A
person. She stood and turned fully. If there was a person,
she must find it. Him, or her, she corrected herself. But
she must. She would speak again, speak and maybe laugh too.
Luna climbed the rocks, walked back into the garden.
As Luna stood
in the grass, the sun tossed some watery, grey rays of
light over her shoulder. The first light of dawn, but it
was enough. Enough for her to see that there was no-one,
nothing, in the garden. She was still alone. The pines bent
softly inward, toward each other, whispering secrets, as if
emphasising that they were not alone, that they were not
like her. Luna walked out of the garden and along the sand.
She seemed quite small as she walked away, a lone figure,
but for her long wispy shadow. The beads clattered in the
bitter breeze, the sound somehow harsher now.