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Chapter Sixty-Six

LUNA

Later that night , I am in my room, where I’ve been for hours, wondering what I did wrong. Mom got tired of me sulking and went to see a movie. She said I should come with her but I didn’t feel like I deserved to forget it all yet.

Carmine the Raven will show up soon, I’m sure. He thinks I’m so powerful. I’m going to let him know how wrong he is.

A light comes on from outside. Serafina is on the next-door terrace, looking at the half moon.

Outside. She’s outside.

Maybe I didn’t fail after all! I’m so excited I clap.

I throw on a hoodie, shove my feet in shoes, and go around to her room. The door is open. I stop a few feet from her.

“Hey. You all right?”

She doesn’t answer. I edge closer, noticing how far she’s leaning over the rail. At first, I fear she’s going to jump, then I realize the danger in her posture is not intentional. She’s pushing herself toward the moon as if she’s trying to get better eye contact.

“You’re outside,” I say. “That’s?—”

“Shush.”

Quietly, I step just close enough to catch her if she tips over.

“Do you hear it now?” she asks.

I listen to the whoosh of traffic on Central Park North. The car alarm two blocks away. The rumble of a late night bus. Voices from somewhere below. From this far above, I can hear the coo of pigeons over the constant, low frequency hum of the city.

“Still no.”

“God, I wish you could hear it.”

“Whatever.” I lean on the railing, looking at the dots of light in the park. “If the moon sang for real, objectively, we’d know. There would be a radio station. It would be on the news, like the weather report. ‘Last night, between ten and two, the moon sang “That’s Amore.”’”

“Try harder.”

She wants to bond. It’s not that she wants to verify her sanity with me. She wants to share something she’s enjoying.

With a sigh, I close my eyes and listen again—but it’s just the usual.

Hum. Wail. Screech. I do hear music. Tinny horns and thumpity-thumps.

Merengue from an SUV below, slow-driving on the empty street as if it’s stuck in afternoon traffic, passing a man in a stark white raincoat talking to a woman who is half-hidden under a tree. It stops at the light.

“It sounds like this.” Serafina clears her throat and hums. I take my attention from the street below when she opens her mouth and makes a long ooo sound. “No. More like…”

She bends to the sky and makes a louder ooo. With her hands wrapped around the top of the rail, she stretches upward, her single vowel growing deeper, louder, with layers of notes that sound like a choir.

Her moonsong turns into a long, passionate howl.

She stops with a gasp, covering her mouth. Her emotional shapes morph into shame and vulnerability.

“It’s beautiful.” I say it to calm her—and because it’s true.

“That felt…” She clutches her shirt at the chest. “I can’t.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m not ready.” She starts inside. I touch her arm before she’s out of reach. “No. Not yet!”

She runs inside. The bathroom door slams.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

My compulsion is to go after her. Tell her over and over that her song was beautiful. That there’s power in it. But she doesn’t want to hear me now.

On the street, the SUV playing the music goes through the intersection. The white raincoat is still there. Even from up here, I can tell his emotions are a deep void. He must be a vampire. Who is he?

And why is he talking to my mother?

For the second time, I run down to 110th Street because my mother is talking to another vampire, and it’s not Carmine.