The Ghost Girl Chronicles

Love and Moonlight

Michael lay awake, his mind too busy with the past events for him to even think about sleeping. To make it worse the full moon shone bright as day,  

 It always surprised him to see the yard lit with that eerie, silver light. The moonlight was so beautiful that he found it hard to believe that full moons brought negative things, like an increase in  murders or crazy people acting up more in mental hospitals. His mother was an OB nurse and told him once that more babies were born during the full moon. 

Suddenly two cold arms slipped around his waist, and cold lips planted a kiss on the back of his neck. He turned around and saw Mariah smiling at him. She traced the lines of his brow, his lips, and kissed him again.

She seemed to grow warmer in his arms. This was a surprise, a pleasant one, an unexpected one. "Hey lady," he teased gently, "I was getting ready to go to bed, but I'm not in the mood to sleep. Do you want to join me?"

Mariah followed him and slipped under the covers as he put his arms around her and held her tight. He wanted to pull off her clothes, but wasn't sure if that was right. If all they could do was hold each other and kiss deep, long kisses, that was fine with him. He stroked her hair, lifted her chin so he could look into her beautiful eyes, then drew her as close to him as he could, fitting her into the contours of his body.

"Are you going to spend the night with me?" he asked.

"As many nights as you want," she said and snuggled closer to him. Minutes, or was it hours, passed—he couldn't tell. Lying there with her could make him forget about everything, except the moonlight and the girl in his arms. And then he remembered.

"Mariah?"

"Hmm?"

"Mariah, will you let me ask you some questions?"

She turned around to face him. "Why?"

"You know why," he said fiercely, "If you want something from me, I need you to help me. There are things I need to know before I can help you or Kit, things that only you know the answer to."

She turned over, putting an arm around his waist. "Michael, I was going to talk you into helping me, but now I'm not sure I want to. Before I knew you I didn't care what kind of danger I was going to put you in, you were just a means to an end."

"And now?" he prodded.

" I don't want him to hurt you Michael, or anyone else. I want to be free of him. I want my parents to have closure—I want them to be able to bury my bones, have something left of me, besides a headstone on an empty grave. I want them to be able to stop wondering what happened to me. I know they blame themselves and maybe I can stop it."

"But don't you know, that's what parents do, Mariah," he kissed her forehead, then her lips. "If something ever happened to me or Kit my parents would never quit blaming themselves."

"Well, don't you think if they had my bones, my parents might finally be able to stop blaming themselves?"

"Oh, Mariah," he held her tightly, "They lost you, they'll always blame themselves. Why don't you just pass into the light and let things work themselves out?"

"Because they don't work themselves out," she said, anger in her voice, "He took Crazy Girl off the streets in the 1990's, and he's still free. He took me in 2001, and still no one has caught him. Who knows how many girls he's taken that Crazy Girl and I don't know about? Maybe he has bodies buried all over the place. And you're going to tell me that things work themselves out?"

"As long as he keeps us hidden like treasures in his basement, no one is going to find us and he'll never get caught. So how can I pass into this light while things are the way they are? No, I'm not leaving this earth until my parents have me and they can stop wondering."