Summer Moon

APPLESBY, MAINE. WINTER 1849. "Turn your face to the wall, Katie, and stop that coughin'." With her chest and throat burning, racked with chills that shook her thin frame, nine-year-old Katie Whittington huddled in her narrow bed. "Katie, I mean it. Stop it now." Only half-awake, at first she thought she had dreamed her mother's voice, so familiar, tinged with a hard-edged, soulless quality that held no love. But then she heard it again, clearly and for real, and the sound burrowed into sleep-fogged corners of her mind, waking her completely. There were the other sounds, too. Throaty moans, whimpers, sharp, keening cries. A man's harsh, ragged breathing. The whining protest of coiled bedsprings from across the cramped, cluttered room. Katie rubbed her eyes and tried to hold back the hollow, jarring cough, but it erupted anyway. She covered her mouth with both hands and listened to the coupling noises, kept her back to the room and hoped that Mama wouldn't yell at her again. She lay there pretending to sleep through the noise, painting pretty pictures in her head, dreaming of another life, another world for her and Mama-the kind of world she had only glimpsed from afar, the kind she could barely imagine. In her lovely dream world, she and Mama wore pretty dresses, clean dresses, with starched lace and ruffles, and there were pretty hats to match. The weather was always warm and sunny, and whenever they walked down the street, no one stepped aside or turned away. No one pointed at them or whispered as they strolled along in their pastel finery. Mama had tried to teach her to ignore the stares and whispers of the townsfolk, but the rudeness still cut Katie to her soul, and it always would. She hugged the torn wool blanket and coughed again, then wiped the palm of her hand on the dirty sheet that was little more than a rag. The linens in her dream home would be soft and clean. There would be a fancy yellow cover on her bed, too, just like one she had seen through the window of a big white house up on Poplar Street. She would have lace curtains, fancy as snowflakes that would never melt, hanging at every window. The sun would stream through them, casting strands of precious yellow gold around her very own room-a room bigger than the shack she lived in now. There would be pretty china plates piled high with more food than any one person could ever eat all by herself. The roof would never leak. The windows would glisten, and there would not be even one single crack in them. Wind would never sneak through holes in the windows or walls. She shivered, her teeth chattering. Without warning, she started coughing again, but this time it went on and on until she lay on her side gasping for air like a dying fish. "Katie!" "Jeezus, can't you shut that kid up?" Katie rolled herself into a tight ball, hugging the thin blanket around her shoulders. Her hands were stiff with cold, her feet nearly numb even though she had climbed into bed in her heavy shoes and socks. She tried to picture her pretty dream house and all the lovely dresses again, and the plates piled high with hot food. When the images would not come, she looked up at the frosted windowpane above her head. Between the ripped curtain and halo of frost crystals, she could see a sliver of moon and one lone star shining in the night sky. She closed her eyes and wished upon that star. She wished all her dreams would come true. Then she opened her eyes, thankful that the moon was not full tonight. On moonless nights it was easier for her to disappear inside herself and shut out the sound of Mama and the men. OnLandis, Jill Marie is the author of 'Summer Moon', published 2004 under ISBN 9780345478887 and ISBN 0345478886.