Jess-Belle opened the door, something she’d never dared do on a night like this. It was easier than she expected, but a knot of fear still drew tight in her stomach.
The little clock on the mantle chimed midnight. Moonlight filtered through the stirring pines. It a nice night, but no one in their right mind would be out. No one but Jess-Belle, and even she hesitated before stepping over the threshold. The door shut behind her very quietly.
A dirt path led from the little cottage to the main trail and from there, eventually, to the paved road into town, but she didn’t take that. Instead she went the back way, into the woods, following a path so faint it was almost invisible. The tall trees with their old branches blocked out the sky but they couldn’t hide the silver-blue moon. Jess-Belle liked the way the moonlight gilded the tips of the pine needles and her long, filed nails. All the familiar rocks and streams and coils of underbrush along the path looked strange and new, as if the forest had taken off a mask for just one night.
She was, of course, worried. Not about being out, but that Billy-Ben might not meet her after all. He too had never snuck out on Full Moon Night (even at her age Jess-Belle couldn’t help but think of the expedition as “sneaking out,” as if she were still a schoolgirl fearing her parents’ remonstrations), and he might lose his nerve. It wasn’t the idea of waiting all night that bothered her so much as the long walk back to a lonely bed and another month of anxious nights. She was too old for this feeling, but it was there anyway.
She realized she was stepping softly. There was no reason to, of course. No one was around to–
A dark shape appeared on the path. Jess-Belle clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her scream and hunched down in the hollow of a tree, waiting for the flare of panic in her chest to burn out. The shape was just a few feet away, crossing the path and leaving a rustle of pine needles in its wake. It was a strange thing, hunched and misshapen. Was it coming closer or going away? She couldn’t tell without peeking. Mouthing a prayer, Jess-Belle leaned around the corner…
She almost laughed. It was Granny Mim, the fisherwoman from the other side of the hollow. Her strange silhouette was due to the shawl over her head and the pack on her back. Whatever she was lugging it was big and cumbersome and it bent her double. Jess-Belle watched the fisherwoman amble off and counted two hundreds breaths from the last time she heard the old woman’s steps, and when she was certain the coast was clear she came out again.
She cocked her head after Granny Mim. What was that old coot doing sneaking around on Full Moon Night, hauling God-knows-what through a neck of the woods half a mile from her creek? It was none of Jess-Belle’s business, of course. But what if…
No time to wonder now; the scare had made her late. Assuming Billy-Ben was really coming, of course.
She followed the trail through the oldest part of the forest and up the hillside, to the place where the trees broke and the clover grew in as soft as a feather bed. She flopped down on it just like she’d done as a little girl and looked at the night sky. The moon was like a big yellow eye. It was strange to think she’d never seen it this way before. What have you been up to on nights like this, she wondered, when I haven’t been around? Have you been keeping secrets?
A shadow fell over Jess-Belle at the same time a hand touched her shoulder. She grabbed the arm and rolled over, yanking the intruder off his feet, and for a second the two of them rolled down the grade together, one tumbling over the other. When they landed Jess-Belle was on bottom, chest heaving from the struggle, and on top of her was a surprised young man–barely more than a boy–whose unruly blond hair was dotted with clover leaves from the fall. He held up one hand in a gesture of truce.
“It’s me!” said Billy-Ben.
“I know.”
“Then why’d you pull me off my feet?”
“You scared me. You had it coming.”
For a second they stayed like that, with Billy-Ben sprawled on top. His other hand had landed just under her left breast. When he noticed it he blushed and rolled over, dusting off his shirt and breeches. Jess-Belle propped herself up on one arm and looked at him. In the moonlight he looked even younger than he was. She saw him swallow hard before he spoke.
“I’m sorry I snuck up on you Mrs. T–“
“Call me Jess-Belle. Not Mrs. Turner.”
“Jess-Belle,” Billy-Ben said. “Right. I’m I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Yes you did,” Jess-Belle said. Then she snuggled up to his side. He jumped as if a bee had stung him. “You knew just what you were doing.”
“Reckon I did,” he said, then went quiet. From the top of the hill they could see almost the entire valley and, distantly, the few faint lights of the town. Everything was still, as if the night was holding its breath. Jess-Belle slipped her hand into Billy-Ben’s.
“Did you make it out okay?” said Billy-Ben. “I was worried…”
“About the werewolf?” She snarled, then giggled like a schoolgirl.
“‘Course not,” said Billy-Ben, sounding almost defensive. “I meant did you have any trouble with Mr. Turner?”
“Mr. Turner is never home on Full Moon Night.”
Billy-Ben blinked. “Why?”
“He’s the werewolf.”
Jess-Belle looked Billy-Ben in the eyes. She held the look as long as she could before cracking up.
Snorting between giggles she said, “I’m just teasing, Billy. It’s because he closes the shop in the town so late and he doesn’t want to walk all the way home after sundown on nights like this. You know how folks are: superstitious.” She laid her head on his shoulder again. “There’s no real werewolf. That’s an old folk’s story.”
“‘I know that,” Billy-Ben said, but there was a tremor in his voice that suggested relief. “I wouldn’t be out here if I believed, would I?” He dared give her body a little squeeze, as if to prove it.
“But Mr. Turner must believe it, if he doesn’t want to walk home on Full Moon Night,” Billy-Ben added, after pondering the matter for a moment.
“Maybe,” said Jess-Belle. “Or maybe he’s just got someone else he wants to spend nights like this with. None of my business. How about you, Billy? Did you have any trouble getting past your ma?”
Billy-Ben rubbed the few wispy blond hairs on his chin and said, “Ma’s never home on Full Moon Night neither. She’s always out…” He stumbled for a second, then said: “She’s out working her still.”
Jess-Belle sat up. “Why Billy…are you telling me your old ma is out moonshining?”
Billy-Ben shrugged. “It’s the one night ain’t nobody’s around to catch her.”
Jess-Belle giggled. Soon she couldn’t stop.
“Don’t you laugh at my ma,” Billy-Ben said, but Jess-Belle shook her head between giggles.
“It ain’t that I’m laughing at her. It’s just, well, your ma’s stuff really is moonshine, isn’t it? Full Moonshine!”
And she pitched herself on the ground and laughed as loud as she dared, and in a minute Billy-Ben was laughing too. Then he surprised her by producing a flask from his back pocket. “It’s what’s left of what she made last Full Moon Night,” he said. “I snuck it.”
“Why you little devil,” Jess-Belle said. The polished flask gleamed. She took a sip and it burned all the way down. Billy-Ben reached for it but she pulled it away, teasing. “I don’t think you’re old enough for this.”
“I’m almost the right age,” Billy-Ben said, sitting up a little straighter.
“Then you can almost have some,” Jess-Belle said, tipping the flask a couple inches short of him and letting a few silvery drops fall onto the grass. Then she sat on his lap and draped one arm around his neck, dribbling some more of it into his mouth. He licked the burning liquor off his lips. She ran a hand through his hair.
“I remember when you were just as little as a Junebug and rambling into my schoolhouse every morning.” Her lips were less than an inch from his. She smelled the liquor on his breath. “How long ago was that now, Billy? I know how many years it’s been, but how long, really?”
“Not sure what you mean…”
“It doesn’t matter. Look at the moon. You know what it means when it gets full like that? It means there’s nowhere else to go. Once it’s full it can’t get no fuller. That’s all there is.”
She kissed him, tasting the liquor fire in his mouth. Her tongue darted against his. She wondered if he’d ever had a real kiss before. He was handsome, but he’d always been such a shy, bashful child that it would take an awfully determined mountain girl to get a kiss out of him.
They lingered like this for a few seconds ,and then the sound of something stirring in the brush made them both stop. Billy-Ben drew his arms tighter around her. “What’s that?”
“Some critter.”
A branch snapped and something shuffled through dry pine needles. Billy-Ben swallowed. “What if it’s the werewolf?”
“There is no werewolf.”
“Course there ain’t. …but what if it’s the werewolf anyhow?”
Jess-Belle squinted but couldn’t see whatever was out there. So she threw her head back and let out the loudest, most piercing wolf-howl she could summon, so loud that her throat ached. Billy-Ben cried out in surprise. The sound in the brush receded.
“Whatever it was it’s gone now,” she said. “Let’s go see.”
“Mrs. Turn–I mean, Jess-Belle, wait!”
“Come dance with me, Billy-Ben. In the moonlight.”
She skirted away and let her shawl float to the ground. Then she undid the buttons of her blouse, plucking them with her nails and backing away another step each time. “Come catch me,” she said, dropping her blouse on the ground too. Billy-Ben looked unsure, but when she beckoned he came.
He was a big strong boy, all farmer’s muscles. He looked away and maybe even blushed as she undressed him, taking her time with his shirt buttons and tracing the lines of his body. She turned his face back toward her with a fingertip on his chin. “Don’t you like looking at me?” she said.
“You know I do.”
“Then come look at all of me.” She pulled her boots off and shimmied out of her jeans. Her pale body glowed in the moonlight. Billy-Ben looked dazzled. “You can do more than just look,” she said, guiding one of his hands to her hip and another to her breast. “Don’t that feel good?”
He replied by kissing her, first on the lips and then on the side of her neck. She cooed.
“That’s good, Billy. Now kiss me here.” She pointed. “And here.” Again. “And here…” She trailed her finger all the way down…
The clover was still as soft as she remembered from when she was Billy-Ben’s age. It turned the hard ground into the best bed in the world. They lay with their limbs wrapped around each other and their mouths pressed together, all hot and heavy, just like she remembered. There’d been boys who looked just like Billy-Ben back then. She’d gotten older, but the boys stayed the same age.
It was his first, of course. That was no surprise. But there wasn’t much need to tell him what to do, and that was a relief. Jess-Belle put her arms behind her head and relaxed, letting him kiss and suck each of her breasts. Now and then his teeth would get in the way. He was rough and clumsy, but she didn’t mind. When his hands found the spot between her thighs he didn’t seem to know quite how to go ahead, so she showed him. She could feel every callous on his fingers.
“It’s supposed to get wet, so don’t get scared of it.”
“I know that,” he said. “The guys told me.”
“Which guys? Any of the boys from my old class?” She bit him on the side of the neck. He yelped. “Are you going to tell ‘the guys’ about me?”
“I never would.”
“Yeah you would,” she said. “It’s all right. I know how it is. Here, I’ll do something for you.” And before he could squirm away she bit him again and sucked her lips against the spot, so that when she came away there was a bright purple bruise. He clapped his hand to it.
“Now you’ll have to tell them. They’ll notice that.”
“Ma’ll notice it too,” he said, sounding annoyed. She shrugged, tracing the outline of the mark with a finger?
“Did I hurt you, Billy? You can just come on down here and hurt me back.” She pulled him down. She held his face very close to hers and whispered against his mouth.
“Go on,” she said. “It won’t bite you.”
“You just said it was gonna hurt you.”
“Different kind of hurt. You’ll understand when you’re older. Come on.” She grabbed his rounded behind and pulled him in. Once the tip was inside it was easy to get him to go the rest of the way. She made him go slow, making sure he felt every inch on the way in. After all, she thought, he only gets one first…
With just a little coaxing he got eager, and then he got rough, and soon Jess-Belle’s fingers were twisted in the grass and pulling up the clover as she pawed at the ground and bucked upward into the young, strong body on top of hers. He didn’t shy away now when she traced the lines of his naked chest, not even when she let the sharp edge of her nails leave red trails across him. He’d be sore in the morning, she knew. For that matter, so would she. “You’re almost there,” she said, pushing into him some more. “Just a little bit more. Don’t push it back. Let it come.”
She cupped his face in both hands and whispered against his lips as he labored over (and inside of) her, his short, heavy thrusts going to one side as he leaned. She was wet and warm for him. She let her fingers get lost in the tangle of his hay-colored hair and nipped his lower lip with tiny, encouraging kisses, one after another, like a countdown, until the moment she felt his whole body coil up like a spring…and then let go. She became warmer inside and Billy-Ben almost fell over. He lay panting next to her, so she pursed her lips and blew across his sweaty skin, watching the fine hairs on him stand up.
“How do you feel?” she said, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Good, I suppose. Real good. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Nothin'” he said, opting to kiss her instead, and she let him leave it at that. “I guess I didn’t last very long, huh?”
“That doesn’t matter as much. Anyway, you’ll get better.”
She lay across his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The forest was stirring all around them, but neither of them paid attention to it. “Hey,” he said after a time. “If you don’t believe in the werewolf how come you’ve never been out on Full Moon Night before?”
“Never had a reason. More’n that, you’ve gotta be careful. If anyone gets the idea you’ve been out on a night like this they’ll think you’ve got secrets.”
“Does anyone really believe in the werewolf, though? What’s everybody so scared of if there’s no such thing?”
“Real people are scarier than any old story. Might be we’re all scared of ourselves. Sometimes on nights like this I reckon I really do hear something howling…”
And then, realizing what she was about to say, she stopped, overcome with horror. She stood up and when he reached for her again she pushed his hands away. “Get your clothes back on. We’ve gotta get.”
It was still night and the moon was still out, but the forest had lost something of its luster, as if tarnished a bit around the edges. Once dressed they lingered a few minutes, Jess-Belle twining her fingers around Billy-Ben’s.
“You’ll come back to me, won’t you Billy? You’ll come back again next full moon?”
Billy-Ben pondered for a moment, and then he just nodded. Jess-Belle favored him with a quick kiss and left with the taste of his smooth young lips on hers. The walk back took longer than the walk out on account of she was sore. She didn’t bother to walk softly or cover her tracks this time. She remembered the words of the song her old aunt used to sing on nights like this:
“The werewolf, the werewolf, comes stepping along. He don’t even break the branches where he’s gone…”
The cottage porch creaked as she reached for the door latch, and she paused. Something was moving off in the woods again. She heard the faint padding of a foot on loose ground. She felt–or thought she felt–eyes on the back of her head and imagined turning around and seeing those eyes, and the face they belonged to. Had it been watching her all along? Did it know what she’d done? Her hand trembled…
She darted inside and ran the lock home. She pressed her ear to the door, but all she could hear was the thudding of her own heart. She teased a curtain aside and looked out. Nothing was there, of course. But there was a place where some branches were swaying, as if something had been there only a moment ago–
It was the wind Jess-Belle decided. Surely it was just the wind? None of the other branches were moving, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t believe it. Still, she double-checked the locks on the doors and all the windows, and only once satisfied that they were secure did she go to bed. She didn’t bother to undress or even take off her boots. She must have tracked forest dirt and pine needles all through the house, but she’d clean up in the morning. For now she lay on the top covers, curled around the empty spot on the other side of the mattress. She traced the dent of a head that wasn’t on the pillow and thought. The curtains were drawn but the moonlight got in anyway. There was no keeping it out on a night like this.
She hoped Billy-Ben got home without being caught. He was too young for all this, she knew. Not just too young to be with her but too young for all these secrets. She felt guilty for putting him up to it. But he’s a grown man, she reminded herself, or close enough. He can make up his own mind.
She rolled over. She never could sleep on nights like this. What she’d told Billy-Ben was true: Sometimes she really did hear something howling at the moon, something sad and lost and dangerous. What she hadn’t told him was that it wasn’t out there in the forest she heard it. It was the sound her own heart made.
And it scared her.