The Moonlight Eels
Flash-fiction - by Sam W. Pisciotta
Jenny faced the shadowed trees and bent an ear into the darkness, listening for Pepper’s bark, hoping her pup had holed up in some hollow. She yearned to find that dog, but Mama knew the dangers and held her back.
“Stay inside the light, little girl.” Mama waved her back to the fire.
“But Pepper’s lost out there.”
Mama shushed her. “The dog can care for itself. It’s you I worry about.”
“I’m eleven now. I can care for myself, too.” One day she would be a healer like her mother and travel the forest alone, helping the folk in the valley. She needed to be brave.
Mama pressed in and locked her eyes with Jenny’s. “That’s a full moon up there. The worst time to be out.” Mamma pulled her back toward the fire. “The Canson boy is real sick and he needs us. But we got to be smart.”
“I’m smart, Mama, but Pepper needs us too.”
“These woods,” said Mama, “get you addled. Pull you in deep. Turn you around till there’s no finding home.”
“They’re only trees. They can’t even move.”
“True enough,” Mama whispered. “But the things behind them can.”
Two woofs and a yip. Pepper’s bark sludged through the darkness. Sticky with night. The dog’s cry nearly died at the fire’s edge, but Jenny listened hard; she knew that bark. Her heart tumbled in wild panic. Pepper was out there, sounding so far away.
Mama lay by the fire. Her eyes drifted into sleep, and her breathing eased to a gentle see-saw.
Jenny stood and fed more wood to the fire. She sidled to the edge of safe, careful not to touch the moonlight oozing like sap across the forest floor. Those globs of tacky light liked to trap her for the moonlight eels.
She wasn’t a stupid girl. She’d heard the stories.
Child, they said, don’t get caught under a full moon. Eels swim there. The moonlight’s their water; it churns them from the earth and floats them up top. They splash and spill above the forest floor; they weave through pines and skip ‘round shadows.
Those eels swim and hunt for memories.
Little Charlie Broussard learned ‘bout that. Slipped from bed and stole into the night. Next mornin’, the boy couldn’t recall his own name. They say a whole family up near Claremont got moon drunk. Gawked at one another, then wandered down different paths.
They never again remembered they was kin. Never again.
Again, the yelp of Pepper.
Jenny faced the forest, held her breath. She strained to listen past the wind, but darkness clogged her ears and stopped her throat. Two trees towered before her, like twin sentries warning her to stay near the protective fire, to cuddle next to Mama, to wait till morning.
Three yips and a long complaint.
She hugged Chloe, stuffed with rags, her constant companion. Made by Mama years ago. Jenny cried out, “Pepper. I’m coming.” Then pale and ghostlike, she lit past the sentry pines.
From that camp she’d left behind rose the sound of loss and regret. Her mama cried out, Jenny.
Jenny!
Light and shadow tangled on the ground. She heard her mother’s cries, knew that Mama had followed her into the woods, but Jenny stayed to the dark, its terror less a terror than the moonlight eels. She slipped along one dark patch and hopped over to another. She slid along tall shadows and jumped past pools of moonlight. She stopped to catch her breath, and a shade the size of ten strung horses slid within the air. It coiled and writhed, first looping then rolling between the scraggly bits of shadow surrounding her. It rose and dove along a moonbeam, catching her hand that strayed from the shadows. She flinched and whimpered.
Something had been lost. But what? Something she couldn’t remember and never would.
Girl, they said when they told the tales, if you gone lost your past, you lost yourself. You’re someone else now. That’s what those eels do: they untie you from the earth and pull you into moonlight.
They got a long story ‘round these parts. Most folks ‘round here travel under new moons when nights are dark. Course your mama’s healer, got sickness and pain to attend; she can’t always cross the valley by starlight. On those nights, fire and shadow are the only options. But that moon shifts ‘round all night like she’s workin’ with the eels—tryin’ to flush you out.
Stay awake! Stay sharp!
Jenny slewed down a hollow, plunged into that scar of rock and pine. Safe in shadow. The sky slathered now with moonlight eels. Churning and slithering.
A howl rose from a clutch of fallen trees left by woodsmen. Those ancient logs lay crosswise in a patch of moonlight across a glade; it might just as well have been the sea—so vast the distance.
Jenny caught sight of a trembling Pepper crouching beneath that timber. The dog edged forward to break toward Jenny.
“No, Pepper. Stay!”
An eel skated down to the shadow’s brink to lock its eyes with Jenny’s.
That eel come round collecting memories, blustering and charging the edge of moonlight. Jenny held her ground, squeezed her doll, and stuck to shadows. Then that eel moved off to tempt her from her hiding spot. But Jenny knew its game. She felt it waiting, felt its eyes, cold and steady.
Pepper barked and fretted, threatening to leave those crisscrossed logs. Jenny needed to act, needed to save her Pepper.
She had an idea.
Jenny tossed Chloe high and long, sending her doll shooting-star flying into that writhing sky. The eels caught sight of it, and the eels were quick. They spun like a whirlwind down toward the doll, chasing after it as it fell towards the earth.
Jenny ran.
As she neared the logs, she felt the burn. Only three steps away from reaching Pepper, Jenny felt the burn across her thigh. The moonlight eel cut around to block her path. Jenny dodged. Low whistling moans like unbound trains crowded the air. Pepper barked to aim her, and Jenny jumped for the shadows, dove beneath those dry-split logs.
Eels squirmed and smashed.
Jenny grabbed her dog and held him tight.
She’d been hit-bit and the crisp burn stung.
She’d heard all the stories. Jenny knew what an eel’s touch meant. Something inside had gone missing. Her mama cried out in the distance, and she knew the voice. She knew her mama, and she wanted to cry with joy. The dog nuzzled next to her ribs. She remembered her Pepper. But the shadows grew long around her, pressed her with dread. What had she lost? Her village, her home, the stories of eels. She remembered these things. But something—something was gone. And she wept till she fell asleep, aching for that lost piece of herself.
By mornin’ Mama entered the glen, wrapped up Jenny in an angry hug so tight it stole her breath. “Who am I?” Mama’s voice edged on panic, impatient for an answer.
“I know you, Mama.”
Her mother sobbed and squeezed her tight. Then Mama held a doll out to Jenny. “You dropped this,” she said.
“That ain’t mine.” Jenny scoffed. “I’m too old for that.” In truth, she couldn’t remember a time when she played with such things. Childhood felt like a hidden hollow on the other side of a hill.
Mama seemed to sink inside herself. She ran a gentle thumb over the doll’s stitched smile. “Chloe,” she whispered and tenderly tucked the doll into her satchel.
Jenny knelt and scratched her dog’s ear. “We should probably leave Pepper at home from now on. It’s too dangerous out here.” When she looked up, her mother stood trembling, watching some distant point behind her daughter—as if hoping she might find something lost.
“I’m all right, Mama.”
“I know.”
“We better get moving. The Canton boy needs us.”
Mama sniffled and nodded.
“The sun’s already burning.” Jenny stood and stretched tall beside her mother. “And time holds for no one.”