The Moon Dwellers

I brush my dark hair off my face with my hand. “Yeah, exactly. Like all the bad stuff that happened to him didn’t muddy his soul at all. Like he was above it all, better than this world. In the muck, but not part of it.” My soul feels like it’s slowly healing. This therapy session is for Tawni, but I’m benefitting, too.

Tawni smiles. “I’m glad you felt that, too. Although I knew Cole for five years, I can still remember when I first met him.”

“How’d you meet?”

“He saved me, too,” Tawni says, closing her eyes. I can almost see Cole’s strong face behind her eyelids. “Even though we were rich, my parents sent me to a local school. They said it was so I could live a normal life, but looking back, I think it was just another way to get close to other moon dwellers. You know, so they could report back to the Sun Realm on what the mood was in the Moon Realm.” Tawni’s eyes are open again and she’s frowning. I need to steer her thoughts away from her parents, who only make her angry.

“You met Cole at school?” I ask.

Her eyes soften and she glances at me. “Yes. The kids gave me a hard time at school. First off, I’ve always been freakishly tall. They called me things like Tawni the Giant, Ogre-Girl, and Freakazoid.”

“But you’re so pretty,” I say. I’m honestly shocked. I thought she would have been one of the cool kids at school, little miss popular, with good looks, lots of money, guys lining up for her attention. I never considered the possibility that she was bullied.

Tawni blushes. “Thanks,” she says. “Cole always said that, too. Even though the kids made fun of me, it didn’t bother me too much. They were just words. It was my parents that caused the real problems.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my mind filling with thoughts of her dad beating her, her mom verbally abusing her—perhaps they locked her in her room for days at a time.

As if reading my mind, she says, “My parents didn’t do anything to me directly. But because of who they were and the money we had, the kids at school took their bullying to a new level. They still yelled names at me, but they also started spray-painting my locker. Rich bitch was one of their favorites. But that didn’t satisfy them because I ignored it, pretended not to see it. So they took it up another notch. They knocked my books out of my hands, pulled my hair in class, tripped me in the halls. I remember lying to my parents about the scrapes on my knees and elbows, telling them I fell down playing basketball at recess.”

I pull my mouth into a tight line. I remember when I found out about the lavish lifestyle that Tawni had. A big house. Servants. Gobs of money. My first reaction was anger. I never considered that Tawni paid the price for it at school. I feel ashamed.

She continues. “It was getting pretty bad, and I was considering telling someone. The principal, maybe. A teacher. Anyone but my parents. One day I was outside the school, eating my lunch by myself, trying to make myself invisible.”

Her story reminds me of how I was in juvie, in the Pen. I was the same way. Always alone. I wonder if it’s why she approached me in the Pen in the first place. Because she knew how I was feeling.

“There was this guy, Graham, who, along with his girlfriend, Tora, had been messing with me lately. They came up behind me and pushed me over. My food spilled everywhere. When I tried to pick it up, they stepped on it. A few of their friends saw what they were doing and came over to join in the fun. There were eight of them, four guys and four girls. I had never seen them this bad. I could see in their eyes that they wanted to hurt me. Not just humiliate—but physically injure me, maybe kill me. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

Tawni is not like me. She’s not tough. She’s fragile. All I want to do is protect her. I pray I’m strong enough.

“Some of them picked up stones and were ready to throw them at me. That’s when I met Cole. My knight in shining armor. He burst through the circle like a bull. Two of the guys went flying. The other two guys tried to hit him, but Cole was made of steel. He blocked their punches and knocked them out. He wouldn’t hit the girls although I could tell he wanted to. Instead he growled at them to run away and they did. He got suspended for two weeks, and I started spending all my time with him. No one messed with either of us again. He was my best friend.”

Her eyes are moist, but not with sadness. Her pride at having known Cole is just spilling over. I hug her.

We sit for a few more minutes, resting our legs, and then start up again. As I stand, I try to brush some dirt off my black tunic, which is borrowed from Tawni’s mother. The dirt is stained on the garment. It’s filthy. The last time I came close to taking a bath was when we jumped down the waterfall back in subchapter 26. But we didn’t have time to use soap with Rivet and his gang right on our tail. I am loathe to change into one of the other two clean tunics—also “borrowed”—as I’m hoping to save them for when I’m even more desperate. From our time spent in the Pen, both Tawni and I are used to living with poor hygiene.

Ten minutes later, we see something unexpected. For the first time since leaving the Moon Realm, we come to a crossroads, as another tu

The thunder of marching boots sends shivers through the rock and through my bones.