Picture the Moon

All I wanted was to be like Papa. Just as much like him as I knew humanly how. I wanted to think like him, walk like him, talk like him, be like him. I loved him so dearly that had I not been the son and he the Father I should have been in love with him. But I was, and he is, so I was not. It was purer, untainted as yet.

He watched the stars, my Father. He would walk out into the fields surrounding our manor and sit for hours gazing into the sky. I was four when he first took me with him, my brother Elspeth and I. Elspeth playing tiger in the grass, pouncing on the crickets playing their songs to the night air; I, sat on Father's lap, rapt, while he pointed out and named constellations.

I wanted so much for him to admire me, to think what a clever son he had, was unwilling to believe he might love me unconditionally as me. So his interests were my interests, his hobbies mine. Mama used to joke that I was his shadow, a real chip of the old block. And slowly, I grew to be just as fascinated in staring at the sky as he was, and every night we'd spend a few happy hours together in our pursuit.

My Father used to take photographs of the stars. Wizarding pictures where the stars glistened as if they were real. Our attic served as his dark room, and every spare inch of wall was lined with prints and proofs of every conceivable constellation and planetary orbit. Every one but one. For Father was a man with a mission. A fire lived in his heart for the ultimate prize. Haley's Comet burning bright in the night sky.

There was forest near the fields we so avidly watched from. Forests of darkest greens, of trees that reached higher than the moon goddess herself, and in those woods, creatures lurked.

It was legend and myth, fact and fiction, all worked into a blur of faery tale, the inhabitants of those woods. Some said they were lost souls, others thought them banshee's, one woman in the village swore blind it was a prisoner escaped from Azkaban, the screaming, wandering husk all that was left after the dementors had stolen his heart and eyes and mind. Left to wander the forest, unable to bear life away from the merciful shadows. For we all knew there was something in there. We all heard it scream when the moon's smile was at it's widest. None dared walk the woods then. Much less Father and I.

The time of Haley's Comet's arrival crept closer, and with it Papa and my excitement, burning and building upon itself. This was to be the one, the picture to rival all.

It was nearing Papa's birthday when we discovered it. Our dream slashed in one swoop. Haley's comet was to pass on the full moon.

What were we to do? Mama voiced commiserations but was firm, we were not to be allowed to go out that night; and let me press the point that Mama was not a woman to be argued with or easily daunted, or ferocious temper and sunny smiles, the wise did not cross her. I however, am not the wise.

It was to be my adored Father's birthday soon. He had lived his life in anticipation of this comet, or at least it seemed to me at the time. I was young and foolish. I knew not the worth of the gifts that we are given, so I went out that night, under the cover of darkness, carrying the camera and all it's paraphernalia, upon my back, as a cross, as now I see that it was. My foolishly built cross that I carried.

I knew of the forest beast of course, who did not? But life was sweet, and I was strong. If it came for me, I would strike it dead! All I was interested in was what a beautiful birthday gift it would make for Papa, a picture of Haley's Comet. It was while I fiddled with buttons and filters, intent on my purpose, determined to have nothing but the most perfect view for Father, for anything else would be an insult to a man so noble, that it struck.

It had padded up behind me, so soft and quiet in it's hunt. I had hardly heard it before it sank teeth into the soft flesh of my back, marring the pale skin forever.

The bite had been intended to kill, not maim, and had the wolf not been distracted I would not be here today. It is a stroke of luck that for many years I cursed my fortune at having had. Even today I sometimes wish for the mercy of a cowards way out. A quick, if painful death. It was not to be.

The animal left me, distracted by other more vicious quarry, a centaur perhaps, and I was left to drag my broken form back across the fields, wracked with blood and pain, for one of Mother's kitchen elves to find me the next morning, a crumpled, shivering, unconscious heap.

Oh, I recovered. I lived to be foolish another day. And it taught me no sense, for see the tattered surrounds of life around me. Now, however, when I see the moon in all her unrestrained glory, I howl to her, and perhaps she answers; and on my wall, besides my bed, is a picture of Haley's Comet.