Blue Moon 

A new arrival to Damage, Oregon unearths the story of a missing girl and her three best friends.

1; tuesday blue 

The deer stares at me. I stare back. We are locked in a silent battle, this deer and I. The first to look away is the loser.

It isn’t a very fair game. The deer always wins.

Favourite tweezers clenched in clumsy fingers, I lean towards the deer. The prongs skirt up against the edge of the deer’s eye, and in one fluid motion, I pull the plastic film off. The eyes, once dull, glow bright with the plastic gone. They are shiny like marbles, a rich and vibrant oak colour. It would be easy to forget they are dead; nothing more than cold, unmoving, unseeing glass. The deer’s own eyes are long gone.

 I imagine what this deer saw before its eyes became glass. Endless green, trees, grass. Rain, and a safe place to sleep. Maybe even a little fawn following it around in the spring. Thank you, I whisper to the cold pelt. Thank you for your life. And for letting me immortalise it.

There are some heady moments in which my craft feels like that of a god’s. Who else could trap life in stasis, rendering it in such realistic strokes that you can almost envision it leaping off the wall and bounding into the night? Many have called taxidermy odd, even unsettling. The girls at my old school had somehow found out that my weekends were spent with dead animals and branded me an outcast accordingly.

But I never minded. The animals were far better listeners than they could ever be.

 Of course, I wasn’t a perfect god. I made mistakes. I wrinkled the skin and got glue on the hair. I padded the body wrong, ordered eyes too big for the skull. My mum was the real god.

I was just a god in training.

A breeze shimmies its way into our new studio, and I draw my jumper over the exposed skin of my wrists. No one warned me that Oregon would be so thoroughly, bone-achingly cold. The chill makes me miss home even more. Miss the warm melted ice cream nights, sand between my toes and salt on my skin. Miss the sun, the heat.

But the little windswept town of Damage, OR had called to us across the Pacific Ocean, and we had heeded its call. Now, boxes are unpacked and furniture assembled. Mum is ensconced in her new job at the local museum. I have been uprooted, past tense. And I am ok with it. Or I will be.

The town is small enough to feel like a too-tight turtleneck. When Mum had shown it to me on the internet before we left, I had seen only rocky cliffs, diners that looked straight out of the 1970’s and a wild grey ocean battering the shoreline below. Reality is not too different from my first impression.

Damage is a little speck on the wild Pacific coast, sat atop a bay that the tourist pamphlets claim makes for excellent whale watching. I’ve yet to see much wildlife beyond lumbering police officers drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and elderly waitresses in fastidious little aprons.

If home is technicoloured beach towels and sun-speckled skin, Damage is low omnipresent clouds and dark dark forests. Still, I haven’t been here long enough to determine whether or not I’m miserable. School starts tomorrow.

I’ll decide then.

 2; finneas 

The girl stumbles into the classroom just as the bell rings. Mrs Rogerson eyes her disdainfully. On time is late in AP Literature.

“You must be our new girl,” she sniffs to the latecomer, who is eyeing the room as if sizing up which desk she could reach the quickest.

 “Hold on,” Mrs Rogerson adds, seeming to sense the girl’s skittishness.  “Let’s have a class introduction. Tell us about yourself, uhh …” a brief break while she consults the class roll, “Tuesday Blue Barrow.”

The name hangs in the air, and the students prick their ears. A newcomer, and one with a weird name? This is getting better and better. The girl almost winces. It's only third period, but she must have done this awkward dance several times already.

The girl nods, then faces the waiting class. All heads are bent towards her, eager. We had heard, of course, about the new girl. Blonde, people whispered, and Australian. A novelty in this town. She was going to be doing this dance a lot more. By the end of today, her every move would be analysed and recounted to an endless network of gossip-starved people.

Damage is like that.

“Yeah, hi,” the girl says, her accent thick and broad. “My name’s Tuesday Blue, but everyone calls me Tuesday. I just moved here with my mum. Nice to meet you all,” she trails off.

“And what do you like to do in your spare time?” prompts Mrs Rogerson, clearly not done tormenting her.

“Umm … I like to read.” The teacher nods approvingly. “I like to skateboard.” Some skate rats snicker towards the back. Tuesday seems to pause, thinking something over. “And I like to taxidermy.”

The class collectively leans back in their chairs, some of the cheerleaders even wrinkling their noses. Tuesday Blue has just received her verdict. Taxidermy is for old men in camo down at Buck’s Bar, not teenage girls. I wonder if Tuesday had guessed at the reaction to her admission and plowed ahead anyway. Brave. Or stupid. In a town this small, social suicide is no light thing.

“Well,” says Mrs Rogerson, seeming to be lost for words. “That’s just … lovely. Take a seat, Tuesday. Next to Finneas in the corner.”

Tuesday’s eyes meet mine and then slide away. She slumps into the chair, backpack banging my leg on the way. I smile sideways at her. I know what it’s like to be an outsider. After class is over, I catch up to Tuesday in the hall. She looks at me and keeps walking.

“Cool name,” I say by way of introduction.

“Thanks,” she replies, still walking.

“Where’s it from?” I prompt, hoping she’ll slow.

“My mother,” she says, matter of factly.

“Oh, right,” I murmur, feeling stupid. “I mean, what inspired it?”

“I was born in the ocean on a Tuesday night. During a blue moon. Parents were hippies, you know.”

“In the ocean? Is that safe?”

“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?” she asks. Her voice is low, almost rough.

“I just ...  didn’t realise that was an option.”

“Mum isn’t the conventional sort,” she replies, a small smile tugging at her mouth. It looks good on her.

“Did you get made fun of as a kid for your name?”

She laughs, quick and sharp. “What do you think?”

“Right. What was the go-to?”

“Oh, it ranged,” she says, her hands tight around the straps of her bag. “Some were harmless. My personal favourite was Friday Red.”

“And the less harmless?” I push.

“Let’s just say that kids can be very creative when the need arises,” comes the nonchalant response. We are silent for a moment, walking together through the bustling hall. She’s on her way to the art block, I think. I have Geometry next, but I’ll make it on time.

“I like your accent,” I say, breaking the silence. She laughs again.

“Everyone does, apparently. Can’t tell you how many times today someone’s asked me to say, ‘A dingo ate my baby!’”

“Well, we don’t get many new interesting things here. You're a bit of a rarity.”

“Happy to be the new shiny toy,” she says, shouldering open the door.

“Speaking of toy…” I start.

“Yes?”

“I saw you riding your bike to school.” It was the truth. A blur of blonde hair streaking down the street fills my head, the bike’s front handlebars wound with plastic ivy and streamers. Her mouth below the helmet had been set in a determined line, as if she were some knight heading into battle on her trusty steed.

“Oh, yeah. She’s a recent find. Her name is Heloise. She’s my princess.”

“Do you want to hang out later?” I ask abruptly. She looks at me then, really looks at me, for what feels like the first time. Her eyes are as blue as the ocean she was born in.

“Depends on what the hanging entails,” she says, crossing her arms. She’s so short that she has to tilt her head back to meet my gaze. I shrug and play it cool.

“Just a few people down on the beach. Bonfire, shitty beer. The usual.”

She thinks for a moment, looking me over with that cool gaze. “Pitch the evening to me in one sentence.”

“Really?” She’s making me work for her time, I realise. I like the idea.

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, arms still crossed. I’ve got just the thing.

“Ok. How’s this? If you come to the beach tonight, I’ll introduce you to the local mermaids.”

Her eyes alight and she drops her arms, almost without meaning to.

“Sold?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Sold,” she agrees, a little smile hovering on her lips. We exchange numbers and then she’s gone, turned towards the art studio without a goodbye. I take her in for a moment while she leaves.

It isn’t that she’s pretty, necessarily. I’ve worked hard for girls before, flirting with them till their cheeks pink and they agree to share a soda with me at a diner after school. This feels different.

Tuesday’s features are too odd, too far apart to be pretty, her clothes too ratty to be stylish. She’s better than pretty, I realise as I, too, turn away. She is interesting — a transplant from a distant land, sunlight still clinging to her shoulders like a cape. A treasure washed up on Damage’s grey shores. Tuesday Blue is like her name; a puzzle to be unravelled. A puzzle I want to solve.

And, I can admit to myself, it doesn’t hurt that she looks like her.

I wonder what Sage Sinclair would make of Tuesday, and feel her ghost follow me all the way to Geometry.