A man she had not known was wearing the skin of the boy she had known all her life. His rust-brown eyes, the roundness of his lips, and the mole near his collarbone were the same pieces of desire that had burned beneath her. It was an awkward revelation for Esther, really, as if it were a shadow in sunlight; their love had cooled, and it was unfamiliar and foreign. 

Isaiah had not recognized her. 

 

His anger clung to the walls, seeping into the meadow where Esther sought refuge. The voice she had used to mourn, accusing her from afar, demanding his father to see a "real doctor." But as Mr. Thompson accepted the scorn from his son, believing he had only become a fragment of a man, Nilah stood beside her Father's window and watched Esther melt into the flowers, hungry for something she had not tasted in years.  

"That woman," Nilah stomps over, "that woman who you just called a witch, do you know who that was?"

 Mr. Thompson lowers his eyes, "Nilah."

"Do you?"

"Why should it matter?"

Mr. Thompson placed a heavy hand on his son's shoulder. "Come here, son," patting him on the back. "Who else, in all of North Carolina, is a conjure woman?"

Isaiah opens his mouth, hesitating, but as he goes to speak, his voice breaks in mid-air. Mr. Thompson watches with soft eyes as the back of Isaiah's throat burns as he swallows the realization. For the first time in a long time, Mr. Thompson looks at him with pride as he watches the window with short breaths and a stalling heart. 

It was then that his father whispered, "Now, you are a man."

· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·

Before Esther's Mother passed, she had sworn that love was most honest under the moon. 

It's when things come as they are. The stars just are, she'd say; they exist because they just do. So does love. It flows as rivers do and blooms like wildflowers do in the spring. But upon Isaiah's return, Esther questioned if her Mother's advice had touched all corners of life. Had her love not existed in the way that the river flows? The way the morning dew scrunches her hair?

How could love fade and linger like mist, barely graspable?

The kettle screamed from the kitchen for a while before Esther truly heard it; her head ran amuck with memories she was unsure existed. Had he forgotten her, or had he never seen her? Esther poured her tea absent-mindedly, the steam blurring her vision, forming figures of Isaiah's lean body in front of her living room window. 

Closing her eyes, the nakedness of Spring blurred across her mind. Like monarchs, like moonlike, like Isaiah. She continued to make her tea, the routine ingrained in her mind. Clinks of the teacup mimicked that of knocks, the rhythm of her breath against liquid sounding like her name leaving his lips. "Please, open the door, Esther," the creeks in her morning chair cried. "Forgive me," the floorboards whispered. 

It was not until Esther lifted her head to see Isaiah standing in her foyer, his face drenched in remorse, that she realized she was not imagining his repentance. 

"How did you get in?"

"You never lock your door."

"How's your father?"

"Walking and joking like he wasn't ever sick."

"My 'witch' magic."

"Esther..."

Her teacup clattered against the kitchen table as she stood. The supposed place of love had burned her fingertips, "Have you come to insult me more, Isaiah?"

He inches closer, "I came to apologize. I didn't know it was you; I swear."

"Why should it matter? My forgiveness."

Isaiah stepped back further toward the door as if he'd been burned by the isolation of time. There were no words to bandage his mistake, so as fear laid with desire on his tongue, he reconciled that the only thing to make him say was the past. "There's a full moon tonight."

"So?"

"What?"

"What of the full moon?"

"Don't you remember how the lightning bugs used to dance across the lake when we were little? Mama said they barely show anymore, but they used to. On full moons." 

Esther turned slowly, averting his gaze and deep sighs. For a moment, she saw the boy he once was as he searched for things he had not understood. Her heart softened along with her eyes. "Maybe we'll see some," she said softly. "How long are you staying?"

A smile grew across Isaiah's face. Hope crept into the room like weeds, sticking in places it did not belong, like her brown eyes and her long fingers that used to hold the pieces of him together. He had not known whether to leave or to come back when night had risen, but Esther placed a cup of tea in his hands and disappeared up the stairs, so he took it as a notion to rest and dream of what was. 

· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·

The full moon cast a silver glow across the room. Esther traces her fingers across his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose. Her touch caused him to shift on the couch, holding the empty teacup in his hands. Esther had wondered what city life had taught him. Has he grown into a good man? She thought as she tapped his shoulder. 

"I thought you would go home and come back."

Isaiah shuffled on the couch, squinting his eyes to see Esther drenched in the moonlight. She had changed into a white dress and headwrap, yet he could only see her Mother. He smiled, "I missed this couch more than my bed."

Rolling her eyes, "Look." Esther pointed to the window as green lights flickered along where the river kissed the land. The streaks of light left traces of green atop the blue river, as though the stars had fallen and decided the river had become their home. They zigged and zagged along the shoreline, the trees, the moon, and the window, forcing a gasp from Isaiah that brought blood to Esther's ears. 

Isaiah jumped to his feet; the feeling of yesterday—or maybe years of yesterday—coursed through his veins. Pulling Esther by the arm toward the door, the two giggled like the laughter that hung in the trees. "I told you! I told you!" Isaiah screamed as he ran under the willows, holding out his hands like a child to a parent. They prance around his arms and hands, outlining his silhouette. Esther watches as he tries to move every so slowly to catch one, just as he did all those years ago, and her lungs close in on her heart.

"You, don't hurt them!"

"Come here! Catch one!"

"You know I hate bugs!"

With his hands cupped, Isaiah prances toward Esther, who screams in horror as he chases her with a lightning bug. The bug buzzes in his hands in a similar fashion to his heart buzzing in his chest. Mr. Thompson and Nilah watch the two from the bedroom window, prancing, chasing, and laughing. 

"Daddy, do you think they still love each other?"

 Mr. Thompson held out his chest, boasting of an accomplishment that had yet to come, "I sure hope so."

"When am I gonna find someone like that?" 

Mr. Thompson looked at his daughter, who had grown in the presence and absence of his eyes, to find no longer a child but a young lady who had recognized that the love between him and his wife had no longer been an example to her.

"Your Mother and I used to be like that. Things change you; life does. So love, like what Madam Esther and your brother have, is different. That, baby, is a light that doesn't ever go out." 

They continued to watch the two scramble for lightning bugs, Esther jumping in the river and Isaiah joining. Mr. Thompson led Nilah away from the window, knowing how heavy love becomes in the water, only to find his wife in the doorway with tears in her eyes. 

"You're back!" Mrs. Thompson cried.