The Darkest Evening of the Year Read Online Free PDF

done.”
    “It’s a lot of money,” Janet said.
    “Not so much. I never renegotiate.”
    The woman folded her left hand around the cash, her right hand around the left, lowered her hands to her lap as she bowed her head.
    The traffic signal turned green, and Amy drove across the deserted intersection as Janet said softly, “Thank you.”
    Thinking of the dog in the cargo area, Amy said, “Trust me, sweetie, I got the better half of the deal.”
    She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw the dog peering forward from behind the backseat. Their eyes met in their reflections and then Amy looked at the road ahead.
    “How long have you had Nickie?” Amy asked.
    “A little more than four months.”
    “Where did you get her?”
    “Carl didn’t say. He just brought her home.”
    They were southbound on the Coast Highway, scrub and shore grass to their right. Beyond the grass lay the beach, the sea.
    “How old is she?”
    “Carl said maybe two years.”
    “So she came with the name.”
    “No. He didn’t know her name.”
    The water was black, the sky black, and the painter moon, though in decline, brushed the crests of the waves.
    “Then who named her?”
    Janet’s answer surprised Amy: “Reesa. Theresa.”
    The girl had not spoken this night, had only sung in that high pure voice, in what might have been Celtic, and she had seemed to be detached in the manner of a gentle autistic.
    “Why Nickie?”
    “Reesa said it was always her name.”
    “Always.”
    “Yes.”
    “For some reason…I didn’t think Theresa said much.”
    “She doesn’t. Sometimes not for weeks, then only a few words.”
    In the mirror, the steady gaze of the dog. In the sea, the sinking moon. In the sky, a vast intricate wheelwork of stars.
    And in Amy’s heart rose a sense of wonder that she was reluctant to indulge, for it could not be true, in any meaningful sense, that her Nickie had returned to her.

Chapter

5
    M oongirl will make love only in total darkness. She believes that her life has been forever diminished by passion in the light, when she was younger.
    Consequently, the faintest glow around a lowered window shade will burn away all of her desire.
    A single thread of sunshine in the folds of drawn draperies will in an instant unravel her lust.
    Light intruding from another room—under a door, around a crack in a jamb, through a keyhole—will pierce her as if it is a needle and cause her to flinch from her lover’s touch.
    When her blood is hot, even the light-emitting numerals of a bedside clock will chill her.
    The luminous face of a wristwatch, the tiny bulb on a smoke detector, the radiant eyes of a cat can wring a cry of frustration from her and squeeze her libido dry.
    Harrow thinks of her as
Moongirl
because he can imagine her loose in the night, silhouetted naked on a ridge line, howling at the moon. He doesn’t know what label a psychologist might apply to her particular kind of madness, but he has no doubt that she is mad.
    Never has he called her Moongirl to her face. Instinct tells him that to do so would be dangerous, perhaps even fatal.
    In daylight or dark, she can pass for sane. She can even feign wholesomeness quite convincingly. Her beauty beguiles.
    Especially in purple, but also in pink and white, bouquets of hydrangea charm the eye, but the plant is mortally poisonous; so, too, the lily of the valley, the blossoms of bloodroot; the petals of yellow jasmine, brewed in tea or mixed in salad, can kill in as little as ten minutes.
    Moongirl loves the black rose more than any other flower, though it is not poisonous.
    Harrow has seen her hold such a rose so tightly by its thorny stem that her hand drips blood.
    Her pain threshold, like his, is high. She does not enjoy the prick of the rose; she simply does not feel it.
    She has total discipline of her body and her intellect. She has no discipline of her emotions. She is, therefore, out of balance, and balance is a requirement of sanity.
    This night, in a