Have you ever heard of the Song of Lunaris?

It’s a local thing, nobody outside of Willowfield knows about it, really. It’s a strange tale for a strange town that, to many, will come off a lot like an old forgotten fairytale. But to the people who live here, it’s more than just that. It’s a manifestation of pride, the glory of generations passed wrapped up in flowery language and a whimsical story. It’s the first thing children learn in school, the first song they sing in choir, the very basis in which the local church thrived upon. Maybe it’s a little strange, but its life and blood for a place like this.

Legends state that long ago the world was brought to life by the darling lustre of the silver moon. The earth, once a deserted plain, was home to naught but merely echoes of spirits from bygone eras. It was dark, bleak, miserable. 

Up high in her cosmic abode, lonesome in a world of her imprisonment, the moon began to sing. For years and years she sung to the world. She sung her sorrows, her fears, her desire for a world where love reigned above all, it was a desperate yearning plea. But it was only when she’d gotten louder, loud enough to elicit tremors deep within the Earth, did something shift. For the first time in her immortal existence, the world sang back.

Her hums hollowed out the oceans, her shrieks piled the earth into high mountains. She created caves where she stood and left glistening crystals behind in her wake, and she let her free flowing hair carved grooves between the grass, kissing the soil with her divine love from which sprouted the first signs of life.

Dimples became seeds, the seeds became trees, and from the Great Willow Tree emerged man in his truest form– The beauty of a god, wrapped in mortal flesh. Blessed be he to roam the Earth of The Mother’s creation. And blessed be her prophets to herald her name.

In the center of the world, she established a haven. Of mountains high and lakes azure, of caverns deep and rich in crystals of multi-colour glass. The willows bore fruit of gold, healing to the touch, with whispers of knowledge embedded in the flesh so powerful only the best of The Mother’s companions knew how to guard their gardens.

In the state of Ataraxia, all who were alive were at peace. Man and woman were paired in two. The young remained youthful forever. The mother and father reared the offspring. The world led with love man with monster, monster with man. As in the eyes of The Mother all were equal. All were to belong.

And that was how Willowfield came to be. Located at the centre of the tale’s so-called haven it led all to believe that surely, surely, they were amongst those who believed.

So when the world eventually came to collapse, and when the final day The Mother spoke so grimly of was to arrive, those who believed, those whose feet rooted deep beneath the ground of the holy land, would certainly be saved.

 • • •

The cloudy grey sky thundered, roaring like a lion as rain fell— plip-plop-plip-plop — hard on the umbrella Pa held over their heads. Rubie’s parents weren’t very loud people,  but now as she stood still like a statue in front of that grave they seemed almost too quiet. She didn’t know if she liked that.

They weren’t speaking like the other parents were. Mrs Valentin was crouched down, cradling YV’s face as his siblings rubbed his back and shoulders soothingly. Naang and Naai were with Dawn and his entire family, talking to him gently as Dawn’s older brother did the same to Mitzi, whose dad was busy making sure Kiana was really dead to attend her funeral.

But Rubie’s parents did nothing but squeeze her shoulder every now and again, watching her watch the grave like Kiana would dig out the dirt and come back to life any second now. Sometimes little Danny would cry and break the silence, but Ma would make sure he was calm a second later. It was like they had tape over their mouths, but even though she wanted them to say something to her at that moment so, so badly, it wasn’t like she had much to say either. All she could do was stand still, in her black dress with her black socks and her black shoes on this rainy spring day. 

‘2008 - 2018. Kiana Michaud. Our Angel, Our Saviour.’

It was written on the ashy gravestone in big, bold letters. With detailed willow branches dancing around the edge of the stone like an artsy border. She found the fact that they decorated her grave a little weird, but what she really couldn’t wrap her mind around was the fact that the gravestone also insisted she was their saviour. How could you save someone as a dead person? It made no sense.

There were people all around them, all dressed in the same dull attire. Adults talked quietly in groups, what little children there were all either stood by their parents, or blissfully playing tag around the graveyard— Rubie couldn’t blame them, it's not like they had just lost their best friend. Even after knowing Kiana for her entire life, Rubie never

thought Kiana would have so many friends who were grown-ups.

Did they all know she was dead too? Were they all here to say goodbye to Kiana one last time? For a second Rubie wondered if their parents would have said something to them or stayed quiet too, but then she realised they probably came without a family at all.

When one of the adults she was looking at looked back at her too, Rubie quickly averted her gaze elsewhere, finding interest in the ladybug that had landed on the patch of grass just beyond the freshly dug dirt over Kiana’s grave. Wanting to reach out to it, Rubie moved to crouch down. But it’d been too late, or too soon, or something like that— and the ladybug flew away, the mechanical buzzing of her wings growing louder as she zipped far, far away.

 • • •

For the next week they couldn’t play like usual.

Everyday, just after 1 PM, Rubie was used to going outside to play with everyone in the neighborhood like she always did. But today she remembered she had no next-door neighbours to ring the doorbell of.

At first she hadn’t noticed it, slipping on her shoes to go meet her friends outside, stepping over the lines on the hard concrete sidewalk, going right up to the Michaud’s front gate— before she realised what she was doing and her eyes fell onto the ugly red ‘SOLD’ sign that was posted on their door. Rubie wasn’t sure what to do next after that, so she went across the street to see if Dawn and Mitzi could play.

And at least they answered, but things weren’t the same.

Nothing changed the next day, and the day after that, and by the time the weekend rolled around, the three of them waited for YV’s big fancy car to pull up into the neighborhood so he could play with them too, but it never showed up.

”It's so boring here now! We’re supposed to be five, where's YV!” Mitzi sighed, draping herself across the empty jungle gym like she was laundry waiting to dry up. 

“I don’t think he’s coming back-“ Dawn sniffled, she couldn’t tell if it was the cold or the somber atmosphere that had him feeling down. He sat on the sandy ground curled up into a little ball like an armadillo, a frown so permanently etched on his face Rubie had no idea how to go about cheering him up. “I miss Kiana…”

They hadn’t brought her up today, but the moment her name was murmured the whole world went silent. Rubie couldn’t even hear the wind when it blew dried leaves up against her legs.

“But she’s dead now,” Rubie said, not enough energy to power her voice into something louder than a mumble. “The bears ate her.”

“What?!” Mitzi piped up immediately, unfurling herself from the iron bars. “There’s no way the bears ate her! I don’t even think we have bears in our woods!”

“That’s what my parents said though.” Rubie raised a brow. “That’s what your dad said. He’s a cop!”

Mitzi’s expression changed, and it looked as if she’d lost that unashamed edge to her voice. “That’s what he said but- but even he knows there aren’t any bears here. He knows this place like the back of his hand!”

“But we do, don’t we? Really deep in the woods…” Dawn said, a timid contrast to Mitzi’s brash voice. She shook her head. “I mean, we do— but nowhere near our town! Have you ever even seen a bear here?”

Rubie paused, thinking of all the times she’d driven down thick forested roads on the way in and out of town. “No… I don’t think so.”

“Exactly! And don’t you think that’s so weird?” Mitzi kept going, her brows meeting in a knot at the centre of her forehead, like she was desperate to believe her own words. “Kiana hated the forests! I would know because I kept asking if we could play there and she looked terrified! Why would she go out in the woods alone the night the bears got her?”

Her words had struck both her and Dawn with silence, and for a long while nobody said anything. It was Dawn who broke the quiet first, shifting in place so he could look up at his friend with worry. “Mitzi, are you sure you aren’t just overthinking things…?”

“Of course I’m not!” She defended herself, “you… you don’t believe me?”

Dawn pursed his lips, quiet— almost apologetic. “…I believe you’re listening to too many scary stories on YouTube…”

“Nuh-uh! No I’m not!” She argued back instantly, “Mitzi- we all know you like that kinda stuff…” Dawn shot back.

She gasped at that accusation, clear offense in her expression as she tried to fight her case— but it was at that point that Rubie tuned out of the conversation. Despite Dawn thinking her claims were too weird to be true, she couldn’t help but think about one part of Mitzi’s story that seemed… odd…

Why did Kiana go out into the woods alone that night? She was the only one who thought there were monsters lurking in the woods— yeah, Rubie hated bugs and would never ever think of bothering the beetles or the ants on the forest floor, but she wasn’t so scared to the point she’d shiver just looking at the trees. Kiana, though…

From where she was sat on one of the spring riders in the barren playground, Rubie cast her gaze far far away, all the way back to where they all lived on Hickory Lane. She pictured Kiana’s home in her head, the identical brick exterior melting away into the homey inside Mr and Mrs Michaud took pride in having decorated. 

Then she pictured them— Kiana’s parents, happy smiling folk who looked like perfect parents and even perfect-er people. She couldn’t understand why they were moving so soon after Kiana’s death, with almost no communication with their neighbours of over 10 years either… Even Ma and Pa couldn’t give her a straight answer that one time she asked them about it during breakfast. They just shook their heads, trying not to let the uncertainty show on their faces as they told her they ‘had no idea’ and that ‘everyone must have had their reasons’.

That picture perfect image of the Michauds in Rubie’s mind had been tainted for a long time now, however. She didn’t want to believe it at first, but now that they had exhausted every other explanation her mind was forced to think back to that night.

About a week before Kiana died, she’d thrown random pebbles up at Rubie’s bedroom window in the middle of the night, trying to get her out of her house to join her in the section of their backyards where the fence had broken off.

Rubie was a good friend— at least she thought she was— so of course she went down to meet her, of course Rubie had gone to sit down in the plush grass with her, and of course she listened to everything, every little thing, that poured out of her mouth that night.

Maybe she should’ve taken it a lot more seriously when Kiana asked her if ‘she knew what heaven felt like’. Rubie knew something was off the moment she caught Kiana’s smile slip off her face, after all— Kiana had never once spoken to her about something so… Strange. She remembered her words, even now, a whole two or something weeks later.

‘Do you know what heaven feels like, Rubie?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t wanna die, Rubie. I don’t wanna— how can I tell God she’s made a mistake?’

‘I can’t… My parents are taking me. I can’t not go.’

’Rubie, please, you gotta help me get out! You gotta-‘

‘No… Sorry. Nevermind, it’s not your fault is it…’

Memories from that moonlit night replayed in her mind like a video tape, she couldn’t hear Dawn or Mitzi clearly anymore, and in her half-daze Rubie found herself wondering, just for a split second, if there was more to Kiana and her parents than it seemed. Was she really saying that Kiana’s parents…

…No. That wasn’t right, it couldn’t be right!

Besides, even if for whatever reason she was right. it wasn’t like anyone was going to believe her. It sounded totally insane and it probably was.

She must have just remembered it wrong, she must have been so tired her mind tried to make up lies that got her thinking that Mr and Mrs Michaud were murderers.

That must have been it. For the sake of her life, for all their lives, that just needed to be it.