Lost and Found

Marie lay in her bed, eyes stubbornly closed, though she was well aware of the moonlight filtering through her eyelids. A squint at her watch told her it was midnight, an hour after she’d last checked it as she’d tossed and turned, struggling to nod off even though she’d been on the go since early morning. Pushing the covers back, she dragged herself to the window and gasped at the beauty of the moon, full and yellow, and so big she thought she might almost be able to touch it. After a few minutes studying its craters and shadows, Marie reluctantly drew the curtain across in the hope of settling back down. She was desperately trying to ignore that nagging voice in her head, the one that was urging her to get up, just as it did every full moon, so she pulled the covers over her eyes, despite the oppressive heat of the summer night, and strived once more for sleep. 

Fast-forward an hour and Marie was on her porch, clutching a bag of smooth, white pebbles. Anyone watching from the outside would likely think she was crazy, the way she laid them out in two adjacent rows, just wide enough apart for a person to walk between and just long enough to stretch from the porch, down the steps and a few metres into the garden. Observing her handiwork, she quickly rearranged some of the pebbles so they were more or less in size order, then muttered some words under her breath before heading back inside. A quick look at the upstairs windows confirmed her suspicions, that she was being watched. It was only a little frisson that alerted her, a mother’s sixth sense perhaps. Her seven-year-old daughter waved at her, her delicate face porcelain white. 

‘Bed Cassie, now. It’s past one o’clock,’ said Marie, ushering her daughter across the bedroom. ‘But I can’t sleep mummy, it’s too light, and the moon’s talking to me.’ Marie brushed her daughter’s hair aside and kissed her forehead. ‘I’ve done the pebbles,’ she said, ‘so we’ll be able to sleep now.’ Cassie nodded. ‘Why do you do it, mummy?’, she asked, creasing her brow. Marie laughed gently. ‘Your grandad used to do it, that’s all. Just in case anyone who’s lost knows they can knock on our door. And I’ve told you that lots of times!’ Cassie closed her eyes, smiling. ‘Tell me the words, mummy. So I can go to sleep.’ Yawning herself now, Marie tucked the thin sheet under Cassie’s arms, knowing it would be kicked off in a matter of minutes. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘All of you travellers lost, let the full moon guide you to me. Knock…knock…knock.’ She tapped Cassie’s nose three times. ‘Sleep!’, she said. 

It was Marie’s husband that woke her up as he came back from his nightshift. ‘Oh gosh Phil, Cassie will be late for school!’, she said, leaping out of bed and searching for her glasses. ‘Here,’ said Phil, handing them to her, ‘and stop panicking. Cassie was already up and dressed when I got home, and she’s halfway though a bowl of that awful cereal.’ Marie winced. ‘Sorry. I was nagged into buying it. Was work ok?’ ‘Busy,’ he said, ‘like it always is on a full moon. People must be more accident prone or something.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and kicked his shoes off. ‘I see you’ve been busy outside. Anyone come knocking?’ She shook her head, blushing a little, and he smiled at her. ‘I think it’s nice,’ he said, ‘Anyway, I’m off to bed. Cass should be ready now.’ Marie grabbed her keys. ‘I’ll try not to make any noise,’ she said.

Marie revelled in those silent hours of the day that her part-time job allowed her to have. With her husband sleeping upstairs, Cassie at school and the phone turned off, she glided round the house, tidying here and there, and then sat outside to enjoy her lunch in a shady part of their garden. The sun was at its strongest, and while Marie enjoyed soaking up its warmth, it didn’t hold the same draw as the moon. Not for her at least. There was something brutal about the sun and about the way you couldn’t really look at it, the opposite of the moon’s cool, open serenity. Her grandad had felt the same way, and when, as a child, Marie had awoken during nighttime hours, she got comfort from knowing her grandad would be two miles up the road, staring at the full moon, just like her. 

It was two hours before she was due to collect Cassie when someone knocked. Three times, insistent and loud. Marie froze, her heart pounding, though it wasn’t the first time it had happened. She took a deep breath and rushed to the door, afraid further knocks would wake Phil, only to see the postwoman standing on the porch, holding out a parcel she’d forgotten she’d ordered for Cassie’s birthday later that month. ‘Sorry,’ said Marie, hand on her heart, ‘I thought you might be someone else!… Are you ok?’ The postwoman was white as a sheet, her hand shaking as she passed Marie a pen to sign for the parcel. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, short of breath. ‘I almost ran over your dog, that’s all. It just took me by surprise. I didn’t know you even had one!’ Marie was just about to say that she didn’t when a brown terrier presented itself, holding between his teeth one of her pebbles, which he promptly dropped at her feet. ‘Oh, er, he’s not mine. I…’ But the postwoman was already going back to her car, walking between the rows of stones. 

‘Ludo,’ read the tiny scroll of paper that Marie extracted from the silver cylinder dangling from the dog’s collar. The address was a half-hour walk from her house, not far from the school and on the edge of the forest that hugged the south side of the village. If Marie walked quickly, she would be in plenty of time to collect Cassie. She had no lead, but needn’t have worried—Ludo trotted faithfully by her side as they exited the leafy cul-de-sac and cut through the church yard, skirting round the cricket field and past the primary school. Bluebell Cottage was somewhat hidden among the trees on the village boundary, but it was a place Marie had known since childhood when she and her friends would cycle past on their way to play in the woods. It looked just the same now as it had then, with its sky blue door and windows boxes festooned with pink geraniums. ‘Come on, Ludo, you’re home!’ Ludo pulled his nose out of a rabbit hole and ran to catch Marie up, overtaking her to run up the path. The gate was open so Marie followed Ludo, but then stopped in her tracks. On the floor, laid out with almost mathematical precision, were two rows of white pebbles. It must have been some kind of instinct that caused Marie to knock at the door three times, in a perfect rhythm, because it was only afterwards that she realised. Her heart was fluttering as the sound of shuffling footsteps came from inside, and she felt like she was in a dream, though the tap-tap of Ludo’s wagging tail against her leg soon brought her back to reality. 

A lined but kind face appeared through a crack in the door, their eyes connecting just like hers always did with her grandad’s. Marie took a deep breath. ‘I found a lost traveller,’ she said quietly. The man smiled and opened the door fully. ‘Ludo!,’ he said, creaking to his knees to fuss the giddy dog. ‘Two days, where have you been? Thank goodness for the full moon or you might never have come home.’ He looked up at Marie before using the door handle to bring himself to standing. ‘Please, come in.’ They went into the homely kitchen and he pulled out a wooden chair for her. ‘I’m William, by the way.’ ‘Marie,’ she said. ‘What did you think of my pebbles, Marie?’ he asked with his back to her, filling up the kettle. ‘Neater than mine,’ she replied. They chatted then for a whole hour, about the moon, the sleeplessness, the ritual, about her grandad and her daughter and how they were the same as her. ‘What about you, who handed it down to you?’ William arranged the cosy on the teapot. ‘My gran. But even before I knew about the pebbles, I was always drawn to the moon, all the more so the fuller it got. My son was the same, but he was afraid of it, of the moon and how it made him feel, and who it might bring to him, and he was scared of the dark too.’ His eyes drifted towards a photo, of who Marie assumed must be William with his wife and son, his son around twenty years old and gripping his dad’s arm. ‘Did he ever learn to live with it, love it even?’, she asked, grateful that Cassie had always just accepted the way it was. William stirred his tea absently. ‘No, no he didn’t. He thought it was a fault in him, given to him by me, and one day, he went. Just like that.’ They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes. ‘Did you ever find any lost people Marie?’, he asked. She nodded. ‘Lots of times. Ludo today, for example, and last year a woman on a horse and two elderly hikers. But once, just once, about seven years ago, the first full moon after Cassie was born, a young man. But he…he wouldn’t come in. He just knocked, three times, waited for me to answer, and then turned and walked away.’ William leaned closer to her now. ‘Was it him? Was it Martin?’, he asked, gesturing towards the photo. Marie squinted, and tried to remember. The eyes…she couldn’t make them out clearly enough. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It was his eyes, William. They were like yours, like my grandad’s. I shuddered when he looked at me. And of all the people I’ve found, he seemed the most lost. But I couldn’t help him.’ William put his head in his hands. ‘Where is he now, your son?’, she asked. He looked up. ‘Lost. Still lost. And every full moon, I hope he’ll come home, but he never does. My wife…well it broke her heart.’ Marie put her hand on his, unsure of what to say that could possibly help the old man sitting opposite. What if that was Cassie? She could barely bring herself to imagine the pain, and of course she would blame herself. What she saw as a gift, albeit one she sometimes tried to dismiss as superstition, or even ignore, could equally be a burden, a curse even. 

A glance at the clock told Marie she had to leave. ‘It’s time for you to go,’ sensed William. ‘Thank you for bringing back my little traveler here!’ He smiled, although his face betrayed the sadness beneath, then stood up, his back hunched over. Marie gathered up her phone and keys, and was just about to bid William goodbye, when the knock came. Three times, firm, and at precise intervals. The knock of someone that knew, of someone like them. They looked at one another, frozen in time for those few seconds, tears drowning William’s eyes. ‘I think I’ve found a traveller who’s been lost for a long time,’ he whispered, and he then turned, straightened his back, and headed for the door.