Pamela Terry - When the Moon Turns Blue

When the Moon Turns Blue is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2023 by Pamela Terry

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

BALLANTINE is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Terry, Pamela, 1956 author.

Title: When the moon turns blue: a novel / Pamela Terry.

Description: First Edition. | New York: Ballantine Books, [2023]

Identifiers: LCCN 2022030069 (print) | LCCN 2022030070 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593359204 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593359211 (ebook)

Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.

Classification: LCC PS3620.E7726 W48 2023 (print) | LCC PS3620.E7726 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6dc23/eng/20220623

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030069

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030070

Ebook ISBN9780593359211

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Jo Anne Metsch, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Ella Laytham

Cover images: Getty Images

ep_prh_6.0_142492539_c0_r0

Contents

Through a slit in the green curtain he could just see the garden, asleep in the wintertime sun. A thin stripe of morning light occasionally touched his shoulder like a knighthood.

Let her open the window, he thought.

You wont require an open window, the voice replied.

He didnt try to turn his head this time. He knew no one was there.

How much longer?

Not long now, I shouldnt think.

He wished he could tell her what he knew. She seemed so pale now sleeping there beside him, almost invisible.

As the morning got closer he could once again hear the paper-soft flutter of wings. He closed his eyes to see them. Feathers. Feathers of white, blue-black, and gray. Falling and flying like snow. Coming down from the ceiling, drifting in through the window glass.

He secretly wished for the black.

Soaring up on the wind currents, flying out over the oceans. He had coveted that casual liberty since his boyhood. To run and run, to lift away. An unspoken longing buried deep in his soul.

You can go now.

I can? Where should I go?

Anywhere that you wish.

The silhouette of a raven cast a violet-hued shadow into the dimly lit room. The bird briefly hovered outside the window, then spread its black feathers, lifted over the treetops, and was gone.

To glide on the winds of winter.

SATURDAY

BUTTER AND MARIETTA

B utter Swann sat listening to the eulogy from a pew five rows back from the front. She could see the side of Mariettas face clearly. She saw her reach a black-gloved hand up to her neck and rub it hard in a little circular motion that left a bright red blotch on the whiteness of her skin. Marietta still had perfect skin, even after all these years. Butter couldnt help but notice. Hardly any gray in her hair, either. Still as auburn as it had been when theyd first met in kindergarten. Butter could tell when it was natural and when it wasnt. She watched as Marietta shifted in her seat on the front row of the church, bending her head sideways, stretching her neck. Butter knew what this meant; shed seen it happen to Marietta many times before, though not, she realized now, in a long, long time. Age had its small concessions; migraines usually went for younger prey.

Yes, she was sick, Butter thought, as she watched Marietta open her purse and pull out a flowered handkerchiefan old one from her mother, probably, still smelling of that lilac perfume Caroline had always wornand hold it to her mouth. Even from here you could see how pale shed suddenly gone. Butter felt a needle prick of panic for her once close friend. Theyd not had a conversation of any consequence in years, not since Marietta had called ButterButter would never forget the wordcrass. Crass! All because Butter had complained about those emergency room doctors seeing that Mexican boy before her grandson, Peter, when he broke his leg skiing on their family vacation in Park City. No insurance, you could tell they werent even American, for Gods sake, and Peter having to wait on a gurney in the hallway of that little hospital for two whole hours while they went before him. If she thought about it now, the anger could still come before the guilt. Well, shed been upset. Couldnt Marietta have understood that?

Harry Cline was one of the last of the great gentle men Reese Pearson was speaking now, his eyes glued to the typed-out speech in his slightly shaking hands. Butters eyes traveled back down to the front row. There was Mariettas brother, Macon, sitting beside her, his wife, Glinda, in a forest green suit and hat. Who wears a hat anymore, Butter asked herself. She crossed her legs, smoothing down her dress. Even though shed told herself she wouldnt do it, she couldnt help but remember her own husbands funeral. It had taken place right here, nine years earlier come May; and shed been sitting right there where Marietta was now. Lord, the stress. Everybody staring, watching her, just like she was watching Marietta.

Of course, that funeral hadnt been the same for Butter as this one was for Marietta, what with her and Joe practically divorced when he fell off the roof and died. Butter shook her head a little at the memory. Hed never pay the money to hire that towheaded neighbor boy to clean his gutters like the rest of the men on the street. Shed told him. Well, at least it was quick. His head hit the corner of the window box on the way down and that was that. Thered been a wrens nest in that window box. Not one of the tiny blue eggs had broken.

Her son, Christo, had wanted her to have Joes funeral at his church; theyd had a row about it. Christo and Jen went to Sanctorium, one of those modern churches that eschewed denominational labels, preferring, Butter supposed, to make things up as they went along. She and Joe had visited with them there one Easter. Shed bought a new suit for the occasion, just as shed done every Easter of her life, and walked into the dark, windowless place only to be met with people in jeans and T-shirts. The music sounded like the stuff she heard on the radio, and the ministers, all wearing robesthe one part of religious tradition they seemed to approve ofbobbed and bounced around the stage like car salesmen. Shed left that day, squinting in the noontime sun, feeling like shed just sat through some sort of spiritual action movie. There was no way on earth shed have launched Joe on his final journey from that place, no matter how much Christo wanted her to.

Joes fifteen-year-old cat, Marvel-Ann, had dropped dead two weeks before her master. Of old age, the vet said. Privately, Butter had always thought the thing simply wanted a head start. That cat hated her. Marvel-Ann wouldve had no intention of living with Butter in her new condo in Windward Oaks, which was where she moved after Joe died. Thank goodness they hadnt signed the divorce papers before he went. Not having to split everything down the middle meant she could afford to upgrade to a bigger unit, right by the pool. All things work together for good, Butter thought, which was, she supposed with an inward smirk, another opinion that Marietta Cline wouldve called crass.