A Date under the Full Moon

Dorian thought he’d first be graced by his date’s face that night, but it was the poison ivy teetering at him in an almost human-like gesture that greeted him first. It craned protectively over the frame of the front door, as if cynically guarding its home’s resident from entering predators. Yet there was no wind, and it seemed as if the plant had moved on its own accord. Dorian lifted one nervous knuckle and rapped against the door. Shortly after the door swung open and a sigh of relief passed through his lips. His date, Esmerelda, stood welcomingly before him, her eyes lit up with the same radiance that the full moon bathed them in on that night.

“Dorian!” she exclaimed, bringing her date into a warm embrace. He returned the hug and noticed the plant gave a nervous jolt of movement in the corner of his eye. Esmerelda noticed his astonishment. “Oh, please excuse her. She’s awfully active on a full moon,” she clasped her dainty hands together and pursed her lips, “especially when I bring over an attractive young man such as yourself!”

Dorian cocked an eyebrow. “She? Active?” Before Esmerelda could answer, a black cat strutted over to the pair and sat by her feet at the threshold.

“Salem!” She scooped her cat up into her arms, his pair of alert eyes piercing into what Dorian thought was his soul. Salem’s pupils dilated until the yellow of his eyes was a mere rim, and he let out a hiss.

“Don’t worry, he means no harm,” Esmerelda assured Dorian upon his recoil. “Contrary to most cats, his hisses are friendly.” She took notice of the awkward atmosphere that heaved on them at this moment and ushered Dorian inside.

He followed her down the narrow hallway, its walls sporadically adorned with Victorianesque paintings. The eyes of the paintings’ subjects seemed to follow them until they entered the dining room.

The room was dark, save the warm glow emanating from the twin candles set on the table in the centre of the room. Their waxes were stark black – a peculiar choice over the ubiquitous white candle, Dorian thought – and flanked a bottle of deep red merlot. A musky smell hung in the room, a smell he suspected to be sandalwood. He was so taken off guard by the ambience that he didn’t even notice the pair of steaks that were served on the table. They were accompanied by mashed potatoes and an assortment of roasted vegetables, finished with a splash of mushroom sauce. The steaks’ fleshes were a lively pink that made him wonder if it had been cooked at all.

“I cooked and prepared everything in perfect accordance with your arrival time – 7:14!” Surprised by the specification, Dorian glanced at his watch. It was, indeed, 7:14.

“Wow, you’re somewhat of a prophet, aren’t you?” He raised his eyebrows at his date impressively, yet she returned his gesture with stone cold silence before gesturing him to take a seat. She carefully poured each of them a glass of the merlot which was as brilliantly red as the garnets that were stacked on her fingers. The colour was flattering against her pale skin, he thought to himself, and imparted a vibrancy that was mimicked by her eyes. Her eyes looked young and doe-like, yet they appeared deep and brimming with wisdom as if they had accompanied their owner throughout many lifetimes.

Esmerelda caught her date staring at her. “Are you alright? It looks like I’ve put you under a spell!” She sawed her knife through the steak, completely indifferent to its raw pinkness.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to stare,” he apologised. “I was just taken away by your … beauty”.

“I get that a lot.” She washed down her mouthful with a sip of wine. “Unfortunately, that’s all that people ever recognise about me, or want to recognise about me.”

“What do you mean?”

Esmerelda released an exasperated sigh. “You aren’t the first. I had a girlfriend, and a boyfriend before her, and both of them refused to accept the real me.”

“I don’t get it. What’s there not to love about you?”

“Oh, you don’t know me. They were in love with me, for the most part, but not the secrets that came with me. But I am a packaged deal and you can’t love me without the other.” Dorian flicked his mind back to the chills he received when he first saw the plant at the entrance. She sure was enigmatic, and with each word that she uttered, he received confirmation of this.

“Anyway, enough about me. I want to hear about you!”

Startled, Dorian began to rack his brain for ideas of what to say. “Well, I’m an accountant, I have two younger sisters – twins, actually – and I’ve been to Spain, Italy –”

“No, no,” Esmerelda frowned. “I want to know how you spend your free time, your star sign, your experience with the afterlife, what you love about nature ...”

Dorian answered the first question with ease. “I must admit, my work doesn’t grant me a lot of free time, but when I can I like to watch documentaries, read books, play golf –”

“Golf!” she exclaimed. “My father used to love golf. We sometimes played together, so I know a bit of the rules.” She looked away wistfully.

Thrilled by their mutual joy for golf, a smile danced upon Dorian’s face. It was the subsequent questions that would contort this expression into one of perplexity. “As for my star sign?” He scratched his head. “I don’t know, to be honest. But my birthday is on December 29, if that helps at all.”

“Capricorn,” she said distastefully. She muttered something inaudible before trailing off into silence. Dorian had no idea what to make of this pause – or her response, for that matter – and proceeded to answer her questions.

“Well, the afterlife, huh. I can’t say much about it myself because I’ve never been there.” The pair let out a synchronous laugh, and what tension had hung in the air before dissolved briefly. “Jokes aside, may I ask why you asked me about this? All my previous dates asked me, you know, the standard questions: what I do for a living, my family, my job, dreams, opinions on worldly events … But you’re different. You like to put me on the spot and hit me with the unorthodox questions.” The smile returned to his face. “Had I known, I would have prepared my answers a bit better.”

“If I haven’t made it abundantly clear yet, I’m not really interested in the orthodox.” Oh, you sure have made it clear, Dorian thought to himself. “I believe everybody has a shadow side, and within this shadow people conceal their true desires, sins, lusts, all that stuff.” She flashed a grin as devilish as the words passing her lips. “Now these are what I’m truly interested in!”

A feeling of unease began to creep into Dorian’s gut. He watched as his enigmatic date began to trace the rim of her wine glass with her finger, her nail as black as her cat that had now entered the room. Salem sat erect on his hind legs, casting a frighteningly large silhouette on the wall amidst the candles’ dim glow. He began to wonder whether he should reverse the questions on Esmerelda in an attempt to solve the enigma that sat before him. He then remembered what she had told him before – that her previous partners refused to accept the real her – and further questioned whether he wanted to dig into her secrets.

“So, what are your thoughts on the afterlife? Don’t tell me you’ve been there!”

“Not been there, but seen it,” she replied monotonously. Dorian tentatively chuckled but deduced from the stillness of her face that she wasn’t joking.

“Wait, what do you mean you’ve seen it? Had a brush with death or something?”

“They follow me everywhere I go. They’re loud – cacophonous, even – and sometimes they speak directly to me. Sometimes they’re friendly, sometimes they caution me. But sometimes they tell me what to do, like I’m their puppet and they’re pulling the strings.” The candles’ flames began to flicker angrily as if they were sentient beings triggered by Esmerelda’s words.

Confusion engulfed Dorian. “Who are you talking about? Are you being stalked?”

“My family! My granddad, my sister …” she averted her eyes to a spot behind Dorian. “My father …” He turned his head to see what she was fixing her eyes on; only the wall stared back at him. He turned his head back and noticed the unsteady rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes were wet with the onset of tears and her breathing laboured. Panicked, he racked his mind for solutions. Do I crack a joke to lighten her mood? No, no, no time for levity. Do I give her a hug and tell her she has nothing to fear – that she’s deluding?

Dorian gulped and mustered the words: “They’re not real! They can’t harm you.” He had no idea what he was saying, but he had to say something. He soon realised that this was a mistake when Esmerelda brought her fists down onto the table with a frightening thump. The cutlery jumped, the merlot swished wildly in their glasses, and Salem let out a sharp hiss.

“They are real! You don’t know what you’re talking about because you don’t see them! You don’t hear them! You don’t get ordered around to do bad things against your will!” Her eyes widened as she brought her hands to her mouth, as if to stifle words that shouldn’t be uttered.

It was after this moment that realisation dawned upon Dorian. He suddenly realised who he was dealing with and why she was behaving in such a manner. The epiphany struck him hard: the poison ivy that had seemed to interact with him at the entrance and Esmerelda’s nonchalance towards its movements; her ability to precisely guess his arrival time; the black cat that followed her like a shadow; her interest in astrology and the shadow sides of people; the black candles and their reactions to their surroundings; her spirit-company … Dorian wasn’t just dating an eccentric girl with her fair share of secrets like everybody else. He was dating a witch.