Free Sometimes By Moonlight by Heather Davis Page A

light coming from the bank of windows. I couldn’t tell what was on me, but it didn’t smell like chocolate cake. “What is this?”
     
    “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Lemmon released me. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, handing me one of the cook’s kitchen towels.
     
    I took it from her, still unsure of what was going on. “Should we turn on a light?”
     
    “No need to wake anyone with lights. It’s one o’clock in the morning, Shelby.”
     
    “It is?” I lifted my semi-dried hands to my nose and sniffed at the heavy, metallic odor. “Blood?” I said, the alarm in my voice unmistakable.
     
    Mrs. Lemmon nodded and reached out for the empty plastic tray on the kitchen table. “Found you eating some of the cook’s raw steaks for the staff lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Looks like maybe two or three, you had.”
     
    “Omigod.” I rushed over to the sink and began scrubbing my hands with soap. Austin’s words, “ Don’t trust anyone, ” were ringing in my brain like a fire alarm. I was covered in blood and Mrs. Lemmon had caught me.
     
    “Now, let’s not panic,” Mrs. Lemmon said, bringing the empty tray over to the draining board. “I’ll tell the cook I came down for a glass of milk and found the tray toppled over at the bottom of the walk-in, the steaks coated in filth. God knows the dirty bird never sweeps out the thing. She’ll believe it.”
     
    I ran my hands under the tap, watching the bloody water swirl down the drain. But my shock at the realization I’d been sleep-eating was nothing compared to the shock of Mrs. Lemmon’s kindness. At any minute I expected her to flip on the lights and scream for Madame LaCroix.
     
    “I, uh, thank you,” I mumbled, stepping back.
     
    She nodded and patted me on the cheek. “You been sleepwalking your whole life, then?”
     
    I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
     
    Mrs. Lemmon rinsed the meat tray in the sink. “My first husband, Eddie, he did it all the time. He’d make phone calls and not remember them. One time he cooked a roasted chicken dinner, complete with mash and English peas.” She gave me the first smile I’d ever seen on her face. “You can live a perfectly healthy life. Eddie did, at least until he was shot down in a Royal Air Force plane. But that had nothing to do with his sleep habits.”
     
    “Oh. I’m sorry, you know, about Eddie.” I dried my hands on a clean towel and watched Lemmon scrub down the tray with bleach.
     
    She didn’t look up at me as she worked. Maybe she didn’t want me feeling sorry for her about Eddie. “That should do it,” she said, setting the tray in the empty sink to dry.
     
    “Mrs. Lemmon, I don’t know how to explain this. I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, halfway telling the truth.
     
    “Don’t you worry yourself about it. I’ll be discreet. This kind of problem can be very embarrassing.” She shook her head. “And I see what they feed you girls. I’d be craving a bit of iron myself if I were a student. Especially around that time of the month.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.
     
    “Huh?”
     
    “I heard you had stomach problems earlier, Locke. It’s not hard to put two and two together when you’ve been working with girls for this many years.”
     
    “Oh. Right,” I said, playing along. “You’ve been at Steinfelder forever probably?”
     
    Mrs. Lemmon’s posture straightened. “Steinfelder, no. I’ve just come here this term, like you. But I’ve got a long history in the schools,” she said.
     
    “You’ve given your whole life to help students. That’s, you know, a really cool thing to do.”
     
    I saw another glimpse of the smile, and then Lemmon grabbed a spray bottle and spritzed the kitchen table. I picked up a rag and swabbed up the little blood spatters.
     
    “You know, it’s always you brash ones that need a little kindness,” Mrs. Lemmon said, throwing our dirty towels in the hamper near the door. “There’s