Free Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell Page B

on a single neck. Among the newest gravestones, under the oak, one stone was brighter than the rest. In the moonlight it seemed almost to glow.
    Moonlight gathered in the churchyard as she reached the pavement. Columns of shadow stretched across the whitened grass, blurs at the ends of the columns groped over the church wall. Geraldine peered across the road, then she crossed to the pavement bordering the churchyard. She still couldn't see the name on the glowing headstone, couldn't tell what kind of stone it was that was able to reflect the moonlight so strongly, almost as if it were shining itself. She paced along the railings and lifted the latch of the iron gate.
    The gate must have been oiled recently, for there was no sound. Perhaps her straining to read the stone at the edge of the shadow of the oak was blanking out her other senses; as she stepped onto the moonlit gravel path, she wasn't aware of her footsteps. The light that seemed to have congealed into a stony stillness made her begin to shiver. She left the path and advanced between the mossy stones, her feet slipping on mounds that reminded her of beds. She was close enough to read the inscription now, the little there was of it, and her legs were shaking. She had to support herself on stones that crumbled under her fingers. When she fell to her knees in front of the glowing stone, far brighter than the stones on either side of it, it was to stop herself from trembling as much as anything. But she was shivering as if she might never stop. The only date on the unblemished headstone was eight years ago, and the only name was Jonathan.

    TEN
     
    'I hope I'll see you at the pub tonight, Mrs Wainwright -Phoebe.' If he called her Mrs Wainwright, Eustace thought, she might tell him to call her Phoebe; that would help. He'd known exactly what to say to her until he'd turned the corner into Church Row, tugging so hard at his collar that the button flew into the road to be pulverized under the wheels of a delivery van. Mrs Wainwright, he decided, and now all he had to do was walk along Roman Row, press down the latch of her bright green wooden gate, walk under the trellis of flowering vines and up the gravel path that was as good as a watchdog for letting her know someone was approaching, lift his leaden hand to the doorbell, take a deep breath that he meant to hold until they came face to face, so that he would have to let it out and ask her at once. He'd already sucked in his breath when he realized that he hadn't taken out the magazine he was supposed to be delivering. He pulled it out so hastily that he spilled half the contents of the postbag on the cottage doorstep just as she opened the door.
    As he fell to his knees he thought of how he looked, a swain kneeling before his lady love who didn't even know she was. When she squatted to help him, her dress rode up her plump thighs, and he almost fell over backward. He was intensely aware of her perfume that smelled wild as heather, her lightly freckled bare arms, the bare upper curves of her large breasts, her deep brown eyes, small nose, very pink full lips, her blond hair in a ponytail that trailed down her back. Her soft, warm hand touched his as she handed him letters. 'Thanks very much,' he mumbled, and lurched to his feet as soon as he could, only to realize that now he looked as if he were staring down the front of her dress.
    She stood up with a gracefulness that both surprised and moved him. 'You can sort your letters on my table if you like.'
    The front room was neat as his own, a solitary person's room. Fossils were outlined in some of the stones of the fireplace that she had built herself. Eustace dropped the letters on the embroidered tablecloth and glanced away from a photograph of her late husband - long face divided by a moustache - to a photograph of Phoebe dwarfed by last year's cave-dressing, a floral picture of a man dressed in gold and brandishing a sword, a halo like the sun around his head.