Rebecca

Once on a clear black night, so my mother told me, a dragon unfurled its tail and let the moon shine fall through the window. It spilled onto my pillow and turned my hair white. I know this is true. My mother does not lie.
I am seventeen, it is June. My mother is dead. These I know are true, too, though the last one was told to me by a man I do not trust. He has taken me to a new home, where the curtains are shut tight against the moon, and my clothes sit waiting in my mother's brown bag. I have not laid on the pillow. I am waiting for the wind to blow, to tell me when to go.
I can hear this house sighing. It doesn't want me here. This bed doesn't melt beneath me, it croaks with every breath I take. I sit on the edge, my hard shoes firm on the floor, my hands not touching the stiff quilt. I am waiting for the light under my door to go, to tell me it is time.
Aunt Charlene came to our house yesterday. She drank the last of the Mr. Pibb and smoked at the kitchen table. I washed her glass and did not look at her, frizzy brown hair, sweat on her neck. She asked me what I wanted to do. I wanted her to smoke outside. My mother said that smoke makes things yellow. The walls turn yellow, teeth turn yellow. Aunt Charlene's fingers were yellow. She told me to get the house ready to sell. To pack my things. They are all my things. My mother has died, she has no things left. I took her dresses, flowers and paisley, soft and light. My girl dresses I left hanging. I am the woman now.

When the lady, the governement lady, the one who likes cows, went to bed, I took my bag and told my hard shoes to quiet. We left the house and walked over the gravel on the driveway, walked past the trees, still and watching. Walked over a field with gopher holes. When I came to a road, I looked each way, and then looked to the moon.
The dragon unfurled its wing, and pointed east.