The Moonlight Mystery(Charles E.J. Moulton) The Moonlight Mystery

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton

***

One

The sudden smell of rosemary was totally unexpected. It came like a wave of luscious scents from the kitchen, trickling in through my nose and hitting my brainstem, sending me something resembling a memory. But what was the memory? I could not recall. I know I associated rosemary with something positive. Something not there anymore. Like an echo from the past. A party going on a few rooms away. A person vanished. A treasure embedded deep in my subconcious.

I stood there for a few minutes, just enjoying the mystery of this feeling. The hubbub around me disappeared into an apparant daze. The preoccupation that I'd had with the quantum physics book Mr. Lightbody had just recommended disappeared into oblivion. Now my new fascination with electron entanglement was uninteresting. The smell made me feel good. But why?

Now, the reaction to the smell was not just my stomach rumbling. My memories of Grandma's Yvette's rosemary lamb chops back in Vermont with the Epicurean Maple Rosemary sauce were okay and all. I had liked them. But this was not about lamb chops or my memories of my childhood in Vermont. This was spiritually deeper.

I searched my mind for clues, but there was nothing there except normal autumn days in the dining room overlooking the sycamore trees in Grandma's garden, listening to her favorite song. Something very early called me here. I couldn't recall smelling rosemary for a long time, so what was this?

A couple of girls I liked passed me into the cantine as I stood there, raising their eyebrows. I smiled absently. I wasn't really there.
A confusing sense of fate hit me.
Me and Rosemary?
I was a pizza-and-coke-guy.
Whenever my folks were out on book-singing tours, I was left to myself, to my writing, my studying and my Italian food. I had dated girls, I was reasonably handsome, but I had always been drawn to spiritual matters. Food had always been a means to an end for me.
This, however, was a deep calling.

It had been conjured up from the depths of eternity.
I was reminded of the excerpt from Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past". The taste of a Madeleine-cake bringing back past memories in the protagonist's spirit.
I'll be damned if I knew what it was that this smell reminded me of.

I strolled into the cantine, chatting with some class buddies who walked in there with me. Our upcoming high school graduation and the hard tests that were waiting for us the next three months came up. I heard some of the guys complaining about the "special" food we had here. Healthy, fresh cooked food. Yuck! They wanted burgers and fried chicken, darn it. Another guy snapped back that they better be happy we even had a taco salad bar.
"What do you think, Jonathan?" one guy asked me.
"I like rosemary potatoes," I grinned back.
"Who da hell is Rosemary?" a second of my mates snapped.
"We ain't got no Rosemary here," the fattest of my buddies crooned.
"Come on, it's herb," a forth one cackled.
"Herb who?" a fifth guy giggled. "I thought we were talking about a chick."
"Herb and Rosemary," the first one concluded. "Beach bums from California."
All of them hooted.
"Guys, guys, guys," I moaned, grabbing my plate of Rosemary Potatoes with Créme Fraiche, Brussels sprouts and Corn Salad. "We're not talking about New-Agers from Malibu here."
I showed them the plate.
"It's used as a spice. Herbal seasoning to a normal dish."
"Rosemary is a dish, ain't she?" my first mate mused.
"How old are you?" I snapped back.
"Ooh," they smarmed, cynically. "Sensitive, aren't we?"
"Maybe he had an affair with Rosemary and now Herb is out there on the yard, waitin' to get 'im."
"Yeah," I laughed. "Herb Eastwood is out there with his Colt 45. Make my day, Punk."
That lightened the mood.
To be frank, it amused me. I mean, I did the same kind of thing with them at times. When my mind wasn't wandering. Friendly banter will lighten the mood, won't it? I chewed on my potatoes and then opened my mouth to show them my food. That got me another laugh.

For the rest of the day my thoughts circled around a mystery: why did I feel somehow amorously tied to this sudden whiff that came out of nowhere?

***

Two

I slapped two or three of my buddies on the back as I walked to my bike after school.
I would let them have a taste of Rosemary, if Herb would allow.
This had the potential of becoming a long running joke. I could see that.

My bike literally found its own way home. It was just a ten minute ride, but I still enjoyed the wind in my hair, the fragrance of roses in the park. I had kissed my ex-girlfriend on the park bench by the lake. I remembered that. I also remember her breaking up with me because she moved to California. So much for beach bums.
What a difference a rose makes?
A day makes?
A Rosemary makes?

I unlocked the door to the empty house, immediately interrupted by our Samsung home phone. Mom and Dad had arrived in New York. Yes, the first reading and singing would be held tonight at Barnes & Noble. Penguin was expecting three hundred people tomorrow, mostly spiritually awakened people and fans of angelic communication. Was I okay? Yeah, I was. I would study for the physics test. Money for the pizza was on the stove. Love you. Bye.

For about two minutes, I stood in the hallway, thinking to myself what my fate was really about. An only child to successful authors that left me money for pizza on the stove.
I threw my books on the kitchen table, ordering myself a peperoni pizza.

But still, there was this feeling that something was missing in my life. Had my folks just had me to continue the blood line, to prove a point? Career parents? I slumped down on the thousand dollar couch, letting my thoughts wander, my eyes scanning the living room for details. Original artwork everywhere. Mostly 18th and 19th century British. Turner, Dobson, Spencer, Carrington. A sculpture here and there. And that damned collection of symphonic CDs. But what about heart and love and truth and... faith?

Faith. That word. It sprung up out of my subconcious like a song, a melody sung in a major key by a female voice. Why did I have the feeling that this faith had something to do with the smell of rosemary in the cantine around noon? Rosemary's faith? Or Rosemary Faith?
Gee wiz, this was confusing.
The whiff of the scent had triggered a feeling of home and belonging. It was a romantic feeling. I saw a woman with black hair and gorgeous eyes, a warm glowing personality. But when had I met her? Why did I know her so well?

Nothing seemed to be able to distract my attention from my dilemma. Not my pepperoni pizza. Nor the two episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" I watched. The dialogue seemed stilted and the situations silly. And sitting in the kitchen later and reviewing the facts for the test only made me think of this even more.

I think it must have been around ten thirty when I realized I had finished my third bag of chips, even had my second root beer. I had made some calls, just chit-chat, while trying to shove information into my brain.

I waffled up to my bed, deciding no more information would fit in there. Before actually dozing off, the name Rosemary Faith popped up in my brain again, making me feel like I was going insane.

***

Three

My dream took place in New York City. I had been there three times in my life. Mostly, these trips had been to promote my parents careers as fantastic spiritual self-help gurus, only that they couldn't help their own son.

My affection for the city was there from the start, only that I had no idea why it was there at all.

The bar I was in seemed to be a Manhattan joint, one of those cellar jazz clubs. I think it was The Moonlight Mood Club. At least, the stage I was on had a huge moon as a gimmick. It was more or less a hole shining through a grey gauze. It looked like the moon itself. I will say that much. I was an African-American named Keith Faith. I knew that by instinct, not by knowledge.

The year was 1946, an awesome year away from war with the hope of golden surrender to a rainbow-like future. This future manifested into what felt like perfection. Me and the singing girl beside me, performing standards in a smokey place filled to the brim with stoned, drunk, happy swing-lovers. I sat by an old bar piano, following that sultry mezzo and her bluesy lines, vocalizing about telegraph cables and honeymoons on ski slopes. Her rendition of "Moonlight in Vermont" sent shivers down my spine. I winked as I played, she threw me a kiss. And then there was that scent of rosemary, whiffs blowing out from the kitchen by help of the open door leading to some Harlem street.
Although the show had tired us off, we felt like flying. It was heaven.
A heaven, so I thought, destined to bring me and the woman making love to the blues and the mike spectacular success.

The ovations were as heartfelt as our encore. So wondrous, in fact, that a man and a woman came up to us after the show, introducing themselves as representatives for a Californian record company. They wanted to offer us a contract to record a jazz album in Los Angeles.

Sitting until two in the morning, this gorgeous woman and I chatted with these people, laughing and getting drunk. It was then that I realized what the chef had made for us four to eat. The gorgeous woman's favorite dish, a name she shared with a spice used in cooking.

Rosemary Faith, I thought to myself in my lucid dream. That is how I know you. She loved the scent of rosemary.

***

Four

I sat up in my bed, startled. My bed sheets thrown to my side, I noticed my bed clothing being totally wet. Soaked was more like it.
My heart beating faster than usual, making me feel it in my throat, even, I gazed at my digital clock.
3:32.
The moon shone in through my window, leaving a small ray of light on the floor. Immediately, I thought of the club with the moon through which the spotlight had been shining. The jazz music. The record producers. 1946.
"Rosemary Faith," I kept repeating to myself, that feeling of home again returning to my spirit. That gorgeous woman who loved a spice with her own name. My God, it all made sense. It could not be, could it?

I didn't care if I wasn't going to get much sleep. All I knew was that I had to check this out. So I got up, wandering half-asleep down to the kitchen where my smartphone was recharging. The bright light of the kitchen lamp hurt my eyes, so I stood there squinting, holding my hand in front of my eyes.
I fumbled myself through the room to the electric outlet by the microwave. It was only with great care that I could open my eyes. I knew I just had to find this out, though. There were too many coincidences for this to be a fluke. The feeling that the scent and the name belonged together. And now the dream.

When I saw the Google transcript about a couple of New York City jazz musicians, I had to sit down, catching my breath. Not only had Keith and Rosemary Faith existed. They were indeed offered an RCA contract in 1946. Unfortunately, and this was obviously the point of the sign from above, the couple died in a plane crash on their way to California that year. One song of theirs had been posthumously released, though.
"Moonlight in Vermont" with Keith and Rosemary Faith reached number 16 on the charts that year.

I think I sat there for half an hour just trying to digest this information. The dream had answered the question I had asked myself in the cantine. But if the whiff of rosemary reminded me of this woman, I had to have been Keith in my previous life. The borders between worlds had now become so thin. The barrier was almost not even there. It was numbing and yet exhillarating, exhausting and yet inspiring to suddenly know who I had been.

Suddenly, almost everything became clear. As I went to bed, snuggling into my sheets, for round about two hours, I asked myself why I had found this out first now. Had some angel actually provided me with the information right at this time? If then, who?

***

Five

It was a tired morning, to say the very least. The physics test, I was reasionably happy with the result. Or what I thought the result was. I was guessing a B minus.

In my fifteen minute break, I scooted to the yard to chew on a Snickers. I had not even had two bites when my phone rang. My mother stood in front of New York City Penguin Books building, sobbing into her phone. Naturally, as any son would be, I was concerned.
Grandma was dead.
She had been devoting her time to her favorite hobby, hiking, back home in Vermont. What else can a widow do, right? Found missing since Yesterday morning, her phone line gone, a good friend of hers had followed her down the Burke trail and found her laying face down on an uphill slope. The doctors had timed her death to ten thirty that previous morning. Heart attack. Instantly dead.

My mind wandered aimlessly during math class, my heart in shreds, my brain unable to remember any numbers. I kept calling my folks as often as I could during breaks, rather introspective in my behavior the rest of the time.

My buddies gave me all the support they could give me, trying to cheer me up, showing me their compassion. It was over a milk shake after school that I connected the dots, though. I think I vanished into a proverbial Nirvana when I realized what had happened. The guys that had invited me to join them grew silent as they saw me ponder.

If Grandma Yvette's and Rosemary's favorite seasoning had been rosemary, then there was only one reasonable conclusion. Yvette's birth year 1948 coincided with Rosemary's death year 1946. I had obviously been Keith, the memory skipping a life. Yvette's death at 10:30 that morning gave her soul the possibility to fly to me in Wisconsin to give me the recollection in the form of the scent of rosemary. I know the school lunch had been planned earlier than her death time, but somehow it all made sense. So Grandma had been Rosemary Faith.

I left the burger joint deep in thought.
What can I say?
Once a philosopher, always a philosopher.

***

Six

It was two weeks later that I found the missing piece of the puzzle, unexpectedly, I might add.

Grandma's funeral was humble and noble, just like she had been in life.
Along with a list of heirlooms and assets in her testament, the lawyer handed us a handwritten letter from her. It stated that she had consulted a regression therapist years ago, who had told her that she was the reincarnation of New York City vocalist Rosemary Faith. Her daughter and son-in-law were the reincarnations of the record producers that died with her on their way to Los Angeles. Her grandson Jonathan Harker knew who he had been. Yvette would see to
that.

It's been a year since her death. Life has changed. My parents have cut down a great deal in their travelling. They no longer leave money for pizza on the stove. Instead, they stay home a lot more, giving us all the chance to bake pizza together.

We often sense Grandma Yvette's presence around us. And then we add the scent of rosemary.

(Dedicated to the memory of
Keith and Rosemary Faith)

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