Friday from the Archives: “Blue Moon” a short story by Matthew Twining from NCLR 10 (2001)
We are eager to welcome back several of our fall interns, in addition to new students joining the team! One of our returning students, Thomas Adcock, choose this short story for his Archives piece.
Matthew Twining received his BA in English from Oregon’s Reed College in 1991 and moved to North Carolina in 1994. He lives in Chapel Hill and works as an eighth-grade science teacher at Duke School in Durham. His short story “Blue Moon” was featured in the NCLR 2001 issue.
In the short story “Blue Moon,” Twining introduces us to Old Vevianne, an elderly woman who has gathered the young children of the village around a campfire to tell them a story in the hopes of distracting them from the dangers around them. Twining spins for us a rich story of how the trickster, Dar-in the Were’s, parents met each other during such a passionate night of flaring emotions brought about in the pursuit of love.
Through this tale, we learn of the building passion between two friends who have just met. “And it was there, in the darkness before the rising of any moon, that Lamp looked deep into the eyes of the young man he had so carefully nurtured, whose love he had caused to grow the way a gardener grows fruit, and told him that he had a secret to reveal.”
The story concludes with a shocking twist that the reader will never see coming. We are all searching for that special someone, and Twining’s short story shows us just how blind passion can be when it comes to the person we hold dearest.
Read the entire short story on GaleCengage or purchase a copy of the 2001 issue.
Art illustration by Harvey Bilisoly