BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY VICTOR J. BANIS
The Astral: Till the Day I Die
Avalon: An Historical Novel
The C.A.M.P. Cookbook
The C.A.M.P. Guide to Astrology
Charms, Spells, and Curses for the Millions
Color Him Gay: That Man from C.A.M.P.
The Curse of Bloodstone: A Gothic Novel of Terror
Darkwater: A Gothic Novel of Horror
The Daughters of Nightsong: An Historical Novel (Nightsong Saga #2)
The Devil’s Dance: A Novel of Terror
Drag Thing; or, The Strange Tale of Jackle and Hyde
The Earth and All It Holds: An Historical Novel
A Family Affair: A Novel of Terror
Fatal Flowers: A Novel of Horror
Fire on the Moon: A Novel of Terror
The Gay Dogs: That Man from C.A.M.P.
The Gay Haunt
The Glass House: A Novel of Terror
The Glass Painting: A Gothic Tale of Horror
Goodbye, My Lover
The Greek Boy
The Green Rolling Hills: Writings from West Virginia (editor)
Green Willows: A Novel of Terror
Kenny’s Back
Life & Other Passing Moments: A Collection of Short Writings
The Lion’s Gate: A Novel of Terror
Love’s Pawn: A Novel of Romance
Lucifer’s Daughter: A Novel of Horror
Moon Garden: A Novel of Terror
Nightsong: An Historical Novel (Nightsong Saga #1)
The Pot Thickens: Recipes from Writers and Editors (editor)
San Antone: An Historical Novel
The Scent of Heather: A Novel of Terror
The Second House: A Novel of Terror
The Second Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)
The Sins of Nightsong: An Historical Novel (Nightsong Saga #3)
Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer
Stranger at the Door: A Novel of Suspense
Sweet Tormented Love: A Novel of Romance
The Sword and the Rose: An Historical Novel
This Splendid Earth: An Historical Novel
The Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)
Twisted Flames
The WATERCRESS File: That Man from C.A.M.P.
A Westward Love: An Historical Romance
White Jade: A Novel of Terror
The Why Not
The Wine of the Heart: A Novel of Romance
The Wolves of Craywood: A Novel of Terror
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1981 by Ben All, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 by V. J. Banis
Originally published under the title, The Moonsong Chronicles, under the pen name Jessica Stuart
*
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
I am deeply indebted to my friend, Heather, for all the help she has given me in getting these early works of mine reissued.
And I am grateful as well to Rob Reginald, for all his assistance and support.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
She was young and painfully beautiful, her sleek black hair flying behind her and her face—normally an opalescent tint of ochre—reddened to the blush of a peach from running.
“Is he here yet?” she cried, in a single gasp of breath as she burst into the tea shop.
The woman behind the counter wrestled with a tray of tea cakes shimmering behind a veil of steam. “I will be with you in a minute, please,” she said.
“Ohhh!” It was a wail of anguish. “Su Lin!”
The tray slid neatly into a glass fronted case, and Su Lin looked up, mock surprise unable to hide a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Ah, it is you,” Su Lin said, smiling rather too broadly for mere workaday greeting.
“Hasn’t he come?” the girl asked, alternating anxious glances at Grant Avenue outside, the main thoroughfare of San Francisco’s Chinatown, with looks of desperate pleading, a frantic ransom flung down before Su Lin.
It was more than the tea shop owner could bear; the hand she brought to her mouth was inadequate to stifle an impertinent giggle.
“Is he here?” April demanded, finishing the question on an ascending squeal as Su Lin nodded and darted her eyes in the direction of the curtained doorway that led to the rear of the shop.
April dashed toward the doorway, but she paused just in front of it, for a final nervous glance at the street—even if she hadn’t been followed, one never knew who might just wander by at an inopportune moment—before she went through the curtain.
“David,” she cried. The young man had leapt up, rather too quickly, from the chair in which he had been seated. Its falling provided a crescendo to her cry as she threw herself into his arms.
“Darling,” he sighed, when words were once again possible, “My darling April.”
* * * *
It was so difficult for them, these two young people in love, belonging to warring clans. “Like Romeo and Juliet,” she was fond of saying, and he would smile a trifle sadly, because he knew she had never read the conclusion to that bittersweet tale, and because he sometimes feared the description might prove prophetic.
Their first meeting, mere chance, had been outside this very shop. After that, the meetings had been not merely by chance. Soon they had begun spending a part of nearly every afternoon together, with the connivance of Su Lin, whose husband would no doubt have beaten her for thus encouraging a romance between the lovely half-Chinese girl, and the handsome white youth whose clothes so determinedly proclaimed, “Nob Hill Wealth.”
“A romance,” he would have told her, had he the knowledge, and had he deigned to explain the beating, “inevitably to be as tragic as any literary mating.”
For David MacNair, the inevitability had been written on that first day. From that time on, her image had been indelibly stamped upon his consciousness, so that no matter where he was nor what he was doing, she was always there, hovering just on the fringes of his thought—the almond shaped eyes, the skin like fresh sweet cream, the hands like delicate flowers.
He would remember for all his life—and longer, if the soul existed—the first time he had met April Nightsong; he would remember too, but darkly, as the dark shapes are remembered when the light has proven them innocent, rushing home afterward to share the news of this, his life’s most thrilling moment.
His mother had been in the hall when he’d burst into the house. He’d grabbed her about the waist and whirled her around.
“David,” she gasped, disapproving because Mrs. Steinmetz was