Thursdays with the Moon

They never believed me.

Not my mother. Not my brother. Not the teachers who said I lived in my head too much.

But I swear to you — she came every full moon.

And only on Thursdays.

I first saw her when I was nine.

It was a summer night, and I had snuck out with a blanket and a flashlight to read comic books under the stars. The air was thick with the scent of pine and earth, the kind that fills your lungs and makes you feel alive. The moon hung impossibly large and low, bathing the forest in silver light so bright I could see every leaf and twig in the clearing near the old oak tree.

And then—there she was.

A girl. No older than me. Barefoot, standing silently in the clearing, the hem of her white dress glowing like mist caught in moonlight. Her hair was dark and tangled like the branches above us, and her eyes held a curious gleam, like she was searching for something—or someone. She didn’t say a word that first time. She just watched me, head tilted slightly as if trying to remember who I was.

I blinked.

She was gone.

The next full moon came and went. It was a Friday, and I waited, wondering if she’d return. But she did not.

Then the Thursday after that—there she was again.

She didn’t appear suddenly this time. I felt the breeze shift, the night grow softer, and then there she stood—Elira, she finally told me her name. Like moonlight and lullabies wrapped into syllables.

Elira smiled at me, a quiet, knowing smile. Her voice was soft, barely louder than the rustling leaves.

She asked strange questions that didn’t make much sense then:

“Do you ever dream of floating?”

“Do your shadows hum when you're sad?”

“Have you ever tasted a memory?”

I didn’t always understand her, but I answered anyway. Because something about her felt like home—the kind of home you don’t find in buildings, but in fleeting moments and quiet spaces.

For years, we met there, in that same clearing.

I grew taller, my voice cracking and then settling, my thoughts darkening under the weight of growing up. She, always the same—still barefoot, still glowing softly, still only on Thursdays when the moon was full.

She never aged. Never missed a single full moon.

One night, I brought her a scarf. It was winter then, and frost clung to the branches like silver veins. The cold had seeped into my bones, and I wanted her to feel warm, even if only in some small way. She laughed when I draped it around her shoulders and said, “I don’t get cold the way you do.”

But she wore it anyway—just to make me smile.

I asked her once why she came.

She looked up at the swollen moon, then back at me, eyes full of a quiet sorrow.

“Because someone wished for me.”

I asked who had wished.

She just smiled mysteriously and whispered, “Maybe you.”

That night, she warned me.

“One day, I’ll stop coming. The moon forgets, just like people do.”

I didn’t understand then.

I do now.

The last time I saw her, I was seventeen.

The moon was swollen and soft, like milk spilling across the sky. She arrived silently, sitting beside me on the cool grass as if she had always been there. We didn’t speak much—there was nothing to say.

She leaned her head on my shoulder, her presence a quiet comfort.

When she stood to leave, I finally asked the question I had always feared:

“Will I see you again?”

Her eyes shimmered with a light that seemed to hold the whole universe.

“Only if you remember how to believe.”

Then she turned and walked slowly into the moonlight—disappearing like smoke.

That was ten years ago.

I stopped visiting the clearing.

I grew up.

I tried to forget.

But something always pulled me back—the whisper of wind through the branches, the silver light on the bark, the faint echo of laughter carried on the breeze.

And tonight, the moon is full again.

And it’s a Thursday.

I sit in the clearing, older now. The oak tree looks smaller than I remember, or maybe I’m just taller. The air smells of moss and rain, and the silence is thick with memories.

There are no whispers yet. No glow. No barefoot laughter in the dark.

Until—

A breeze stirs the leaves, carrying a scent like jasmine and cold earth.

A flicker of silver catches the corner of my eye.

A laugh, like wind chimes tinkling in the distance, drifts toward me.

And there she is.

Exactly as she was.

Elira.

Her dress sways gently in the breeze, the hem glowing faintly like mist. She smiles—the same quiet, knowing smile—and says, “You remembered.”

I reach out, trembling, and she takes my hand like we never lost touch.

“Did you really forget me?” she asks softly.

“No,” I say. “I just... forgot how to believe.”

She squeezes my hand and whispers, “Then you’ll see me again.”

The moonlight wraps around us like a promise.

And for the first time in a long time, I believe.