By the light of the moon

designing, building, and maintaining a damn Batplane
or Batmobile.'
    Laughter felt good.
    'Being tragic figures with the world on our shoulders might not
be so bad,' Dylan decided, 'if we can have some fun at
it.'
    'Great fun,' Parish declared. 'Oh, I insist upon it. I'd rather
we didn't give ourselves silly names with heroic flair, since I've
already done damage of that kind to myself, but I'm up for anything
else that comes to mind.'
    Jilly hesitated as she was about to sip her wine. 'You mean
Parish Lantern isn't your real name?'
    'Would it be anyone's? It's my legal name now, but I was born
Horace Bloogernud.'
    'Good lord,' said Dylan. 'You were something of a tragic figure
from day one.'
    'As a teenager, I wanted to go into radio, and I knew the kind
of show I hoped to create. A late-night program concerned mostly
with strange and spooky stuff. It seemed that Parish Lantern would
serve me well, since it's an old English term for the moon, for
moonlight.'
    'You do your work by the light of the moon,' Shepherd said, but
without the anguish that had wrenched his voice when he had spoken
these words previously, as if they meant something new to him
now.
    'Indeed I do,' Parish told Shep. 'And in a way, we'll all be
doing our great work by the light of the moon, in the sense that we
will try to do as much of it as possible with discretion and a
sense of secrecy. Which brings me to the subject of disguises.'
    'Disguises?' Jilly asked.
    'Fortunately,' said Parish, 'the fact that I've been cursed like
you isn't known to anyone but us. As long as I can do what must be
done and enjoy my share of derring-do, while keeping my secret, I
can be the interface between our little group and the world. But
you three – your faces are widely known, and no matter what
care we take to operate discreetly, your images will become more
universally recognized as time passes. Therefore you will have to
become—'
    'Masters of disguise!' Dylan said with delight.
    This, too, Jilly decided, was as it should be.
    'When all is said and done,' Parish continued, 'about all we'll
be lacking are silly heroic names, cumbersome vehicles full of
absurd gadgets, spandex costumes, and an archvillain to worry about
between all the ordinary rescues and good deeds.'
    'Ice,' said Shepherd.
    Ling at once approached the table, but with a few Chinese words,
Parish assured him that no ice was needed. 'Shepherd is correct. We
did in fact have an archvillain for a little while, but now he's
just a block of ice.'
    'Ice.'
    Later, over lemon cake and coffee, Jilly said, 'If we don't call
ourselves something, the media will give us a name, and it's sure
to be stupid.'
    'You're right,' Dylan said. 'They aren't imaginative. And then
we'll have to live with something that makes us grind our teeth.
But why don't we use a collective name, something that applies to
all of us as a group?'
    'Yeah,' Jilly agreed. 'And let's be as sneaky-clever as Horace
Bloogernud was in his day. Let's use moonlight in the
name.'
    'The Moonlight Gang,' Dylan suggested. 'Has the right tabloid
ring, doesn't it?'
    'I don't like the gang part,' said Parish. 'Too many
negative connotations with that one.'
    'The Moonlight... something,' Jilly brooded.
    Although half his cake remained on his plate, Shepherd put down
his fork. Staring at this treat postponed, he said, 'Squad, crew,
band, ring, society—'
    'Here we go,' Dylan said.
    '—guild, alliance, association, team, coalition, clan,
outfit, league, club—'
    'The Moonlight Club.' Jilly played the three words across her
tongue. 'The Moonlight Club. That's not half bad.'
    '—fellowship, company, troop, posse, family—'
    'I assume this will take a while,' said Parish, and indicated to
Ling that the time had come to remove three of the four dessert
plates and to uncork another bottle of wine.
    '—travelers, voyagers, riders—'
    Listening with one ear to the good Shepherd's cascade of words,
Jilly dared to think about their future, about destiny and free
will, about mythology and truth, about dependency and
responsibility, about the certainty of death and the desperate need
to live with purpose, about love and duty, and hope.
    The sky is deep. The stars lie far away. The moon is nearer than
Mars but still distant. The lake is a lustrous black, enlivened by
the mercurial light of the parish lantern. The vessel rocks gently
at anchor. The Moonlight Club, or whatever it eventually will be
called, conducts its first meeting with serious intent,