First Full Moon

by Michelle Alstead

  “Let’s go to my house. Let me dress you in something age-appropriate,” Larkin says, flopping onto my bed.

  I shudder at the offer. “What am I going to do? I have nothing to wear!”

  “Calm down or you’re going to have an aneurysm,” Larkin says. “Or possibly a pulmonary embolism.” She nudges me aside. Standing in front of my clothes, she takes deep breaths through her nose and exhales from her mouth.

  There’s no organization to my closet. Skirts are mixed with sweaters. Pants are hung with dresses. Shirts are scattered throughout. Larkin won’t say it, but just the sight of it all makes her want to run screaming out of the house.

  “Okay, I can do this,” she mutters. Her hands sift through the clothes. She picks up a skirt and shifts it to the end of the closet. Everything she touches, she sorts into the category that her brain dictates. “It’s better if they’re organized.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It just is,” she whispers.

  Larkin doesn’t have a closet in her bedroom. One nightmare about a giant evil dog bursting from her closet and Uncle Daig found himself walling it off and installing several dressers in its place.

  “Here. Wear this.” She hands me a pale pink dress. “How come you’ve never worn that dress?”

  Because I hate pink. It’s the only color I absolutely refuse to wear. Not only because it’s girlier than I want to be, but it also washes me out given that I’m the color of off-white wallpaper. “It’s new. I just haven’t had the chance.” I take the dress and move to the mirror. “Grandmother is still going to be disappointed.”

  “She’ll get over it! We know for a fact you are not the first McGregor to disappoint Maureen the Great.” Larkin makes a sweeping gesture with her hands and bows.

  “Thanks, Lark.”

  She shrugs. “This is what cousins are for, right?”

  I shake my head. “I guess, though I don’t think most families are like ours.”

  “Um, no one has a family like ours. First of all, we could be our own football team, and secondly, we have more money than . . .” She pauses, her eyebrows coming together. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s rude to talk about money,” we say in unison.

  I swallow hard. Grandmother’s driver should be pulling up to the house any minute. “How about you wait for the car and I’ll throw this on?”

  Larkin nods. Her dark leggings are strategically torn and match the oversized black sweater that reveals a shoulder, bare save a bright red bra strap. Grandmother never requests my cousin be anything other than what she already is.

  Larkin moves to my door. Her fingers hover above the knob as she studies the light switch on the wall.

  “Oh, just do it. I won’t make fun of you like Bennett does,” I say.

  My cousin lets out a sound of relief. Silently, she flips my light switch up and down twenty times. When she’s finished, her shoulders relax. “Twenty times and the boogeyman dies,” she whispers.

  I nod, not having a clue what it must be like to be Larkin. “There are Oreos in the freezer,” I say.

  “I’ll grab some just in case it’s lamb again for dinner.”

  “It’s always lamb,” I mutter as the door closes behind her.

  The dress is rayon with a polyester blend. I slip it over my head and the fabric slides down my body. Larkin and the rest of the cousins can wear whatever they want to family dinner, but as the oldest grandchild of the oldest son, I have to come formally dressed. I shake my head; my blonde hair is messy—unkempt even. Grabbing a hair band off my dresser, I slip on a pair of white flats. I should wear heels, but I have a tendency to trip in them. My stained white shirt in hand, I run out of the bedroom and down the hall to the laundry room, where Oksana spends her free time watching talk shows and pretending to be busy. There are only two of us: my dad and me. He generally dry-cleans most of his stuff.

  A woman speaks in a casual but serious tone. “The police are warning residents of Sequim Falls to stay indoors tonight. More on that when we return from this brief commercial break.”

  I turn the corner into the laundry room to find Oksana glued to the newscast playing on a black-and-white television she found at a secondhand store.

  “You know you could watch the news on that laptop I gave you for Christmas,” I say.

  Oksana stands up, straightens her black-and-white uniform, and pats the graying bun on top of her head. “You scare me, Candy,” she says.

  “Sorry. I was hoping you could soak my blouse for me.” I hold out the shirt, my eyes drifting to the television. A picture of a full moon flashes across the screen behind the male and female co-anchors. The man—a middle-aged gent with a fake tan and teeth white enough to launch a signal to Mars—clears his throat.

  “Folks, the local police are warning us that it’s a full moon again, and that can mean only one thing,” he says, glancing at the female anchor on his left.

  “That’s right. A full moon in Sequim Falls means that residents should take extra precautions to avoid the Full Moon Killer, a serial killer who’s haunted our town for more than thirty years.” The female anchor clenches her jaw briefly before breaking into a smile. “Now time to check in with Sally on what kind of weather we can expect this spring.”

  “I thought I leave all monsters in Ukraine when I come here,” Oksana says, adjusting her knee-high pantyhose.

  “How can a person in a small town like this get away with killing people for thirty years?” I shake my head. “We must have the worst police force ever.”

  “Maybe it not a person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe it a monster.”

  “Monsters aren’t real.” Tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A tingling sensation runs down my arms. Oksana and her superstitions.

  “Oh, sweet child. You bright, kind, and fun to be with, but you not wise. There a great many things you know nothing.” Oksana pats my arm.

  She’s been my nanny, nurse, and caretaker for years, but she might as well be a stranger. I don’t know a single personal thing about her, and rarely do I understand her subtext. “What’re you talking about, Oksana?”

  “No matter what I say.” She waves her thick arms and motions at the clock on the wall. “Car must be waiting. You no keep grandmother waiting. She fire me.”

  “All right, I’ll go.”

  “You take care with that cousin of yours. Don’t need no more disappearing members of this family.” Oksana takes my shirt and studies it. She scratches her head; her thin lips fade into an unhappy mouth.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  The McGregors don’t talk about the family members that have gone missing. We’re taught from birth not to.

  She shrugs. “Nothing. I am an old woman losing her mind and it coming out of her mouth.” Holding up my stained blouse, she shakes a finger at me. “This no good. You bleed again.”

  “It’s nothing,” I say, turning around. “I’ll bring you a plate of leftovers.”

  “No, I no need. Tonight I have date with nice man I find online.”

  “Wait, you what?”

  “I have date.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Don’t act so surprised. I woman. Hear me roar.” Oksana’s large hands rest on my shoulders. Gently, she turns me around and gives me a nudge toward the door. “You be safe. Don’t let cousin convince you to go to park like last month.”

  “Don’t go out tonight, Oksana. You heard what the newscasters said.”

  “I no fear. Boogeyman not want me. I be more than he can chew.” She laughs from her belly, tickled at her own humor.

  Gritting my teeth, I wave and walk out of the room. There’s no point in arguing with her. Oksana does what Oksana wants.

  “Candy! Car!” Larkin shouts from the first floor.

  “Coming!” I yell back. My voice echoes down the empty hall of our mansion. The shoes on my flat feet gape open at the sides, making them diffi
cult to wear across the slippery marble floor. Removing the flats, I tuck them under my arm and pad across the floor barefoot. The staircase that winds down to the first floor is tiled in alternating black and white colors. Larkin only steps on the black ones, meaning she skips every other stair. It’s a relief to see her standing at the bottom of the staircase, twisting her hair and blowing bubbles. I’m always so afraid she’ll slip and fall.

  “We’re late,” she says.

  “I know.” I tuck my hair behind my ears, still toying with the idea of putting it up. “Have you ever noticed that our family dinners always coincide with a full moon?”

  “Um, no.” My cousin tilts her head to the side and lifts her nose. “You sure?”

  “Yes. Our family dinners and warnings to be on the lookout for the Full Moon Killer always come on the same day.”

  A car honks outside. I open the front door and we exchange a groan. Harold, Grandmother’s eighty-year-old driver, has arrived.

  “Do we really have to go?” Larkin asks.

  “You know how much these family dinners mean to Grandmother.”

  She turns her mouth downward. “Right. Family is everything.”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “Think we’ll get there alive?”

  I roll my shoulders and sigh. “It’s a toss-up what will kill us first: Harold’s driving or the Full Moon Killer.”

  “Either way, let’s just get it over with.”

  I nod and open the front door. Harold waves a crooked hand from the front seat of the limo.

  Here’s to hoping we make it to Grandmother’s alive . . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Over the hills and through the woods, it’s to our doom we go!” Larkin says, staring out the window.

  “Hilarious,” I mutter.

  “Do you see how full the moon is tonight?”

  I peer through the glass. “It’s not completely full yet. We’ve got a few more hours before it’s at the highest point in the sky.”

  “Nerd.”

  “I prefer geek.”

  Larkin rolls her eyes. She sits across from me on a leather bench seat, her seat belt draped loosely over her lap. She refuses to wear one based on some article she read that said if limos get into a crash, seat belts are useless. I doubt the article exists. She just wants to look cool in case Branson greets us at the McGregor estate.

  “Come on, family dinners aren’t so bad,” I say, tightening my seat belt as the car skids around the corner on two wheels. Unlike my cousin, I believe the seat belt is my friend.

  “Family dinners are the worst! Irish stew, soda bread, prayers in Latin, and lots of little cousins that hate us.” Larkin folds her arms and shakes her head. “It’s a toss-up which is worse—cold stew or the bullies we share genes with.”

  “They’re family. We have to get along with them.”

  “Says the future CEO.” She stretches out across her seat. “You’re too nice. If I ran the company, I would banish the little trolls to outer Mongolia.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing for our little cousins that you aren’t the oldest,” I say.

  The oldest child in every generation of the McGregor family takes over as head of the McGregor pharmaceutical empire when the previous generation retires or dies suddenly in an unexplained accident.

  The latter happens more often than you’d think.

  Larkin sighs. “What do you think it’s like not to be a McGregor?”

  “I don’t know.” My cheeks are warm. I roll my window down, taking in fresh air and the cool January breeze.

  I don’t want to study business in college or run a drug company. Going to Paris and studying art is my dream.

  “Maybe things will be different for our generation.” Larkin runs her fingers through her long hair. “And everyone will get a chance to be something more than a McGregor.”

  By “everyone” she means our cousins, Bennett and Jasper. The four of us are only months apart in age. Any one of us could someday lead the company my great-great-great-great grandparents founded, but birth order dictates who gets the job. If only Bennett had been born just a couple of months sooner. With his designer clothes and perfect hair, he practically oozes charm. Plus, his father is vice president of the company and has groomed him for the life of a CEO.

  But meetings, financial assessments, and annual reports—fate has written my destiny, unless Grandmother can be convinced otherwise.

  Very few McGregor men live past the age of forty. My grandfather doesn’t count; he took my grandmother’s maiden name when they married. There were six boys and three girls in my grandmother’s family. Now it’s just her and Uncle Bart, who lives in a cabin a few towns over and keeps to himself, except for the annual McGregor Corporation board meetings.

  “Where is your dad? I haven’t seen Uncle Dartmouth in a couple of months,” Larkin asks.

  She can’t ever call anyone by their actual name. Somehow Davin became Dartmouth in her mind.

  “My dad’s traveling on business.”

  That’s the go-to answer when anyone asks where my father has gone. In truth, it’s been two weeks since I laid eyes on him and five days since I’ve talked to him. My dad could be anywhere in the world, for all I know.

  My phone beeps a notification. “Speak of the devil,” I say.

  Sorry, honey. Won’t make it home in time for dinner tonight. See you in a couple of days. –Love, Dad.

  He forgot to say happy birthday. It’s like tomorrow is just another day.

  Larkin leans forward. “Was that your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will he make it back for your birthday?”

  I toy with my pearls and force a smile. “Of course.”

  The odds of me winning the lottery are better than my dad making it home for my sixteenth birthday.

  Larkin’s eyes narrow, reading the lie on my face. “Dartmouth has let you down again.”

  “He’s busy. You know the company has been expanding their manufacturing in South America.”

  My cousin laughs. “Right! Like I follow what happens with the McGregor Corporation.”

  “You should. The return on stocks is going straight into your trust fund.”

  “Listen to you! You’ve allowed them to make you into a responsible, boring robot. Remember when we used to sneak out at night? Or how about raiding Grandmother’s closet and wearing her nicest gowns? We used to have fun.” Larkin smacks the seat. “Let’s steal the limo and go stalk your crush.”

  Ryan, with bright green eyes, black hair, and skin the color of caramel, is stalk worthy. But we’re almost to Grandmother’s house. “We can’t, Lark. They’re expecting us.” I lean back on the seat, studying the scenery through the open window.

  “House” isn’t really accurate. I mean, we call it that, but really, it’s a century-old mansion resting on more than a hundred acres of lush grass and dense trees. The main house was built the year the company was founded. As the business grew, so did the estate. Wings and a second floor were added to the original structure. But the original McGregors weren’t satisfied with just expanding their home. Bit by bit, they bought up the surrounding land until my family came to own everything in sight.

  “Come on, we’ll just take the limo for a little joyride and some pizza. We’ll have it back before Harold’s bedtime,” Larkin says.

  Suddenly, the vehicle careens to the right, racing off the road and toward the woods.

  “I was kidding!” she cries.

  I pound on the dark glass divider between the driver and us. “Harold! Slow down!”

  There’s no response as the limo speeds through the grass, racing toward the trees.

  “Harold!” Larkin uses the button to lower the plastic divide.

  Immediately, I see why there was no response. The chauffeur is slumped limply over the wheel. I reach through and grab his shoulder. He falls back in the seat, his eyes open and his lips blue. There’s an expression of terror in his faded,
blue pupils.

  “He’s dead, Larkin!”

  Glancing out the window, I see we’re on a collision course with a massive oak tree. “We’re going to be too. We need to jump.” My hands go to my seat belt. The buckle is jammed.

  “See, I told you those things were useless,” my cousin says. She grabs the belt and yanks hard, but it refuses to unlatch.

  “Jump!” I say.

  “I’m not going to leave you!”

  I lean over and grab the door handle. “You have to!” Grabbing her arm, I push her out the open door. Larkin falls backward, landing in a snow bank. She’s covered in snow when she sits up and her mouth hangs open.

  Seconds later, the limo hits the tree. Metal crunches. The airbag near Harold pops, creating smoke. The impact sends me flying forward only to have the seat belt jerk me down and back like a rag doll. A branch from the tree shatters the window and grazes my head, cutting my scalp open. Blood drips onto my nose. I wrench free, tearing the seat belt from the seat. Moving my arms, I pat my body. Everything is where it should be, though daggers shoot through my right foot. The door to my right is lodged up against the tree. Getting on my knees, I crawl out the other door and fall in to several feet of snow. Blood drips ruby red across the white canvas, sparking a memory long forgotten.

  My mother had gone to the hospital the night before, so my father brought me to stay with my grandparents. Tired of the whispers and people staring at me, I wandered away from their house, taking my red rubber ball with me. I got lost on the grounds, stumbling upon the woods.

  It was an especially cold January that year. Snow covered everything. Setting my ball down, I kicked it hard and watched it bounce back and forth between the trees before finally resting near something black. I ran as fast as any four-year-old could, slowing to a stop when I saw her.

  A young woman, dressed in a white gown and black cloak, lay in the middle of a clearing near a stone altar. Her red hair fanned out beneath a rigid body. She had big green eyes that stared into the world above her as if she saw everything and nothing, all at the same time. The woman’s pale skin was ripped open at the neck. Erubescent fluid pooled in the snow next to her body.