Blood Moon

by KB Anne

  In addition to Halloween—or Samhain—Gram has bonfire celebrations on other holidays and random nights throughout the year. She builds the huge bonfire behind the greenhouse, hidden from the road. I never thought anything of the location before. I just assumed it was closest to the woods and away from the gardens. I never realized it was to hide from nosy neighbors and prying eyes, especially if they run the Beltane ceremony or other “special” ceremonies. Her friends come from far-off lands just to hang out by the fire—or so I always thought.

  “They’ll all come this year,” she whispers.

  “Huh?” Scott and I react as one.

  “All the witches, High Priests and Priestesses, Druids, everyone. We’ll need their help to cast the spells to keep Clayone away.”

  “Will it work?” Scott asks.

  Never one to hide the truth unless she thought it absolutely necessary, she says, “It has to, or we’re all dead.”

  5

  Sleeping Fits

  Sleep comes in fits. Each time I close my eyes Lizzie’s face appears before me, or Ryan’s screams fill my ears, or I’m haunted by the terrible laugh that dug its claws right into my back. No matter how many times I toss and turn, sleep refuses to visit me. Finally, in a huff, I shrug off the covers and sneak downstairs. A warm cup of milk might help put me to sleep. Or at least distract me from my brain, which has been a turbulent place these past few nights.

  When I turn down the hall, I notice the light’s on in the kitchen. For one fearful, exhilarating gasp of a second, I imagine Breas waiting for me. Then I berate myself. I can’t stand the bastard, and the whole leaving-town thing was pretty shitty. Dad and Gram have mentioned him a few times, wondering where he wandered off to, as if he got lost on his way home from school or something. If they didn’t have so many other things on their minds, they’d probably be more concerned about the missing foreign exchange student, but really who can blame them? No one should be held accountable for hosting that Irish prick. Their lack of concern is forgivable—unlike my romantic notions centering on him. I blame hormones. As much as I try to, sometimes I just can’t control them.

  If the ding-dong’s not in the kitchen, it must be Dad. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been Gram and me, with Scott over once a month or so when Dad was out of town. Having them both stay with us now is strange and comforting at the same time. I’m used to having time by myself to think, but maybe I’ve had too much time to think and shouldn’t be alone. My head is a disastrous, treacherous place.

  Dad’s been pouring through every piece of lore and legend known to man, and as of yet, he hasn’t discovered anything he didn’t already know.

  The answers are known only to women.

  And yes, there’s that voice in my head—who really needs to learn to shut up. Most people question a person’s sanity when they catch her talking to herself, but when a person argues with herself, I’m sure that’s cause for commitment.

  Towering piles of books are scattered across the table. Dad’s hidden behind a large old one. It reminds me of the spell book, but I haven’t seen that since it disappeared from the school attic along with Kensey. I creep closer to get a better view of the cover.

  He pokes his head out of the book. “Can’t sleep, sweetie?”

  Thinking back, I probably should have guessed that Uncle Mark was my dad because he’s always talked to me in a way I imagine dads talk to their daughters. Sometimes the truth can be right in front of you, but if you’re not paying attention, you miss it entirely.

  “No,” I sigh, grasping the back of one of the oak chairs. I see now that the book he’s reading is not the missing spell book. I can’t imagine him researching anything possessing dark magic anyway. “Did you find anything?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll keep searching. I’m hitting an old bookstore and the personal library of a former colleague tomorrow. I’ll head out after the funeral,” he says, then immediately regrets his words. He’s about to tell me he’s sorry, and honestly, I can’t freaking take another person feeling sorry for me or telling me they’re sorry.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him and then feel like kicking my own ass, because I’ve pretty much just acknowledged that I can read minds, but the cat’s out of the bag now. “Lizzie’s funeral is tomorrow. No use ignoring it. What if you can’t find anything in Pittsburgh?”

  I’ve always been a master at changing the subject. Losing Lizzie is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to go through. Talking about her or what’s happening tomorrow isn’t going to do anybody any good.

  “I have a few friends who haven’t gotten back to me yet. They’re searching as diligently as I am.”

  “Do they know . . . about me, I mean?” I stumble over the words because I’m not who they think I am, and I don’t want to give him any cause to think I believe anything they’ve told me.

  “They know Clayone was released and more or less how. If they aren’t familiar with the prophecy, I don’t bring it up. The less people who know about you and the prophecy, the better. Believe it or not, there are traitors even in the Celtic world who are willing to sacrifice others to advance their own powers, regardless of the price.”

  “What if you don’t find anything?”

  “If we come up empty, I might need to go to Europe. Hit Ireland, Scotland, then England. If necessary, France, Spain, Germany . . . When countries were invaded, monks, priests, and nuns often took books and other works with them when new religious orders forced them into exile. Ireland was constantly at war with itself.”

  “Can you do that? The semester just started.”

  “One of the benefits of being a Philosophy professor is that I can say it’s research for a paper I’m working on. The head honchos love that stuff.”

  “Oh . . .” is all I’m able to muster. I hate the idea of my new “dad” leaving Gram, Scott, and me behind.

  “Gigi, don’t worry. I promise I won’t leave you unprotected. Chances are someone will find some information that will help us. Besides, I’m not going to Europe without you.”

  I’m about to ask him about Scott and Gram, when he raises his hand to interrupt me. “Let’s see what we come up with here first before we start making travel plans. All right?” He searches my face for an answer. Times like these it would be useful if he could read minds too. Then I wouldn’t have to fully acknowledge my thoughts.

  “All right,” I reply, but I don’t really want to. A comfortable silence settles between us as Dad goes back to his research and I go back to my milk.

  I finally realize why I can’t sleep. My life might be turned upside down, but Lizzie’s life is over.

  6

  Casket Knockouts

  Funerals bite. The purpose. The pomp and circumstance. The rich leather sofas, the dozen jumbotron flat-screen TVs, and the ornate bathrooms that do everything except wipe your ass. Money made off of dead people horrifies me almost as much as the reason behind the funeral in the first place. Especially this one. I didn’t want to come to Lizzie’s funeral, but it’s the only way I can say goodbye to her. Her parents won’t let me into their house, and evidently visiting the morgue is frowned upon. So the only place I can say goodbye to her is at the fancy, over-pimpified funeral home. Selfishly, I want to see her one more time before they dig out a six-foot hole and shove her body into it. I’m relieved that her Jehovah’s Witness parents allow “outsiders” to attend the funeral. I guess they aren’t worried about non-JWs corrupting the dead. If they knew I killed their daughter, I don’t think they’d feel so charitable.

  Gram stayed home. I never really thought much about her never leaving our property. It just always seemed that the house, the gardens, and the woods behind us were where she existed. Where she was meant to be. Now, I know different. That while she loves being there, it is her presence, her being, that keeps the enchantments strong. She wards off evil spirits from entering the property, but even her power isn’t enough to keep Clayone away.

  “You okay,
Gigi?” Dad asks rubbing my arms up and down. Whenever I even think of the Original Werewolf, involuntary shivers grip my body, but it might be the damn air conditioning. They could hang meat in here.

  Scott loops his arm through mine. “Follow me, Gi,” he says and winds us through the crowd of classmates and their families who are sobbing and hugging one another as if they’ve just lost their best friend. I want to break their soggy, mascara-covered faces. They act like they knew Lizzie. Like they cared about her. But they weren’t her best friend. They didn’t kill her.

  I did.

  I don’t care what Dad says, or Gram, or Scott. Especially Scott. I undid the spell. I unleashed Clayone. I killed Lizzie.

  “Settle down,” Dad whispers as he holds my shoulders. If it weren’t for them manhandling me, I’d be smashing my classmates’ fucking faces in, and then probably my own.

  Why am I here? I shouldn’t be here. No one should be here. Funerals should be for old people. Old people who have lived long, full lives. People who have children and grandchildren to mourn for them. Funerals should not be for kids like Lizzie. Young. Plucked from their prime. No encore. No happy ending. That coffin shouldn’t be her final resting place. It can’t be the end of her life.

  It should be the end of mine.

  Lizzie’s mom looks at me, then whispers to her dad. Today will be the first time I’ve seen them since the hospital. Scott and I went over to their house a few times, but no one was ever home. Or they didn’t answer the door even though their cars were in the driveway. I’ve left messages every hour since the coroner declared Lizzie dead, but no one ever returns my calls. Not that I blame them. I did kill their daughter. I just want to tell them I’m sorry. I want to tell them how much their daughter meant to me. How much she means to me still. Lizzie kept me together. She gave me her friendship when no one else did. She was my person. When she died, the best parts of me died with her, leaving an ugly broken shell.

  My eyes keep skimming over the casket. I think I’m relieved it’s closed, because even though I want to see her again, I’ve come to the realization that inside rests the shell of the person I knew as Lizzie. Lizzie—the real Lizzie—the girl full of life and adventure, the girl who’d just found love—is gone. I don’t want to see her broken body one more time, but honestly, I’d rather see that than never see her ever again.

  Her mom marches up to me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Nancy, she had nothing to do with what happened,” Dad whispers to her.

  “You and your devil-worshipping ways. When we left the coven, we should have moved far away, so this thing wouldn’t corrupt her. This thing killed her.”

  Finally, someone is talking sense.

  “Nancy, it was just teenagers caught up in mischief,” he says in a low even voice as he rests a hand on her shoulder. He’s trying to calm her down by touching her, but he doesn’t want to release me.

  People are beginning to take notice.

  “You and this heathen had everything to do with it!” she screams at Dad.

  Every eye in the place watches as she stomps away, and then they shift their attention to me, the cause of the commotion. They miss seeing her turn and glare at Dad. They miss seeing her lift her hands and run at him as if he were waving a red cape. They miss her hitting his chest so hard he stumbles back into the casket, and the casket moves. It actually fucking moves. Then smashes to the tile floor.

  A thunder clap shatters the shocked silence. The cover falls open.

  Everyone gasps—not because Lizzie’s dead body smacks the floor, but because the casket is empty. Empty except for shredded fabric and claw marks. Fucking claw marks.

  “Noooooooo,” Lizzie’s mom wails, crashing to the floor beside the empty casket. “Nooooooooooo,” she wails over and over.

  Lizzie’s dad turns to us. “Mark, leave now.”

  “I truly am sorry, Greg,” he says, offering his hand, horrified by what he caused but still trying to salvage some semblance of dignity.

  Her dad ignores it, crouching down beside his wife and the empty casket.

  My dad stands there, unsure what to do. Unsure where to go. Unsure of everything.

  And I come to the realization that I am a disease. I am an epidemic.

  My body sinks to the floor in front of the casket. The fucking empty casket that’s supposed to carry my Lizzie. I don’t want to lose it in front of everyone, but my eyes are stubborn damn things. The floodgates open, and the deluge will drown us all.

  “Gigi, come on,” Scott pleads, trying to pull my slumped body up. “Let’s go sit down.”

  I refuse to budge, my body completely incapacitated with grief.

  A noise escapes my mouth like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Like nothing anyone has ever heard before.

  “Gigi, come on,” he says again, but I am unable to move.

  Strong arms wrap around me and carry me away from Lizzie. Well, where Lizzie is supposed to be. But I am beyond caring.

  I killed Lizzie.

  I killed my mom.

  I will kill them all.

  7

  Abysmal Happenings

  The abyss embraces me with open arms. “Welcome,” it says. “You’ll like it here.” My own tomb to bury myself forever.

  A light breaks through the wall I’ve encased myself in and gently squeezes my hand. “Come back to us, Gigi. Come back to us.”

  Another light kneels in front of me. “I’ve never seen her like this before,” Scott says.

  “She lost Lizzie. She loved her,” Ryan replies.

  Scott rests his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “So did you.”

  “But Gi loved her in a different way. They were connected by years and friendship.”

  “Have you been dipping into my dad’s Philosophy textbooks when I wasn’t looking?” Scott asks.

  Ryan laughs. “You really know how to be an ass, don’t you?”

  “I do try my best.”

  The weight lifts as my remaining best friends banter back and forth. Eventually I pull myself together enough to become conscious of my surroundings. I’m lying on one of the expensive leather sofas in the sitting room I hate so much. As I’m about to fall into another fit, Ryan squeezes my hand again.

  “Ryan?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Funny to think that I was worried about making a scene. Compared to you, I’m a heartless bastard,” he says with a lighthearted laugh tossed with self-loathing.

  It’s enough to make me smile.

  “Now, that’s the Gigi we know and love.” He tries to smile too, but the sadness doesn’t leave his eyes.

  As my reasoning returns, so does my sense of obligation—which I do have by the way. It’s just deeply buried most of the time. “You go back in. I’m fine now.”

  “That’s okay. She’s not in there.”

  I sit up. What Ryan says makes sense. “She isn’t in there, is she? I mean her body isn’t even there.”

  “Last night she came to me in a dream. She asked me not to come today, but I had to. I knew you’d need me. I knew that even if Lizzie asked you not to come too, you’d come anyway. I came for you.”

  My eyes tear up. I hadn’t slept at all the night before. I refused to close my eyes because I knew Lizzie would visit and ask me not to be here today. But I had to come. I am a selfish bitch.

  I stand up and reach for his hand. “What do you think about getting out of here?”

  “I’d say, that’s the smartest thing anyone’s said all day.” He absentmindedly fingers the bandages on his neck.

  “Stop at the Quikmart for coffee and donuts?”

  He stands up with me. “You are a mind full of brilliant ideas today.”

  If he knew the truth surrounding Lizzie’s death, he’d disagree with me, but he will never discover what happened. I can’t lose him too. “You know it.”

  On our way out, a firm hand slides across my shoulder. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere without me,” Scott says, draping his arms arou
nd both of us. The love and goodness exuding from him settles me. With Scott, I can see possibility, even on this afternoon.

  If he wasn’t in my life, I would be finished.

  * * *

  The three of us sip coffee on the hood of Scott’s truck while we watch the ducks floating on Radley Pond. It was Ryan’s idea to come here to remember Lizzie. They fell in love down at that dock on those carefree summer days. For him, it’s the closest to Lizzie he’ll ever get. For me, after discovering the awful truth that Scott’s mom drowned herself here, not so much.

  “I’m really not looking forward to going back to school,” Ryan says, staring out at the water with a wistful expression. A gentle breeze causes little ripples to dance across the pond’s surface.

  Scott rests his hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think any of us are.”

  “I wish . . . I wish it were me instead of Lizzie,” Ryan cries, burying his face in his hands.

  I’m sure none of his old girlfriends ever thought they’d see the day that Ryan MacPhee was brought to tears by another girl, but none of them knew the power Lizzie had over him. The power they had over each other. Their relationship, while cut short, was something special. Something lasting. Their love was not something a person can easily forget.

  What’s left of my heart shatters into pieces.

  I wish there was something I could say to make him feel better. To give him some peace. But I can’t. I’m worthless.

  “But then it would be Lizzie crying over you, and I don’t know about you, but Lizzie scared me the most,” Scott says.