A/N: Well, here is the next chapter. I hope that you enjoy it. I would like to thank the lovely ladies over at Project Team Beta for helping me clean up my messy chapter.
Disclaimer: Twilight and characters belong to SM.
*Side Note* October 8th a blood moon will appear in the sky. You don't want to miss it!
"Tragedy." -Hoodoo Ann, 1916
BPOV
"Richards should do something about it," Lila commented between bites of her apple, scratching the word with her fingernail.
It was bigger today.
"Just leave it. They'll only do it again. I don't even care anymore."
"Liar," she accused.
Without answering, I got the books I'd need over the weekend and shoved them into my bag. Around us, the wing was loud and bursting with the kind of energy that was synonymous with Fridays. Armed with bags, synthetic cobwebs, huge spiders, and tacky glitter skeletons ,the ASB transformed the school. Any surface that wasn't a bank of lockers had been plastered with painted signs promoting the Halloween dance.
"You know who's doing it. Why not dish out a little . . .pay back?"
A group of cheerleaders walked by, their eyes glaring at us like a stain on their pristine white uniforms. Jane Conrad spat her daily insult as her band of idiots laughed. Together, like marionettes, they tossed their heads, sending their ponytails swinging. Cheerleaders. If any one group was inherently evil, it was them.
"I'd rather ignore it." Her irritation with me penetrated the metal door, and mentally, she began concocting her own brand of justice: slimy toads in their beds, itchy rashes in hard to reach places, severe acne, and bouts of uncontrollable gas. "You'll get caught then you won't be able to go to the dance."
"Oh, no, not the dance. Take anything... my bike, my pens and markers... but not the dance." She dissolved into cackles, startling a group of freshmen boys staring at her. Lila winked and threw them a kiss before slamming my locker closed and linking her arm with mine. Together, we walked toward freedom, finally. The October air was chilly, the sky's murky hue cast a pall over the streets, and those boys were still watching Lila with a mixture of fear and lust.
"I know you saw me going, but I wouldn't go if they paid me." Ignorant of the fantasies spinning in her wake, Lila elbowed my ribs gently. "Dana and Vi are going, you know."
I knew. They went every year.
"I might be persuaded to go," she hedged, "if Nate could go with me."
She had obviously forgotten what Halloween was like in this place, let alone at a school dance. I said nothing and continued walking toward home, bypassing the student parking lot altogether. Lila gave me a knowing look; the condition of Dana getting a car was she give us a ride to and from school. Since owning said car, she had taken us to school twice and home once.
"Nate is a good dancer, you know."
I knew.
"Would you go, if you could go with... you know?"
"No, never. I can think of a million other things to do on Halloween."
"With him?"
I paused, wondering what it would be like. Since Jo gave me back those memories, Carlisle was always in my thoughts, working quietly in a corner with a loving smile on his face. "Yes," I answered finally.
Instead of going straight home, we decided to swing by the library to peruse the Friday shipment and visit Nik afterward. As we passed jack-o'-lanterns, cobweb draped houses, and mailboxes, Lila picked up the conversation we had started at lunch but had not been able to finish.
"He was fine, and then he got weird."
Nate and Lila talked every night, without fail, at seven. These calls lasted for hours-long hours of conversations that consisted of very few words. Mostly ,they listened to each other do things: paint, tune a guitar, homework, even dishes. I didn't understand how someone, anyone, could find that interesting.
The library was closed; the little note in the window said "Back in five minutes," but everyone knew five minutes meant tomorrow. We turned toward the boardwalk, where Nik's shop sat, deciding that the books could wait another day.
"He just sounded... distracted and confused," she was saying as the bell on the door announced our arrival. "He kept saying 'The blue house . . . watch the blue house.' "
"I don't know, maybe he has a lot on his mind. School... Or he's not sleeping well. Nik?" I called out, looking around at the empty shop. Usually the bell brought him out.
"Who says things like that? What blue house? His is made of logs. Bells, it was like he was seeing something else." Lila shook her head and added privately, It was like talking to you during one of those damn visions.
I ignored her comment, momentarily distracted by a strange prickling over my skin like a million spider legs. "Onkel?"
He didn't answer, nor did his thoughts. He wasn't here.
Maybe he stepped out?
Lila disappeared around the back, where he did most of his work, and I moved around the various finished projects, wood samples, books,and toys. The shop was old, as most things were in this town, and it smelled like the woods -like my uncle: Cedar and Pine, Oak and Poplar. From where I stood, I could see the photo Nik loved but never explained, no matter how much we begged. For as long as I could remember, it hung there beneath the massive carved sign that read Durchstreifen. He rarely spoke of his family before us, but that photo of him and his brothers, all three of them wrapped in their father's arms, said all that needed to be said.
Walking around to the front counter, I found a package addressed to me, wrapped in brown paper, and underneath it a note.
"Lila," I called out, reading my uncle's bold writing. "He went home and asked us to close up for him."
I'll lock up the back.
"Cool." I locked the register, retrieved my uncle's keys from where he kept them and scooped up my package. Lila came out a few minutes later, her eyes unfocused and mind running a four-minute mile.
"What is it?" Again, I felt that feeling... something was off, shifted somehow.
"Nothing." She shook her head. He was in the middle of a project, she thought, seeing the planer and a curl of wood dripping down the side of the workbench. "It feels weird in here..."
I nodded. "I feel it too, Lila, but it's not the shop."
Truthfully, I felt it the moment I woke up.
We shut off the lights, flipped over the sign, and locked the door. Despite how much I liked taking the long way home, we stuck to the road. Neither of us said it, burdened by both the odd foreboding and our schoolbooks, but a nervous and urgent energy propelled us toward home. The package I had found on the counter was heavy in my arms and as much a mystery as to why my uncle had abandoned the shop without bothering to close up. It wasn't like him.
This whole day had been like waiting to exhale . . . A black bird found its way into the house early this morning and circled up and down the staircase, squawking and knocking for hours. A sign that death was not far behind. It put us all on edge. Jo was so nervous, she broke two frames and, marbled vase trying to get it out. Another bird, black as well, flew into my English class window, over and over. The dull thudding was unnerving, but not as unnerving as the soft and sorrowful wailing (that only I seemed to be able to hear) that started just after lunch.
The ground beneath our feet went from asphalt to crunchy gravel, and in the distance, our house rose against the autumn sky, tall and draped in red ivy. Frantically, I searched the house for my aunt and uncle: mundane thoughts, soft humming, anything. When I found them I felt instantly relieved; my shoulders dropped and a slow smile spread across my face. Then I heard more voices, familiar but unexpected ones, and the tension was back. Noticing the change in my posture, Lila quirked her brow at me in question.
"What is it?" she asked, looking from the house to me.
At that moment, my aunt realized we were home and warned the others in a clipped tone.
Through her eyes, I saw our kitchen and whom she had been talking to. Before I could answer Lila, the front door opened, the screen door banging loudly as Nate came rushing out, half running across the lawn. Behind him, Juliana, Jo, and Nik appeared, trying to maintain a casual and natural aura. Each mind was a fog of diversions expertly crafted and impossible to read quickly. Noah stepped out just in time to see his twin clutch Lila to his chest like a life vest.
When I caught his eye, he looked down at his feet. Gone was the cocky smile and the usual unabashed thoughts.
The wailing grew just a little louder.
xXXx
Juliana left shortly after, leaving behind her two sons and an apology. Jo was a fortress, even if I had all the time in the world to wade through the maze of her thoughts, I wouldn't have found more than the fact that Noah and Nate would be staying with us, indefinitely. Dinner was quiet, even with two extra people and so much mystery, not to mention the constant wailing I was convinced my aunt could hear, if only through my thoughts. An atmosphere of melancholy and anxiety hung above us like storm clouds waiting to break. From the wide-eyed looks and questions my cousins were throwing at me, they felt it too. Or perhaps I was projecting it on them.
Nate and Noah said very little, and their thoughts had the same labyrinthine design as Jo's. I wanted to ask, but each time I opened my mouth, Nik would look over at me with reproach.
Instead, I moved peas around my plate, feeling a bit more irritated as the minutes ticked by.
Plates emptied,and one by one, they excused themselves. Nate went outside and Lila followed, determined to make him talk. Vi and Dana left the table together, whispering in conspiring tones like twins in, room full of strangers. As my uncle and aunt cleared the dishes, Noah slipped away without sparing me a glance or word. Then, it was just me. No thoughts. No clanking cutlery.
Just me and a million questions. Like always.
In my room, I paced, and Carlisle paced right along with me. What was I missing? What had happened? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the package, its raffia bow and fragrant sprig of rosemary. The package laid on my desk, innocent, still in its soft and old wrappings.
Who would send me something, I mused, but more importantly, why?
Carlisle leaped onto the desk, his glossy black coat shining as he looked from it to me, almost saying, This is the only mystery you can solve tonight. Open it. Now.
Not being one to ignore my own curiosity, or my cat, I reached for the bow and tugged. The paper fell away easily and lying underneath was a book much like the one my mother had left me, like the one downstairs in the still room, though bigger and twice as thick. To say it looked old would have been an understatement. It was ancient and smelled of dried roses and sage and some other herb I couldn't place but tugged at my memory. I flipped pages eagerly, happy to have some form of distraction-even if only for a moment.
It was a beauty, leather supple with a stamped vine pattern. Inside, in addition to spells and incantations, I found stories and illustrations, handwritten and hand-drawn. My fingers caressed the pages; my eyes skimmed through words and names like: Hypatia, Huldra, wraiths, circulum tutelae, and Bean Sidhe. At those words, my curiosity was piqued, and with the keening ringing in my ears, I read the story of the Wailing Spirit.
She was rarely seen, but she was a fairy, and her mourning cries were heard at the passing of a loved one or very near to their passing. To hear the call of the Bean Sidhe was to know death, the book said, and once heard, it would always be heard. A shiver raced down my spine as I read those words, the wail piercing the silence.
"I heard you; no need to yell at me," I muttered, casting my eyes around the room.
The writing changed halfway through the story to a different hand and language, so I moved on in search of something else to read. Strange languages wove in and out of pages like threads on a tapestry, each more intricate than the last. Some I could read, others I felt in my heart, in my veins. Bookmarks of all kinds stuck out at all angles, bejeweled, fraying, and stamped metal.
One stabbed my finger, and I brought it to my mouth, tasting blood. "Shit."
A gust of fresh sea air blew in through the open window, and as if that wind had fingers, flipped the pages violently back to the very first. I rushed to hold the pages down, should the wind get any more ideas, and noticed I was bleeding on the book, but there were no stains. I watched, transfixed, as drops landed on the page, spread, then sank into the very paper without a trace. Just below where the droplets had been, a message gradually appeared.
Everything comes back to the beginning. The truth you seek is within; you need only the courage to find it. May She who is the Mystery of the Waters and the White Moon among the stars guide you with her light, lend her strength to you, and help you find yourself.
"Mystery of the Waters," I whispered. Inexplicably, I felt a rush of nostalgia so strong I felt tears welling up in my eyes and a sharp longing in my chest. By chance, if only because of the words I had just read and the feelings they woke, I glanced at the moon.
There it hung, in the same place as always. But tonight... it was red. Deep red and full.
The Blood Moon.
It's starting, Jo thought from downstairs, looking up at the ominous face in the sky. The thought wasn't directed at me, it was an internal acknowledgment of what was happening around us. To us. My uncle came up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, melding his concern and thoughts with hers until they were one.
In this state, the iron grip on her thoughts relaxed, and I saw the news Juliana brought along with her twins.
"No." I exhaled, looking back down at the book, understanding all at once where it came from. I sank into the chair. In my ears, the Bean Sidhe pitched her voice higher, the depth of her lament echoing mine. Carlisle nudged my face with his silky head in an attempt to comfort me, but it was useless.
Nana Cora was dead, and there was no consolation.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. With any luck I'll have the next one out by Halloween!
XX
Autumn