Chapter 2: The Moonlight Festival

"What are you waiting for? Open it!", Marienne said as she sat down beside me. It sounded more like a command. And I must confess that I heard a bit of jealously in her voice that said: Why her? Why not me? What does she have what I don´t have...

Marienne always seemed to read my thoughts. "Of course you deserve it. All pretty girls in our class received such an invitation. I´m really proud that I have such a pretty friend." I smiled sadly at that. I didn´t find me pretty, because I was just a wanna be goth with too long hair. "Thanks. But I´m not sure about the whole thing. I won´t go to a stupid party if my best friend can´t come with me. And why are only, as you call them, pretty girls allowed?"

She shook her head. "You´ll never find out if you don´t open the letter!" Marienne sat down on my bed. I sighed heavily and took my seat beside her. Carefully I turned the letter in my hands, reading the backside: "Dear Rachel Allen..." I didn´t get any further. Marienne ripped the letter out of my hands and opened it herself. "Hey! Be careful with that!", I complained about her fast opening of it. Inside was a strange looking paper. A piece of parchment or something. Anyways it looked as old as if someone had prepared it before my birth, what was impossible. How should the host of this party know my name? At least my birth is seventeen years ago.

Slowly the parchment was unfolded by Marienne´s hands. "And?", I asked. She starting reading it loudly: "Dear Rachel Allen, I am proud to tell you today that you´re one of the girls I chose for the first ,Moonlight Festival´. In one week from now the festival will take place. No place is better than your school, where it will be set at half past ten. I hope you take the invitation and please me with your arrival. Your host." She looked up from the parchment and into my eyes, searching for a reaction.

We just looked at each other before I broke the silence: "Your host? Is that everything?" Marienne nodded and handed the invitation to me. It was written with emerald green ink in an style of writing. Who in the world still writes on parchment?

"I´m not going to a stupid Moon Festival, when I don´t know who arranged it!", I protested. "I hope you please me with your arrival? Who speaks so? The host could have written: please come or something!" Marienne thought about it for a while. Then she counted something on her fingers. "Today we have thursday, correct? In one week is a full moon. Do you think the date was picked by a mere of chance?" I shrugged.

"Of course not! I bet my glasses that this host wanted this festival to take place during a full moon." I rolled my eyes. "I bet you watched Van Helsing a bit too often." Marienne smiled: "I don´t think so, because you´re the one who watched it over twenty times in one month!" Again I shrugged. "Don´t you think it doesn´t matter if in one week a full moon is or not? The only thing I´m worried about is this parchment!" She rose from my bed and took the invitation out of my hand. "Follow me!"

I didn´t know where she was going. This part of the boarding-school was unknown to me. Marienne opened a door for me and I entered... to find myself in a library. I´d never seen so many books before. Then a thought came to me. "Ahem,... you´re not going to find something about this letter out, are you?" She just smiled and walked over to the librarian. As I did so too, the woman there looked at me as if I was something disgusting. Then I saw a cross around her neck, another one around her wrist and another one on a ring. She was against goths. "Do we really have to be here?", I whispered nervously. Marienne ignored that and asked the woman. "May we borrow a few books of the oldest books?" The librarian looked suspiciously at us before she pointed at a bookshelf in the right corner of this room. "Thanks."

We walked over to the shelf with many old books, probably the oldest ones there. "Ok, Rachel, you start on the left and I on the right. We´re looking for hand-written books. Then we just compare the style of the letter with the one in the book!" I swallowed hard. Searching the biggest bookshelf for a few special books? That was insane!

So we spent the rest of the day in the library, finding here and there some books we needed. Then we put them on a table to see that we had found eleven ones. Marienne took six and I took five ones. And with a "little" bed reading we went back in the room that we shared.

I hope you like this chapter! I´m sorry but there won´t be any updates of my stories for two weeks. I´m going on holiday and it´s impossible there to get online. I hope you can understand and leave many reviews for me for all of my stories :)