Notes: Thank you for the reviews! Keep reviewing! And remember, Fanfiction Awards nominations begin on January First! Make sure you can vote for your favorite stories by checking out the page on the Daughters of the Moon Writers Forum!

Circus

Chapter 1

"Well," Lillian Killingsworth's father shut the trunk lid after sliding her suitcases onto the cement, "This is it." And so it was. The Spanish-style house in LA was nothing like the Seattle townhouse he had moved out of five years ago when he and her mother divorced. She took a deep breath and slung her book bag onto one shoulder.

She followed her father through the front door. White. White walls, white furniture, white pine floors. He led her up the stairs into one of four doors off the hall. More white walls, more white pine floors. White pillows, white douvet.

"I know it's a little sparse, but we can go this weekend and buy whatever you like to decorate."

"Thanks... Dad." He set her suitcases on the floor.

"I'll, uh, let you get unpacked and settled." He left, shutting the door behind him. Lillian fell face first on the bed. At least it was soft.

After a few minutes, she rolled over and got up. She might as well unpack, like her father said. She was staying with him for the entire summer, after all. She once again gazed around the bleak prospect of white. She hated her room at their new house in Seattle. She and her mother had moved in with her new stepfather, Dave, three months ago. Her room there was floral and always in pristine condition, but she would give anything for that touch of color now.

She began neatly stacking her clothes in piles as she lay them in the drawers, but quickly abandoned that pursuit. Unlike Mom, her father would undoubtedly stay away from her underwear drawer and not criticize her for not having neat little rows of perfectly folded and stacked panties.

An hour and a half later, Lillian descended the staircase back to the foyer and glanced around. The sound was silent except for the soft tickling of several analogue clocks dispersed through the house.
It was just like her father to have analogue clocks, veritable antiques; he liked all that old stuff, mythology, history, antiques, art – he couldn't get enough of it.

"Dad!" she called.

"Kitchen!" came the reply. She looked around.

"Where's the kitchen?"

"Back of the house." She followed the main hallway all the way back to a swinging door that opened into a spacious, colorless kitchen. "All done, kiddo?" her father closed the laptop he had been working on.

"Yeah, all done." They stood in awkward silence for a moment.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"Great!" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Me too. I'm starving too."

"So..." she gestured towards the well furbished kitchen, "you cook now?"

"No. No, I just have pots for decoration." She furrowed her brow, wondering if he was being sarcastic. "I cook from time to time. I always have; you're mother just wasn't a fan of what I can cook."

"What can you cook?" she asked with trepidation, wondering just how awful it could be, if even her mother's cooking was better.

"I can cook some Mexican dishes."

"What! Mom and I love Mexican!"

"No, you and your mother love upscale Taco Bells. I learned to cook from a woman who cooked real Mexican food."

"All right, Mr Hot-Shot-Mexican-Food-Chef, let's see what you got." She leaned against the island, as he rummaged through the cupboards.

"Looks like we have everything we need for pollo con mole dulce."

"Whatever that is, it sounds great."

"Then let's get to work."

"Wait, I get to cook too?"

"I'm guessing your mother still doesn't let you get within ten feet of her while she's cooking."

"I'm not even allowed in the kitchen!" Dad laughed and motioned her around the island.

"Let's get you started chopping... you know how to use a knife properly, right?"

"Yes, Dad." He pulled a knife out of a drawer (Lillian noted the knife drawer was on the right of the sink) and a bag of chicken from the freezer.

"Fresh chicken is always better, but this will do. Skinless," he pointed to the advertising on the bag, "very important." Since they were still frozen, he popped two chicken breasts into the microwave to defrost. A few minutes later, he pulled them back out and plopped them on the cutting board. "Just cut them into little cubes while I get the sauce ready."

Lillian went about cutting the chicken into perfectly even cubes, which made Dad laugh when he looked over to check her progress.

"You don't have to be so precise; a few slices long, a few slices wide, and you're good to go."

"I take French, not Spanish; I happen to like being perfect, thank you!" she said with a playful toss of her hair.

He laughed some more, and Lillian had trouble recalling him laughing like that when she was younger, before the divorce. "Well, princess, once you're done with your perfectly sized pieces, why don't you come over here and I'll show you the secret to perfect mole dulce."

When she was done, she sauntered over, taking her sweet time and causing both of them to burst into laughter again.

"All right, all right, com'ere." He pulled her over to the stove where he was stirring a delightfully aromatic sauce. "The secret to the best mole dulce is the chocolate." Lillian perked up at that word, possibly her favorite ever. "Here taste this." He held a piece of delicious looking chocolate; she eagerly took it and shoved it in her mouth, not seeing her father's motioning to stop until it was too late.

"Ew!" Whatever that awful thing was, it was not chocolate. "What is that?"

"Chocolate."

"It's bitter!"

"Yes, it's chocolate in it's original form... well, not it's original form, because it doesn't grow on trees in bar form like that, but with it's original taste, nothing added to it." Lillian went to the fridge and pulled out the milk. Her father kindly handed her a glass (third shelf to the left from the fridge) and waited for her to attempt to wash out the bitter taste. Once she was finished, he continued, "Dulce means sweet, so people who don't know how to make mole dulce properly think they need to use regular sweetened chocolate, but you should always use bitter chocolate and sweeten the sauce yourself with azucar, sugar. Now," he stop stirring the mixture and turned on the heat for another burner. "I think we're ready for the chicken."

Finally the delicious meal was ready to be devoured. She and Dad sat at the kitchen table (Lillian couldn't remember ever eating some where other than the dining room at her mother's house) and in unison took the first bite.

"Mmmm!" She couldn't believe how wonderful it was. "Who taught you how to cook?"

A pensive look took over his features. "Abuela Castillo."

"Abuela, that means 'grandmother,' right? Wait, you're grandmother was Mexican?"

"No, no, I just called her 'abuela.' I'm glad you like it though."

"I love it!" They ate in amiable silence for a while. "You're different from how I remember."

"What do you mean, how you remember. We talk at least once a week."

"I know, but that's not the same. You never used to be... fun."

He laughed. "Well, I wasn't very happy when you were younger."

"Because of Mom."

"No, Lillian, because of me. Susan... your mother... she's a great woman. I just wasn't the man she wanted or needed, and that's hard for a man to have to live with."

"You never fought. You just one day decided to leave."

"I did not just one day decide to leave, Lillian. And fighting with your mother would have required communicating with her. Lillian... marriages don't crumble over night; it's a slow fade, that began before you were even born."

"You guys had me like a year after you got married."

"Thinking that it would fix things." They fell silent again. "Listen, Lillian, what matters now is that the two of us have a relationship, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"I think this summer is gonna be good for us."

"I think so too, Dad."

"Have you thought any about how you want to decorate your room?"

"I can decorate it any way I want?"

"Short of torture devices, sure, why not?"

"Red, black, and cheetah print?"

Dad stared at her in amazement. "You are so much like your aunt it's unbelievable."

"Really?" Lillian had never known her aunt, but she had always felt connected to the mysterious woman through her middle name, Serena, and her mother's obvious disapproval of her. Dad rarely spoke of her, but Mom snidely told her at one point how Aunt Serena had run off with her druggie boyfriend when she was only sixteen.

"Yeah. Short of being suspicious that you're secretly a telepath, like I was with your aunt, and your hair color, I'd say you're exactly the same." Lillian froze. Telepath?

"Telepath?"

"Yes, you're aunt always seemed to know what I was going to say before I said it. Why the interest? I think you're old enough to know psychics don't exist," he gave her a strange look, eyes flicking to where her neck met her shoulder.

"Oh. I was just curious because sometimes I have these really strong senses of déjà vu, you know. And I thought maybe Aunt Serena..."

"No, no déjà vu, Serena just knew me so well that she knew what I would say to things," he said haltingly, like he didn't want to give more away.

Did Aunt Serena have what Lillian had? Visions in her dreams that would keep her awake at night wondering when they would happen? Visions that always came true? Visions that were sometimes so precise that she could hear what was being said?

"Any way, red, black, and cheetah print sounds like a great idea."

"Yeah. And I was also thinking that maybe, you know, you kinda have this monochromatic thing going on..."

"If you want to put some color into the house, be my guest. I'm not very good at that sort of thing; I just know that white goes with white."

"And a lot of other things, Dad."

"Short of furniture and things I hate, you can pick out whatever you want for the rest of the house." He pushed his plate away from him; at the same time, Lillian dropped her fork onto her plate. "That was good."

"Yes, it was."

"Well, kiddo. It's," he glanced at his watch, "Almost 8 on a Friday night. I wish you knew some people your own age; LA's got a great night life for teens, but it's just stupid to go out alone."

"That's okay. I'll just stay in and relax tonight."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that. I don't have a TV in the house; I meant to go pick one up before you got here, but I lost track of time."

"I'm not much of a TV gal. I'll just read."

"You read? Like books?"

"Yeah, I read, like books."

"I love to read."

"I know. You used to read to me every night, even when I could read for myself, you would read a chapter and I would read a chapter."

"The chairs in the den might be monochromatic but they're also very comfortable."

"Cool. I'll go grab my book and we can... read together."

"Okay then."

"Where's the den?"

"Door straight across from the staircase."

"I'll be down in a few minutes." As she walked away, she glanced back at her father who was cleaning up with irrepressible joy at the prospect of reading with his daughter. She smiled and hurried upstairs. She didn't want to keep her dad waiting.

She deliberated at her truncated book choice for the perfect book to read that night. Finally, she decided on the Odyssey (Dad would doubtlessly approve), and turned to leave. Something within her, however, brought her to a standstill in front of her dresser, where the travel case she used for her jewelry sat. With slightly shaking hands, she lay the book down and picked up the bag. After slipping her hand inside, she felt around until her hand hit cool metal. She pulled the necklace free and held the pendant, face up, in her palm.

It was beautiful, silver etched with the face of the moon, but in the same way, it terrified her. She had been so drawn to the necklace her mother uncovered while they packed to move into Dave's house. It had been a gift, her mother explained, from an old lady at the hospital the night she was born. Her mother had only taken it to get rid of the insistent woman, and Lillian had never worn it until the day it fell out of a box in the attic of their old townhouse fifteen years later. She remembered vividly the shivers that raced up and down her spine; she also remembered vividly how the visions increased tenfold while she wore it. And after one week, she began to fear the shadows in the corners of her room, as she had as a child.

She had not worn the necklace since.

But something almost otherworldly possessed her to bring the necklace with her to LA. She continued to stare at the face of the moon.

"Lillian? You get lost?" her father's call from the bottom of the stairs startled her from her reverie.

"No, I'm coming!" She dropped the pendant onto the floor, grabbed her book and flew downstairs.

But not without one more look at the necklace that seemed to call out to her even into her dreams.