Hidden Moon

by K. R. Thompson

  Wynter turned the full effect of her ice blue eyes on me, demanding, “What is it you require?”

  “Um, I came to return my book.” I held out the book she had given me. “It was very useful.” I stopped before I said “thank you.”

  She noticed and a slight smile curved her lips as she took the book from me. She held it up in the air by its spine.

  “Find your place,” she told the book. I watched in fascination as A History of the County of Bland picked itself out of her hand and went floating to one of the bookshelves, squeezing between two other volumes that shifted over to make room.

  As if in approval, Wynter gave a slight nod. It left me wondering if her books ever misbehaved. The books that were her clothes fluttered softly and caught my attention. The pages flipped and I could see tiny, elaborate writing on the small squares of paper.

  “Is there something else you need?” Wynter asked. Her voice hadn’t warmed even the slightest bit.

  “Mrs…?” What did I call her? I wondered. She didn’t look like sour, old Mrs. Graham, so it didn’t seem right to call her that.

  “I am Spriteblood. Those who know of me call me by name, and those who do not, shall never hear it. They will only hear the name of the woman whose image they see. I am known as Wynter,” she said, with a slight incline of her head.

  Taking it as an introduction of sorts, I smiled at her. It felt as though I were making some small progress in the strange world of the supernatural.

  “The others do not know you have come.” She bared her razor-sharp teeth in a way that did not imply friendliness.

  Nope, no progress. She may eat me. I took a deep breath and decided to try anyway.

  “No, ma’am. They don’t know I’m here, but they won’t ask you what they need to know, so I came alone.”

  “Their old ones asked many years ago,” she corrected, looking thoughtful as her teeth were hidden again.

  “Would you tell me what the truth is? Do you know who the monster is?” I asked.

  “What you name monster lives in us all,” she said sadly, and turned to walk away from me.

  I was afraid that she wasn’t going to tell me anything else, so I didn’t stop to think. I just acted. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

  She stopped in mid-stride. I wasn’t the only one who realized my mistake, but now it was too late to take it back.

  “They should walk their Deadlands,” Wynter said in a sorrowful voice. “Slowly.”

  I ran out of the library with my heart racing. I had asked for help and gotten it, but I had also promised to help her, with anything.

  The entire drive to the Res, I kept thinking of the bedtime story of the fairies that live under the hill, and wondered what payment I would have to give her when the time came.

  I don’t know if they had heard my heart hammering that loud, or if it was the way I slid sideways into the driveway and parked, but Adam and Erik walked out to meet me before I could jump out of the car.

  “What’s going on? Are you all right?” Adam opened the door of the Jeep and I jumped out.

  “I just talked to Wynter,” I said in a puff, feeling as if I had run the entire way instead of driven.

  “That explains the hurry.” Erik rolled his eyes. “What did ye ol’ fairy queen have to say?”

  Please tell me that you didn’t thank her, Adam’s voice begged through my mind.

  I looked over at him and shook my head, “Well, no, I didn’t do that. She says you should walk through your cemetery, slowly.”

  “Huh?” Erik’s face was utter confusion.

  “Are you sure that’s what she said?” Adam asked. “Tell us word for word.”

  “She said, They should walk through their Deadlands. Slowly.” I repeated.

  “Ah, okay. That makes somewhat better sense,” Erik said with a nod.

  What did you have to promise to get her help?

  “I’d rather not say,” I said quietly.

  Will you tell me everything later?

  I nodded, and Adam turned to Erik. “Call the others. We’ll search.”

  Erik ran around the corner of the house. A second later, an ear-splitting howl pierced the air. Within moments, Ed, Tommy and Michael arrived and the group shifted to wolves. Adam had been the only wolf I had seen, but the others looked exactly like those in my dreams. Five sleek, beautiful wolves turned to run into the woods.

  “Can I go, too?” I asked.

  Sure, come on, Adam waited as I hopped up on his back.

  “What are the Deadlands?” I asked as he started to run.

  Magical places. I know with the name, that’s not the way it sounds. There are places in the forest where there was so much magic, it soaked into the earth. Anything that breathes stays away from the Deadlands since they have a foreboding feeling. It’s as if these places don’t want anyone or anything around. We can’t even scent anything there. The magic blocks us. I’m guessing that’s why Wynter said to walk slowly. I felt his shoulders twitch in a shrug.

  In a few moments, the atmosphere changed and the wolves slowed to a walk. The wind blew in a sudden gust that threw dead leaves into our faces as if it wanted us to stay away. The next instant, there was dead calm. There were no birds chirping high up in the trees, no bugs buzzing around us, no snakes slithering through the underbrush. The complete silence was unnerving and spooky. Tall, dark trees bent in strange angles. This place looked a lot like the one I had walked through to get berries. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

  Tommy let out a low whine and tucked his tail between his legs.

  I hate this place, his voice shook uneasily in my head.

  Not finding my voice, I nodded my head in agreement. I didn’t like it either.

  We walked slowly through the trees. I had gotten used to the branches moving out of the way anytime that Adam and I walked through the woods. They always moved, as if trying to accommodate us. But here, briars reached out, clawing and twining into the wolves’ fur. I heard a sharp yip, and looked back to see Ed limping, holding up his front paw.

  He shifted back to human form and inspected his hand, “I stepped on a frigging briar.”

  I jumped off Adam’s back and went over to help. What he had called a briar looked to be an inch long chunk of wood that was stuck deep in his palm. He sucked in his breath, grabbed the end of it, and gave it a quick jerk.

  Blood welled up from the wound. I reached into my pocket and handed him a tissue. A few droplets fell to the dry dirt before he managed to squash the tissue in his fist. The ground shook, and seemed to suck the blood in. A loud moan erupted from the earth and the clouds blocked out the sun for what seemed an eternity. We all stayed frozen in place, afraid to move. Then, the sky cleared.

  Okay, so that was weird, Erik announced, letting out his breath in a snort.

  “It’s a Deadland.” Ed shrugged, squeezing the tissue tight. “It thrives on magic. And blood, too, it seems.”

  “I wouldn’t call it thriving,” I mumbled. The dead-looking trees looked even more imposing with their energy boost from Ed’s blood.

  I felt Adam behind us. He came over and took my hand, then told the others, “Split up, but always stay within sight of someone. We’ll cover more territory that way. Walk slowly and use your eyes. Your nose won’t do you any good here,” He looked over at Ed, who still clutched the tissue trying to staunch the blood. “How’s the hand?”

  “Not healing yet,” Ed said, opening his hand for Adam’s inspection. Free of the tissue, blood welled back up and covered his palm a bright red. Adam reached over and closed Ed’s hand around the soggy tissue.

  “Keep it tight. Try not to let anymore blood drop. We don’t want to feed this Deadland any more magic. It doesn’t want us here and your blood will make it stronger. Nikki, have you got anymore tissues?”

  “No, that’s all I had,” I said as I searched my pockets to be sure.

  “If it doesn’t heal up soon, you go back and wait for us. If you nee
d to head back to the Res, get my grandpa to look at it. He may know how to counter the magic,” Adam told Ed, who gave him a silent nod.

  Adam squeezed my hand. “Let’s look around. Stay close and don’t let go of me, okay?”

  “You’ve got it,” I said, holding his hand in a death grip. This place was spooking me out. It seemed to be watching every move we made.

  A dried up creek lay in front of us with a scraggly tree on the other side. The tree’s roots were splayed, as if it were trying to find water. It was here Ed went to investigate. The rocks under his feet clattered as he walked across them.

  “Oh, great,” I heard him say, and looked over to see his hand spurting blood. A dark stream fell to the ground. The rocks surrounding Ed, clanked. I watched in horror as a root freed itself and crawled its way toward Ed, who for some reason, was engrossed in watching the blood fall from his hand.

  “Look out!” I screamed. A split second before the root reached out to snare him, Adam slammed into Ed, rolling them both to the edge of the Deadland.

  Avoiding the root that was now rolling itself in Ed’s blood, Adam came back out to get me. Running to the safety of the trees with me in tow, he threw back his head and let out an ear-splitting howl to call the others back.

  Within seconds, Erik, Tommy and Michael stood with us at the edge of the Deadland. Ed sat in the exact spot where Adam had left him, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

  “I think I’d better go back,” he said in a shaky voice. “I don’t feel right.”

  “We’ll all go.” Adam nodded, as he took in everyone’s scrapes and scratches. “We’ve fueled it too much to search. It’s alive and bloodthirsty.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ed said dejectedly. “It was as if nothing mattered. I just stood there and watched myself bleed. It didn’t hurt. I think I would have stood there as long as it wanted until it was satisfied.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Adam reached out and put a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll come back once it’s calmed down. Let’s go get you fixed up.”

  The way back took quite a bit longer being as both Ed and I walked. Erik offered to let Ed ride on his back, the same way that I did with Adam. Ed hadn’t even bothered with a reply, he just gave Erik a steely look, and marched through the trees ahead of us.

  Oh well, I tried, Erik shrugged, trudging after his friend.

  It was nearing nightfall when we made it to Adam’s grandfather’s house. As if he heard us approach, the old man opened his door and motioned us in. He took note of Ed cradling his hand.

  “You sit over here,” he said, pointing the boy over to a chair by the window, and then turned to Adam, saying, “What dark magic have you brought with you?”

  “It was one of the Deadlands, Grandpa,” Adam said, not looking the old man in the eye. “We were told to search there.”

  His grandfather watched him through keen, sharp eyes, and then turned and looked at me. “Who told them to search there?”

  “The Spriteblood,” I said meekly.

  The old man muttered under his breath, and from the way Adam’s face flushed, I was guessing that he wasn’t very impressed with Wynter. He started gathering various things from cupboards, setting them down on a small table in front of Ed.

  After a few moments of crushing things in a wooden bowl, he scooped them onto a flat shell and lit the ingredients on fire, chanting as a small plume of smoke wafted up in front of Ed’s face.

  Singing a low, lulling chant, he fanned smoke over Ed for a few moments, and then stood and covered the rest of us in the same manner.

  It was as if a dark haze lifted off us as the old man went back to sit across from Ed. He took a small bundle from his pocket, and began to unwrap it. The same stone I had seen when I had met the elders, the Wolf Stone, glowed in an eerie, bluish light. He took Ed’s injured hand and laid the Stone directly on the wound.

  The Stone held magic. An eerie, ghostlike howl echoed through the room. Ed’s cream colored mist surrounded him, and his wolf came to peer at us from behind his brown eyes. The blood that had leaked from the hole in his hand, suddenly changed direction and bubbled around the stone as it made its way back into his body.

  Once every trace of blood had gone, the old man took the Stone from Ed’s hand. The skin was new, as if nothing had happened. As he wrapped the Stone and slid it back into the safety of his pocket, the old man looked sharply at Adam.

  “I suppose you’ll take greater care next time.” It sounded more like a statement than a request.

  “Yes, sir,” Adam said, a smile quirking at his lips as if he had seen the twinkle in the old man’s eyes.

  “Off with you, then,” he said, shooing us toward the door as he picked up his remote, “Jeopardy will be on soon, and you have places to be.” He pointed at me. “Her mother will be looking for her. If she gets angry with you, that’s something I can’t fix.”

  “He’s right, you know,” Adam said as the door shut behind us. “If I don’t get you home soon, your mom is going to kill us.” He looked over at Ed, “Everything okay, now?”

  Ed nodded. “Never better.”

  “Alright, let’s go,” Adam said as he shifted into his wolf.

  “Huh-uh,” I said, looking at the woods, then over at his driveway where a safe-looking Jeep sat. “You’re driving me.”

  “How many Deadlands are there?” I asked, once in the sanctity of the Jeep. I buckled my seatbelt.

  “Quite a few. We’ll search them one at a time. I’ve never seen them take on a personality of their own like that before.” The small frown between his eyes furrowed into a deep line.

  “Promise you’ll be careful,” I said as I took his hand in mine.

  He smiled, leaning over to kiss me, and then promised, “Always.”

  THE NEXT WEEK the Keepers searched day and night. They didn’t even make it to school. What time they were home, they slept. I didn’t see Adam at all that week, though he called a few times. It was also during this week that Tiffany went missing. One day she was at cheerleading practice, the next she vanished. And, once again, she made the front page of the school newspaper. This time, the headline read, “Have you seen Tiffany?”

  But it seemed no one had.

  The lack of seeing Adam, coupled with the strange disappearance of my arch nemesis, had unease seeping through every pore of my being.

  Adam picked up on it, and surprised me by showing up for a quick visit before he left on another search. It was the first football game of the season that night, so I couldn’t have been happier to see him.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered, brushing his lips against my forehead. “Something is telling me I shouldn’t go, that I shouldn’t let you out of my sight tonight.”

  “I don’t want you to go, but you’ll have to.” I snuggled next to him on the front porch swing.

  “I know,” he said as he wrapped me close in his arms. “But I really don’t want to go this time. I’ve missed you, but this is different. It’s a weird feeling that I’ve got.”

  “I’ve missed you too, but everything is fine.” I tilted back my head to look up at him.

  A cool wind picked up, rocking the swing. A few strands of silky hair blew loose from the thick plait at his back. Worry etched lines around his golden eyes as he looked back down at me.

  If it weren’t so dangerous for the others to search alone, his voice whispered, I’d stay right here with you tonight.

  “Ooh.” I grinned. “That would be nice.”

  “You know what I mean. Besides, your little sister is inside so we have to behave,” he chided as he reached around and tugged my scrunchie loose, setting my curls free. “It would be nice to stay with you, but something is making me want to stay so I can protect you. It started as soon as I stepped on the porch. I can’t explain it.”

  “What’s going to happen is that I will be cheering my little heart out with the rest of the squad in a little while as you and the pa
ck go search another Deadland. Hopefully, our evil blonde Barbie will bring her skanky butt back and grace us with her presence,” I said, blowing a blonde corkscrew out of my eyes.

  “Dad says they are still keeping an eye on Brian. He was the last one to see her,” Adam said, avoiding my eyes.

  “He didn’t do anything to her, Adam. You know that,” I said suddenly, feeling warmth creep up into my cheeks. “She could have just ran off to get attention. You know how Tiffany is. Besides, your dad already took him in and questioned him.”

  “How did you know that? Did Brian decide to answer your calls? As far as I know, his own mother doesn’t even know they questioned him, Dad made sure she was patrolling the other side of town when they brought him in.”

  “No, he didn’t call me,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. “Mom saw him there and she told me.”

  “I’m sorry, Nikki.” His voice softened as he took my hand in his. “You’re probably right. Tiffany probably ran off to get everyone in an uproar, it’s something that she would do. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you care about him, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Brian didn’t have anything to do with it, Adam, you’ve got to believe that.”

  “He probably didn’t. I’ve known Brian for a long time, and he’s always seemed like a good guy,” he conceded. “But something has changed in him. Everyone is noticing it. He’s not the same guy you met a couple months ago. Promise me you’ll be careful, really careful, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered. “I promise.”

  A sudden howl, not-so-deep from the forest, made me jump and sent the chains on the swing clinking.

  “They’re waiting for me,” Adam said wryly. “Erik’s not known for his patience, and his timing usually sucks.”

  I laughed and got up from the swing with him. He hugged me close, squeezing me as tight as he dared, and then set me down. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He leaned forward and kissed me as the air swirled and sparked around us. The rest of the world melted away.