Perigee Moon

by Fuller, Tara

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Tara Fuller

  www.crescentmoonpress.com

  Perigee Moon

  Tara Fuller

  ISBN: 978-1-937254-35-3

  E-ISBN: 978-1-937254-36-0

  © Copyright Tara A. Fuller 2012. All rights reserved

  Cover Art: Jeannie Ruesch

  Editor: Ty Johnson

  Layout/Typesetting: jimandzetta.com

  Crescent Moon Press

  1385 Highway 35

  Box 269

  Middletown, NJ 07748

  Ebooks/Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Crescent Moon Press electronic publication/print publication: January 2012 www.crescentmoonpress.com

  DEDICATION

  For Colten and Caden

  Chapter 1

  Something changed today. I can feel it in my bones; the same quiet fear that shook me in the moments before they came, torches blazing, to take mother away. The winds have shifted. The Goddess is at my door. And I find myself filled with fear for the unknown. To make matters worse I dreamt of her again, this beautiful creature whose name I fear I will never know. I awoke this morning, her face still fresh in my mind and somehow I knew that life as I knew it would never be the same.

  ~ Alexander 1692

  ***

  Death. It’s all I’d been able to feel for months. A black burning ache that worked its way through my veins. Stealing my breath. Branding my insides. It’s what I felt as my dad looked me over like I was something in the house that needed fixing, his dark eyebrows drawn, his mouth holding back an ocean of words that neither of us could stand to hear again. I ran my fingers over the puckered pink line that now creased each of my wrists and swallowed hard. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now…now it seemed stupid. Trying to solve death with death. But in my defense there hadn’t been a lot of room for thoughts at the time. Not when I was drowning in everyone’s grief, including my own. This was the problem with being born with a freakish ability that caused you to be able to feel the emotions of anyone standing within a ten-foot radius. Pain prickled. Anger burned. Sadness throbbed, a hollow ache in the pit of my chest. Didn’t matter that none of it belonged to me. I still felt every miserable ounce of it.

  I twisted my Mom’s birthstone ring around my finger and stared down at a faded muddy boot print someone had left on Bevin’s concrete driveway. A possible leftover from one of the fire fighters that had been tromping through the ash before heading across the street to Bevin’s to tell us Mom was gone. I’d already known. Standing there across the street surrounded by screams, I’d felt every ounce of life seep out of her like water through a sieve. I placed my own foot on top of the print, wishing I could be that person–anyone but me.

  “Rowan?” Dad closed the space between us cautiously. I wished I couldn’t feel the regret and indecision pouring out of him like sweat.

  “It’s okay Dad. Just go. I’ll be fine,” I promised, letting my dark hair fall like a veil across my eyes so that he couldn’t see the uncertainty behind them.

  “Isn’t this the part where I’m supposed to say that this is insane and that families stick together? Shouldn’t I be ordering you to get in the car with us right now?” he said in a strained voice.

  My eyes shot to the newly sprouted streak of grey that now marred his otherwise chestnut colored hair. I couldn’t even remember when the color had changed. And the lines that etched a worried look permanently onto his forehead, those were new too.

  “It’s really okay Dad. It’s better this way–for both of us.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, determined not to let him see how much this was costing me.

  “I just...” His eyes traced the scars on my wrists, then looked away. He could never look at me for longer than a few seconds anymore. It was always the same game. Eye contact, followed by memories of my mother and my bleeding wrists. Seven seconds max. He watched a patch of clouds wander lazily overhead. “I just don’t know what to do anymore Rowan. Tell me what to do.”

  He sighed when I didn’t answer.

  “What would your Mom do?”

  “She would tell you to stop wasting daylight and get in the car already. She would say that it’s time for Rowan to have her own adventure and that it will be really good for you and Cameron to spend some quality time together. And more importantly, she would say that she loves you. And so do I Dad. So go.” We both smiled knowing that it was exactly what my Mom would say.

  “I love you kid,” he said and cleared his throat, moisture filling his eyes. “Please don’t…”

  He didn’t have to finish. Don’t do anything stupid. Or rather don’t do anything stupid again. I nodded.

  “I’ll try to visit,” he said. “Maybe when your Aunt Abby has the baby we’ll come through town. Spend some time together. What do you think?” He was lying. He had no intention of visiting. I could tell from the uncomfortable twist in his gut. I nodded and took one last lingering look at my dad. No matter what he said I knew it would be my last for a while. He was willing to do anything to get away from my face, my scars. And I was going to let him.

  “Rowan are you ready? You don’t want to miss your flight,” my best friend Bevin spoke up from behind me. I turned to see her holding my bag poised at the driver’s side door of her latest ridiculous birthday gift. A little silver BMW. She was still dressed in her cheerleading uniform from school that day, her eyes red and rimmed with smudged mascara. She looked like a raccoon with team spirit. I felt my lips turn up into something that resembled a smile. Was I ready to leave my home, my friends, what was left of my family behind? No.

  But instead of admitting that I just said, “Yeah. Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  My little brother Cam fidgeted awkwardly next to Bevin’s car, pretending he wasn’t eyeing her short skirt or her clingy top. He was all lanky limbs and freckles, topped off with a flop of reddish brown hair. At thirteen he was the poster child for puberty. I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed.

  “Take care of Dad Cam,” I whispered before breaking the unspoken brother sister code that said we were supposed to loath each other and planted a kiss on his cheek. I grinned down at him when he didn’t even try to wipe it away.

  “Rowan, be safe. Okay?” he said.

  I nodded, wondering why they hadn’t just made up a big banner for my send-off that said: Hey Rowan. Don’t kill yourself!. It would have saved us a lot of time if you asked m
e. I let myself steal one last glimpse of the charred rubble that was once our home before the fire. The ashes that used to be house. The ashes that used to be Mom. I couldn’t tell them apart. I stood there staring in horror until the pain thrumming in my chest forced me to look away.

  “Let's go Bev.” I grabbed my bag from her and tossed it in the back seat. I could still feel Dad behind me, nervous and fatigued, his feelings awkwardly pulling at me, prickling my mind. I didn’t look back. Instead I stared at my lap, watching the way the sun cast shadows that swam across my jeans like charcoal ghosts of fish.

  The car pulled away.

  I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 2

  Mother is gone. It has been two months since her death and I cannot bear her loss. First father and now her. I feel like an empty glass bottle tossed to sea, hollow and drowning in an ocean of black waves. The magic within me is steadily dying and I can feel my mother’s Goddess frowning upon my wounds. My father’s God is trying to lend me strength but somehow it always gets lost before it finds me. Nothing can save me now. Aunt Marion has been kind. She has taken me in. Even being the irrefutable half-breed that I am she has accepted me. Half witch, the blood of my mother. Half puritan, the blood of my father. Have the God’s ever created such a misfit? I have moved into her home on the outskirts of Salem Village. It’s a small community here, far from the watchful eyes of the village, and the house is double the size of the cottage I was raised in. But even here, a three-hour ride from Salem and an ocean away from the witch hysteria in Europe, we are not safe. Since the day of Mother’s hanging, suspicious eyes have been on me, waiting for me to slip. I attend church with Aunt Marion every week. I sit in the wooden pews, hands folded, praying. Praying that they won’t find me out. Praying that I won’t end up with a noose around my neck like mother. Writing my secrets, my truth, in this book of shadows has become my last source of hope that I will not lose myself to this madness. Mother was a high priestess. The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Her magic was pure and bright. Her power unsurpassed and above all I have ever seen. And even she was found out. What chance do I have? Aunt Marion is a great master of deception. The people in this village think she is the most devout puritan of them all. Ha! The fools. She sits in on their hearings, and lends her voice while they persecute witches like mother, while she herself is the high priestess of a coven crafting black magic to smite them all. A high priestess clamoring for dark power. I do not doubt that if I abide by her rules that she will keep me safe. But what of her cause? What of my soul if I join her?

  ~ Alexander 1692

  ***

  The sounds of a jet engine sliced through the air, rattling the car as Bevin paid to park. The sky was grey with thick overcast and rain droplets had started to pelt the windshield, a rhythmic countdown to my departure. The world around me looked colorless, depressing. I missed the sun.

  “Hey at least today was the last time you have to hear: ‘How does that make you feel Rowan?’” Bevin said in her best nasally impersonation of Mrs. Henderson, my school counselor.

  I stared out the window listlessly as Bevin pulled into a parking space in the crowded airport parking garage. The cars were packed under the concrete shelter like sardines. When I didn’t say anything, she sighed.

  “They aren’t going to make you see the counselor at your new school?” she said.

  “They can try.”

  “If you ask me, Mrs. Henderson doesn’t know her ass from her elbow when it comes to this stuff anyway,” she said.

  “And you do?” I asked. Bevin thought she knew what was best for everyone. Especially me.

  She flashed me a wicked smile and winked. “Yep.”

  “Go on. Tell me Bev. What do I need to drive the crazy out of me once and for all?” I urged her on, turning in my seat to face her.

  “You need a summer boy toy. Someone to do–whoops!” She grinned. “I mean something to do to take your mind off of things.” Perfect Bevin fashion. There was nothing in the world that a boy and a back seat couldn’t solve.

  “That is the last thing I need.”

  I cranked up the stereo to distract myself from the steady pulse of emotion that was streaming from Bevin and into me.

  Worry. Pain. Loss.

  It was a constant ebb and flow of raw heartache washing over me in a suffocating wave and then pulling back out to let me breath before starting the process all over again. She was masking it pretty well with all the jokes but I knew what was really going on inside. She was worried about me. And it was just enough to bring the soft pounding in my head up a notch to full-blown jack hammer status.

  I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, most of Bevin’s emotions safely blocked out for now. The hypnotic beat of Muse crashed through the speakers, blasting my eardrums till they were numb.

  “Loud enough? You know you could’ve just told me to shut my trap if you didn’t want my opinion,” Bevin shouted above the music as she swiped on another coat of lip gloss.

  I sighed and leaned over, turning the music off and pulling her keys from the ignition. She gave me a sad look that said she knew it was time to go, then we both climbed out of the car and made our way to the airport security gate.

  “I really wish you would have let me take you shopping before you left,” Bevin said, frowning at the shabby secondhand suite case that I carried, containing all that I owned in the world. A tattered copy of my favorite book, four outfits, and a small toiletry kit that my dad had picked up at the drug store the day before. The clothes and book had only been spared from the fire because I practically lived at Bevin’s house and happened to have my own stash there.

  “It’ll be fine.” I didn’t know what else to say her. Bevin had held my hand at my Mom’s funeral and wrapped the rags around my wrists that had saved my life. Sure she had attitude, her skirt was so short it was a Britney Spears incident waiting to happen and she was too opinionated for her own good, but for better or for worse she was my best friend. My sister for life. I couldn’t tell her goodbye. I just couldn’t.

  “Have Grams take you when you get there. Swear it. I can’t have you starting at a new school looking like this.” She made a sweeping motion displaying my faded jeans, old navy t-shirt, and worn out hoodie.

  “I’m not really worried about the clothes,” I said as I rubbed my scars. They still felt tender to the touch. I could already hear the whispers of my future classmates buzzing behind my thoughts. In a small town like Ipswich, Massachusetts, I’d be headline news once they got a good look at these.

  “I thought of that.” Bevin grinned and pulled two leather armbands from her purse. They were beautiful. Mahogany brown with intricate gold patterns etched into the leather. They looked like something a warrior princess would wear. Not some delusional girl whose own Dad couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.

  “Bev…” I stopped when she fastened them around each of my wrists covering the scars.

  “Now keep in mind you’ll have to dress accordingly for these to look right, but I think they’ll do the trick.” She stood back to admire her work.

  “Thanks Bev.” It was all I could manage past the irritating lump in my throat that had become a permanent fixture the last month.

  Bevin threw her arms around me and cried, and it was everything I could do to not crumble beneath her desperate grasp. “Call me every day,” she said. “And I want a full report of every cute guy in that town. I’m coming to visit soon so you better save a few for me.”

  I managed a laugh and squeezed her once more. “You better.”

  I kissed her cheek, staining my lips with her passion peach blush, and turned towards the security gate before her broken voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “I love you Rowan!” She cracked a smile and waved one last time.

  “I love you too,” I called as I dissolved into the crowd, unable to look at her again. I couldn’t handle any more goodbyes. Not with her pain and desperation pummeling me from every direction. Inste
ad I ducked my head down and stared at the scuffed tile floor and the army of unfamiliar shoes scuttling around me.

  After the cab had deposited me at the curb outside my grandparents, I just stood and stared at the house for a while. I hadn’t been here in years. At least five. I squinted against the sky, a dimming cloudless blue quickly dissolving into a lavender sunset, to get a good look at my new home. I had remembered the town being small and the house being huge. And now as I stood staring up at the enormous white columns and dark red shutters, shrouded by weeping willows, it didn’t disappoint. It was… historic? Beautiful? Timeless? Who was I kidding? It was creepy. Hella creepy. It looked like a museum or worse, a haunted house. I felt like I should have to pay admission to get into the place.

  “You’re here! You’re actually here!” Grandma Elinore stumbled down the porch steps nearly tripping as her feet tangled in her purple tunic-style dress. I didn’t have to look to know that her long grey hair was swept up into a dozen woven braids and the turquoise jewelry she claimed an old Indian medicine man gave her was dangling around her neck. I had to hand it to her though; my Grams was the only sixty-year-old I knew that could pull off the flower-child look. Grandpa Walter followed close behind, country to the core and the polar opposite of Grams.

  “How was your trip?” She pulled me into a bone-crunching hug. At least she wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand the look in her eyes as she examined her dead daughter’s daughter. It didn’t help that I was pretty much an exact replica of my mother, right down to my emerald green eyes and sharp pixie nose.

  “Long,” I admitted, stuffing my iPod into my pocket. Grandpa always thought it was disrespectful to be “plugged in” while people were trying to have a conversation with you. I didn’t need reminding.