Moonshadow

by Krystina Coles

  “How far is that?” Her question silenced me, and I looked to Kana’ti for a reasonable explanation. But he stared back at me with the same bewilderment. “We’re not in Oklahoma, are we?” The both of us opened our mouths in an effort to respond, but Heather lifted her head to gaze up at the ceiling at once; and I witnessed the light on her skin start to flicker.

  “That’s not you, is it?” I wasn’t sure if I really wanted an answer. We locked eyes as she lowered her face.

  “No. You?” I shook my head silently.

  I didn’t think my gift could have caused something like that.

  The sudden clap of feet meeting the floor echoed into the foyer, sending the four of us scrambling for each other. Heather let out a scream as one of the lamps mounted on the wall exploded in a shower of sizzling glass, and Kana’ti pulled me close to him as if his arms would keep me safe. Charlotte covered her head as she whispered, frantic.

  “What is this?” At her words, Iliana came running out of the corridor, eleven other faces trailing close behind.

  “What’s going on?” She wanted to know, breathless. “The lights started going crazy once we got to the hall.” I swallowed when I heard the Hunter’s heart skip a beat in his chest.

  “It’s my sons…” His voice trailed away as he murmured. I froze as a thunderous boom erupted from above and quickly seeped down into the walls, shaking the floor and causing the two armchairs to wobble in place. I trembled where I stood when there was suddenly nothing but silence, and darkness consumed the light around me. It was quiet for what felt like minutes—save for the whimpering that found its way into my ears, and Kana’ti shouted into the void. “Enough!”

  It was terrifying—how his voice seemed to match the thunder. For a moment, I had forgotten who he was.

  A deafening crack split the blackness in two when lightning struck the floorboards a few feet away from me, leaving smoldering ashes in its wake. And two pairs of glowing silver eyes met my own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  What We Find in Death

  “Melissa…” Kana’ti whispered to me, standing motionless in the darkness.

  “Yeah?” I couldn’t even look at him. I was still trapped inside those menacing eyes.

  “Now would be a good time to run.” The blood was pounding in my ears so loudly, I could barely understand what he was saying.

  “Not gonna happen.” I answered him, and he sighed in exasperation. “Hey,” I said when I finally turned my head to face him, “it’s not over yet.” Taking a deep breath, I stole a step forward. Tyler eyed me for a moment in silence, as if he were seeing someone else.

  “Are you Lyn?” He gazed at me expectantly, eyes wide; and I couldn’t come to terms with what he’d done.

  “Yeah. That’s me.” I replied. His face lit up with a beaming smile at my response.

  “I was hoping it was you.” I returned it with one of my own for a split second, forgetting everything that I had learned. But it immediately fell away.

  “You took our playthings…” Trenton crossed his arms as he pouted, glaring at the man standing beside me. “Give them back.” But he shook his head.

  “No.” He started. “They’re people, not objects.” The little boy narrowed his eyes in an attempt to understand.

  “But it’s fun.” Those words sent a chill down my spine, and I shivered in the sudden cold.

  Was I imagining it? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  “Tyler,” I looked to him in desperation, “you’re hurting people. I know you’ve been looking for me, and I’m here. So you can let them go.” I told him; and once again, I was staring at a pair of innocent brown eyes. I grinned, kneeling to meet his level as he slowly inched towards me. “I know what happened to your mom,” I began, “but it’s okay. But trying to replace her like this is wrong.” He faltered as I spoke and glanced at Trenton from over his shoulder. Wordlessly, they gazed at each other; and my heart sank into my stomach when he returned to his side.

  “She was a witch.” Trenton snapped in response. “Witches die.” I turned, horrified, to Charlotte; and the expression on her face was enough.

  “I understand.” I said, and Kana’ti stared at me in surprise. “Witches can be scary, but your mother was never going to hurt you.” I swallowed, gathering up the strength that I needed. “But you have to understand: I’m taking my friends home.” I whirled to lead the girls to the door, but something grasped my hand and held me back.

  Tyler.

  “Please don’t go.” He pleaded with me, frowning. “Daddy needs you. Stay.” I opened my mouth to speak, but the words failed me. And I looked back at Kana’ti, lingering a little longer than I should have.

  He didn’t have to say anything. I already knew it was true.

  I mouthed the words “I’m sorry” and gazed at Tyler apologetically.

  “I can’t.”

  “You will.” I turned in apprehension to find that Trenton’s young face had hardened in anger, and his hand had suddenly been raised over his head. There was a whimper at once, and it slowly built into a muffled scream.

  “Melissa!” Heather shouted my name, sending me in her direction—but only to find that she wasn’t the one who had screamed. Rebecca and Willow shrieked as Valerie stumbled backward, covering her face with her hands as blood hemorrhaged out of her eyes and seeped through her fingers; and deep burgundy bruises flowered over her arms and legs.

  “Make it stop!” She screeched again and again, but there was nothing I could do. “Make it stop!”

  “What are you doing?!” I cried, widening my own eyes in terror.

  “This is home now!” Trenton barked as he tightened his hand into a fist, and Valerie’s screams only grew louder and much more horrifying. She clawed at her forehead as crimson streamed out of her eyes and nose and stained her skin; and I looked to Kana’ti, helpless.

  “Stop this!” The room trembled under the weight of his voice; and I lifted my head to watch the chandelier sway a little above me, returning my attention to the Hunter and his children when I realized that he had seized Trenton’s arm. “Let this end.” He scolded him through clenched teeth. Trenton’s eyes darted to his wrist and then back to his father’s face in a silent glare. And then he spoke.

  “I don’t think I like you anymore.” A great flash of blinding light consumed the foyer before I could cover my eyes, and it died as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Kana’ti…” Sightless, I reached for him; and instantly, I felt his hands pull me towards him.

  “I’m here.” His golden aura chased the dark spots away from my sight, and I blinked to be sure of what I was seeing.

  Tyler and Trenton were gone.

  “Where did they go?” I breathed as I searched the room for a clue—anything that could have hinted to where they had disappeared to. A heavy sigh met my ears from behind me; and I whirled to find that the screaming had stopped, and Valerie’s bruises began to recede into themselves.

  “They’re playing with us.” Willow shuddered as she gingerly wrapped her arms around a weeping Valerie, and Gabrielle stepped forward.

  “Melissa, you have to kill them.”

  “Whoa…” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. “Since when has that ever been okay?”

  They were still children.

  The rumbling of distant thunder froze my heart in my chest, and I turned my head in the direction that it was coming from.

  The stairs.

  “Everybody down!” I yelled just as the atmosphere rippled, and a bright streak of electric blue shot across the room from the landing. It crackled over Jasmine’s head and struck a vase standing by the wall, sending shards of porcelain flying onto the floor.

  Despite my reservations, they were definitely intent on killing me.

  “Have you changed your mind, yet?” Jasmine called out over the bellowing thunder and earsplitting cacophony of lightning striking the walls and disintegrating everything in its path, and I hated myself for consid
ering it.

  “There has to be another way!” A powerful gale outmatched my words and sent my hair rushing violently around my head as I covered my ears. “There has to be another way…” I whispered to myself when something cold and wet started to fall on my back; and immediately, I was terrified that it was blood. But when I raised my face towards the ceiling, I knew that it wasn’t.

  Rain. It soaked the air in the form of a cloud of mist, growing heavier until large drops fell like bullets over my shoulders. And I was standing in a tempest in a single room.

  I gazed at the broken table engulfed in flames dying in the pouring rain; and Heather lifted her head up from behind it, her light green eyes illuminated in the hellish glow.

  “Heather!” I flailed my arm to gain her attention, holding my breath as she crawled through the rubble to reach me. Her auburn hair was plastered to the left side of her face with blood. “Are you okay?”

  It sounded like a stupid question to ask.

  But she nodded.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” I let out a sigh when she answered.

  She wouldn’t be.

  “I think I know where you’ve been going.” I breathed, and she leaned forward to hear more.

  “Really?” She stuttered. “H—how?”

  I can’t tell her. How could I tell her?

  I bit my lip.

  “I need your help.”

  I slowly rose to my feet and stared up at the rafters, blinking my eyes to keep the rain from blinding me. I glanced over my shoulder at Heather standing behind me and gave her a nervous smile. And I returned my gaze to the landing.

  “I’ll stay.” I spoke; and for what felt like minutes, I waited. But nothing happened. “Did you hear me?” I raised my voice. “I said I’ll stay!”

  “You won’t leave?” I turned towards Tyler’s voice to find the both of them waiting by their mother’s chair, and I shook my head.

  “No.” Trenton’s eyes suddenly softened at my answer; and Tyler sprinted to wrap his arms around me, beaming. “It’s okay.” I held my hand out for Trenton when he lowered his head to stare at the ground beneath him. And he smiled. He took my hand, and the world around us began to shift in and out of focus.

  The grand staircase disappeared from my sight, only to reappear covered in thick vines that strangled the twin bannisters and gave birth to roses. A field of grass emerged from the tile floor and rose high above my ankles, and the warmth of the sun enveloped every part of me. The sun.

  We were outside.

  I squinted my eyes in the newfound light to see that the violent storm had gone and left only silence in its place. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Melissa!” A figure darted across the open field to meet me; and as it came into view, I realized that it was Heather. I glanced down at my hands, trembling.

  They were empty. And I was alone.

  “Melissa!” She panted as she raced through the tall grass, pushing the blades away from her waist; and I hurried to her, closing the space between us in a grateful hug.

  “I don’t know where they went…” I uttered when I released her. I scanned the great expanse for the silhouettes of two little boys, but there was nothing.

  “There’s an apple tree,” Heather started; and I turned to listen, “by the river. I was hungry one night, and it was there when I fell asleep.”

  “And you didn’t eat from it?” I asked her, sure that I would have.

  I would have stayed here, too—or at least tried my hardest. It was so peaceful here. I would have done anything I could to stay in a place like this if I knew the Twins were my only other option.

  She shook her head.

  “No. I wanted to.” She confessed. “But then I wondered what that would make me—while everyone else was starving. And then, it started getting closer…every time I came back—like it wanted me take one. That’s where I left them.”

  “Oh…” I shuddered silently as I took in my surroundings.

  Suddenly, even the sea of grass that we were standing in felt different—like the monsters lurking beneath it had come to life.

  “It looked like home, before.” Heather mentioned, lost in this new place. “It’s never been like this.”

  “Maybe, it changes.” I suggested—more to myself than anyone else. “Maybe, it’s whatever you want it to be.” She stared off into the distance, seeing nothing more than a field of grass: still and unending.

  “What is ‘it’?” She wanted to know. “And why was Matthew here?” I could hear my heart beating faster in the eerie silence.

  “That’s…that’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you.” My voice cracked when I spoke, and she gazed at me expectantly as I cleared my throat. “He—we went to look for you on the island. But something else was waiting for us there.” I sputtered through my answer. “I didn’t know—I didn’t know what I do now. I didn’t know what was out there.”

  “What are you saying?” She asked me. I breathed deeply to keep myself from falling apart, but it wasn’t enough. And she looked at me with tearful eyes. “Melissa, what are you saying?”

  “I—I think this is Death.” I wasn’t sure if saying it would make it better, but now I knew that it wouldn’t. She covered her mouth as I watched her crumble from the inside, and she sank into the grass as she wept without a sound. I bent down in front of her, hating myself for something I couldn’t possibly have stopped.

  “Were you there?” It was a whisper, barely audible in the silence.

  “Yeah.” It was all I said.

  “How did he—” I couldn’t let her finish.

  “That’s not something—” I shook my head.

  She didn’t need to know. And then, I remembered.

  “He wanted me to tell you something.” She lifted her head up from her hands at my words. “He tried.”

  Heather and I stepped through the ruins of the foyer, through the puddles glowing in the light of the dying embers the Twin Thunder Boys had left behind. It was dark—I could barely make out the faces of Stephanie, Kerri, and April as they rose up from behind the overturned armchairs they had used for shelter. I held my hand over my head and let the light of the moon bathe the room in silver. And one by one, the rest emerged from their hiding places.

  “We weren’t sure if you were coming back…” April sheepishly stepped forward; and Heather wrinkled her forehead, as if in an attempt to recall where they had met.

  “It’s over?” Charlotte hurried to greet me from the bottom of the grand staircase, her transparent skin losing its color all too quickly. I nodded my head.

  “It’s over.” And she closed her eyes with a thankful sigh. Eva, Gabrielle, Jennifer, Jasmine, Valerie, Rebecca, Willow, and Chelsea—for the first time in months, I saw them smile; and I could finally breathe.

  But…where—

  “Where’s Iliana?” I walked past Charlotte to stand in the center of foyer, holding my hand towards the darkest parts of the room. But she wasn’t in any of them.

  “There!” Kana’ti shouted, pointing to a marble pedestal where the remnants of an urn lay scattered at its base. Scarlet drops splattered on the floor from what appeared to be nothing; but the outline of Iliana Lopez materialized as the pillar crashed to the floor and split in half, and she slumped onto the tiles beside it. Without a thought, I raced to her, my feet shattering the amber mirrors on the floor as I ran through the water. I knelt down beside her as she stared up at the ceiling, pale lips trembling.

  “Sorry.” She spoke through shallow breaths. “I screwed up your rescue.” She grimaced and placed her hand over her stomach, but it wasn’t enough to cover the gaping hole. And I saw that it was rimmed with the singed fabric of her blouse.

  Lightning. It was the only explanation.

  “I guess I won’t be going home after all.” A tear escaped the corner of her eye and left her face to lose itself in the water below.

  “No.” Rebecca clasped her hands around hers and squeezed them tightly. “You’re
going home. All of us are.” But she lifted her eyes to stare at me pleadingly, holding back tears of her own. “Can you do anything?” Whatever hope in her voice died when I shook my head.

  “I think I can…” I turned my head when I heard Heather speak, and I found her gazing down at Iliana from where she was standing.

  The way that she was staring at her—and then I knew.

  “You’re not—” I rose to my feet, whispering.

  She couldn’t.

  “She’s gonna die.” She tried to reason with me. “If you could do it, wouldn’t you?”

  I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t.

  “Then it’s settled.” She took my silence for an answer, bending down to join the others around her.

  “What are you going to do?” Eva asked her from where she was sitting. Heather glanced up at her before setting her attention on Iliana once again, and she gingerly set a hand on her shoulder.

  “There’s a place that I can take her.” She breathed in response. “Time freezes; wounds stop bleeding. But she can’t go there alone. Someone’s going to have to stay with her until we figure out how to fix this.”

  “I’ll go.” Rebecca replied, almost instantly. “She’s my friend. I’ll keep her safe.”

  “Okay.” Heather looked over her shoulder to smile at me as she began to flicker in and out of sight. “I’ll see you on the other side.” And she was gone.

  “Kana’ti…” He stood up from the floor and sprinted to me when I called his name, his wet dark hair clinging to the back of his neck.

  “Yeah?” He reached out to touch my arm as he spoke, and it was exactly as I had remembered.

  But this time, there was no mystery. This was the way that it was supposed to be.

  “Wait here until Heather comes back. The rest of us will meet you at the bridge.” He narrowed his eyes; and for a moment, I thought it was in reaction to my request. “What’s wrong?”

  “Who told you to be afraid of me?” At first, I didn’t understand the question.