Haunted Moon (A Moon Coven Series Novella)

by K. B. Miller

  Chapter Two

  I pretended to be asleep when Colleen entered our room prepared for bed. I evenly paced my breathing, adding to the effect. Thankfully, she must have bought my little show, because she didn’t bother trying to wake me. Colleen climbed into bed, and within the hour I knew that slumber had over taken her by the way that her chest rose and fell. I felt blessed that her dreams wouldn’t be marred with the tormented snapshots that plagued me. All night long I paced my small bedroom floor. Image after image flooded my head- his deranged eyes, and Ma’s face just before she plunged the stake into his chest, and the vampire’s body turning to ash.

  The first Wiccan law, which had also been most absolute, was ‘if it harms none, do what ye will’. She took his life...she had harmed him, my mother was no better than a common murderer was.

  “Leeny, are you okay?” my sister asked.

  I jumped, hearing my sister’s voice snapped me out of my waking nightmare. I turned to find her enquiring eyes watching me.

  “I’m...” I left the unfinished statement to hang stagnant in the air. I checked again to make sure that all of my things were ready for school. At dawn, it was obvious that sleep had eluded me. It was then that I had gotten dressed and readied everything meticulously for the day. I followed my sister’s gaze to my chest.

  I hastily shoved my grimoire in between two of my textbooks, hiding it from Colleen. I hadn’t realized that I had been clutching it to my body.

  “She killed a vampire last night...,” I whispered.

  Not meeting her eyes as Colleen untangled herself from the blankets that seemed to have gobbled her up.

  “Finally!” my sister screeched. She tossed the blanket back onto the bed as she got to her feet.

  Creak.

  I heard the floorboards as she moved and inherently knew that Colleen was headed in my direction

  “That’s what we’re supposed to do. Why are you acting so weird about it?” she asked nonchalantly, as she paused at the door.

  When it was clear that I wasn’t going to respond, she opened our door, and walked out into the hallway. I heard the water running in the bathroom and took that opportunity to escape her inevitable line of questioning. I knew her, and this wasn’t over.

  I hastily grabbed my necessary items and left my bedroom door open upon my departure. I shuffled the burden in my arms, trying to straighten my pile so that I could see while walking down the staircase that would inevitably be my death. I could smell my mother before I could see her; the wild lilies that she used to make her homemade perfume were my favorite. In the past, whenever I smelled those familiar aromas, I felt safe. This morning, however, it signaled something different. It alerted me that I was in close proximity to someone I no longer felt I could trust implicitly.

  “Mornin, pumpkin.” my Da greeted me cheerfully.

  I moved my mouth slightly, in a half hearted attempt at a smile and continued to the chair, depositing my belongings on the corner of the table and pulled one of the already made bowls of porridge towards me. I had just picked up my spoon.

  “I need you home right after school today. After last night, I have decided to begin your formal hand to hand training immediately,” she said.

  Clink.

  My spoon fell from my hand into the bowl. My eyes flew up to meet hers. They were stern, resolute. She was not going to allow me to back out of this, even though the thought of having to take another’s life sickened me. I tersely nodded, as I picked my utensil back up and wolfed down my breakfast. I needed to figure out how to get through to her, to make her understand that I just couldn’t do this. She couldn’t possibly expect her daughter to become...a killer, could she?

  Colleen bounded down the stairs, grabbing a piece of toast and her lunch. She acted as if nothing was wrong, and I guess in her eyes, nothing was wrong. She still believed that as witches, our job was crystal clear...kill vampires. Unfortunately it wasn’t so cut and dry in my head. I heard all of their voices morph into a conversation. I tuned out. After a few minutes, I noticed that the dialogue had died down. I chanced a glance at Colleen, only to catch her eyes boring into mine. I shook my head as imperceptibly as possible to relay to her that this was not the time for her barrage of questions and finished eating. I grabbed my dishes and put them into the sink. She’d kissed my parents already and was waiting for me by the door. Once we had made it out of the cottage, my sister began her long awaited interrogation.

  “So...what happened last night?” she began.

  I fidgeted with the button on my coat as I walked, making sure that my gaze stayed in front of me. I somberly recounted the horrific episode to my sister. When I had finished, I finally looked to her, in hopes that she would see, what I did. Her response surprised me.

  “Leeny, what should she have done? Scolded him for being a naughty little vampire for trying to kill her daughter and sent him on his way,” she cackled.

  The road ended and we stepped onto the pebbled walkway that led in behind the school. I fell back a few paces, allowing her to take the lead on our narrowing path. Irritation had finally bubbled its way to the surface.

  “Stop being an arse. I’m not saying that. However, you didn’t see what it was like, what she was like. The smirk on her face, and the way that she taunted him, it scared me. She didn’t kill him to save me, she did it for revenge!” I yelled.

  She stopped dead in her tracks on the aged and rough stones, placing one hand on her tiny hip. She spun on her heel to face me. Her calculating eyes fixed on my face.

  “Aileen-Fionna Moon, who cares why she did it, those filthy monsters have been slaughtering our ancestors for centuries. What if she did do it for revenge? At least she had the nerve to do it,” she reeled.

  I jumped back at her words. She looked at me with utter revulsion written all over her face. Seeing that expression directed toward me, from my best friend...my sister, felt like someone had shoved a stake deep into my own chest.

  “You don’t understand, Colly,” I whispered.

  “Everyone keeps telling me how I’m not mature enough to be initiated yet, but it’s you that hasn’t grown up enough to appreciate what being a Moon witch truly means,” Colleen said.

  She turned around and stomped up the path to school, leaving me in her wake totally shell-shocked.

  Throughout the school day I tried talking to her, but if she noticed me walking in her direction, her and her gaggle of friends would turn and walk away.

  “Yesterday my life was perfect. Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” I said aloud to myself.

  “Why are we falling, love?” I recognized the voice immediately, Mary Katherine McNamara. Our mums had been the best of friends in their youth. They were separated when Liza’s family had taken off to the States. She met and married a native Indian. Liza had settled down, creating a family and home of her own there. My mum used to tell stories of how she and her best friend would talk for hours about everything. She had even disclosed our family secret to her, which was right around the time that my Aunt Anne was killed.

  Mary Katherine and her brother Seamus had just come back to Galway a couple of months back to help their ailing aunt. I turned around with a small smile on my face.

  “Oh, you know the usual. Family issues,” I tried to giggle, but it came out as more of a desperate croak. I shook my head.

  “Anything new?” I asked as we started walking to our next class.

  “Well, I’ve just seen my next boyfriend in the hall. He was snogging Agatha Muldavy. I plan on showing him a real snog later today,” she purred.

  I shook my head, giggling and we walked into our foreign affairs room. After my last class I found my sister had already begun walking home with her friends. Obviously time hadn’t given her any clarity on my feelings or lessened her apparent resentment towards me. I fumbled with my books and started the short walk home, alone.

  The journey was a bit of a blur as I tried to work things out in my head. I knew that the vampi
res were evil, and that most of them needed to be destroyed. Nevertheless, there had always been the discussions of the good ones, the ones with the green eyes that wanted to exterminate their counterparts from our society. We protected humans in hopes that we, as witches would find a way to reverse the curse that our ancestor had started. So, if there were “good” vampires, why couldn’t we rehabilitate the “bad” ones?

  “Put on some loose clothes,” my mother stated.

  I glanced up, realizing that I had been completely lost in my thoughts. I gave a slight nod and went upstairs and reluctantly changed.

  I met my mother in the yard. Stakes were laid out on the ground in front of her. She lifted her eyes and captured mine. Her dark wavy hair flew out behind her in the gentle breeze.

  “We are going to begin with you commanding the flames, that will be your first line of defense,” she said as she oriented herself directly in front of me.

  “Yes, mother,” I replied.

  She raised her arm and gave her wrist a slight flick. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have missed it.

  “Fire!” she commanded. On cue, fire poured from seemingly nowhere, and shot right past my head.

  “Now, here is what I want you to do. Focus. See the flames welling up inside of you. Accept that you are a powerful Moon witch. Let everything else inside of you go,” she instructed.

  I tried several times to clear my head of everything save the task at hand, but as soon as I was just about there, the image of Dillon turning to ash popped into my head.

  “You are not trying!” my mother demanded. It was a statement.

  “I am trying, but I can’t seem to block out the face of the vampire that you killed!” I screamed.

  I knew instantly that I was in trouble. My mother did not yell, or even chase you around with a stick when she was mad. No, she would become silent and ignore you until you had made amends. Her face revealed shock at my words, which quickly turned stoic as she rounded up the stakes from the ground and headed back for the house, leaving me in the yard without another thought.

  I walked into the house and went straight up to my room. I grabbed my grimoire and began writing.

  November 22, 1947

  For so long, my entire focus was on becoming a strong and powerful witch, just like my mother. However, today’s events showed that I may not be cut from the same cloth as she. I desperately tried to conjure fire to no avail. It was one of the many things that I had been looking forward to. My mother accused me of not trying. Lovely. The part that I wouldn’t try is taking another’s life with absolutely no regret the way she had. I can already tell that tomorrow is going to be no better. Maybe Colleen was right. She would be the stronger witch.

  Blessed be ~ Leeny