Moonset tlom-1

by Scott Tracey

  The bell rang, and the halls emptied out as everyone who knew where they were going slipped into their classrooms.

  “The science building is through the walkway there,” the guidance counselor pointed to the rear of the building. “Mr. Daggett, you’ll be in SC 201. Mr. Denton, you’re in 114. Show the teacher your copy of your schedules and you should be fine.”

  Even though the woman had barely introduced herself before hustling us off, and hadn’t bothered to really greet us at all, I still smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  She turned to go, but then hesitated and turned back, looking concerned. “Try and stay out of trouble, boys.”

  Our reputation preceded us.

  We compared our schedules as we headed out the doors and into the science building. Both of us were on a “B Schedule,” whatever that was. It was also confusing since we didn’t start the day with homeroom like most of the other schools I’d been to. We started out with our science labs, then homeroom, another couple of classes and then lunch together. That’s as far as we compared before Malcolm found his classroom.

  “Catch you later,” he said, setting off with a wave.

  I headed up the stairs and through a curtain of blue and silver streamers that hung down from the second floor. Another school with too much spirit. I sighed. Fantastic. Jenna hated spirit.

  My morning passed quickly, each class just as awkward and uncomfortable as I remember.

  The first days were almost always the worst. Almost, because with Jenna around, the last days were also the worst.

  I sat through the forty-two minutes of Anatomy and Physiology relieved to realize they’d picked up where my A&P class at Byron had left off. I also tried to familiarize myself with the school and my schedule. Independent Study was the official name for our magic lessons. It was hardly independent, since they gathered up all the magical kids in one room. But they had to call it something so the regular people didn’t get suspicious.

  On my way to try to find my locker, I passed a poster of a yellow brick road with a green-

  faced woman in the background. “AUDITIONS SOON” was scrawled in white along the bottom.

  Of course, the school play was The Wizard of Oz. Everyone loved dead witches.

  My locker number, along with the combination to the actual lock, was printed at the top of my schedule. I followed the line of lockers down, getting lost twice before I found my locker.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath.

  I looked back the way I’d come, and then further up ahead in the hallway. Every locker I could see was the same blue color, and there were bits of paper and things taped to a few here or there, but none of them were defaced. Only mine.

  They’d assigned me a locker with a hideous tan splotch over the front, where the blue paint had been scratched off and revealed the color underneath. This almost looks familiar,I thought, and then I twitched. A circle, almost completely shaded in, with rays wavering around the sides. I’d seen this symbol before, at the house Mal and I had gone to. The symbol had been scratched into the door.

  “I figured that was yours,” Mal said, nodding to the front of my locker. “I met one of the other kids in our independent study group. Someone here has a sick sense of humor.”

  I cleared my throat, nervous and unsure why. “What?”

  He tapped the graffiti design. “It’s not random. It’s theirs. It’s how you knew Moonset took credit for something. Like their signature.”

  “And someone scratched it on my locker. Why?”

  “I’m not the one with the devious mind,” Mal said nonchalantly. “But if I had to guess, I’d say one of the other kids here isn’t happy to see us.”

  I found my homeroom with an extra thirty seconds to spare before the bell rang. Once again, I had to do an awkward pause at the door until I could find out where there were open seats. In homeroom, though, the teacher barely seemed interested in what was going on. She was flipping through a ledger when I handed her my class schedule.

  “Over there, all the way in the back,” she said, waving me away after looking at my schedule.

  “Over there” was probably the least helpful direction she could have given me, but I just went to the row closest to the windows and sat in the seat furthest back.

  Several minutes passed, and then the announcements began over the loudspeaker at the head of the room. It was basically permission to zone out for the next fifteen minutes, as nobody else in the class seemed to be paying much attention.

  Then she walked into the room, and suddenly my day wasn’t quite so bad anymore.

  Ash swept into the room like every eye was on her, and once people started to realize she was there, it was. She wore a skirt over leggings, heels that clacked with every confident step, and a mauve long-sleeved shirt. In essence, she looked amazing. She waggled her fingers at the teacher as she passed the desk and headed down the aisle next to mine until she could take the free seat across from me.

  “You are an overly ambitious boy,” she said, leaning across the aisle towards me. Her fingers tangled into the chain she wore around her neck, that ended with a cross at the bottom.

  She thought we were getting close? That almost made my brain sputter into to a halt. “I’m what?”

  She ran a hand through her hair, watching me with a teasing smile. “You’re the talk of the school, didn’t you know?” Ash waved a hand. “My own little celebrity.”

  I squirmed in my chair. “I’m not,” I muttered. It was bad enough when I was around witches who did know who I was. I didn’t want to be a celebrity among the regular kids.

  Her smile widened. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the paparazzi.”

  “Ashen Farrer, you aren’t even in this homeroom,” the teacher announced, looking up from her bookkeeping.

  “I’m Justin’s student advisor, Miss G. I’m supposed to make sure he gets to his classes all day.”

  They had student advisors? And Ash and I were spending the day together? Suddenly my day, and my life, were looking up. Maybe this school wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Someone further up in my row started giggling. Miss G, or whatever her name really was, was frowning in our direction. “You know we don’t have student advisors, Ashen. Now don’t you have a homeroom full of classmates that miss you terribly?”

  “Ashen?” I asked.

  She grinned. “If you knew the alternative, you’d be pleasantly surprised with Ashen. Why do you think I go by Ash? Ashen sounds so morbid, don’t you think?” She made no move to get up and leave the room, and the teacher didn’t seem to want to push the issue.

  The voices over the loudspeaker were still going strong. Every few minutes they changed, as the next person stepped up to deliver their announcements. “ … for the spring play will be held in the auditorium Monday and Tuesday after school … ”

  “Being the new kid doesn’t bother me so much.” I don’t know why I was confiding in her, but maybe the revelation of her real first name was a sign. “I’m more of the ‘stay quiet and keep my head down’ type, though.”

  Her perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted. “A few more days, and girls will be lining up to date you,” she said, brushing off any concern about what her friend was doing. “Secrets make you more interesting.”

  I don’t want to date other girls. “I guess,” I said noncommittally. The bell rang and we both climbed to our feet. Ash followed me into the hall. She plucked the map out of my hands the moment I had tugged it free from my bag. “Hey!” I grabbed for it, but she darted out of the way.

  “Come on, you don’t want to be late for your class,” she announced before sprinting down the hall.

  Somehow in a matter of seconds, Ash had managed to worm her way through the crowd, leaving me a half-dozen heads behind her. Every time I tried to move around someone, or gain some ground, I got more dirty looks.

  I finally caught up with her at the end of the hallway. “You’re heading down this way
,” Ash said, turning to her left and starting off again.

  “What are you doing?” I followed her. What choice did I have?

  Once we were in front of my next class, she stopped and handed me back the map. “I told you, I’m your student advisor. Now go be brilliant!” As she started to walk away, she reached up and ruffled her hand in my hair, totally messing it up. Just like that, she wandered back the way she’d come like nothing had happened.

  Fourteen

  “They disappeared for a few years after high school. All of them had bright futures, but they didn’t pursue them right away. No one knows what happened—why they left so suddenly.

  Until they turned up in London, enrolled in school and petitioning for working internships with the government.”

  Adele Roman

  Moonset Historian: From a college lecture series about Moonset

  The rest of the morning was a blur.

  My last class before lunch was Economics, and thankfully I walked into the room to see

  Malcolm already in a seat near the back. A class with someone I knew. There wasn’t much chance of sharing a class with either Bailey or Cole, but I was a little shocked that the three of us hadn’t shared more classes together. There’d been a few times where we all had nearly identical schedules.

  “How’s your day been going?” Mal asked as I slid in behind him.

  “Not bad,” I said, thinking of Ash showing up as my advisor.

  His eyebrow raised. “Are you blushing?”

  I turned away immediately, dropping my bag on the desk and resting my head on it. Mal didn’t press the issue.

  On my lunch break, I went to the office to find out about switching lockers. The secretary first tried to assure me that I was over exaggerating about how big the mark on my locker was until

  I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of it.

  “And this happened today?” she asked, looking at me with a hint of suspicion.

  “I didn’t mark up my new locker,” I said, trying to suppress my annoyance. Finally she agreed to have someone from the maintenance staff look at it.

  As I walked out of the office, I caught sight of Jenna coming towards me.

  “And this is my brother Justin,” she announced, looking from her companion to me and back again.

  I recognized the girl. “You’re Ash’s friend,” I said.

  “Maddy,” the girl replied, a little frosty. “I remember you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I remember you, too.”

  Jenna looked between the two of us, a hint of a smile in place. Jenna found a friend on the first day? That was weird enough in itself.

  “Listen, you guys should come hang out with us after school,” Maddy said, glancing down at her phone. “It’s this little hole-in-the-wall place that almost no one knows about. Ash’ll be there.

  I know she’d like to see you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I think we can do that.”

  “Cool,” Maddy replied. “It’s called Mark’s. You know where the coffee shop is on Main

  Street? It’s right by there, like a block away.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “We’ll try to stop by.”

  “Well, this is an interesting place to bring me,” Mal said a half hour after we’d gotten out of school, squinting up at the building. “Is this part of some life lesson to make me appreciate all I have?”

  I glared at Malcolm, but really, I was glaring at Maddy. Of course it had been a trick. She’d been too nice, and too helpful. And she’d taken to Jenna like a duck to evil, which only proved that she shouldn’t be trusted.

  Mark’s, the hangout that she’d suggested we check out, turned out to be Saint Mark’s.A homeless shelter.

  “I’d give her some points for moxie, but the prank itself is pretty lame,” he added.

  “Shut up,” I said. “No one says ‘moxie’ anymore.”

  “You’re just mad that no one says you’ve got moxie.”

  “Stop saying moxie!”

  It was like a spell of its own. I knew he was going to say it again. So I did the mature, responsible thing, and ran into the first store I could find just to put some distance between us. I knew Malcolm would never act like the embarrassment he was in front of an audience.

  But the store I had chosen was so much more. The moment I crossed the threshold, it was stifling. The walls were simply drenched in hangings—paintings, art, objects, and garbage.

  Shelves were crammed with knickknacks and weird bookends, one holding nothing but a series of bronzed elephants. Another table was weighted down by an elaborate crystal chess set.

  When I picked up one of the pieces, not only did the table rock alarmingly, but I didn’t recognize the design in my hand. And the board was strange, tri-colored instead of dual.

  It was nearly impossible to walk down the aisles because they were so narrow. Each step, I was afraid I’d bump into something and start a chain reaction that would topple everything in the building.

  Mal had no similar feelings. He moved at ease through the store, occasionally picking up something that caught his eye and studying it from all angles.

  “Welcome, boys!” A man literally popped up from behind a glass countertop in the corner. As we approached, I saw the sliding glass panel was open, and he was carefully removing everything from inside. From here it just looked like a lot of ugly, tarnished jewelry. “What can I do for you today?”

  “We’re just looking,” Mal said. “But thanks.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, straightening one of the trays full of rings.

  Mal and I continued browsing, but I couldn’t help but keep turning for the door. “Maybe I just got the name wrong, and the place she was talking about is right around here and we missed it.”

  He saw right through me. “You have Ash’s number, right? Just call her.”

  “I can’t just call her. And say what? ‘Your best friend sent me to the homeless shelter?’

  Yeah, real nice.”

  “You need to relax, man. She’s just a girl.”

  “You’ve met her. She’s not exactly a normal girl.”

  He held up a trio of books that were wrapped up in a ribbon. One of them was a copy of

  Wuthering Heights. “She’s a girl. Get used to not understanding half of what she does. That’s how they rope in precious little boys like you.” He ruffled my hair and I jerked back, nearly bumping into a display full of postcards.

  The man behind the counter piped up again. “Looking for a present for your girlfriend?”

  I turned back to him, really seeing him for the first time. He was older, with thinning gray hair and dressed in plaid. He looked more like a librarian than a shop owner. “No, thanks. She’s not my girlfriend!” I said a little too quickly.

  “Ahh,” he replied, “but you want her to be?” His eyes focused shrewdly on me. “I’ve got just the thing.”

  He crouched down and started rummaging through the shelves he had been working on, eventually pulling out a tray filled with necklaces. “I’m sure she’ll love one of these,” he said.

  “You’re lucky; I’ve been cleaning out the stock all week, weeding out the things that aren’t selling.”

  I wanted to tell him that it looked like most of the stuff here wasn’t selling, but I didn’t want to be rude. Curious more than anything else, I walked to the counter. There was a hallway opened up behind the counter, leading into a kitchen badly lit with fluorescent lighting. That and the yellowing wallpaper made it look like some tragic seventies parlor.

  “Ethan Alexander,” a raspy voice bellowed from somewhere beyond that kitchen, “where the hell is my TV Guide?”

  “Oh, hell,” the man muttered quietly. “Be right back,” he said, although I noticed he pulled the tray back and slid it back under the glass before he turned. “Coming, Dad!”

  He didn’t need to bother. A much older man hobbled his way into the kitchen and from there into the hallway, moving with a determin
ed gait. He favored one hip and kept a hand on one of the walls as he walked. “I told you not to touch my TV Guide,” he bellowed louder.

  “Dad, I’m with a customer,” the man pleaded. I saw a moment of fear in his eyes—being embarrassed in front of a total stranger by his father.

  “Always with a customer,” his father growled, finally halting in the doorway. “Where’d you put my—oh my sweet Jesus.”

  I didn’t want to watch the man get tongue-lashed by a father who clearly needed medication, so I’d knelt down and started looking at the jewelry through the glass. But at the man’s gasp, I looked up again—to find him staring right at me.

  “Can’t be, can’t be,” he muttered, suddenly wringing his hands in front of him. “Dead and buried, Sherrod Daggett is. Always knew he’d come back from the dead. Back for me!”

  The old man swiveled back to his son, as though all his hip problems were nonexistent. “I told you he’d come back for me! He always said he would!”

  I stiffened, looking to Malcolm, but he’d heard it as well and was walking up right behind me.

  “Dad, it’s just a customer,” his son said, holding his hands out. He turned to the left to catch my eye. “Sorry about this,” he murmured. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go find your TV Guide.”

  The man voice got thicker the more worked up he became. “You don’t never listen, boy!

  Sherrod Daggett! I told you he’d come! I told you.” The man stared holes into me. “You won’t get it back! You know it’s mine.”

  Malcolm’s hand settled on my shoulder. “Now we know what they were hiding,” he said quietly.

  “Dad!” Ethan started shuffling him back into the hallway.

  “He said he’d come back for it, don’t you remember? I told you!” There was a sudden plea, a need for his son to understand him.

  “You gave it back to him,” the son said gently. “Come on, your shows are about to be on.”