01 Six Moon Summer - Seasons of the Moon

by SM Reine

  Dressing quickly, she ran down the mountain to the trail, hoping Cassidy would be where she said she would.

  It was even more dangerous trying to sneak back into camp than it was sneaking out. At least at the beginning of the night, it had been dark.

  But Cassidy wasn’t waiting at the mouth of camp.

  Rylie waited a few minutes. As the time for cabin checks inched closer, she grew more impatient. Her friend must have fallen asleep.

  There was no other option: she had to sneak in.

  Angling herself so she would enter from the back, Rylie picked her way through the trees. Hopefully none of her roommates had gotten cold and shut the window. Then she would really be in trouble.

  Rylie heard shouting. “Louise! Over here!” It was Katie.

  Her stomach turned. Had they seen her?

  She hid behind a tree and peered around the side. Katie, Louise, and a pair of counselors she didn’t recognize were hurrying up the trail in the opposite direction. They carried flashlights to brighten the dim morning.

  It was the perfect distraction, but Rylie couldn’t resist. She had to see what was so exciting.

  Following them from a safe distance, she saw the counselors stop off the side of the trail. Rylie vaguely recalled passing through this area the night before.

  “What happened?” Louise asked. Her voice was tight.

  “Meredith found her this morning. We think it was an animal attack.”

  “Is she…?”

  “Yeah. She’s dead,” Katie said.

  Dead? Rylie strained to see who they were talking about.

  She caught a glimpse of a gold anklet, and her stomach flipped. “Oh my God,” Rylie whispered.

  She tried to run, but she only got three steps before collapsing. Her stomach heaved. Rylie vomited her dinner into the bushes.

  It wasn’t just any body. It was Amber.

  Sixteen

  The Camp Social

  News of Amber’s death spread quickly.

  It was impossible to hide the arrival of police and park rangers. They came in with blaring sirens. Ambulances, photographers, and a whole mess of other officials arrived to mark lines on the trail, collect evidence, and analyze the body. The counselors tried to keep everyone away, but a few girls managed to sneak in anyway.

  By the time the police cleaned up and left in the evening, everyone knew what happened.

  Rylie had no problems getting back into her cabin unseen. The counselors didn’t even retrieve the campers for showers. When everyone else went to breakfast, she sat on the edge of her bed and tried to remember, rapping her journaling pen against her knee.

  She had glimpsed Amber’s injuries. It had not been a random animal attack: Amber had been killed by a werewolf.

  The question was… had Rylie been the one to do it?

  She stared out at the forest as she gnawed her bottom lip. She still hadn’t shaken that nagging feeling that Seth needed to know something about the night before. Was it that she had attacked someone? Killed someone? Rylie hated Amber, but she didn’t think she hated her that much.

  What would Rylie’s dad think of her if he knew his daughter might be a murderer? As much as it stung, she wondered if it was a mercy he hadn’t lived to see her become a monster.

  Nobody noticed Rylie’s distraction. They were too busy talking about more interesting topics: what killed Amber, would it strike again, and was the camp getting closed?

  “It was a bear,” Katie said tersely when Rylie’s roommates cornered her with questions at lights out. “The park rangers found it. They think it was fed by humans at their summer home far from here. This bear was caught in town twice already, so they put it to sleep this time. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “So the camp isn’t closing?” Rylie asked, speaking up for the first time.

  “No. The camp isn’t closing. Now I’m going to turn off the lights and go to sleep, and if I hear you three talking, I’m signing you up to clean the bathrooms.”

  Her roommates, of course, sat up and began whispering as soon as the door shut. “Betty saw the body on her way back from the showers,” Gina said.

  Nancy pulled a face. “Ugh!”

  “She said the body was torn into pieces. Isn’t that sick?” Gina leaned toward Nancy’s bed. “But the people in Group D don’t think it was a bear.”

  “Then what?”

  Gina lowered her voice into a dramatic undertone. “They said it was a monster.”

  Something rustled outside their door. They all jumped in unison—but Katie’s voice called from outside. “I hope that’s not talking I hear in there!”

  “Shut up, guys,” Rylie hissed. “I’m not cleaning the toilets.” And the rumors were too close to reality for her liking.

  New rules were enacted for the safety of the campers: No more going out alone at night to walk to the bathrooms. No groups smaller than three. Counselors had to escort girls everywhere. Any activities further away from Silver Brook than the outermost cabins were canceled for the rest of the summer, leaving everyone to do arts and crafts or sports.

  Rylie was allowed to return to her activities, but since there was nothing fun going on, she spent her time the same way she had for the last week. She was getting toward the end of her journal, and didn’t have much to write about. Instead, she worried about all the questions she had with no answers.

  Most of all, she worried about the new moon.

  Seth didn’t visit her again, but he left little things on the windowsill that told Rylie he was around. Once it was a note—I found an empty den while I was hiking, but no werewolves; I’ll tell you if I learn anything—and at other times, it was silly things, like an interesting rock he found in the forest and a drawing of the lake from the perspective of the boys’ camp.

  He even gave her a drawing of her eyes once. Rylie put it next to her bed and blushed every time she looked at it.

  His gifts distracted her from thoughts of Amber and monsters. Rylie had to hide everything from her roommates to avoid questions, but she peeked at them in the drawer as often as possible.

  The only thing more exciting to the campers than Amber’s mauling was the upcoming dance party. Rylie watched Gina and Nancy prepare by tearing apart old clothes and sewing together new dresses using supplies from the arts and crafts room. There was plenty of time to get creative, now that nobody was hiking.

  Rylie didn’t join in. Katie had made it clear she wouldn’t be going to the dance, so she could only hope that Seth would find time for a visit before the last moon.

  “Have fun!” sang Gina as they headed for the buses.

  Rylie gave her a weak wave. Fun. Of course. Sitting in her cabin while everyone else danced with boys would be so much fun.

  After Gina and Nancy disappeared, she pulled out her journal to write. She had just laid her pen to the page when Katie stuck her head in, looking harried. “What are you doing? Aren’t you going to get ready?”

  “You said I’m not going.”

  “It’s not safe for us to hang back at camp. We won’t punish anyone by making them stay so we’re a bigger group. Get dressed, because we’re leaving in five minutes.”

  Rylie had never gotten ready as quickly as she did last night. She did her makeup in seconds, and she paired her nicest pair of capris with a loose white camisole. It wasn’t as cute as she would have liked, but she hadn’t packed expecting a date night.

  Rylie was still trying to pin up her long blonde hair when Katie returned.

  “We’re leaving now. Come on.”

  Leaving her hair half-done, she followed Katie to the buses. The first one had already left. She jumped onto the last bus in the line and took a seat as it lurched forward. Her heart danced in her throat. Rylie was going to Camp Golden Lake. She was going to see Seth.

  The road around the lake felt longer in the lumbering buses than it had during her mad dash in the SUV. It gave her plenty of time to finish her hair using a mirror begged off of Na
ncy. She wasn’t the only one making last-minute preparations, either. All around her, girls were doing each other’s makeup and adjusting their clothes.

  “Listen up, ladies! We have a few ground rules,” Katie called, standing in the aisle with her hands braced against the seats so she swayed with the movement of the bus. “In light of the bear problem, you’re not allowed outside the recreation hall. There will be no inappropriate dancing and we’ll clean up after ourselves.” Giggles spread throughout the bus behind Rylie. They weren’t giggling about having to clean up. “Tonight is special, so curfew is being put off a couple hours. We’ll do a head count at eleven and board the buses to return. Remember, stay inside. It’s for your safety.”

  The buses stopped to unload. Katie caught Rylie’s elbow before she could jump out.

  “Head count at eleven, Rylie.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I heard you the first time.”

  The boy’s recreation hall was decorated like every school dance Rylie had been to. Fairy lights were wound around the exposed ceiling beams, and streamers were draped around the walls. A DJ’s booth was set up on one side with the dance floor in the middle. Food had been laid out against the wall, but between nerves and Rylie’s high-protein dinner (which had become a daily ritual), she had no appetite.

  She stretched up on her toes and looked over the crowd, biting her lip. The room was kept in half-light, so it was hard to make faces out.

  Seth was nowhere in sight. Rylie found an empty table and sat down. She swirled a little punch in the bottom of a cup, watching everyone around her. Patricia was two tables away. She looked like she wanted to dance even less than Rylie did. Her eyes were red and swollen, and Rylie felt a pang of sympathy.

  Cassidy joined Rylie at the table. “Where’s your hot boy?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not here yet.”

  “Guess that means I’ve got you to myself,” Cassidy said. “Want to dance?”

  “Not really,” Rylie said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  My dad died, I might have killed Amber, and I haven’t slept in weeks. “I wish Seth was here,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She changed subjects anyway. “What have you been up to?”

  “Nothing, since they found Amber’s body. Boring! Of course that dumb hag had to go making camp even worse by dying.” Cassidy leaned toward her, a glint of interest in her eyes. “Isn’t that scary? What do you think happened to her?”

  “They said it was a bear.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Rumor says…”

  “The rumors are stupid. We’re not in danger at some dance and I don’t want to talk about it.” She knew she sounded curt, but Rylie didn’t care. Cassidy didn’t seem bothered.

  “You upset about it? I thought you hated Amber.”

  “I’m not mourning her, but she didn’t deserve to die, either.”

  “She made your life miserable,” Cassidy said. “Screw her. She wouldn’t have cared if it was you.”

  Rylie finished off her punch and set the cup down. “Look, why don’t you…?”

  She saw a familiar face across the room and trailed off.

  Seth emerged from the crowd, and Rylie had to remember how to breathe. He was wearing a black button-down shirt with narrow gray stripes and his hair was pulled into a short ponytail, showing off his dark eyes.

  “Rylie,” he greeted. “You look really good.”

  She blushed and stood. “Thanks.”

  Cassidy’s mouth fell open. “You’re Seth?”

  “Oh, right. Seth, this is my friend Cassidy. Cassidy, this is… the boy.” She added a significant tone to the last word. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  Cassidy nodded mutely, and Rylie walked off with Seth.

  “Let’s go outside,” he suggested, leaning in close so she could hear him over the music.

  “We’re not supposed to leave,” she said.

  “So what?”

  Rylie laughed. “Good point.”

  After breaking into cabins in the middle of the night and sneaking around a werewolf-riddled forest, escaping the counselors to get outside wasn’t exactly a challenge. He held her hand and pulled her toward the lake, and she giggled as she followed him down the path to the beach.

  “It was too noisy in there to talk,” Seth said. “Did I tell you I found the den? There were no signs of the werewolf now. I think it’s moved on.”

  “Do we have to talk ‘business’?” Rylie asked. “I’m almost out of time. I haven’t thought about anything but monsters and my dad for… well, the whole summer.” Her eyes stung, and she blinked away tears. “I just want to have fun, Seth. I don’t want to think.”

  He gave her his sideways smile. “Then why don’t we dance?”

  “There’s no music out here,” Rylie said.

  “That’s fine.” Seth wrapped his arms around her waist, and she settled hers on his shoulders. She couldn’t repress a giggle. “What are you laughing at?”

  “I feel silly.”

  Seth’s eyes sparked. “You said you don’t want to think about it, so just enjoy it.”

  Rylie gave him a mock-serious nod, and he spun her in his arms. They played more than danced, galloping across the sand in imitation of the tango and faking a jitterbug. Seth had a charming lack of rhythm, and she wasn’t much better. They laughed together, splashing in the edge of the water and getting sand in their shoes.

  It was more fun than she’d had all summer.

  They ended up slow-dancing in the chilly shallows. Shutting her eyes, Rylie rested her cheek against his chest. They swayed to the beat of the lake and the wind in the trees, slowing until neither of them moved at all. She could hear his heartbeat and smell the leather on him even though he wasn’t wearing his jacket. Rylie could have stayed there forever.

  “What happens after the summer ends?” she asked. She didn’t feel like giggling anymore.

  He rested his chin on top of her head. “I don’t know. The new moon is tomorrow. It won’t be the same afterward.”

  “Will I be able to go to back to school?” Rylie wasn’t really asking him. She knew the answer wouldn’t have been good. Even if she survived the transformation on the new moon, she couldn’t live with her mom in the city. It wasn’t a safe place for a wild animal.

  The truth was that Rylie had nowhere to go once camp ended. She could have worked something out with her dad, but he was gone now. Her mom would never understand.

  After this, she would be alone.

  Rylie sniffled. Seth’s thumb brushed against her cheek, wiping away the tears. “It will all turn out fine,” he said gently.

  She looked up at him. The smile was gone. He was gazing at her very intently, his hair disappearing against the black sky above them. His hands tightened against the small of her back.

  Rylie leaned toward him for a kiss.

  Seth released her and ducked his head, turning away. “Look… I don’t think we should do this.”

  Wounded, she stepped back. “Why?”

  “I just don’t think we should. Don’t take it personally.”

  “What? You don’t like me?” Her cheeks burned. “You’ve been sticking around even though I turn into this horrible thing every other week. You give me presents. You comforted me when my dad died. I thought… I mean…”

  He walked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t explain, okay? Please, Rylie.”

  Her eyes burned. The old Rylie, before several moons of transforming into a werewolf, would have nodded and left him alone. But now, anger burned in her chest, and a growl rose in her throat. “That’s not good enough.”

  She turned and left. Seth called her, but didn’t follow. “Rylie, come back here. Rylie!”

  She ignored him. The rejection stung too badly.

  Rylie didn’t care who saw her storm across camp, reentering the recreation hall without watching for counselors. She was sure Katie and Louise must have seen, but before they could intercept her,
she slammed into the bathroom.

  Locking the door of a stall, she leaned against the divider and covered her face with her hands.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Of course he didn’t like her. Why would he? He watched her kill a fawn with her teeth. Rylie barely even liked herself.

  But he had been so nice to her all summer, and he was always there when she needed him. Then he took her dancing on the beach…

  She sniffled and scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. It didn’t mean anything. Seth was being a good friend—Rylie’s only real friend, as a matter of fact. It was stupid to try to kiss him. She wouldn’t have survived the last several moons without his help, and she didn’t stand a chance on the new moon without him, either.