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We were children.
Andrea had started to force us inside on full moons, though she gave no explanation. Sh told us that it was dangerous, that there were bad things in the night willing to hurt us.
Mimi and I never really listened though, the moon called to us. Neither of us really understood why...but it did. It made us want to dance under the light and swim and all kinds of other things that I guess my mom didn't want us doing. It made us wild, like the forest spirits in Mimi's stories from Avalon.
She says that there they went out every full moon to celebrate the moon mother. When mom told us we couldn't go outside anymore Mimi tried to tell her the stories too, tried to explain why she couldn't stay inside because the moon was special to her.
Mom had just laughed "Why would you want to go out and worship Galexy? She's done nothing for you." Dad usually made her hush after that, which is probably a good thing cause we didn't understand what she meant.
Tonight we decided we'd break the rules, just the two of us.
When night time came and mom forced us to go to bed we didn't. We pretended to sleep and waited till she was gone, then slipped out. Leaving baby Kari passed out in her crib. She didn't feel the moon...plus we didn't want to take care of a little kid.
I knew the castle best so I led the way through the shadows (even though they give me the creeps) and down the fastest path towards the courtyard. It was a wide open space that would give us the best view of the moon. We were small and mom for some reason made everyone go home on the full moon so there were no guards or any of the other witches and wizards who would deffinetly be up at this hour doing whatever it was they did. The castle was eerily silent and we did our best not to make a sound since the stone walls made everything echo.
We went out a back door, and as soon as the breeze of a cool summer night touched our faces we were off, dancing through the bushes and trees like it was our first taste of freedom in ages. The moon filled us with its light and made everything glitter and shine. It was so hypnotic, so perfect in every way, that I didn't really hear Mimi when she said Matt's name.
Turning around I smiled "Matt's here?" We could all play together then. Mimi nodded and smiled, pointing at the familiar figure not to far away. Together we all but skipped (if you know me, you know I don't usually skip...the moon made me do it) towards him. Stopping a short distance away Mimi called to him, her voice like music in the air.
I probably should have sensed something was wrong. I'm a witch after all...I have powers for that kind of thing, but I guess the moon was clouding that too. The only clue that I had that things weren't quite the way they were supposed to be was that Matt hadn't moved. Mimi called to him again and he just stood there, still as a statue with his head tilted down and his arms hanging loose at his sides.
"Matt..." Mimi's voice had lost that playful lilt they'd had before, and she took a cautious step back.
The moon hadn't yet risen completely, like I said the night was still early, so half of the garden was shrouded in shadow. Matt was in between, half of his body was in the light and the rest was hidden, she shadows slowly sliding away from him as the moon continued to rise.
"Sora I think somethings wrong.." Mimi turned her head to look at me and her blue eyes were big and scared, which meant that mine were probably the same way.
Looking away from her I focused on Matt and took a determined step towards him, a set in my jaw and crazy ideas dancing in my head. "Matt, this isn't funny. You're scaring Mimi." Usually that was enough to make him stop whatever he was doing, but this time it only made him start shaking. His whole body shuddered as the moonlight slid completely over him.
Suddenly the beautiful song we'd heard, the call of the moon, turned into a warning. The moonlight was crying now, pleading with us to move and go back inside, but we were frozen in place.
Matt had started moving.
His hands came up to the bandage behind his neck, his fingers tore at it with a ferocity I had never seen him before. Ripping it free I could see what looked like three claw marks glowing on his skin. I knew he hand't been injured, I'd played with him enough, known him long enough to recognize those as his birthmark. I just never knew they could glow.
When he started screaming, and the air filled with the sound of bones snapping and breaking Mimi and I were so shocked we were knocked off our feet. Mimi had been closer to him and she crawled back to where I was. We clung to each other because that is all we could do. By then the moonlight had swallowed him completely and his bones were breaking and resetting themselves in new shapes. His screams were full of so much pain that I wondered later how we'd never heard it before. You'd think...with him screaming like that every full moon one of us would have heard something
"Matt!" Mimi screamed "Sora what's happening to him?!" Mimi and I were the same age but she'd been raised on an island, she'd been in seclusion with men and women who focused on their studies and magic in one of the safest places in the world. I guess it was no surprise she didn't know, no surprise she was scared...but not as scared as I was.
"He's a werewolf.." I could feel tears burning in my eyes. Because I knew what that meant. Around here werewolves had been killed off and banished. I was scared because he was probably going to kill us, and then they were going to kill him. I was scared because I realized that my mother knew and that she'd been trying to protect both of us...and I'd been stupid not to listen.
Matt was twice the size he'd been in before and covered in gray fur. He stood heaving, his breath misting the air, and turned a pair of glowing blue eyes in our direction. He was just a pup...but he was as big as a grown man, standing on two legs with the head of a wolf and the body of a man. He didn't look at us with recognition.
He looked at us with hunger, beastly unquenchable hunger.
"Mimi we have to run. We have to go now." It tried to shake her out of it, but she was freaking out. Her whole body was shaking and she was sobbing. I was scared she was broken or something.
Now a days you can't really tell but we were super close back then. We get into spats a lot now, but back then we hardly ever argued. It's funny right? Water arguing with Earth...we're supposed to be like best buds and stuff..
I really tried to get her up, but Matt was right there. He'd taken maybe three steps and he was standing over us. He was breathing hard and I could smell the wolf smell as it rolled off of him. I could feel his breath as flowed over us. All I could think was that we were going to die.
"Matt."
Mimi's voice was so soft I almost didn't hear it, and her face was buried in my shoulder. She turned around and those big blue eyes focused on him. "Matt"
Matt growled and I was sure he was going to eat us, puppy dog eyes or not, when I felt something hot against my chest. Blinking I pulled the neck of my shirt down a bit and a blinding red light flowed out.
It struck Matt, and for a split second I could see the animal leave his eyes. He looked at Mimi, his hand moved as though to touch her, but he didn't let himself. Instead he turned and ran, disappearing through the garden's hedges and leaving us alone.
The light stayed on, making me queasy with the desire to hug absolutely everything, until Mom showed up. I tried to get MImi to talk or move, but she just sat there...frozen looking off in the direction he'd gone.
Mom went easy on her of course and I could tell she was about to rip me a new one, but the light hit her too. Instead I got a hug and a kiss, and sent to bed. I guess the power of Love can do amazing things after all.
I still thought it had cooties...but whatever as long as I wasn't grounded.
 Rapta · Mon Aug 13, 2012 @ 05:31am · 0 Comments |
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