Light of the Moon (2 page)

The daughter could still smell the sea-salt air and she knew it was not a coincidence but a memory of her history, her family’s past.

Was this magic? Her Momma had told her the magic tales since she could remember. Could they be real?

“See who we are,” Momma urged her. “Embrace your past to see your future.”

The girl felt the gusting wind rush around her like a swirling blanket of whispers.
The air grew cold as images suddenly appeared before her, dancing in the moonlight. Tightness threatened to enclose mother and daughter as they began to see the past as it was so many years before, so far in the past that the air smelled as sweet as sugar and burned as menacingly as fire.

“Momma! Momma!” her daughter screamed, though her voice was lost to a blinding windstorm that had just picked up. “Momma, what’s wrong?”

“Child...” she spoke, her hand clutching her heart, weak after giving an almighty truth so freely. “It is time for me to leave this world and move on to the next. It is time for you to become what you must be, who you are.”

“But I don’t know what you mean, Momma! Don’t leave me!” Pain seeped through her body. Agony like she never knew filled her soul.

“You are the protector, child. All around you is the history of us, of our truths. Follow your heart and protect the prophecy, and when the time is right, share it with your own daughters. You are the Woman of Prophecy. You must save the world by saving the one who is the Dreamer. Without this prophecy the world will be under the spell of the three demons and the Devil himself. When Doomsday is certain, the Dreamer will find us. Let fate be your guide. We keep our secrets in the stars. Blanket the Dreamer in our sacred word so that he may save us all. Help him understand his destiny.”

Just as the daughter shouted and a tear rolled down her night-lit face, a breath of wind escaped the starry night and carried her mother away as if on wings.

Calm strength filled the daughter’s soul; a new beginning had taken hold.

That night, the new Woman of Prophecy began to understand her obligation, her curse. She was the one who was entrusted with the poem. She would be the one to pass the legend down from mother to daughter until the Dreamer came and salvation was harvested once again.

And so she waits until the voices of evil, of cold, corrupted greed become too loud to hear the warmth of those of truth and virtue. It is then that the Dreamer will come to save the world and fulfill the legend that the Woman of Prophecy keeps so guarded in the night among the stars. For they hold secrets, the stars; dark truths of beautiful and dangerous magic.

PART ONE

The Cruel Hands of Autumn

Murder hits small town

JEFFERSON COUNTY - Murder has hit the small town community of Lakewood Hollow, Colorado. Mayor John White was found murdered in his home late Sunday evening.

After this highly publicized death, Sheriff Morgan of the Lakewood Hollow Police Department has stated “the horrific death of our beloved mayor is certainly linked to our high missing persons count.”

Police officials across Jefferson County are stating that the count is up to 28 missing, and locals are calling this “the most perverse and sickening death spree Colorado has ever seen.” Morgan, however, has urged the public to consider that “aside from the death of Mayor White, there is no substantial evidence that the 28 missing people were, in fact, murdered. As of now, White is an anomaly in the current case, and possibly the victim of a copy cat.”

While police have yet to locate any bodies other than White, all missing persons (including the circumstances surrounding the mayor) have left behind vast pools of blood. Morgan confirmed that blood at every crime scene “has been tested and each has confirmed who that missing person is.”

The Bloodletter, as the media has named the rogue abductor, has taken to painting what look to be song lyrics on walls of each victim’s home in blood. Although unidentifiable to authorities, experts are working on deciphering the words and the message behind the Bloodletter.

Morgan has stated that local units are “holding additional information until further notice while we work to solve the investigation with departments throughout Jefferson County.” Communities are being told to keep calm and act normally while authorities unravel the tragic mystery of the Bloodletter.

Chapter One

of Mist and Nightmares

-Calum-

The trees towered above, caging me in
the clearing. A thick mist of fog crawled across the forest floor, rising and falling in heavy waves of dark gray as if breathing.

Down on my knees, I was shaking.

Hands pressed to the ground, I was afraid.

Pain broke my throat as I screamed. The mist grabbed my fingers and pulled, digging them deep into the dirt. I felt it crawl up my arms and down my throat; stealing my voice, it searched for my heart. It burned, this mist of nightmares. Sitting like ash in my lungs, it stole my breath.

A howl broke through the mist and shivered towards me; the cry of this lone wolf made time beat half as fast. For that moment, the mist listened too, and I could breathe.

My eyes searched the hollow for a way out, but found none.

The trees clung to an amber glow that seemed to live and die around the jagged edges of their branches. With every breath I took, I could see the eerie color burst with life, subside with every exhale. One hundred tiny thorns reached for me, branches waving in the wary light.

I looked up to see a sky of shadows mixed with the vestige of a few faint stars.

In this nightmare, even the stars were trapped.

Then, as the tops of the trees turned a bleeding red in the dark, the mist began to pull again. Leaves began to rip from branches, dancing with the wind in a circle over my head, covering all but a single patch of moonlight. Catching red on its way down, the light of the moon bathed the clearing in a bloody glow. Leaves dripped down with the light, falling slow as death.

Suddenly, a burst of wind reached across the clearing and brushed the leaves next to me back and forth and back again. The movements were slow, measured, and left no mark in the cloudy mist that rose in sudden swirls around me. Still, I felt the frigid air surround me, touch my neck with a cold kiss, and when my hand pulled a drop of sweat from my nose, the wetness looked like blood.

As the wolf howled again, my heart beat so quickly it screamed. My pulse raced toward my heart and crashed into it in an explosion of rampant fury.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tighter and tighter, until I couldn’t see anything but a world spotted black and white with darkness. Against my swiftly beating heart, I watched the spots dance in my mind. I tried to forget the crimson forest, forget the mist and nightmares and blood.

I tried to remember the stars.

The mist ran a finger down my back, reminding me what was beyond. Solid waves of it tickled leaves, shaking to the rhythm of the wolf’s lament, that sorrowful lullaby calling to my heart.

Lost in a chaotic symphony, I could not forget the sounds.

My stomach burned. I wanted to scream. I had to.

No. No!
My throat exploded in silent pain. My mind screamed at me from somewhere deep within, a place hidden from the dark.

Wake up!
I could feel blisters pop; blood and sadness oozed down my throat.

The entire forest screamed, but I was choking. I clung desperately to the wolf’s cry and felt my face burn red with tears. No breath, no hope, no sound. I had nothing but the wolf to help me scream.

Hope was lost to red, all blood and mist.

I threw my hands to the ground, coughing as the wind shoved me forward.

I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to inhale, to suck in the cold air around me, but it was no use. With every half breath I sputtered and coughed, spitting red onto the ground. The mist twined gray; shadowed fingers around my lungs, my heart.

No!
Wake up!
My fingers clawed at the dirt as the mist and leaves erupted in a storm of red. The wind punched the trees until they were bruised and broken, their branches hung in the light of the blood sky, dead and disfigured. Leaves shot to the ground, crashing madly like bombs. I could hear the sound of them ripping through the wind, wailing in pain, until finally they hit the ground and burst into flames.

Tears flew down my face. I grabbed my throat, but it was too slippery to hold.

And then, the forest was suddenly silent.

Silent, but not still.

The dead trees were dark and wilted. The wind attacked them with such force that branches flew into me, cutting my arms and face. The world tilted, and in that war I saw my fate. Somehow I knew this was a twisted version of my future.

This was how I was going to die.

I watched the chaos. The world of amber and red grew hazy. The mist turned black at the edges of my mind, and soon covered my vision, killing the swift speed of time.

Then, slowly, the blackness turned into a very faint white light. It was beautiful, comforting; all around me was blinding. The forest was gone.

I closed my eyes and let hope linger.

Whispers seemed to surround me, haunting melodies of quiet voices. Though I couldn’t make out what was being said, the song lingered in me until even the tips of my fingers tingled.

My veins pumped hotter, the blood flowed faster. A heat started to fill my body and soul, and I felt myself lift off the ground and into the warm white. The air was thick, wrapping itself around me and pushing into my lungs

I opened my eyes and, for a moment, thought I saw a flash of purple. A face in the mist.

Save me,
I thought.

At once the sky erupted in a storm of lightning, so bright and blinding I held a hand up to my face to shield my eyes, turning my face to blink.

I gasped. In the divine light my skin looked almost black, tiny dots of light flickering within it.

A voice in the night, cracked with desperation, filled the world around me until it was everything: “Awake, Caeles. Awake! The time has come for you to embrace your destiny. You must join us again, brother. Look in your heart and see the past as it was and will be.

“Awake, Caeles...

“Look to the stars for guidance...”

~

Heart crashing against my ribs, I awoke with sweat rolling down my face.

Breathing rapidly. Eyes searching. Mouth open.

Cold.
Freezing
. Shivers crawling like snakes on my skin.

I grabbed at the sheets around me.

It was over. I was really awake.

I lay back against my pillow. My heart slowed, and I breathed easier. I let the sheets go, closed my eyes, and tried to find myself.

Rain tapped against my window. Soft pings against glass sang slowly, and then faster and louder until I knew I could not fall back asleep. Like the rain, confusion pounded at my mind.

I ground my teeth together. Who was Caeles? Would I ever wake to a peaceful morning? Or be plagued forever by wuthering dreams.

Outside, dawn was breaking. I could see the dim, hesitant colors of it trying to cut through the storm.

“Calum!” I heard Mom yell from down the hall. “I hope you’re awake. You’ll be late for school and I am not waiting an hour to drive you like last time.”

A burst of air escaped my mouth. I ran a hand through my hair and said, “Yeah, Mom. Just waking up.” My voice tasted like gravel, as though the mist had been real.

I threw the covers back but stayed in bed. My hand moved over the clustered birthmark on my upper arm. I had hardly any freckles on my body, but the ones I did have were brown, normal. This birthmark, though, had always been a dirty black, as if midnight had kissed each spot.

Since I was small, I’d wondered what the mark meant, and for a while I thought it meant I was special. Sometimes still, when morning or night came too early and I was alone, I would wish on each of the twenty-five dots and pretend they were wishing stars.