Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) (30 page)

I realised I was going round in
circles. Just as I had formulated a rational explanation, doubt
crept in again. And what about the kitten?

“Ah, but was it the same
kitten?” my rational self demanded. “They could have easily bought
another one.”

My head was starting to spin,
so I bundled the blue cloak back into my wardrobe and concentrated
on getting ready for college. I placed the phone in my backpack,
not yet ready to look at the pictures I’d taken at the Blue Moon
Ball.

At the bus stop, I met up with
Tash and Seth.

“Sorry to hear about your
Granddad,” said Tash.

“Yeah, sorry, must have been a
shock,” said Seth.

I smiled at them. “Thanks guys,
it’s good to know I have you.”

Seth put his arm round my
shoulders and hung over me, his long black fringe flopping forward.
“You always have us Emily, we’re like a bad rash that won’t go
away.”

“Nice analogy, Seth,” said
Tash, poking him in the back.

I laughed. It was good to be
back with my friends.

“How’s lover boy?” asked Seth
as we got on the school bus.

“He’s not lover boy any more,”
I answered. “I’m not seeing Theo. It’s finished.”

“You’re kidding,” exclaimed
Tash, sliding into the seat next to me. “What happened? I thought
you were love’s young dream.”

“That’s just the problem, Tash,
the dream was turning into a nightmare. It was all getting out of
hand.”

“Tell me!” she commanded,
turning to face me.

“Let’s just say, I think Theo
may be a bit of a fantasist,” I said, trying to choose my words
carefully. Some of the things that had happened seemed so
incredible, I didn’t think I could even begin to speak of them
without sounding like a gullible fool.

“This is getting interesting,”
said Seth from the seat behind, waiting for more.

“Believe me, it’s more than
interesting, Seth,” I said. “Some of it’s completely unbelievable,
and I don’t know what’s true and what’s not. Theo told me my life
was in danger and he was so convincing I believed him.”

“Your life was in danger?”
echoed Tash. “You know I always had a funny feeling about them,
especially after that incident with the wall.”

I thought about the phone in my
pocket. Perhaps now was the time to look at the photos I’d taken. I
took my cell phone out of my pocket and clicked on the camera icon.
I could see there were around a dozen pictures taken on the night
of the Blue Moon Ball.

“What have you got there?”
asked Tash.

“Some photos I took at the
hall. They had a private function, the Blue Moon Ball. Theo said I
wasn’t invited. So I crept in and took some pictures of it.”

“Sounds glamorous,” said Tash.
“How come you weren’t invited?”

“It was some kind of secret
society, all very hush hush.”

“Secret society? Why didn’t you
tell us?” asked Tash, looking enthralled. “We’d have come with
you.”

“Well, it was a sort of last
minute decision. Sorry, guys. I needed to do it on my own.”

“Let’s see the photos,” said
Seth, hanging over the back of our seat.

I clicked on the images,
nervous to see what they’d reveal.

“These were the pictures I took
when I first arrived,” I explained. “I was hiding behind the
curtains.”

“What’s this?” said Tash,
laughing. “An old folks’ reunion?”

“Exactly, they’re all ancient,”
said Seth. “What was it? A Saga knees-up?”

“Just keep looking,” I advised.
“See here, they’re queuing to get out of the ballroom, and here,
you can see them putting on these strange blue cloaks with this
weird symbol on the back. They were chanting as well.”

“Getting slightly weird,”
commented Seth.

“Yes, well it gets a whole lot
weirder in a minute,” I warned him. “I put on one of the blue
cloaks and followed them to see where they were going.”

Seth and Tash both looked at me
incredulously, unsure whether I was winding them up or not.

“OMG, that was brave. What did
you see?” asked Tash.

“They went to the top of the
house, into the old servants’ quarters, and then up into the Clock
Tower, where this strange blue light was shining out. I hid in one
of the old servants’ rooms and took photos as they came back out
again.”

The next few shots weren’t
brilliant, as they’d all been taken through a small gap in the
door. The first showed a glamorous woman walking towards me,
laughing, arm in arm with a handsome man. Despite the photo’s poor
composition, they looked fabulous, sparkling with excitement and
energy.

“Isn’t that Chevron d’Ego, the
game show hostess?” asked Tash.

“Yes,” I answered, “that’s her.
Just made a TV come-back, looking fabulous and young, as if she’s
defied old age….”

“And, OMG, she’s with Christian
Hart, the Hollywood heart-throb,” shrieked Tash. “Hang on, I
thought the party was full of old people. Where have they
gone?”

“They haven’t gone anywhere,” I
said enigmatically. “Keep looking at the pictures. See who else you
recognise.”

They looked at the second
photo.

“This is Sugar, the famous
singer,” said Tash. “She looks amazing, you’d never know she was in
her late sixties.”

The third showed a close-up of
a woman’s face. She was young and stunningly beautiful.

“Coola boola!” said Seth. “She
is fit.”

“Hang on,” said Tash, “she’s
that actress from the 1960s. Rachael Ravel. My mum was watching a
film she starred in the other day. She’s got to be in her seventies
now. It can’t be her.”

I showed them the next
photo.

“Half-man-amazing!” exclaimed
Seth. “That looks like Sergio Brioche, the footballer. Just signed
for Barcelona for £95 million. What’s he doing there?”

“What was this, some kind of
celebrity lookalike party?” asked Tash. “And what’s happened to all
the old folk?”

“These are the old folk,” I
informed her. “What I showed you first were the ‘before’ shots,
when they were old. And these are the ‘after’ shots, when they
became young again.”

I could see from my friends’
faces that they weren’t keeping up with me.

“Sorry, you’ve lost me,” said
Tash. “You’re saying these shots were all taken on the same evening
and are the same people? I don’t understand.”

“You mean they went through
some kind of rejuvenation process,” said Seth. “Sounds spooky.”

“It’s more than spooky, Seth,”
I told him. “This is like a horror film. Even your theory about
vampires was easier to get your head around than this.”

I had their full and undivided
attention.

“Hit us with it,” said
Seth.

“Look again at this photo of
the old folk,” I said, showing them the first photo I’d taken. “See
this woman in the stunning green ballgown….”

They both looked closely.

“Now, look at this photo taken
around fifteen minutes later. See anything similar?”

“It’s the same dress,” said
Tash in a whisper.

“Exactly!” I said. “I believe
the old folk and the beautiful people are one and the same. They
started the evening old and they ended it young and beautiful.”

Tash looked at me as if I’d
lost leave of my senses.

“Impossible,” she said.

Seth whistled through his
teeth. “Weirdo, schmeirdo. I knew it,” he said, “I knew there was
something going on.” He balled his fist in a victory gesture. “Yes!
Seth’s sixth sense strikes again. Try saying that quickly!”

“Seth, this is no joking
matter,” I said sharply. “I don’t know what’s going on at Hartswell
Hall. Theo’s told me this story and I don't know whether to believe
him.”

“What’s he told you?” asked
Tash.

“This may take a while,” I
warned them.

“That’s okay,” said Seth,
“we’ve at least another twenty minutes before the bus gets to
college.”

And so I told them all about
the party, about seeing the dying guest who arrived too late, about
escaping through the woods and spending the night in the
church…

I told them about meeting Theo
in the church the following evening and going down into the vault,
and how he’d explained about the blue crystal, kept securely in the
Clock Tower, with its amazing youth bestowing properties, and the
Blue Moon Ball, attended by the rich and famous who’d paid a
fortune for eternal youth, but were sworn to secrecy on pain of
death. I told them about Viyesha’s life in Egypt three thousand
years ago and how she’d discovered the crystal’s power, how Theo
believed we’d been together many years ago, about The Lunari,
Aquila and Pantera, and the other so-called dark forces… how my
life was in danger and how he’d given me a blue crystal pendant to
wear for protection. I told them about Violet’s kitten and its
miraculous recovery, how I’d asked Theo to help my Granddad and how
he had refused.

When I’d finished there was
silence. My friends looked at me incredulously.

Then Seth grinned widely and
said, “Cool bananas! An ancient blue crystal with the power of
giving eternal youth… guarded by shape-shifters and a secret
society… with a soupçon of celebrities thrown in … This is great!
And to think I thought it was vampires. How wrong can you get? This
is a million times better.”

“Or a million times worse,
depending on your perspective,” I pointed out. “If it’s true, it’s
not looking good for me.”

“Talk about The Beautiful and
Damned,” said Tash.

“Very good,” said Seth, “F.
Scott Fitzgerald. An apt analogy, Tash. Although personally I think
it’s more like Faustus, you know, selling your soul to the devil.
That’s on the A-level English Lit syllabus for next year, by the
way, I’ve just been reading about it. Christopher Marlowe.”

“Forget Faustus and Scott
Fitzgerald,” I said. “What about me? I appear to have a choice of
becoming Beautiful and Damned or finished off by dark forces.
Neither option is great. And that’s supposing the crystal doesn’t
finish me off first.”

“That’s if you believe what
Theo has told you,” said Tash. “The only bit that stacks up for me
is rich and famous people paying a fortune to try and stay young.
There’s nothing new in that. The rest sounds like something out of
a fairy story.”

“I agree,” said Seth. “Some of
these looks-obsessed celebs wouldn’t give a toss about selling
their soul for smooth skin, firm buttocks and a flat stomach.
They’d buy into anything to keep their careers going, the adulation
flowing and the cash rolling in. Maybe it was all just an elaborate
illusion to relieve rich punters of their money.”

“Exactly,” said Tash. “The
guests’ transformation could have been done with masks and
prosthetics, or simply different people. There are plenty of
celebrity lookalikes around. That would be easy enough to do.
Perhaps the ones you saw going up the tower weren’t the ones who
came down.”

“A scam to draw rich people
in…” I said. “The ultimate con trick. Could be, I suppose. But what
about the guest who aged and died? I saw him decay in front of my
eyes? That was like something out of a horror movie. If it was a
scam, why let that happen? That would only alienate potential new
clients. And where were these rich potential punters? I only saw
old people. And then there’s the estate agent. She aged and died
prematurely, just like the guest at the party. I’m sure she was
somehow drawn into this. And you didn’t see the de Lucis family
when they came down the spiral staircase. They looked amazing. More
beautiful, more vibrant, more radiant than I’ve ever seen
them.”

I paused and looked at my
friends.

“Believe me, guys, I’ve been
through every scenario, ranging from illusion through to Theo being
some kind of fantasist control freak and the more chilling
alternative that it’s true.”

They stared at me, not knowing
what to say.

I sighed unhappily. “Other
people just have to deal with a break up. I have to deal with
eternal youth, a secret society, rejuvenated celebrities and
enemies all around. I don’t know what to believe. I haven’t seen
any sign of The Lunari or Dark Forces, so maybe it is all fantasy.
Perhaps it will all go away now Theo and I have split up.”

Seth looked doubtful. “If
there’s any truth in this, do you think the family will let you
walk away, knowing what you do?”

“Thanks, Seth, that’s really
put my mind at rest,” I said.

“Can we see your necklace?”
asked Tash.

“That’s another strange thing,”
I said, showing them the pale blue crystal. “I tried to take it off
the other day and the clasp has vanished. It’s a continuous chain
that I can’t undo.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Tash,
attempting to hold the crystal. As her fingers touched it, she
leapt backwards. “Ow, it’s burnt me.”

“Don’t put it near me,” said
Seth, retreating to the back of his seat.

Tash rubbed her fingers,
looking worried. “D’you think the family will be happy that Seth
and I know what’s going on?” she asked.

“Don’t tell me you really
believe it, Tash?” I said. “If it’s true, then I’ve just placed
your lives at risk too!”

“Chillax, Emily,” said Seth.
“How could they know? You’ve told us at the back of a noisy bus.
Nobody can hear us. The point is what are we going to do
now?”
“We?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” said Seth. “If
it’s your problem, it’s our problem. We can’t have our best friend
taken out by some secret society or supernatural force.”

“And I can’t bear the thought
of you becoming unbelievably beautiful for eternity,” said Tash,
making us all laugh.

“So, it’s one for all and all
for one!” said Seth, dramatically, raising his fist,
“Brotherzone!”

“Except for one thing, Seth,”
added Tash, drily. “We’re not the three Musketeers. And for God’s
sake stop reading the urban dictionary. It’s driving me loopy.
”

* * *