Claire De Lune (8 page)

“It is not like regular hair. It is a mark of the Goddess, and no human invention can permanently remove it. Not even a razor.” A trace of amusement laced her mother’s words.

“How did you know?” Claire crossed her arms.

“I didn’t imagine you had transformed back into a human on your own this afternoon. And,” she admitted, “I could smell your embarrassment and also shaving foam. It
is
a gift, Claire. What we are. And as soon as your transformation is complete, you will learn all you need to know—how to do everything we are able to do. In the meantime, there is no need to panic. What happened today is unlikely to happen again. It was probably because we were still so close to the full moon.”

“Oh, yeah, don’t panic. No problem. I’ll just keep some Nair in my purse,” Claire sniped. “Is there anything else I should be carrying around? A file for my claws? A dog brush?”

“That is enough,” Marie said sharply. “I have told you that you will learn what you need to, and at the proper time. We
have been training New Ones for many generations. Our traditions, our methods, are not without reason.”

Claire scowled.

Her mother watched her evenly. “I know it is difficult for you right now.”

“Really? Because you’re sure not acting like it.”

“Claire, stop. I think you should go to bed now. When you are fully transformed, you will be better prepared to learn. Until then, you must be patient, and watchful. That is the best way to keep yourself—to keep all of us—safe.” Her mother moved noiselessly across the kitchen toward the stairs. “It will get easier, Claire. You must trust me.”

Without even saying good night, her mother glided up the stairs, leaving Claire alone in the kitchen.

Claire shoved the plate of leftovers back into the fridge, her appetite gone. She stared across the lawn, her gaze traveling over the brick wall at the edge of the property. The thick woods beyond the wall twitched in the night breeze.

If her mother wasn’t going to teach her anything, then maybe she would just go figure things out for herself. After all, no one had said she shouldn’t do anything, just that they wouldn’t show her how yet. She leaned against the counter, thinking. It sure as hell hadn’t felt like it was the moon that made her change today. When the fur had come, she’d been thinking hard about being a werewolf. That could have been what triggered the change. Maybe her mom wasn’t giving her
enough credit. Maybe she could transform on her own, if she had a chance to try.

Well, there’s no time like the present to start.

She just needed somewhere to practice where her mom or Lisbeth wouldn’t walk in on her. Somewhere big, and private.

Somewhere like the woods.

Outside, the humidity pressed against Claire’s face like a wet handkerchief. A film of sweat popped out on the back of her neck. She turned to look up at her house. The windows were all dark.

A warm breath of air tickled her ear and she spun away from it, dropping down into a crouch on pure instinct. The space where Claire had been only a moment before was empty. She blinked at the vacant yard, surprised at how fast she’d moved.

From inside the pool house, she could hear the faint, chirrupy whisper of the ceiling fan. Crap. She’d left it on again. If Lisbeth saw it, she would freak about how much energy Claire had wasted. She hurried over to the little building, and then stopped short. A squeak escaped her mouth before she could stop it.

Oh my God, I could hear that all the way from the back of the house?

She’d known her hearing was better than it had been, but this was crazy.

Realizing she’d made a noise, she looked back up at the house. All the lights were still off.

Claire hurried across the lawn, wondering if her mother was going to realize she was gone—if she was about to come and stop her. The nerves in her fingertips tingled in time with her breathing as she tiptoed through the yard. With every step the smell of the grass being crushed beneath her feet flooded into her nose, carrying with it the sharp scent of chemical fertilizer. When she eased through the opening in the brick wall, the more natural, less uniform odor of the forest washed over her like cool water, and she sighed in relief.

Her nose twitched. She could smell
everything.
The squirrel hiding in the fir tree. The dry dirt and pine needles on the forest floor. And—her mother. She could smell her mother.

Crap.

Claire ducked under the low branches of the evergreen next to her and held her breath. How could she have missed the fact that her mother had followed her? She waited, frozen, her heart thudding against her ribs. The squirrel above her took off through the trees and Claire let out her breath.

When she breathed in again, she realized that the scent was faint and stale.

Oh my God. It’s from last night! I can smell where she walked last night.

She slid out of her hiding place and tried to shake the jumpiness out of her shoulders.

She took a deep breath. If she was going to be stuck like this, she was damn well going to learn to control it.

She focused on the nearly invisible tree trunks in front of her. They shimmered the tiniest bit, like ink on black paper.
Huh. I can see in the dark? That’s … helpful
. She tried to concentrate, to remember the feeling in her hands and ears when she’d changed before.

The thick fur blanketing her hands and ears was so strong in Claire’s mind that it may as well have already been on her. A wave of dizziness swept over her. Unable to keep her balance, she reached out to grab the closest tree, misjudged the distance, and landed hard on her knees with her fist empty and her head spinning. Her gut ached and her lungs burned, like someone had punched her in the stomach.

As quickly as the feeling had come, it passed. She reached out one shaky, fur-blanketed hand and stroked her ear. The silky fur slid underneath her fingertips.
I just shaved it off this afternoon—but damn, it doesn’t feel like I ever even touched it.

Still, it was not horror that she felt when she looked at her fur this time—it was relief.
I did it. I can control it. Oh, thank God, uh, Goddess, I can control it.

Success glowed in Claire’s chest like an ember. She checked to see if she was any different than she had been last night, but everything looked the same. Furry ears, furry hands, and human-looking everywhere else.

But still, she needed to be able to change back. And she’d
done that before only with her mother’s help. Now she had to figure out how to do it on her own.

She sat down, folding her legs underneath her, determined not to be knocked over by the force of turning human, the way she had been when she tried to become a wolf. She sucked a breath deep into her lungs, smelling a deer somewhere to her right, deep in the forest. The surprise of the scent—so clear and so far away—shook her concentration, and she let the breath slip back out in a quiet
oh.

Claire twisted to face a thick stand of trees. She could see the individual grooves in the bark of each tree. The sharp, musky scent of a scared doe wafted out between the branches. It was definitely in there.

Claire clenched her fists. A desire to hunt swelled in her chest. It blotted out everything else. She could barely keep herself from slinking off into the trees, following the deer’s scent. Her stomach grumbled.

She forced herself back onto the ground. Without meaning to, she had risen up onto all fours, ready to run.
What the hell am I doing?
She shook her head, clearing it, and pulled in another deep breath. If she was hungry, she’d go home and get a snack like a normal person.
Jesus. I was actually going to chase down a deer. …

The most important thing now was getting rid of her fur. Drawing herself in was trickier, but she held her breath and focused on being normal—being with Emily, hanging out
with Lisbeth, hearing Lisbeth laugh at something she said.

“… right now, no … I
can’t
. Think how suspicious that would look!”

Lisbeth’s voice rang in Claire’s ears and she gasped, opening her eyes and staring wildly at the trees around her. It had sounded tinny, like a bad phone connection, but it hadn’t been in her head. It wasn’t the same echo of Lisbeth’s voice that Claire heard when she left the water running while she brushed her teeth, or when she threw her clean laundry in a pile on the floor.

She had actually heard Lisbeth. Talking. Here.

What the hell?

Claire closed her eyes again. Had she made that happen, somehow? She’d been focusing so hard on Lisbeth, on hearing her. She kept the sound of Lisbeth’s voice fixed in her mind. It felt sort of stupid—but then, it
had
happened before.

“You know I didn’t mean for things to go like this! But it’s too late. I can’t go back and change—”

Excitement flooded through Claire and her concentration wavered. Lisbeth’s voice was gone again, but she didn’t care. She could
hear
her.

Immediately, she wondered if it would work on anyone else. She tried to think about Emily the same way she’d been thinking about Lisbeth. She wrapped her arms around her knees and listened hard. Nothing happened. Well, it was the middle of the night—Emily was probably asleep.

“Oh. Shit.” Her voice sounded loud in the quiet forest.

If Claire couldn’t hear someone unless they were actually saying something, then that meant Lisbeth was awake, which put Claire one bed-check away from being in deep trouble. Who on earth was Lisbeth talking to at this hour, anyway?

Oh, God, what if she’s talking to Mom? Okay. This is not the time to panic. All I have to do is change back and then get home. It can’t be that hard to transform. It just can’t.

Claire pressed her fur-covered hands against her eyes. She focused on the memory of the skin, smooth as an egg, that she’d worn every day for sixteen years. She wanted it—wanted to be back to normal. To be human.

The feeling of coming back into her skin was claustrophobic, like wriggling into a dress that was too small. The smell of the deer faded and she couldn’t see as clearly. The trees were just shimmers in the black night. Claire could tell she’d changed back, but panic rose in her chest. She didn’t feel like her usual self. Being in her regular body didn’t feel better than being a wolf. It was just as uncomfortable, only in a different way. Tears welled up in her eyes.

How could anyone adjust to this? Her breath hitched painfully, and her lungs felt slow and thick in her chest. Maybe this was why her mother was always so closed off. Maybe that made it easier.

A tear slipped down Claire’s cheek and she brushed it away. She didn’t have time for this now. Once she’d gotten
home without Lisbeth catching her, she’d have all the time in the world to cry.

Claire pulled herself to her feet. Her muscles ached and her stomach was rumbling. As she hurried home, she listened with her human-dulled ears to the tiny pops and cracks of the bracken that crunched beneath her feet. When she squeezed back through the wall onto her own lawn, the ache in her chest eased. The lights were off—Lisbeth must have finished her conversation and gone back to bed. The house was quiet. The ceiling fan still buzzed in the pool house. Claire crept over and turned it off. Surely if Lisbeth had discovered she’d been missing, there would be lights. Noise.

Claire had snuck out and gotten away with it. Relief coursed through her, washing away the sadness she’d felt in the woods. A grin spread across her face.

She slipped into the silent house and walked to the refrigerator. If Lisbeth heard her in the kitchen, who cared? She was allowed to get a midnight snack if she wanted. Claire pulled out the plate of leftover meat, picked a limp slice of steak from the plate, and put it in her mouth. Before she could stop herself, she thought how much better the deer would have tasted.

THE YAWN WAS
jaw popping. Lung cracking. Exhaustion ringed her thoughts like smoke, making everything hazy and indistinct. Morning had come so soon. It had been too much in one night—hunting for food, and then stalking the youngest one, the brand-new wolf. Tracking her while she stumbled through the woods like a human. She’d gone home so proud of herself. Fool enough to think that because the lights were off, she hadn’t been seen. Been caught.

Too young and stupid to think there might be other eyes watching her.

The phone rang six inches from Claire’s ear. She rolled away
from it, throwing the covers over her head. Who the hell was calling at—she cracked an eye and checked the alarm clock—9:33 in the morning?

As soon as the voicemail picked up, the phone started ringing again. Emily’s number flashed across the screen.

“Jesus God, Emily, it’s too
early.
Something had better be wrong.”

There was a loud sniff on the other end of the phone.

“Well, it is. They’re dead-set on sending me away next week, Claire. To the
farm.
” Emily didn’t so much say the last word as wail it. “Are you up? Can I come over? If I have to look at my mom for one more second right now, I’m going to freak out. I am so pissed off !”

Claire rubbed her hand across her eyes. “Wow. I mean, of course you can come over. I’m sorry, Em, I’m not totally awake yet. That’s really, really crappy, though.”

“You’re the best. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Claire stretched and rolled out of bed. She wandered downstairs, looking for Lisbeth. A note sat on the counter, pinned underneath a clean coffee mug.

Claire-bear,

Good morning! Don’t forget, I’m at an all-day yoga retreat and
your mom’s gone to Chicago for the day. If you go anywhere,
please leave me a voicemail, okay?

See you around six!

Love,

Lisbeth

A whole day without anyone looking over her shoulder? That was more than okay with Claire.

She put a pot of coffee on and sat at the island while it brewed, staring out the window. Last night had been so bizarre—but in a much better way than the night before had been. At least now she didn’t feel so out of control, like she was just supposed to sit on her hands and hope everything was okay. If she randomly started to sprout fur, she could fix it. Hell, if she thought someone was talking about her, she could listen in.