SilverMoonLight (SilverMoonSaga Book 1)

Marah
Woolf

MoonLightSaga

Book 1

SilverMoonLight

This
book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real peoples,
or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and
incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2014 Marah Woolf

All
rights reserved, including the rights of reproduction in whole or in part in
any form.

Book
design by Carolin Liepins

For
more information visit the website www.marahwoolf.com

For
Sarah,

who
always believed in Emma and Calum

You mustn't doubt

when you lose something,

a person

or a joy

or a happiness;

it will all come again, and more
gloriously.

What must fall away will fall
away,

what belongs to us will stay,

for everything is ordered
according to rules

far greater than our
understanding,

and with which we only appear to
be in conflict.

You must live within yourself

and consider the whole of your
life,

all of its million possibilities,
its broadness and future,

in light of which there is
nothing past nor lost.

A letter written by Rainer Maria
Rilke to Friedrich Westhoff,

Rome, 29. April 1904

The water all around me seems to be
getting darker and darker. I try to fight my way through, to get to the
surface, but I can’t seem to move even an inch, regardless of how hard I thrash
my arms and kick my legs. In the distance, I see a tiny pin prick of light and
try desperately to swim towards it. But I only sink deeper, and the light
becomes smaller and smaller until, eventually, it completely extinguishes. Then
I feel the pressure on my chest. My lungs are threatening to burst. I gasp for
air, no longer able to move my arms. Something grabs at me. I struggle in vain
to break free ...

Chapter One

I
couldn’t remember the last time I had woken up in the middle of the night. I
never usually woke during the night at all, at least not since I was five or
six years old. Bleary-eyed, I squinted into the half darkness and waited for
the familiar objects in my room to take shape. The water glass on my nightstand
shimmered like silver. I reached out for it. The water tasted stale and was ice
cold, but I took a few sips anyway. The wind rustled the white curtains by the
open window. It parted them for a brief moment, and through the narrow crack I
could see a huge yellow moon, hanging there as if it were pinned in the sky. I
loved the nights when there was a full moon, particularly their cold scent. I
snuggled down beneath my thick blanket and listened to the comforting sounds
coming from the living room.

It
was only once I had almost fallen asleep again that I noticed it.

The
silence.

All
at once, I was wide awake. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hear a thing: no
rustling sounds as my mother Brenda moved around on the sofa, no clink as she
put her wine glass back down on the table. And certainly not the comforting
murmur of the television. Nothing. It was silent, too silent, deathly silent.

I
reached for my dressing gown and pulled it on. On tiptoe, I crept over the cold
floor of our apartment and turned on the lights.

»Mom?«
I called, already with the vague premonition that I wouldn’t get an answer. I
grabbed my cell phone. No messages. I dialed her number and let it ring and
ring for an eternity, but she didn’t pick up. Walking slowly back to my room, I
pulled off my dressing gown and lay down in my still-warm bed. I reached for
the book on my nightstand and tried in vain to concentrate on the sentences. An
uneasy feeling had taken hold of me, that I couldn’t shake it off.

Something
woke me. A loud noise, too loud, forced its way into my head: the persistent
clang of the doorbell. My book crashed to the floor as I pulled the blanket over
my head in irritation. Mom would get it. It continued to ring, more insistently
now, unrelenting. I waited. Then, realizing that the lamp next to my bed was
still burning, I suddenly remembered. A sense of foreboding seeped into my mind
as I ran to the door and flung it open.

Two
policewomen stood in front of me. »Emma Tate?«

I
nodded.

»Could
we perhaps come in?« asked one of the women with a friendly smile. Without
saying a word, I led them into the living room.

»Is
your mother Brenda Tate?« the blonde policewoman asked hesitantly. Again, all I
managed was a nod.

»Are
you here by yourself?«

»Yes,«
I answered, far too softly.

»I’m
afraid we have some very sad news for you.« Her voice trembled a little and she
seemed unable to continue. After a brief moment, her colleague jumped in on her
behalf.

»Emma,
the thing is...we found your mother. She had an accident. It seems she was
driving too quickly and lost control of her vehicle.«

An
accident? I shook my head in disbelief. No, not my mother, it was impossible
that something like that could have happened to her. She always drove at a
snail’s pace, it was so embarrassing.

»Her
car overturned on a bridge and crashed into the Potomac. I’m afraid she
drowned. By the time we got to her, there was nothing we could do.«

It
had to be some kind of mistake. My mother had always been terrified of any kind
of water that didn’t come out of a tap. Thoughts tumbled into my mind. I had to
say something, explain to them that they had made a mistake. Surely, Mom had
just popped out to the supermarket to pick up the croissants I loved having on
Saturday mornings. Any minute now I’d hear her key turning in the lock.

But
no words made it past my lips.

»We
don’t want to leave you here alone,« said the blonde, speaking up again. »Is there
someone we can call to look after you?«

I
shook my head robotically. »There’s no one.«

»Isn’t
there a friend you could stay with?« I reached for my cell phone and looked for
Jenna’s number, then passed the phone to the brunette policewoman. Jenna Stewart,
my best friend, she would save me. I listened to the conversation, but as if
through thick cotton wool. A few fragments pushed their way through to me.
Accident.
Dead. Alone.

It
was barely half an hour before Jenna and her distraught parents stood at the
front door. Unlike me, Mrs. Stewart was crying. The two policewomen seemed
relieved to be freed of their responsibility for me, so my only option was to
pack a few things and go with the Stewarts.

I
had waited in vain for the turn of mother’s key in the lock.

During
the days that followed, I kept thinking I must be having one of my all-too
lifelike nightmares. Except that I never woke up, and the nightmare just kept
going.

It
was clear that I couldn’t stay with the Stewarts forever; their apartment was
too small for an extra person. But there was just one problem: I had nowhere
else to go. I had no relatives in the States: no aunts, no uncles, and
certainly no grandparents. After all, I didn’t even know who my father was.

So
the only option was my uncle. My uncle in Scotland.

Scotland.
My mother had left her home there almost as soon as I was born. That was
seventeen years ago, and she had never been back since.

When
I went back to the apartment with Jenna and her mother a few days later, I
looked for the address book containing my uncle’s contact details and handed it
to Mrs. Stewart. Then, slowly, I walked through every room in turn. After just
a few days without Mom and me, the apartment seemed strangely desolate. The air
was stale, and dust had settled on the shelves and tables. It was no longer the
home I had known, and I felt like a stranger there. Pulling two travel bags
from the closet, I chucked in all the things that were important to me: my
clothes, my painting things, my drawings, photos of my mother, my passport.
Then I wandered through the apartment one last time. I wanted to take something
with me as a way to remember it.

I
paused in front of the cabinet with all our trinkets from past holidays,
looking at every single piece in turn. Then I picked out a stone that looked
like a heart and tucked it away in my jeans pocket. We had found it years ago
on a hike. I also took the branch my mother had carved—or rather,
tried
to carve—into a flute for me. It hadn’t managed to produce a single note, but
we had laughed ourselves silly trying to entice one out of it. The memory made
me smile.

Finally,
I grabbed my guitar and then lugged everything out to the car. The rest would
be sorted out by the welfare people. I glanced up for the last time at the windows
where I had so often stood, watching the street pulse with life down below.

His
letter arrived a week after Mom’s funeral. I opened it reluctantly. As
expected, my uncle was inviting me to come and live with him and his family.

I
stared at the colorful flowers on the wallpaper in Jenna’s room.

I
would have gladly delayed saying goodbye to my former life. I would have gladly
stayed with Jenna. But now that our apartment had been sorted out and my mom
had been buried, there was no sensible reason to stay any longer. Jenna pleaded
with her parents, saying that they should keep me there with them, but we all
knew her wish was too unrealistic.

So
my only option was to use the tickets my uncle had sent me and fly off to the
other side of the world.

******

It
was pitch-black outside when the small airplane landed. I grabbed my backpack
and waited until the two other passengers had left. Only when the pilot came
over towards me with a questioning look did I stand up, pulled my jacket on,
and headed for the exit.

I
had been travelling for over twenty hours now, culminating in this final leg of
the journey—this flying shoebox which had delivered me to the only airfield on
Skye. Twenty hours in which I had tried to come to terms with the life that now
lay before me. If I’m honest, my efforts hadn’t been overly successful.

I
walked hesitantly down the rickety steps, stopping to breathe in the cold air.
Then I looked up; the sky stretched out above me, as black as coal. Never in my
life had I seen so many stars; there must have been millions of them. The sky
above Washington was never that clear. I pulled my jacket closer around me and
walked on.

The
long journey had left me feeling exhausted and bedraggled. I paused
indecisively and looked around me. A tall, slim man stepped out of the wooden
hut at the other end of the runway and walked over towards me. He was only a
little older than my mother had been. His thick head of hair was just as dark
as hers, and a little curly, like mine. I held my breath nervously.

»Emma?,«
he asked in a warm, clear voice. »I’m Ethan, your...your uncle.«

»Hi,«
I replied.

»Was
the journey exhausting?« He looked at me with concern. I nodded silently.

»Come
on then, let’s go home,« he said encouragingly as he reached for my bags.

I
suddenly heard someone calling out. »Ethan, Emma, there you are!«

A
beautiful red-haired woman came running over to us. Before I could say
anything, she threw her arms around me and pulled me close. I stiffened
automatically, but she didn’t seem to notice. She gave me a kiss on the cheek
and then held me at arm’s length to take a good look.

»You’re
the spitting image of Brenda,« she cried out. »I’m Bree, your aunt. But just
call me Bree. Aunt sounds so terribly old, don’t you think?« She chattered
away, putting her arm around my shoulders and pulling me along with her behind
Ethan.