Ties to the Blood Moon 2nd Edition (7 page)

Since my mom’s death a few weeks back I’d hardly slept, which was probably why my temper had gotten so much worse lately. I thought about her all the time, wondering if I’d been home would I have been able to save her.

I put on a pair of baggy sweats and my mom’s old long-sleeved Bob Marley tee-shirt I had borrowed for my trip. I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, staring at my face. My light blue eyes seemed to be getting darker and taking on a green hue. My hair was turning a deeper red as well. I knew that wasn’t really possible … or was it? I shrugged my shoulders, pulling my hair into a loose bun, brushed my teeth and headed down stairs.

Aunt Bev was not in the kitchen when I went down for breakfast. She had a pitcher of fresh orange juice on the table, and a plate with bacon and biscuits beside it. I went down the hallway and as I entered her room, I heard her shower running.

I scanned her bedroom admiring how beautifully it was decorated. A large wrought iron canopy bed covered the biggest part of one wall. Sheer curtains were twisted and draped through the top, and the bed was covered with an overly plush white down comforter trimmed in light blue with matching throw pillows of white and blue. There was a chocolate-colored, faux suede chaise facing a huge rock fireplace with a forty-two inch flat screen attached to the wall above it. I glanced at the antique dressing table and that’s when I noticed her cell phone sitting next to a picture of her and my mom.

I quietly crossed the room, and picked up her phone. My heart raced from the fear of being caught, but I just had to see who she had been on the phone with so late at night when I’d come home from the bonfire.

My heart all but stopped beating when I scrolled through her recent calls and found the name Annalisa. Just then, the shower water stopped. I promptly closed the phone and ran from her room, not slowing down until I’d reached the kitchen. I tossed a biscuit onto my plate, shoved a piece of bacon in my mouth and poured some juice.

A few minutes later, Aunt Bev came into the kitchen. It didn’t take much to notice she was so totally not acting like herself.

“Good morning,” I said, forcing a smile.

She poured herself a cup of coffee as I watched, then reached into the cabinet and took out a tea bag and dropped it into her mug. “Good morning,” she replied, with a look of trepidation.

“Um … is everything all right?” I asked, furrowing my brow. Normally something like that would have been funny, but the way Aunt Bev had been acting lately told me something had her preoccupied.

She turned around to face me, and I could tell she was forcing herself to smile by the worried look on her face. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason … except you just put a tea bag in your cup of coffee.”

She stopped just before taking a sip, and looked down at her cup for a brief moment. She quietly poured the contents into the sink, then just stared out the window.

“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” I asked, but I don’t think she even heard me because she didn’t bother to answer. “William and I are running away to get married because I’m pregnant,” I teased, trying to get a response from her … any response.

She was lost in her own world, not hearing a word I said. “Really? That sounds like fun.” She checked her watch, and then scooped up her purse from the desk. “I’ve got to run some errands. If you go somewhere before I get back, leave me a note.” She kissed the top of my head, then disappeared out the kitchen door.

Something wasn’t right with my aunt and I needed to find out what. I mean why would she have been on the phone after midnight with my school counselor? They certainly hadn’t been discussing my academic future.

After finishing breakfast I cleaned the kitchen because Aunt Bev was a clean freak and would have had a meltdown if it wasn’t clean. I sure didn’t want to do anything to make her change her mind about letting me go out with William later.

I checked my phone like every five seconds but William hadn’t sent me a text message. I had no clue what time we were going out, but I didn’t want to get ready too early and have to just sit around and wait.

I wandered around the den peering at all of Aunt Bev’s pictures hanging on the wall, and sitting on top of the piano. I decided to try my hand at the piano, which I hadn’t played since we’d moved from Wyoming when I was eleven, and had to leave our piano behind because we were moving to a much smaller house.

I opened the bench to find something I could play. When lifting some of the music sheets I found an old book beneath them. I got it out and carried it to the couch where I placed it in my lap. It appeared to be very old so I carefully open the cover, exposing pages so yellowed they were turning brown. It smelled of mold, and made me sneeze.

I quickly realized it wasn’t a music book, but an old book of legends. It had no title—which I found weird—but it did have a table of contents. I ran my finger down the page but found it hard to read because the words were so badly faded. I struggled to make out some of the headings and my jaw dropped open when I spotted something familiar. One of the headings said something about Adlet, which was the same name Miss Baylor had been talking about at the bonfire.

I was beginning to find the whole thing a bit too coincidental. I rushed through the pages until I reached the story “Searching for the Adlet Princess.” I read the first page which talked a lot about the Adlet woman who had fallen in love with a shape-shifter posing as a Russian. I turned the page and read through it. While reading the third page I suddenly froze when I saw the picture of a painting on the adjoining page. It was a young woman surrounded by a pack of giant wolves. The woman looked a great deal like my mom. My heart pounded in my ears. I slammed the book closed and returned it to the bench before rushing out of the room.

I didn’t know what to think. I fell back onto the couch and stared out the window, trying to take in everything I had just seen and read, along with what Miss Baylor had said the night before. There was something very familiar about the book, but I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

“Oh God.” I threw my hand over my mouth. It had just dawned on me the reason the book seemed familiar. I had seen my mom reading the exact same book.

Chapter 11

I was curled up on the couch watching a
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
marathon when my phone started ringing. I snatched my phone from the table. It was a text message from William. My heart immediately raced with excitement.

What are you doing?
he text messaged me.

Watching tv. What are you doing?
I messaged him back. I was glad he’d sent a text message instead of calling, because I probably would have been all tongue tied, thinking about last night, and how we’d came so close to kissing. Just thinking about it caused my whole body to tremble.

Are we still on for today?
he wrote.

Yeah, I guess. Where and when?
I hoped I wasn’t acting too disconnected. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t interested, I just didn’t want him to think I was too eager. The truth was I’d do just about anything to be with him.

I had made the mistake of acting too eager before, back when I lived in L.A. I was overly friendly with this guy I really liked, and because of that, he thought I would give in just to be with him. Was he ever wrong. When I said no and he wouldn’t quit, I ended up kneeing him in the groin as hard as I could. He let me go, but kicked me out of his car, leaving me to find my own way home from the beach.

It’s a surprise. Dress warm and be ready in thirty minutes. I’ll pick you up. Okay?

Yeah. But make it an hour. I wanna finish watching this show first.
I had no intentions of watching the next five minutes or fifty minutes. I just didn’t want him to know that. I would need every minute possible to get ready.

See you in an hour. Be sweet. ; )

I jumped up and squealed with excitement. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, which turned out to be extremely fast. I only had an hour to get ready and I hadn’t even showered yet. I seriously thought he would have given me more of a notice.

I grabbed my robe and towel and hurried into the bathroom, showering in record time. The big job would be picking out something to wear, especially when I didn’t have a clue where he was taking me. It’s not like we had a big selection. We were so far north of the lower forty-eight, I doubt if most people even knew there was life up here. Okay, so I was exaggerating a little bit, but there really wasn’t that much to do except for arcades and movie theatres. And, since they were both indoors and heated, dressing warm certainly wasn’t a requirement.

I had no choice but to just grab something so I opted for a pair of American Eagle lined dark brown corduroys, and a bright pink flannel shirt. And of course I would take my bubble wrap with me.

When my phone rang in the middle of putting on my mascara I almost poked my eye out. I was so nervous with anticipation I jumped at almost any little noise .
I’m outside. ; )
William’s text message read.

I’ll be right out.
Having the worst case of butterflies
ever,
I could hardly type the message, my hands trembled so badly. I had no idea what to expect when I walked out through the garage.

The sky was no longer sunny; a band of low lying dark gray clouds filled the air. Autumn would be coming early Aunt Bev had said, so I took that to mean the snow would start much sooner up here than anywhere in the lower forty-eight. Haven was so far north that a normal school year went from March to October.

William waited at the top of the driveway in the most awesome brand new red Lexus sports car. Through his dark tinted windows, I easily saw his sparkly white teeth and perfectly disheveled hair. He always looked like he’d just stepped out of
GQ
or something. His smile said he was just as happy to see me as I was to see him. My knees started shaking so badly I thought I was going to hit the pavement before I got to his car.

He didn’t actually get out of the car, but he did lean across and open the passenger door for me. When I climbed in, Bob Marley’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” wafted softly through the stereo speakers. I immediately felt a tug at my heart. William noticed and quickly scooped up the remote, turning it down.

“You don’t like Bob Marley?” he asked earnestly.

“It’s not that. I love him,” I halfway smiled. “He was my mom’s favorite. Whenever I was upset about something, she would put on this song and start singing it while dancing around the room acting silly. In just a few minutes, I was over whatever it was that had me upset in the first place.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand in a comforting way, and my heart pounded inside my chest. “I didn’t know—I’ll change it.” His voice was velvety smooth and extremely sexy.

I gave him a sidelong glance, and behind his dark sunglasses he’d lowered his eyes briefly. “Don’t you dare!” I snagged the remote away from him and we both laughed. “Really. It’s good memories.”

I turned the song up and settled back deeper into my seat. Neither of us spoke until it ended. “So … where are we going?” I asked, smiling nervously.

“It’s a secret, and if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.” He briefly lowered his glasses, looked over the top of them, and grinned. “Let me ask you this … are you afraid of heights?” He sped up once we’d gotten on the highway.

“No. Why?” I asked while trying to get up the nerve to place my hand on top of his, which rested on the gear shifter.

He grinned, like he was being sneaky. “You’ll see,” he taunted and turned up the stereo.

We drove through the mountains for the better part of an hour, and just as I was about to nod off, we turned off the road after passing a sign that read, “Alaska Adventures.”

I glanced at William. He had the biggest grin on his face. “What have I gotten myself into?” Although I was apprehensive, for some reason I trusted William completely.

After parking we got out and I saw the “Treetop Tours” sign. We walked down a dirt path, except it was sort of more like a mud path, in the middle of some of the largest redwood trees I’d ever seen. A little ways down there was a small building he went inside while I waited.

A few minutes later, he walked out with a guy wearing a Hurley jacket and blue jeans, carrying three helmets.

“Gen, this is Mark. Mark, Gen. He’s our tour guide.” William took my hand and we followed Mark to a lift. I cupped my hand over my eyes when I looked up. My heart dropped when I discovered it went so high I couldn’t even see the top.

“It’s fine, I promise,” William said when I was reluctant to get on. I took his hand and climbed on pretending to be much braver than I really was.

When we got to the top, Mark buckled William and I into a sling type thing made for two people. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat, and my mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. I was expecting him to attach himself to the line at some point, but instead he said he’d see us at the other end, then gave us a shove.

When we first took off I screamed and shut my eyes tightly after looking down from above the tree tops. We were so high up I couldn’t even see the ground below.

William laughed. “Open your eyes or you’ll miss it.”

“That’s my plan … to miss seeing myself fall to my death.” Even though it was freezing cold up there, I’d broken out into a sweat. Summer in Alaska didn’t mean warmth, it just meant sun.

“You said you weren’t afraid of heights.” He sounded amused.

“I thought you meant like airplanes or skyscrapers. Which means being inside somewhere looking out.” I cracked my eyes open a tiny bit as I started to get used to the feeling of hanging in mid air. Slowly my anxiety lessened and I finally started enjoying it.

He had his arm looped tightly around my waist, and our bodies pressed close together. We went over one of those knot things on the zip line and it jarred the harness, startling me. Out of reflex my hand flew to his chest, and it was only minutes later that I realized his heart beat seemed faint and slow.