Black Moon Curse

Chapter 5: Midnight

Sinead's P.O.V

I couldn't resist a new pup, I had to look at the beautiful new baby in the cradle. After introducing myself I looked around the room.

"You must be the pup's mother" I said to the woman on the bed.

"Yes I'm Amelia. Is there anything we can do about this curse?" she asked me

"Well I'm just a stargazer so I hope that is going to answer the questions you have." I replied. "What specifically is the curse? can you tell me exactly what was done?" I asked Amelia. I listened as Amelia told me the entirety of the curse and I was horrified.

"How could someone do such a thing? and why?" I asked to no one in particular. Everyone in the room just shrugged their shoulders indicating they were just as baffled as I was.

"Well let's get to it then, but first who are the rest of you? I do not know your names yet" I looked at the two women and one other man in the room.

The young woman with golden brown hair down to her waist, blue eyes and soft round face introduced herself first.

"I'm Orla, Amelia's best friend and handmaiden."

"Nice to meet you, Orla," I replied.

Next the older woman with some silver in her raven black hair introduced herself as Maggie. She informed me that she was the midwife and pack healer.

"Nice to meet you as well" I said smiling at her.

Lastly the very handsome gentleman, with striking blue eyes and well toned muscles introduced himself as Craig the Beta. I could see that he was mated but I couldn't resist admiring his appearance.

"I'm glad to meet all of you, I hope there is something in my research that can help." I walked over to the desk with all my bags full of papers on it. I opened the largest pack and pulled out the very large spell book.

"Who wants to be in charge of spell searches?" I asked the room.

Orla raised her hand "I can do it," she volunteered "I know a bit about magic and spells, not that I can do magic, but let's see what I can find."

"Alright, everything else is about the moon phases and dates for the last 500 years, so we can each be in charge of 100 years worth."

"This is a lot to go through." Calvin said

"well you asked." I replied.

I divided the research between all that were present in the room.

"Not to be rude," Craig said while looking through the papers that I gave him, "but how old are you?" he asked.

"I'm 700 years old," I replied matter of factly.

"How is that even possible, you don't look more than maybe 25!?" Craig said in astonishment.

"It's the result of being a primordial's daughter, my father specifically. He was one of the very first werewolves to ever exist. Primordial's were the strongest and had or still have the greatest powers, but some think it comes with a price. For instance they cannot resist a transformation on a full moon and are compelled to for the Moon Goddess. Longevity is one of the powers which was passed onto me." I told him.

"Oh, I didn't realize we had anyone in our pack so closely related to a primordial," Craig said in awe.

"Well, I like to keep to myself," I said to him, he nodded in understanding. Lots of wolves liked their space, but were still part of a pack.

"Yes, I could always feel another presence through the pack connection, but never knew it was you," the Alpha said listening to our conversation.

"My apologies for that, I used to introduce myself to the new Alpha every time, but after a while I just didn't bother anymore unless I was needed." I said to Calvin.

" Well I'm glad you are part of our pack, and no apologies necessary." Calvin said back to me.

"Were you ever the Alpha of this pack being a primordial's daughter you were more than qualified and capable?" Craig questioned again.

I smiled lots of werewolves were curious when they discovered my lineage. Partly why I stayed to myself, not many could resist asking me everything. I understood the curiosity and usually never let it bother me. I noticed Calvin's eyebrows raise in curiosity about what my answer to the question would be.

"I never wanted to be Alpha of our pack, and I never challenged any Alpha for the position. I decided long ago I wanted to be a stargazer for the pack. I'm to old for the position of Alpha now anyway. The Alpha needs to be young and strong, the job is a tough one being provider and protector to the pack. I enjoy my free time with no worries."

This seemed to satisfy their curiosity about that particular question. I seen Craig's eyebrows furrow in thought and I could see him forming another question in his head.

"Did you ever find your mate?" he asked.

"It's a long story, and we should probably focus on the matter at hand. I'll happily answer any questions you have another time." I gave my answer hopefully putting an end to the line of questioning for a little while until we dealt with the immediate predicament.

"Yes, I'm sure we all have questions we would like to ask Sinead, but we do have a possible time limit here." Calvin said.

Orla's P.O.V

I was happy to volunteer to look through the spell book. It looked well worn either that or it was just really old. Either way I could not wait to see what was in it. I flipped through the first few pages most spells were pretty standard, like quick grow, ice or fireball spells. I looked through a few more healing spells, that went from simply healing a small cut to the harder ones of re-growing limbs. There were a lot of spells meant for helping or just for fun spells like disappearing or incognito spells.

"Incognito could be useful for eavesdropping on some conversations around here." I was thinking to myself not that I was a nosy person. The invisibility spell could be useful in finding my mate whom I haven't found yet. Traveling to other packs is dangerous alone but being invisible would mean less worry. The possibilities were endless the more I thought about it.

I was looking at a levitation spell when I heard Craig ask how old Sinead was. When I heard her reply that she was 700 I was shocked. No wonder why this book looks so old. I was vaguely aware of the rest of the conversation between Sinead and Craig this spell book was very interesting.

So I was specifically looking for curse type spells, there had to be a few. "Oh, here is something," I thought. A paralyzing spell this could explain why we couldn't move. I read the small passage:

A paralyzing spell is usually only effective against one enemy, however depending on levels of power and skill those casting the spell can paralyze up to 50 people at a time. Paralysis can be simply immobilizing certain body parts to the whole body and even the ability to breathe.

I finished reading the passage in my head. well that explains what happened to everyone and why we couldn't move. But I need to find something on individual curses and this wasn't it. I flipped through a few more hexes and decided it was possible to combine them into a curse to make them worse. I'm not sure I would ever hex anyone, maybe something silly if they did something to cross me, like making them bald for a week that could be funny.

This book was quite big and surprisingly full of information about spells I had never even heard of. I kept flipping the pages trying to find something on the effectiveness of a reversal spell and time limits on curses. There had to be something that could tell me more about our current situation.

Calvin's P.O.V

I had just said we could ask our questions later when Sinead handed me a stack of papers to go through. I realized it was a lot to go through but it was worth it if we could find some hope for Adeline.

"Alright, we are looking for black moons that repeat themselves specifically on Adeline's birthday, if any exist," I said to everyone.

The room fell silent as everyone started looking through what they had. I noticed every few years there was a black moon but I hadn't found one yet on Adeline's birthday.

"Sinead, you have obviously done a lot of record keeping of the night skies. Do you have any recollection of black moon dates that repeat themselves?" I asked her.

"Well, from what I can remember a black moon rarely falls on the same day twice, but there are instances of it. If Adeline is lucky a black moon could land on her birthday in eight to ten years, maybe nineteen. If she is not so lucky possibly never. All we need to do is find a past moon that coincides with her date of birth." I answered as best as I could. "Let's focus on the months of March because that is when her birthday is obviously, and we can separate those months from the years of moon phases." Sinead said.

Everyone was sorting their respective piles when Orla spoke.

"I found something," she declared. With her finger keeping her place on the page in the spell book. "I was right about the power of the moon tonight, any spell cast during a black moon will be powerful and long lasting. Unless another black moon falls on her birthday the curse will be sealed and nothing can be done about it. So we were correct about that and the importance of finding a solution, according to this we have till midnight tonight when the black moon is officially over." Orla continued. "If only we could find the person who did this killing him before midnight could possibly nullify the curse, or find someone who knows powerful magic to weaken it tonight, our only hope is to find a black moon birthday in her future." Orla sighed.

"Well everyone, keep searching, and pray to the Moon Goddess we can find evidence that she will have another black moon birthday" I said. "We might only have until midnight to find something".