Under the Blue Moon

Three

Later that morning Gio, James, Matt and James are sat around the breakfast table which is slowly being filled with breakfast goods from the kitchen. James’s mother Gina has ushered the younger siblings into the communal dining hall and pops back intermittently to speak with the kitchen staff and Jenna the head chef about plans for lunch and dinner. The men grouped at the family table pretend not to know that she is checking up on them. On her third trip back to talk to Jenna, Gio grabs her around the waist as she walks by, pulling her onto his lap and planting a butterfly kiss on her cheek. “Just sit and listen mi amore.” She blushes and makes an attempt at complaining that she wasn’t listening before falling into the conversation.

“Matt” she starts “If you go into storage 8, you’ll find the house contents all boxed up and labelled ‘Rowan’, they should be pretty close to the front on the shelving unit. I’ll clear one of the smaller halls for you all to work today.”

Gio smiles at his wife “Not listening” he chuckles.

“Shush you” she elbows him playfully “James get in touch with our lab, see if they did any testing on the blood found at the scene, I can’t believe they didn’t but it’s not in the files.” James looked at his mother, she had obviously read those files along with his father many times over the years. “Gio, you and James go visit the house, I’m sure there’s nothing there, but I was sure that there was nothing in those files too.”

James smiles at his mother’s industrious in charge nature and wonders not for the first time who the Alpha actually was in this pack. “What about you mum?” He asks.

“Oh don’t you worry son, I have leads of my own to follow.” She has an evil glint in her eye “I’ve let them be for years, thinking that this was all pretty cut and dry, but now, let’s just say their days of peace are over.”

James shudders thinking about his mother unleashing 15 years of pent up frustration and anger on anyone, especially on those who may have had a hand in the disappearance of her friends and their children.

“Don’t go too hard on them mi amore.” Gio says squeezing his wife around the middle “I do not need to be called to pull you off an errant pack member today!”

Gina grins “I’m not going near any pack members my dear.” Seeing the frown on her husbands face she quickly adds “Delta Keaton will be with me all day I promise.” Gio nods and kisses her cheek once more.

The groups finishes eating indulging in some small talk and pack gossip before Gina remembers that she needs to find a new home for the knit and natter group that usually take over the smaller community hall at 1pm. She dashes off telling everyone to stay in touch throughout the day.

James heads back to his room to get ready for what will hopefully be a productive day that may just see the end of his debilitating nightmares.

James

Walking into my bedroom my eyes are immediately drawn to the small red-brown wolf toy that has sat by my bedside for 15 years. I pick it up and squeeze it to my chest, “I’ll find out who took you from me Gwyny, one way or another I’ll find them.” I bury my nose into the still soft fur of the wolf imagining that I can still smell her strawberry shampoo and the lavender that clung to her clothes from running through the garden.

After a few moments I put the toy back in its place on my bedside and head into the shower. Grabbing a towel from the cabinet I throw the water onto hot giving it a few minutes to be the kind of scalding that I need to burn the lack of sleep out of my eyes. Turning from the towel rail where I have hung the towel I catch the steam coated mirror in my peripheral vision a flash of auburn hair sweeps through the mirror freezing me where I stand. Tonight may be a sleeping pill kind of night for me I shudder at the visual interference starting already. That usually a week two symptom, not a day one.

I step into the shower and stand under the water for a moment before grabbing my shower gel. Loosing myself to the mundane task of getting clean I let my mind go blank enjoying the heat and the clean smell of the gel. After a few moments I rinse away the suds and repeat with shampoo. The routine motions calm and centre me and I step out of the shower feeling refreshed.

Looking into the steam coated mirror I see the words “come find me”.

“Nope” I shake my head, “You’re not real, you’re not there” I close my eyes tight knowing that when I open them the words will be gone. With my eyes still closed, just in case, I head into my bedroom. Opening them to the light streaming into the room I sigh with relief, before I notice that the wolf toy is no longer on my bedside table, it is sat in the middle of my bed looking up at me with its baleful glass eyes.

“Nope” I mutter again, quickly drying myself off, I grab jeans and a shirt from my wardrobe and dress before leaving the room. Not once do I look back at my bed, not wanting to see if the toy is still there.

I run down the stairs almost bouncing off my father’s back at the bottom. He chuckles “Someone’s eager”. I nod fervently. Hiding the concern at the speed at which the symptoms are appearing this time, I know just how much it scares mum and dad when I need to spend time at the clinic to medicate me to sleep and stop the oncoming madness.

Jumping into the passenger seat of Dad’s jeep we chat easily through the 30 minutes it takes us to get from the centre of the pack to the eastern outskirts where the Rowan family lived. “Why did you leave it empty?” I ask Dad, knowing that there had been plenty of times that a new family could’ve used this house. He shrugged “Not sure really I guess I just forgot about it.”

Now that was odd, my father, the man who runs a pack of 2,000, manages numerous businesses and even more investment funds, ‘forgot’ that we had an empty cottage for 15 years. I watched him for a few moments as his brow went from furrowed confusion to nothing, almost as though he had forgotten the question altogether.

The same calm that seemed to wash through my father was pushing to overwhelm me as we drove closer to the house, for some reason the compulsion to fight it was stronger and I was waging an internal battle on all fronts by the time we pulled up.

Walking from the car to the front door I was shocked to see that the garden was tended, and the beds were neat. The lavender drifted in the breeze and the honeysuckle was in bloom around the green door, a door that looked freshly painted. Turning to my father to ask if he did this, he looked just as confused as me. “hmm” I let out involuntarily. We reached the door, and I pushed it open.

Inside the house was clean and dust free, again I was confused but the compulsion to stay calm was at it’s strongest here. We set off in different directions, Dad was going to look at the family areas and I was going to head into the areas that were specifically put together for Gwyny and the baby, the areas that I would have known.

Walking into Gwyny’s room I see everything the way it was at our last play date, is anything here different? I scan the room taking deep breathes to stay focused. As my eyes run over the vanity unit for the second time it finally registers that Gwyny was four when she disappeared, what four-year-old has a vanity unit? I sit at the small unit, it has a mirror, a tray for jewellery and two drawers to the left underneath. Opening the top drawer I push to one side then the other the makeup items that it contains. Nothing, no there’s something, stop a second. I take a deep breathe to clear the fog of calm once more, Four-year-olds don’t wear makeup, this isn’t little Gwyny’s vanity!

Moving on to the second drawer I find notebooks and pens. Pulling out the top notebook I open to the front page, my own handwriting stares back at me.

James,

Hi, this feels so odd to write cos well I’m you, but if I don’t write it then we will forget again, we forget every time so far here’s hoping this time is the last time.

We seem to be fighting it more this time though, the nightmares and the dreams seem to be keeping it here, if they go though you’ll lose the memories again. Try to stay off the drugs, they make it all go away and we need to remember to help her, to help them all.

This note was written on the sixth time you visited the house – according to the other notes – but who knows how many times we came before we started to make notes. For some reason the vanity isn’t hidden though so keep using it, you’ll be drawn to it as wrong if you lose it again.

Dad has given you the notes again and you have realised that Gwyny, her mum and the baby weren’t here when the attack happened. He will forget sooner than you, he has no reason to fight the calmness, it just feels right to him. The calm makes them all forget.

Remember Gwyny’s conjuring and look for ways that magic could have caused this, ok!

Now go and get dad before the calm makes him forget everything. Keep and eye on the mirrors too, they seem important but I can’t remember why.

Bye for now James.

My head starts to ache as I read, it feels like the calmness is physically trying to push all the thoughts out of my head, no that sounds insane how can calmness push anything? I rub my temples for a moment before I add a quick scribble to the note to change the visit count to 7.

I stand up, looking around again it seems as though the air around me fractures for a second, the bed in front of me flickers from the toddler size pink frills and teddy bears to a sparse single with blankets tucked around a battered looking mattress. The walls fade before popping back to the vibrant pink that I saw when I walked through the door. A laundry basket overflows in place of the mountain of plush teddy bears. I sniff feeling wetness at my nostril, my nose is bleeding. I turn quickly away from the bedroom to head into the bathroom. Pulling a few squares from the roll of toilet paper I mop the drops of blood from my nose, before looking up to the mirror, my breath quickly fogs the glass in the cold room.

‘I miss you James’ is scrawled in my breath.

“nope” I murmur “nope” I shake my head and turn heading out of the room. “nope.”