A Lament of Moonlight (3 page)

“Hurry, back home!” Abigail exclaimed.

“We will never make it in time; we are too far and much too slow for them. UP!” Melvin said turning his face up to the sheltering pine branches above. None of them wasted any time scurrying up the tree, though it never occurred to them how they would get out once there and surrounded by wolves.

Somehow they figured if they kept quiet enough the wolves would pass under them, as if they could not smell the humans on the air. So with skinned knees and hands, clothes coated with pitch and damp bark they settled into the trees, their weapons held close to their bodies, ineffectual against the coming dread cutting a path through the night.

Finally Luna fluttered down and landed peacefully before Abigail, as if waiting for what was to come.

Chapter Two

Of course Gretchen had woken too and was not going to wait idly by while the others went venturing out into the night, escaping the confines of their house through the open window in Abigail and Ruby’s room. She stood there glaring out into the night, watching as her three cousins tottered off into the woods following the grotesque butterfly.

“Never in all my years,” she started. “Have I seen three more stupid than they. Never in my long life have I witnessed an act so foolish.”

Gretchen smiled when she heard the wolves and figured they were a nice touch.

“You think she will help them?” Gretchen asked herself a strange look coming over her face as though she were chewing on something particularly nasty.

“I think it is a certainty that they will be helped by more than just her,” Gretchen answered herself in a completely different tone than before. “I dare say that we will give them a few more minutes, time to overcome this obstacle, and then we will venture off after them.”

“To what purpose?” Gretchen asked herself again, this time the voice coming from her sounded childlike.
             

“To see them fail of course.”

They weren’t like any wolves they had ever seen. These were not so much wolves as they were shadows. None of them had seen a shadkin before, but they figured these wolves were certainly them.

“What do we do?” Abigail wailed flailing her fire poker at the wolves below and managing the merest of contact with a muzzle, an attack that made the animal bleed but not in copious amounts.

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell us, you are the one that wanted to come after the stupid butterfly in the first place. I hope she gets eaten,” Melvin grumbled as he watched the wolves below not bothering to swing at them as the others did, though Ruby’s knife was too short to reach them and was instead swung (much like Abigail’s weapon) haphazardly and ineffectually. Melvin knew that the animals could not reach them as high as they were in the trees, and he didn’t want to waste his energy trying to get to them.

Suddenly a loud crack sounded some distance off and a flash of bright light permeated from one central location to their right. The light was slow yet violent in nature and ebbed from the spot radiating out in a perfect circle. This circle was not at all like an orb but instead like a flat disk flashing and dancing in their eyes and tinting their hair an odd shade of purple, for that was the color of the light they were witnessing.

So beautiful was the light that they could not look away and instead found their minds drawn to it with such intense fascination that they forgot all about the deadly animals below. Eventually the light faded and with it went the wolves. Now, none of them exactly saw the wolves leave, but later they would be heard telling people that the light made the wolves vanish as if they had
truly
been formed of shadows. Ruby would argue and say that they had vanished like smoke, and still Abigail would insist that they had been swallowed by the ground. They would argue for a time until no one in their right mind believed one bit of the story, but one thing was certain: somehow the wolves vanished.

“That was odd,” Melvin said as he swung out of the tree, the hammer held defensively in his hands in fear that at any moment the wolves might come back. The girls were a little less eager to leave the shelter of the branches they sought refuge in, but eventually they all agreed the wolves had left and they picked their ways out of the various trees they had climbed.

They were emblazoned by their near death and mysterious saving from the wolves so much that they were heartened to go further into the woods. It wasn’t so much that they wanted to follow Luna who was flittering through the woods still further, but all of them felt a curious tugging that told them to carry on, to move forward with their progress. It was almost like something was whispering in their minds, urging them forward, telling them to continue as if there was a greater plan for them and that plan was further in the woods. They were all afraid by their decision, though they put on a brave face and carried on.

“It’s just a butterfly,” Abigail said as she drug her feet not wanting to go further, yet seemingly drawn against her will by the unexplainable urge within her.

“That is not why I am going forward,” Melvin told her not stopping to talk, but instead pressing on forcing them all to go with him. “You cannot tell me that a profound feeling to press on is not shared by the rest of you?”

“No, I feel it too,” Ruby said, though she still didn’t want to go on. “I want to go home,” she said reverting back to the Ruby she had been safe in her room before the spirit of adventure had washed over her urged by the eagerness of her brother and sister.

“You can go home if you want,” Melvin said heartlessly walking further into the woods. They hadn’t come in on a path, but he knew his way well given the fact that he had often treaded these very woods with his father on various hunting trips. He was making his way to Singers Trail, pausing now and then to look around and get his bearings while he argued with his sisters.

“No,” Ruby said catching up to them, her silky brown hair clinging to dead limbs and evergreens that jutted out here and there as she tried to traverse the way Melvin was cutting before them. He continued to notch the trees, though once on Singers Trail it wouldn’t be as necessary for those were the paths he knew well.

Singers Trail had been created years before by their great grandfather who had used a horse and a log to flatten a path through the woods. When they reached Singers Trail travel was much easier as this routine of horse and log had been taken up by later generations and was continued monthly to
insure
that no new growth could ruin the road. This is not to say that Singers Trail was precisely easy to travel as there were still a lot of boulders and loose stones. They had to climb up knolls and smaller hills that upon deeper reflection were not really hills at all but series of stones and rocks settled through the years that began growing vegetation.

All the while they followed Luna who seemed to faintly glow purple in the overcast night, the only light that they could see, the only way they knew to go. No matter how much Melvin persisted that he knew they needed to go deeper into the woods he had no idea precisely where they needed to go, and so instead they continued following the beacon that was Luna.

“What are we doing?” Ruby asked in a small voice. “Where are we going?”

“I am not sure, I just know that something within me says that we are needed, though I am not sure. . . .” he trailed off leaving unsaid that he didn’t know what they were doing. This seemed the answer every time a question like that was posed, for Melvin truly didn’t know where they were going or why they were going there. So they continued to walk over the leaf strewn forest floor, climbing over recently fallen trees that threatened to obstruct their way.

A few times they were afraid they had lost Luna, for the traveling was not always easy, and it certainly wasn’t as easy on the ground as it was for the insect in the air. They realized, however, that she didn’t glow when she landed, and she often waited for them when they were beginning to lag behind. The venture quickly became synonymous with Luna, and they feared that if they lost her they would lose their way and not make it to where they needed to be.

When they thought for sure they had lost the butterfly she would often lift up off a rock or limb nearby and flutter away before them glowing once she was in the air.

Occasionally they would hear the word Helvegr whispered in the air, and they would all shudder, wondering what it was that could make them so fearful. One word that could make them terrified, one word they didn’t know the meaning of that could fill them with such cold fear. And so the next few hours passed, and when the next startling thing happened they were closely approaching midnight.

Gretchen traveled deeper into the woods, the light of the moon suddenly forsaking her and not even occasionally shinning on the path through the overcast night. The entire time she wore a scowl, and glared into the night after her cousins.

“The wolves were good, but easily overcome,” Gretchen said as she followed the notches Melvin had chinked into the trees. “I think there is something else needed now, however.” She turned, stopping where the wolves had been overcome by the light. “Call your shadkin, and make it worth it,” she told the other presence inside her.

A smile spread across her elongated face as the other presence took over, and her eyes lit with an unholy radiance in the darkness. Slowly the night around her began to pulse and writhe as the darkness itself seemed to be drawn into Gretchen’s being. In time, when she had gathered enough of the dark energy around her Gretchen dropped her arms with a wracking breath, and the darkness flowed from her.

As it left the darkness
appeared to drip off h
er hands, nose, and hair
plopping to the ground like cancerous water and smelling of rotten eggs. It ran off Gretchen’s knobby extremities like oil, thick and dirty, not wanting to leave her, but being forced by her mind, the mind of the one controlling it. As if she stood on a tilt (which they did not, in fact they stood in a slight recess in the ground) the energy began to drift the way the Bordeaux’s had gone, trailing out like snakes the energy followed them. Before long there were hundreds of energy trails slithering along the ground toward where the others had gone. These shadkin would not be defeated by climbing trees.

Chapter Three

Midnight was nearly upon them when Luna had next flown out of sight.

“Why does she fly ahead of us if all she is going to do is land and wait?” Melvin said becoming very cross that he didn’t know precisely where they were going, though knowing Singers Trail well he wouldn’t get lost unless the butterfly led them off the trail and into the thicket.

“Where are we going anyway?” Abigail asked now becoming as agitated as Melvin for things were not going the way she wanted. It was a simple truth that she would have to face that in the days to come nothing was going to go anywhere near how she wanted them to.

Melvin grunted for he didn’t know but being the stronger one of the group he didn’t want to admit that he was following a butterfly in hopes that it would lead them toward where the ambiguous feeling in his stomach urged. None of the girls questioned him further, and instead they looked eagerly ahead as the purple glowing came again.

“There she is,” Melvin said and picked up the pace toward where the butterfly shown through the night. All of them noticed, however, that the light she radiated was not the normal slight glow she usually gave off, but instead a brilliant light and they began to doubt whether it was Luna at all, or if it was the thing which had lit up the night when the wolves came.

It didn’t pass their notice they could hear hissing along the path behind them, and for a moment none of them could place what would be making the noise. The hissing suddenly fell silent though and none of them paid it any attention again despite the warning in their minds.

There came a humming in Melvin’s hand and a moment later he realized that it was coming from the hammer he was holding tightly. He thought at first he was holding it too tightly, but when he let it go the humming became more insistent as if his tight grip on it had been restraining the vibration instead of making it.

For a moment he thought he should set the hammer down but movement along the path behind him made him think better. Normally he would have chalked the movement in the night behind him up to a small animal scurrying out of the way of predators, but this time he wasn’t so sure, not with what he had seen tonight. After bearing witness to glowing butterflies, bright lights that warded off predators, and wolves that vanished out of thin air Melvin was not eager to lose his one weapon. He was sure they would not get as lucky with the wolves next time, for things like that just didn’t happen.

He turned to look behind them, but as the glowing was coming from in front of them he couldn’t see very far. Still Melvin was sure he saw quick movement low to the ground a distance back, and a flash of red ambience that could have been the eyes of a raccoon.

“Do you think that could be Mama Coon?” Abigail asked coming to stand beside her brother, the fire poker held in her white knuckled grip like a sword. Mama Coon was the raccoon their family had started feeding this last spring after noticing she had broken her teeth in an attempt to be free of a trapper’s snare. The teeth were not the only problem, and surely Rorex would have put her out of her misery if she had not been pregnant. Instead they took pity on the fertile animal that had not only lost her teeth in her struggle with the trap but also a few of the toes on one paw. At night whatever food was left on their plates, which normally wasn’t much, they gave to the pregnant raccoon.

Melvin, however, found it highly unlikely that this was Mama Coon for she wasn’t skittish of people anymore and saw them instead as a food source.

“No, Mama Coon wasn’t afraid of us at all, remember she used to come scratch on the door looking for food if we hadn’t fed her when she was hungry?” and the raccoon had seemed to be hungry all the time.

“Well that doesn’t mean she is not skittish to people in the woods, I mean she is used to seeing us at home, not in her woods at night,” Abigail protested.

“No, she has followed me into the woods before when she was hungry, and didn’t leave me be until I had gone back home and fed her. That is not Mama Coon and I know it.”

“Than what is it if you know it isn’t Mama Coon?” Ruby asked stepping in to stop their arguing as it often bothered her when they started quarreling.

“That is just the problem, I don’t know,” Melvin told her honestly.

“I think we should keep going then,” Ruby said as the movement drew closer.

“A very good idea,” Melvin said and turned back to the blue light radiating before them.

“I don’t like that light,” he told them as they fell in before him Abigail in the lead as he was the strongest with the most experience in killing things (just last fall he had killed a deer) all of them decided without speaking that he should be closest to the unknown threat.

“Me either,” Ruby agreed. “Last time we saw it was when those wolves came. Do you think it is because of the thing behind us?”

“I hope that it isn’t, but I think all of us are too smart to fool ourselves with that illusion.” Melvin told her and they all seemed to agree for they gathered closer and continued on, though the further they moved the more insistent the movement behind them became, as if whatever it was that tailed them was closing in, or at least moving faster to catch up. The noise persisted for sometime, and when they thought whatever it was should have claimed them it didn’t, but instead sounded as though it was being joined by others which didn’t bode well.

“It sounds like m
ore are joining
,” Abigail voiced what Melvin was thinking.

“W
hatever is following us is intelligent enough to wait until there are more than itself to attack,” for there was no doubt in Melvin’s mind that that was precisely what the things behind them meant to do. He could feel the creatures behind him like a looming presence that at first he thought was his ow
n imagination at being followed. I
n actuality
it
was something quite different, something he could not explain even to himself let alone to anyone else
. A
ll the while the vibration in the hammer became more and more persistent until Melvin thought his arms would go numb with the motion for surely his palms already had. He thought maybe he should switch between hands holding the hammer but was afraid that he would lose it if there wasn’t a firm grip on it, which entailed both hands.

“Where is the sugar shanty?” Ruby asked, for their family entertained the hobby of making maple syrup farther down back. The sugar shanty was where the sap from the tapped maple trees was gathered and produced into maple syrup, some of the best Melvin had ever had.

“Of course,” Melvin exclaimed. “Your right, I think we should head that way as well. We can’t be far from it now, maybe another hour?” Melvin hazard a guess at how long it would take them to make it to the sugar shanty for they had already traveled a distance that should have only taken them half an hour but instead, with all their set backs, had grown into two.

“That long?” Ruby asked looking behind them and fidgeting the handle of the knife she had already dropped several times though thankfully it had not resulted in injury.

“Yes, I dare say that whatever is following us will be on us by that time, though if we make it through them we will be able to hold up in the sugar shanty, maybe until daylight, or at least until we form a plan.” He only hoped that Luna would a
gree with their course. S
o far she had not led them on any trails that deviated from the one leading to the small building. Oddly enough it was almost as if she had intended for them to go there.

“I hope that we aren’t in the woods longer than that!” Abigail said. “It would be preferred that we were out before then. Can’t we just go home?” But the question hung in the air unanswered for all of them knew they could not.

Melvin was too nervous and worried of the gathering horde behind them to think of anymore line of conversation, which he was sure his sisters were keeping up in an attempt to stave their fear. He cast occasional looks behind him from time to time to see what was happening and was worried to see that more redness had joined that which had appeared before now forming orbs, almost like eyes watching them in the dark.

“We had better find a place to face these things, whatever they are, before they have the upper hand,” Melvin told them and they began scouting out places to stand and fight, though the girls thought they would
n’t
be much help. However, every time they thought they had found a place, and started making their way off Singers Trail the movement behind them grew more agitated, and Luna would fly back at them and start beating her wings in their faces, hammering them in the head with her body until they got back on the path and continued on toward the blue glowing ahead.

Overhead lightning flashed again and they remembered the fierce storm that looked to be brewing when they had left home. They had no idea when the storm would break but the thunder which boomed several minutes after the lightning flashed told them the storm was still some distance off. If their luck held they would be home before the storm broke, for it seemed as though it was circling them, building strength.

They stopped at the top of a large hill and looked down. The going was steep from there and would be tricky in the low light but the source of the purple glowing seemed to be emanating from a spot at the bottom of the valley where the sugar shanty stood. Whatever was drawing them on they all knew it was there, within that glowing.

Melvin gave a furtive look behind him at the glowing or
bs that hesitated as the group stopped
. It seemed the beasts behind them, whatever they were, didn’t fancy meeting them just yet. He thought about forcing a battle, but as he didn’t know what it was he would be facing exactly
and
he didn’t want to risk it.

Their best hope, for now, was the light ahead of them that shimmered and permeated the trees at the base of the valley. The light shone was as if someone were at the base of the hill holding a lantern
to guide
them through the forest.

“How much longer?” Ruby asked fearfully watching the glowing eyes behind them.

“We are going where that light is,” Melvin declared as Lu
na came to rest on his shoulder. A
s if agreeing with his words the pur
ple pulsing of her wings cast
his face in violet light.

“How much longer do you think?” Abigail asked again.

“I don’t know Abbie, if whatever is behind us does not cause a setback I would say about another half hour. If our luck does not hold out. . . .” He didn’t say anything after that, for the truth was that if their luck didn’t hold out there was a good chance they would never make it to the bottom of the hill
or home for that matter
.

“Why so long?” Ruby asked. “It seems like it is so much closer than that.”

“It is also dark, in daylight it would probably take ten minutes, but now I don’t think we can risk going that fast.” Melvin said as the things behind them shifted anxiously. “Whatever the case I think we should move on now,” he looked behind them as if to prove his point. The others caught his drift and they moved out. The way was steep before them, and while it would have been easy to race down the slope none of them wanted to twist an ankle or meet some other similar misfortune and instead held themselves back.

The pines and hemlock grew thicker the further they went and soon the blue light was blotted out by the dense foliage as Singers Trail twisted to the right in an effort to make the trek to the bottom safer.

It wasn’t long until a noise from their right interrupted their trek, and Melvin called a halt.

“What is that?” he asked.

“I am not sure, but it sounds an awful lot like a harp,” Abigail told him turning her head to hear the sound better. “It is coming from that way,” she said pointing off to the right with the fire poker.

“It is the most beautiful music I have ever heard,” and as Melvin said that they all began smiling for it was true, the music was near blissful to their ears. It was, he would bet, more provocative than the light at the bottom of the hill, and though
he somehow knew they should run
from the music he ignored the warning signs and instead took a step closer to the right hand side of Singers Trail, and closer to where the music came from.

Luna didn’t like this idea, and she told them as much with a flutter of wings and a battering of her little self on their foreheads, but for the first time all night they ignored the butterfly with a swat and continued on. It seemed that she could not leave Singers Trail, and instead beat herself against an invisible barrier that would not let her pass into the thicker woods where they now traveled.

It was truly a different world. They no longer felt as safe here as they did on Singers Trail. It felt wild within the embrace of the thick trees they found themselves fighting their way through, not able to raise their weapons to ward off the tree limbs. It never occurred to them that if they could not ward off the limbs that they could not ward off anything else either.

The movement of the creatures behind them threatened to overcome them, and somehow they got off track, and try as he might in his desperation Melvin could not find the road again. He tried to head away from the music, for now they realized that no matter how lovely the music was they didn’t like the feel
of the woods which housed it.