Black Moon (The Moonlight Trilogy) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Waxing Half Moon

February—Present Day

N
ormally, Willa woke from dreams in the middle of the night, but tonight it was Simon.

His eyes flashed open, a gargled cry caught in his throat. Instinctively, he reached out for Willa, but the bed was empty. He wished she
were
there. She was the only thing that helped calm the storm inside him; but, of course, she was across town at her parents’ house.

With a long sigh, he rolled onto his back. His heart beat furiously, blood pulsing at his temples.
Only a dream.
He stared at the shadows on the ceiling, forcing his mind and body to believe it.
Only a dream.
He turned his head and looked at his phone on the nightstand. He could call her; hearing her voice would help. But what would he say? He’d established a strict rule of not talking about this with anyone—even her. He’d built a thick wall to hide his emotions.

Simon shifted his eyes to the window and the glow of the street lamps outside. Sparsely decorated, the bedroom in his small apartment had only a practical double bed, one nightstand, and a squat lamp. A large closet doubled as storage for both his clothes and hiking and camping gear. One picture hung on the wall: a framed 8 x 10 of him and Willa in the mountains, taken on one of their summer hikes. Simon loved the picture because Willa’s eyes were the same color as the sky above them.

She should be here.

Every night, it got harder to send her home to her parents. It felt wrong to watch her walk into another house and sleep in a bed without him. But Willa’s parents had reverted to over-protective mode ever since the binding of the Covenant. They hovered over her like she might shatter into a million pieces, or as though she might be brainwashed by the “witches in that cult,” as her dad was fond of saying. Willa let it slide and dismissed it as a knee-jerk reaction to nearly losing her in the fight with Archard. But, now, four months later, they hadn’t eased up; and it weighed on them all.

However hard it was to let her go each night, however much he longed to be with her all the time, Simon would be patient while Willa and her family worked things out. He wished his own parents cared enough to overprotect him.

Cynthia and Gabe Howard’s faces moved through his mind: Cynthia, with her sharply angled face made sharper by her blunt haircut and fake blond hair, and Gabe, with his pinched, judgmental eyes and villainously muscular body. There were few people more poorly suited to be parents, especially of a boy who heals injuries and illnesses alike with a mere touch.

Simon wondered briefly if he should visit and tell them about his magic and what had happened in the fall. He almost laughed out loud, knowing that it wouldn’t make one bit of difference.
By the way, Mom and Dad, I’m a witch.
It would only alienate them more—if that were possible. Simon closed his eyes and tried to banish his parents from his mind.

Rolling his head to the side, Simon looked at the empty space beside him, picturing Willa asleep there. His heart thudded once.
You’re my family now, Willa.
The thought made him smile in the dark. The hole inside him was finally filling in, the hole his parents had dug with every dismissal, every disapproving look, and every hateful thought that Simon had sensed. Willa helped him believe there was life beyond that of a pariah.

As his mind wandered, the scene from his dream broke through his thoughts, erasing his smile.

With a sigh Simon eased out of the bed and pulled on jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. He shoved on his black biker boots and left. Out in the cold winter night, he forced himself to go back through the dream and to examine every part of it. If he was going to rid himself of the nightmare that had troubled him for the last four months, he had to face it, understand it, and move past it.

But how? This isn’t just a dream; this is . . . something I did.

Simon shuffled down the sidewalk. The biting cold felt good on his face, cleared his mind and pushed away the fear.

Three people. I killed three people.

The words rang with a hollow twang across his brain, discordant and foreign. They didn’t fit into the puzzle of things that made him
him.
He still wasn’t sure how he’d done it. The moments at the cave were a blur in his head, coming back clearly only in his dreams. As soon as he woke, the details clouded over again as quickly as a coastline in the rainy season.

Several times, after awaking from the dreams, he had walked like this and then stopped to try and summon that power again, to make his body alive with the energy of so much magic; but it never happened. Not even close. It made the whole thing seem even more unreal.

I killed three people.

The justifications always followed: the ‘but they were evil Dark witches,’ and the ‘I was protecting Wynter, Willa, and my coven-mates,’ and the ‘I
had
to.’ But they too were hollow, like twisted echoes of truth.

His stomach knotted uncomfortably as he remembered the Dark witches sailing through the air. He’d never seen them hit the ground—his attention had turned fully to Willa, her startling blue eyes bright in the rainy clearing, like little lighthouses, pulling him away from the rocks. Only later did he realize what he’d done

Willa wanted to talk about it. He felt it from her more often than she intended, but he couldn’t bring himself to put his thoughts into words. Spoken words were real, were truth. Thoughts lived somewhere on the edge of truth, and that’s where he needed to keep this.

Rowan, leader of the Covenant, had also come to him, wanting to talk, to help. When Simon had answered Rowan’s questions with silence and pleading eyes, Rowan had simply laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “When you’re ready.”

Simon didn’t know if he would
ever
be ready. If he just worked it out in his mind, made sense of it, he’d be fine. It would take time, but eventually . . . maybe . . .

But these dreams . . .

They kept everything fresh, and they twisted his confusion into tighter knots. These dreams might drive him crazy.
How does Willa deal with this all the time?

Simon walked through the playground behind his apartment complex, through cold gray shadows. He stopped to sit on a bench, suddenly exhausted. A heavy and smothering sense of desperation settled over him, and the knot in his stomach tightened. He would not attempt to summon the power tonight. Just the thought made his arms hang heavy.

The worst part of what he had done was the loss of control. Simon hated not being in control, especially of himself. Despite the inherent craziness of his life and what he could do, he liked order and control. He worked hard to keep things well in hand. But this . . . this was slippery.

What if it happened again? What if, somehow, that explosion of blue power came back? What if someone else got hurt because of it?

What if it’s Willa?

A shiver moved through him. He dropped his head into his hands, with his elbows on his knees.

Not that they were likely to battle any Dark witches soon. Archard died at the cave—burned by his own raging fire—and his covens were broken. Simon and Willa only had to worry about school and training for the Elemental Challenge coming up in the summer, a rite of passage, and something all witches in a True Coven must do to prove their abilities. If he and Willa passed, they’d earn the title of True Witch like their coven-mates.

Simon looked forward to the challenge, but even his powers during training were beginning to make him nervous. Everything came so easily, and no skill seemed hard to master.
Something
should be hard or take some concentrated practice, but the only thing hard was trying to hold back, hiding his true capabilities just to avoid the worried glances in his direction.

I can’t even be normal when it comes to magic.
Wynter, Rowan’s wife, had told him that he seemed to have
two
Gifts: his Mind gift and his healing ability, which normally came with the Gift of Water. Having multiple gifts wasn’t supposed to be possible, and no one could explain it—not even Rowan and Wynter. Inside him, the convoluted mix of power he didn’t understand and couldn’t predict worsened by what he’d done that night at the cave, coalesced into fear—fear of himself, lurking in the back of his mind, out of reach but lingering, like a bad taste.

He ran a hand back over his hair, the blond curls bouncing back into place.
Maybe my parents were right. Maybe I am nothing but a freak.

Cold and tired, he walked slowly back around the complex, his eyes on the ground, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He didn’t look up until he started up the front walk to his unit. Sitting on the front steps, he found Willa, a blanket wrapped around her and fuzzy leopard-print slippers on her feet. Her wavy chestnut hair was an attractive mess around her rosy-cheeked face. She smiled as he approached. Suddenly Simon didn’t feel cold anymore.

She yawned sleepily. “I had a dream that you were walking.”

He half smiled and sat beside her. “I had a dream, too.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Simon put an arm around her and pulled her close, a layer of comfort. She dropped her head to his shoulder. “Not really, but I’m okay now,” he whispered, lying to them both. A wave of disappointment moved from her to him.

“Want me to stay? I can sneak back in my house early, before my parents wake up.”

He kissed her hair. “Yes, please.”

Willa looked up at his troubled, tired eyes and touched his cheek. “I’m here.”

The next day, after her
classes at the university, Willa stopped at the Twelve Acres Museum, which housed a small but impressive collection of town artifacts in the old Town Hall building. She needed to catch up on some filing that the curator, Bill Bentley, had asked her to do. She’d been volunteering at the Museum since eighth grade and knew the collection and history as well as he did. Bill had told her on several occasions that he hoped she’d take his place one day.

After chatting with the receptionist, Bertie, for a minute or two, Willa went to the cramped, stuffy back office. It was freezing, and she flipped on the space heater before dropping her bag and navy blue pea coat to the floor. She grabbed the pile of papers from the desk, plopped them in the seat of the chair, and rolled it over to the filing cabinet.

As she worked, Willa’s mind wandered to her night with Simon. Her dream about him had been far more complicated than she’d let on. In the dream, she’d watched Simon walk down an empty sidewalk suspended in a black void. But he wasn’t alone. A menacing shadow followed only a few feet behind, its form constantly shifting and morphing so that Willa could never identify it. She’d woken just as the shadow reached out to grasp Simon’s shoulder.

She’d immediately gotten up and snuck out of the house, knowing he needed her—and that he probably wouldn’t talk about what was really bothering him. It’d been four months—almost to the day—since the battle at the cave, since Rachel had stabbed Willa, Charlotte, and Elliot, and taken Simon hostage; since Simon and Wynter had been imprisoned in the cave; and since Archard nearly killed Wynter just to see Simon heal her. Four months since Simon summoned a power no one seemed to understand, to free himself and Wynter, killing their captors in the process.

Willa tucked a paper into a file and moved to the next drawer.

She knew it was eating him up inside, his healing nature in upheaval because of what he’d done. Simon fixed things, never broke them; and it didn’t matter why he’d done it, or even that he’d
had
to do it—it still hurt him. So then why wouldn’t he say anything? Their relationship was based on talking about the strangeness and on being open about how confusing it was to be witches; but something about this was untouchable. And the not-talking left a constant phantom pain in the bottom of Willa’s heart.

“Willa the Witch!”

Willa jumped and almost screamed. Lost in her thoughts, hearing the sudden sound of Solace’s shrill voice, Willa dropped a file, scattering papers everywhere. “Solace! How many times have I told you
not
to sneak up on me like that?”

The ghost laughed, her round face, framed by chin-length blonde hair, flickering in and out of focus. “But it’s just too entertaining!” She leaned against the desk, arms folded. She wore an early 1930’s style dress: straight silhouette, dark purple, short sleeves, and playful organza ruffles at the collar. “I
am
sorry about the papers, though.”

Willa smiled. “Oh, sure you are.”

Solace smiled back, pale blue eyes sparkling. “I like your sweater. Black is a good color on you.”

Willa threw the mess of papers on the desk and then pulled the bottom of her black v-neck sweater down over the top of her boot cut jeans. “Changing the subject? Well, thanks, I like it, too. I got it last week when Simon took me to dinner at that great Indian place in Denver.”

“Sounds fun. Sure wish there was a way for me to leave this place and come with you on your dates.” Solace frowned as she looked around the bleak office. “I get so
sick
of this place. Why do ghosts have to be stuck in one place? Why can’t we roam free?”

“Why? So you can go around screaming in people’s ears?” Willa teased, but Solace didn’t smile.

“It’d just be nice to leave.” The ghost averted her eyes, looking down at her black Mary-Janes.

Willa sighed. “I know, Solace. I’m sorry.”

After another beat of silence, Solace looked up. “So, what scandalous thought were you lost in when I snuck up on you?” She added a waggle of her eyebrows.

Willa shook her head and turned back to the filing cabinet. “Sorry, nothing scandalous. I’m just worried about Simon.”

“Hmm. What is it now? Is he
still
not talking about the whole killing people thing?”

Willa shot her a look. “No, he’s not, but he’s still having nightmares about it. Last night I snuck out to see him, and he was so . . .” She paused, his face flashing in her mind. “So sad, I guess. I hate to see him like that. And these nightmares are wearing on him. No one understands that better than I do.”