Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 (2 page)

She paid the assistant and returned her purse to her shopping bag. She glanced about her. “That was Mrs. Townsend, the banker’s wife.”

“Her daughter’s nice, I bumped into her, almost knocked her over.” He added quietly, “I like her.”

She looked at him for a second or two, her brow furrowed. “I had noticed,” then she

handed him his boots.

He sat and changed his shoes for his working boots and after leading the way outside he helped his mum mount her horse. He handed her the shoe box and swung up behind her and they headed out of town with his dad leading.

After a mile or two he asked her, as she was unusually quiet, “Mum, what does, ‘in the all-together mean’?”

“You like to swim don’t you, down by the old willow?”

“Yes of course I do, you and Dad do too, and Jessie.”

“Well, what do we wear when we swim?”

“Why, nothing.”

“That is being in the all-together.”

“Oh, is that all.”

“At your age, yes.”

On the journey home he wondered what Jennifer would look like without her clothes on. He had read through Grays Anatomy, but that wasn’t the same. He imagined she would be like his mum, who was slender and about the same height as she.
Why don’t you pay her a visit?
A voice said inside his head. Then he decided.
Maybe I will.

Back at the Townsend house, Jennifer joined her mother in the rear garden for their daily archery practice. Her mother nocked another arrow, drew back her arm and let fly in one easy motion. She watched her mother’s arrow strike one of the targets, fifty yards away, alongside a dozen other shafts, all evenly spaced. “Nice grouping,” she said quietly.

Her mother smiled and said, “Thank you, now it’s your turn once again.” She watched as her daughter took several deep breaths. She whispered, “Empty your mind, for fear and doubt can spoil your aim as easily as a sudden gust of wind.”

Jennifer set an arrow on the bowstring, pulled back and shot, in one fluid action. Watched intently by her mother, she repeated the action a dozen times.

“Well done, you are improving,” said her mother later, as they walked to the targets.

As Jennifer retrieved her arrows her thoughts drifted back to the shoe shop. The youth, who had collided with her, was about her age. She heard his voice once more,
“Jason, Jason Longfellow”.

She wanted to know more about him, but her mother had decided she didn’t want the shoes she’d been trying on and dragged her out of the shop as if the place was on fire.

As she left the shop in her mother’s wake, she couldn’t help but notice the veiled consternation on an elderly woman’s face as she paid for her wares. She had glanced their way as she and her mother went by, and then dropped her gaze as if in recognition of some fateful past - or was it present - event.

Chapter two.

A conversation in the night.

Jason couldn’t sleep that night. He tried lying on one side and then the other. He tried lying on his stomach, then on his back, he even fluffed up his pillow, but nothing worked.

As he lay there gazing at the ceiling, listening to the night sounds through the open window his mind wandered to the incident with the girl in the shop. What was it about her? He’d met other girls, he’d spoken to them, other farmer’s daughters, but they were not like Jennifer. She was different, she even smelled different, like the scent of wild flowers on the wind. Those other girls smelled of cow dung or chicken droppings or farm food. He wasn’t all that sure, but he liked to believe they were floating when she held his hand in the shoe shop. And her eyes, they were really something for they seemed to delve deep into his mind.

The more he thought of her, the more he felt she was a part of him and he wondered what she thought of him.
Does she like me? We could be friends. We could go swimming together, catch fish and roast them over a fire.

He could not get her out of his thoughts, lying there on his down-filled mattress, thinking of the pair of them running through the fields with Jessie the sheepdog. In the end he decided to go down to the kitchen and drink some milk.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs he saw the light coming from the chink beneath the parlour door. It was late. Were his parents still up, or had someone left the light on? He approached the door. He heard his mum’s voice, “…not only that he met a girl today.”

“Well, he’s approaching that age,” it was his dad’s voice.

“He’s only twelve!”

“They grow up fast, have you forgotten?”

“Yes, and so do
they
.”

They were silent for a short while, and then his father said in a harsh whisper, “You said - ‘
they
’. Do you mean…?” His voice trailed off.

“Yes, it was the Townsend girl, Jennifer; she was there with her mother.”

He heard his dad gasp, his voice quavered slightly, “Not her, are you sure?”

“They were in the shoe shop. Didn’t you see them come out?”

“I probably missed them. I was checking Aries’ hind leg. I thought he’d gone lame, but it was only a stone wedged in his hoof.”

“The bad news is he was taken with her.”

“What?”

“He was taken by her beauty, as they say, but we know better.”

His father’s voice filled with concern, “It had to happen one day. One of them was bound to come along. It’s like a magnet to them - his kind.”

“We cannot move from here, not yet, so what do -.” Her voice broke and then they were quiet.

He listened to the silence. He heard them, they were sobbing. In between the sniffs, he heard his mum say, “You try to keep them pure, teach them the ways, and then they get snared.”

“Are you sure he was taken with her?”

“Yes, they touched, or should I say, he touched her, then to make matters worse she offered him her hand and he took it. As I said, her mother was there, too.”

His dad sounded angry, “What about
her
, did she condone it?”

He heard his mum blowing her nose then she said, “I think not, as she was angry when she left, dragging the girl along.”

Jason struggled to hear as they lowered their voices, as if they knew he was listening at the door. He heard his mum’s voice again, muffled this time by her handkerchief as she blew her nose once more. “I feel it was my fault…know she was …inevitable…” She blew her nose then continued “…warning…secret kept too long… said this would happen one…a change…cannot afford…at a loss as to what we can do.”

She blew her nose, a dry sound and his dad asked, “How old is the girl?”

She cleared her throat and told him, “Not quite his age, maybe a good year younger, but she’s tall for her age, which is a typical trait for
them
.”

His father sounded hopeful. “Not quite ripe then. If that is so, then we have nothing to worry about.”

“Yes, but he has met her, he will want to see her again, Iain, he is after all only-.”

His father cut her off sternly, “That’s the problem, he isn’t.”

“We must seek advice.”

“I will, first thing in the morning.”

Jason moved away from the door, he made his way back up to his bedroom, the milk forgotten. He lay down and pulled the duvet over him, his mind in a whirl,
What was all that about. What did his mum mean, ‘snared’? His kind? What secret? What have they got against Jennifer and what did they mean by ‘taken’. He did find Jennifer ‘nice’, she was ‘nice’ to look at, ‘nice’ to talk to and most of all, ‘nice’ to touch.
He recalled the feeling as he held her hand in his, it was a warm feeling, it had enveloped his whole being, and it was something he yearned for and he fell asleep, her vision foremost in his mind.

Lucas.

The name, printed in bold letters on the door, read-
L. Blackfield. Qualified Surveyor.
But Blackfield wasn’t the real name of the man sitting at his desk. He was listening to someone on the telephone while answering quietly. His name was Lucas, and he wasn’t a qualified surveyor. He replaced the telephone in its cradle and leaned back in his upholstered office chair and thought for a moment, after which he picked up the telephone once more and dialled. He waited for a while then spoke, “Sorry, did I wake you?”...“I want you to leave straight away. I’ve spoken with Doctor Nielsen and he told me you have been accepted and that you may arrive whenever you wish, but you must leave now.”…“Yes, he will be there soon, but you must not reveal your identity to him.”…“There is something else, they have one of their people there.”…“No, just let things take their course, but if you see any others in the vicinity, hanging around, watching him, just dispose of them, but discretely.”…“Something is about to happen.”…“Trust me, just stay by him, protect him, and teach him all he needs to know.” He replaced the hand piece once more and smiled contentedly. He then rose up and left his office, locking the door behind him.

Jennifer and her friends.

Jason slept a dreamless sleep and awoke feeling fresh. It was
5.30 a.m.
milking time. He pulled off his nightshirt and dressed in fresh underpants, jeans and a clean T-shirt; he laced his boots over his socks and ran down the stairs three at a time.

He found his parents in the barn, his mum was gathering eggs that Jessie sniffed out amongst the straw and his dad was cleaning the first cow’s teats. “Morning, sorry, I seem to have overslept.”

His mother smiled widely after greeting him, no indication of worry in her eyes, and his father said in his usual manner, “Good morning, Jason, just bring some hay down from the loft, half-dozen bales should be enough.”

“Where do you want them, in the cowshed?”

“Outside, you can distribute it between the sheep and the Alpacas.”

After breakfast, they spent time in the garden, plucking strawberries and other bush fruit until it was
nine o’clock
, time for school. It was maths first, followed by Latin and geography, with a break for lunch
and then it was English grammar.

In the afternoon, he and Jessie rounded up the sheep in time for Doctor Venables, the local vet, on his monthly visit.

After the evening meal, eaten in an unusual silence, he left the house for a walk. As he made his way to the river he thought about the conversation between his mother and father of the night before.
Why hadn’t they spoken to him about the incident?
His parents had told him,
We have no secrets here, Jason, if you want to know something, you come right out and ask.
He’d had a mind to, but then he would have had to admit to eavesdropping, something his parents frowned upon,
Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, Jason.

Jason arrived at the river and sat on the bank, his mind on one thing, the touch of Jennifer’s hand. The shadows lengthened, and he felt the desire to swim. He stripped off his clothes and after doing his breathing exercises he dived in. He chased the trout and annoyed several crayfish for a while. As he swam on, he remembered Jennifer telling him-
See you some evening, maybe.
He recalled her saying that she went swimming with friends by the ford. He decided to pay her a visit. She said they went in the evenings when the ford was closed to traffic, as all fords were at night time.