Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 (7 page)

John regarded him, his eyebrows pushing towards his hairline. “How did you guess?”

He shrugged. “That’s it, I just guessed, and don’t worry, your business does not concern me.”

John came nearer; it was obvious he wanted to tell him something, so Jason waited. “When I was small, I was with my parents, we were sailing on a river in a small boat when a gust of wind capsized us, my parents drowned, but a fisherman pulled me out, that is why I don’t swim.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

His body tensed as he said, “There is something else.”

“Tell me then.”

“What do you think of Yvette?”

What should I think, I like girls, I like everyone,
He shrugged. “She is polite and likes to have fun.”

“Do you, er, like her?”

“Yes, I like you too, and Ingrid.” He caught John’s look and added, “But
,
not in a special way, more like a sister. I never had a sister, so I suppose that is how I see her.”

John’s whole body relaxed and he said, “Good. Well, I’ll be off to bed, see you in the morning, Jason, good night.”

“Good night, John,” h
e
replied and
watched him as he walked away. There was something about him that he couldn’t fathom. He wasn’t what he thought a human would be. He had acted strangely as Yvette moved away from him at the campfire and sat cl
oser to Jason, and
Jason could sense
his
anger
at her actions, but
he showed nothing but
complacency.

He wondered about his own feelings towards the three, Yvette especially. He had lied to John when he spoke of Yvette, he felt strongly protective of her in a brotherly way. He felt at ease in her company, but there was something else that he could not place. He changed into his pyjamas, and as he lay there in bed it occurred to him that Yvette had purposely walked
away from him as they approached the hole on their way back from the river, and she had sprung to one side as soon as he had touched her, and another thing, she had worn a pleasant smelling deodorant, sandalwood he guessed, mixing with the candle smoke as they met at the college doorway, but her raw body odour, after they left the river and climbed the tree the second time, reminded him of something from his recent past, something he couldn’t pin down. Then Jennifer’s visage clouded his thoughts, and he heard her laughter echoing in his mind and her voice calling him. “
Jason, Jason my love, where are you?”
And he drifted off to sleep
.

He dreamed of her that night. She sat on the jetty, brushing her hair with a silver brush as her friends pranced around on the shore and then ran, laughing and shouting through the shallows past them, purposefully splashing Jason, causing Jennifer to laugh. She stood up, her hair a shimmering gown and she held out her arms to him and her smile faded as she said looking through him.
“Why did you have to go away, where are you now, can you hear me, Jason, my love, I’m so lonely without you.”

Then she disappeared and Lucas stood there in her place, dressed in black, pointing a finger at him saying over and over,
“You cannot marry an elf, you cannot marry an elf, you cannot
– you cannot - you
...”

His voice faded into the distance and he saw an image of Jennifer’s saddened features and he heard himself saying, “One day I will return for you, one day…”

Chapter six.

Five years on.

That same year, the earth suffered a great drought after the hot summer and
a total
lack of rain everywhere. The river by the school dried up, and by the end of autumn water became
so scarce that it
had to be rationed.

Then the winter turned harsh, with temperatures droppi
ng at night to minus 4
0 degrees Celsius, and as if in recompense for the bitter drought, there came the snow, falling continuously on the land in winter - hardly thawing under the grey summer sky - turning everything a ghostly white without the sun to enhance its beauty.

The years passed quickly and a strong bond of friendship formed between Jason, Yvette, Ingrid and John.

Jason did well in his studies as he did in sport. He was no longer a well-built five feet eight inches, he was now six feet two, well-muscled and still growing and he still wore his hair down to his shoulders.

When running or swimming
in local sporting events,
he always remembered to win by centimetres.

He chose the javelin as his field sport and excelled, and wherever he went outside school hours, the other three went with him.

Winter sports.

“Ready, steady, go!” shouted Mr. Wednesday then blew his whistle unnecessarily as Jason, John, Ingrid and Yvette ran the twelve metres to their sleds that were waiting a few metres from the edge of the new toboggan run
, designed by Yvette
. Jason kept pace with the others as Yvette ran on and arrived there first. She grabbed her sled in two hands and instead of sliding it to the edge she picked it up and holding it before her; she leaped off the edge, head first.

Several of the younger pupils, who had come along to watch
, along with the rest of the school
, peered over the edge from the side
,
and one of them said, “Wow, Yvette’s sky-diving on a sled, super!”

The
y and others watched
as she fell in free fall
over
two hundred metres before hitting the hard-packed snow with a body-jarring thud that made even Jason wince. Then all three sighed in unison as her sled, with her still clinging to it, carried on in a straight line.

John shook his head, he looked at Jason and Ingrid and said, “Are we going to let her get away with that?”
His eyes popped open
,
despite the cold
,
as Jason followed suit, leaping outwards
,
imitating Yvette’s reckless leap.

The wind whistled past his ears, he took a deep breath and tensed himself the instant before his sled crashed into his chest, winding him as the runners hit the slope. He careered on downwards and braked-steered with his left boot as he came to the first long curve that straightened out and dropped several feet.

To his surprise, the ground rose up unexpectedly and he flew another fifty metres through the air from the crest of a small rise - almost losing his grip - before crashing down once more. He negotiated the next two bends with ease then rolled up the slope to a stop in front of Yvette who was laughing hysterically. He approached her and said, “What!”

She paused and pointed behind him and he turned and saw Ingrid and John, visible from where they stood, as their sleds left the top of the rise, one after the other and flew a good thirty metres through the air, both with a shocked expression distorting their features, as their cries of alarm sounded shrilly in the cold air.

Yvette burst out laughing
once more
, holding her sides. Jason turned, grinning, as the others slid to a stop. John asked, panting lightly, “What’s the matter with her?”

Yvette quietened down eventually and said
to the three
, “Your faces after you hit that bump. Jason almost fell off.”

Jason smiled, and looked at Ingrid who was pressing her legs together, “Well I wasn’t expecting anything like
that,” he said,
and then
he turned to Yvette.
“You knew about that last rise didn’t you?”

Yvette nodded, her hands clasped over her mouth.

John said, “Of course she did, she designed the whole run.”

Ingrid said sharply, “So
that’s why you were looking so smug at
breakfast, you mean person, you. Now I have to change my knickers,” She added, “I have a weak bladder if you must know, and it is rather cold today.”

Jason looked up at the cloudless sky and said, “Come on, let’s take the ski-lift.”

Yvette took the rope attached to her sled and followed them along the path. She watched Jason as he walked off in front of her. She wondered if she should tell him, she longed to do so. She felt so alone even knowing what she knew.

She recalled the telephone message over five years ago and she wondered which one of the others it was. She thought of Ingrid, she swam well and her odour was human, but she had heard that a transformation to human shape could change quite a lot of things.

Then she thought of John. She felt sorry for him somehow, his memory for facts was impressive, but he was hopeless at crossword puzzles and he was so nice to her, bringing her presents, tiny figures folded into animals or birds,
‘It’s Origami,
’
he’d told her,
‘Japanese paper-folding, I learned it from a library book. Should I show it to you?’

She had agreed in
order to please him, and he’d ru
n off and returned, breathless, five minutes later. He even brought a sheaf of paper and a pair of scissors with him. The diagrams were easy to follow and they spent two hours cutting and folding, seeing who could make the tiniest figure.

She thought about the other pupils, but they were much too young, too small. Then she remembered the woman in black by the edge of the woods in the late evening. She saw John in the vicinity at the same time, and wondered if he had been talking to her. She had questioned him on the matter at the first opportunity and he’d answered readily,
‘
Yes, I spoke with her, she was most polite, she was a traveller who had lost her way. She was looking for the railway station and I gave her directions.’

She wasn’t sure if he was lying or it was his natural naivety, so she took to jogging before the evening meal at the same time to see if the woman returned, and after two weeks she decided John was telling the truth, but was not sure if he had been lied to.

Jason carried his and Ingrid’s sled into the workshop. John followed him with Yvette’s and his own, he stood one next to the workbench and placed the other one on top. He took a rag and proceeded to the dry the metal struts. Jason watched as he tested the wood and metal framework for stability, inspecting the joints, tightening the screws and asked as he waxed the metal runners. “Doesn’t the janitor or gardener look after the equipment?”

John shrugged. “I don’t know, I suppose one has to ask for these things to be done. I can’t take the risk of one of us, or anybody else for that matter, injuring themselves because somebody didn’t carry out his job conscientiously enough. I checked all twelve sleds yesterday evening,” he pointed to the one with a red rope tied to it, “The one you were using had a loose ru
nner, you would
have noticed it on the way down the slope, but then it would have been too late
after your reckless dive, you could have finished up badly injured on the curve
.”

He
helped
him
with the rest of the sleds and hung them up on the wall. He was starting to see John in a new light, he had thought him cold and selfish, especially when hiking through the snow, never leading and always the first one to suggest a stop when Ingrid so mu
ch as heaved a heavy sigh.

He
found that rather strange, as when he wasn’t hanging around Jason then he was chatting to Yvette while ignoring Ingrid
completely
,
who couldn’t stop making sheep’s-eyes at him.

Yvette treated him politely, but ignored his half-hearted offers to help her with her juristic studies, as he had no idea about common law. His one and only favourite subject was history, his dream was to become a
famous
historian, a well-renowned professor like his tutor, only - as he admitted to Jason in private - to be much more proficient.