Moonglow (26 page)

Unable to resist, unable to contain their own willingness to help and offer their support, more arms wrap themselves around me. I feel Archie rest his chin on my shoulder, and I feel my father's immensely strong arms embrace all three of us. When he rests his forehead against my temple I feel his tears drop onto my cheek. Our fear, our pain, our joy is all interwoven, one unable to exist without the others, and I'm truly overwhelmed by the feeling of love and friendship and commitment.

It's only when I look up and across the room that I see Nadine staring at me. Understandably, she's keeping her distance. I've known Archie and Caleb for years; my relationship with Nadine is still quite new, and just the fact that she hasn't gone running out of here screaming for her mother or the police is testament that she's an ally. So is the fact that her lips are moving softly, I assume in silent prayer.

I'm about to smile at her when it feels like someone drops a veil over my eyes, obstructing my vision. I blink, and things become clear once again, but far from normal. I see a silver-colored mist ooze out from her body and outline her entire frame. Slowly the mist begins to sparkle and shine and grow until it looks like Nadine is floating within a silver cloud that isolates her and separates her from the rest of us.

I hold Caleb, Archie, and my father tighter around me, not for protection, but as a reminder that unlike Nadine I'm not alone. This time when I smile at her, she doesn't see me, because the silver mist has grown and is covering her face and almost her entire body, trapping her so she can't escape. And I know without a doubt that I'm not the only one in the room who's been cursed.

Chapter 19

 

The honey jar has been refilled.

Everything makes sense. I know it sounds crazy, but there's a part of me that's relieved to find out I'm cursed. I understand my aggression, my physical changes, my anger, even my fascination with the moon—it all fits. Looking at myself in the bathroom mirror—which I've been doing obsessively since the last full moon—doesn't reveal any differences from who I was last week, but I'm not at all the same; I'll never be the same again. And in a completely warped way that makes me feel better, because at least now I know.

I keep examining myself looking for signs that the curse is taking over completely instead of for just one night a month, but I can't find any. Except for that initial hair growth above my lips and on my arms, my skin has been smooth. In fact, my hair is more luxurious than ever before, and the blue-gray of my eyes almost sparkles, so if anything I look better now than I ever did.

There have been other physical changes that I barely noticed at first, but since the last transformation have become more evident. I'm faster and stronger than I used to be, and my senses are sharpened. My vision is improved; I can see farther than ever before. And sometimes I can hear snippets of conversations from a block away. The most dramatic increase of all is my sense of smell. Foods, perfumes, The Dandruff King's body odor, all seem to envelop me. It's like my whole body is doing the smelling and not just my nose.

Emotionally, things haven't really improved. I continue to wake up in the middle of the night, my mind still clutching onto Jess, trying to get closer to her final moments. And then it hits me: I don't want to remember her final moments, because I honestly don't think I could go on living if I did. The will to survive is only so strong. Intellectually I get it; I killed her while possessed by this curse. If there were any way that I could have fought against it, fought against the primitive nature of this wolf spirit that's invaded my body, I would have; I would have killed myself first. In my heart and soul I know that's the truth, so my mind has been able to process the facts. But if the blanks were filled in and I could suddenly see and hear and feel what happened, that would be too much. The curse would win, and I would no longer want to be alive. It really is that simple.

Until then, however, I'm going to have to learn how to live with this thing.

My father is already in stealth mode and has plotted out a calendar for the moon cycle for the next year. He is also trying to figure out the most harmless way to contain me when those full moons come around. Archie and Caleb, true to their word, have immersed themselves in Native American Indian folklore and mythology to see if they can find instructions on how to break a werewolf curse. Good luck on that one. And then there's Nadine.

She's complicated, confusing, and cursed in her own way. I don't know what's hidden in her background, just out of reach from everyone around her, maybe left behind in her old house in Connecticut, but she has her own mystery. Could be huge, could be boring, but she's got something she doesn't want anyone to know about. Whatever her personal damage is, she's still a team player.

Her job has been to pilfer syringes and sedatives from The Retreat, since my father was only able to get one initially and Nadine has much easier access to medical supplies. He thinks a sedative may slow down the change or with any luck prevent it from happening all together, but my dad's decided we're going to use that as a last resort, since there's always the possibility it'll do more harm than good.

It's whacked, but as Archie so eloquently put it in a text the other night, I've got my own Wolf Pack.

My only fear is that one member of my eager band of sidekicks may slip, and then my secret will be out. It would be a hard secret for anyone to believe, but curiosity and suspicion will be rewarded if I'm caught off guard during a certain time of the month. From here on in, according to my father, it's all about the three
P
's: precaution, prevention, and protection.

Back at school I find out that there's another
P
to be concerned about: pissed off friends.

“I'm not the one you should be avoiding!”

The book slams onto the lunch table and lands a few inches from my tater tots, knocking over Archie's iced tea.

“Arla!” he shouts, sopping up his spilled beverage with a few napkins. “What the ef?”

“I know that I can be full of myself sometimes and self-involved,” she admits. “But when I was nine my mother ran off with some biker chick who looks like Danny DeVito's twin to live in an ashram in New Mexico, so excuse me if I've got issues.”

“Your mom likes motorcycles?” Archie deadpans.

Ignoring him and his joke, Arla continues. “I'm quasi-conceited, I know that, but that's no reason to shut me out!”

Plopping into the empty seat next to me, Arla smells like a fragrant garden. The combination of her perfume and her lip gloss is so floral and pungent, she's like a moveable flower exhibit. There's another scent in there too. She's wearing a blond wig, shoulder-length and feathered, so either she gave it a good washing last night or I smell the shampoo from her real hair.

“We're not avoiding you, Arla,” I lie. “I can't speak for Archie, but I've just been, you know, really busy since classes started up again.”

Pursed lips and crossed arms don't usually indicate a lie is being believed.

“Busy with Miss Nadine?” Arla asks.

I get so flustered by her comment that I actually toss my hair a little. Totally fake. Just like my response. “I don't hang out with her.”

“Me either,” Archie says.

He doesn't toss his hair back, but his tone is equally unconvincing.

When my hair gets tossed for a second time, it's only because my head jerks back when Arla points her finger in my face.

“I've seen you with her!” she exclaims. “Huddled together, whispering, changing the subject whenever I walk in the room. I don't know what's going on with y'all, but I've got news for ya: Nadine ain't what she seems.”

Uh-oh. Whenever Arla starts dropping y'alls and using bad grammar, we have to brace ourselves, because those are the two major signs that she is channeling her Creole ancestry. And they weren't a nonconfrontational brood.

“I know she comes off a little weird,” I stammer. “But Nay's really not that bad.”

“Nay?!” Arla shouts. “Now you're calling her Nay?”

“You know, short for Nadine,” Archie explains.

“You gave her a nickname?!” Arla spits. “You never gave me a nickname!”

“You didn't like La-La!” Archie reminds her.

“Seriously, Arla, it's not like we're choosing her over you or anything,” I say, even though that's exactly what we've done. As Archie pointed out earlier, Arla might be super trustworthy, but she's also the daughter of my father's deputy, which means she's also super risky. We made a pact to keep her in the dark, and now she's starting to see the light.

“Save it, Dom,” Arla retorts. “I'm not Caleb; you can't sweet-talk me into believing whatever you want.”

Smirking smugly, she gives the book a little push. “Just read this and tell me if you still want to say yea to the Nay.”

Archie picks up the book, gasps when he reads the title, and drops it back on the table. The way he's reacting it's as if he accidentally held a slide from biology lab that's smothered with contagious bacteria.

“Where did you get this?!” Archie squeals.

“From my dad,” Arla replies calmly.

“What is it?” I ask.

Using only his index finger, Archie gingerly slides the book to my side of the table. When I read the embossed gold title of the book, I understand completely why he's reacting so dramatically.

“You stole police evidence!?!” I say, stunned by the realization that Arla is also super sneaky.

Waving her hands in the air, the red fingernail polish making them look like sparks of flame, Arla shrugs her shoulders and fails to understand why we're shocked. “I borrowed it,” she asserts.

“You
borrowed
Jess's diary?” I ask, as politely as possible.

Arla rips the diary out of my hand and starts to wave it, instead of her finger, in my face. “The case is closed. This stuff should've already gone back to Jess's family,” Arla says. “But newsflash, my daddy isn't the best cop in the world. He's not even the best cop in Weeping Water and there are what? Four of them on the squad.”

Worried that Arla's outburst might warrant attention from nosy classmates, I grab the book and, after a brief struggle, wrench it from Arla's hands. “This is private property,” I remind her. “You can't just read it.”

Standing up Arla raises her hands over her head, while shouting, “Well, break out the handcuffs and give in to racial profiling, because I am guilty as charged!”

I yank hard on one of the sleeves of her sweater, the same fiery color as her fingernails. “Will you sit down?”

“And stop yelling,” Archie adds. “Before you attract any more attention and they start filming
Law & Order: The Two W Edition.
”

“Flip open to page fifty-seven,” Arla says in a voice that can barely be described as a whisper.

Rustling through the pages, I don't know which is worse—the fact that I'm violating Jess's property or that Arla memorized which page of her diary had the most interesting kernel of information. When I get to page fifty-seven, neither of those minor betrayals seems important, because right in front of my eyes is my best friend's handwriting. Her words, her thoughts, her secrets. It's like she's right here with me again.

“July 17,”
I say, reading the entry date on the page.

“Jess's birthday,” Archie remembers.

“That's the one,” Arla confirms.

I swallow hard, not wanting to continue, but unable to resist.

“My birthday, sweet sixteen and finally been kissed,”
I read out loud
. “I have nothing to compare him to, but I'm going to put down for all eternity that Napoleon Jaffe is the best kisser ever! Perhaps in the world, but definitely in all of Two W.
”

At some point I lose my own voice and hear Jess reading her entry out loud, complete with her funny way of always putting a lilt in her voice at the end of a sentence, even if it isn't a question.

“A what?” Archie asks.

I don't have to read any further to know exactly what she's talking about; she and I used to love to make up new words. This one clearly relates to the other Jaffe twin, Nadine.

“All night long Nadine stared at me with dagger eyes when I was dancing with Nap. Guess she was jealous that her brother snagged himself a hot girlfriend five minutes after coming to town, and if anyone ever reads this, the hot girlfriend is me!”
Archie and I laugh at the same time, but Arla looks like the Nadine Jess was just describing.

“Keep reading,” she instructs.

“What?!” I exclaim.

“I was not all over Caleb that night!” I protest.

“You were too,” Arla disagrees.

“Archie?” I ask.

“White boy, tell the truth,” Arla demands.

“Kind of,” Archie relents. “But Caleb's hot so we all understood.”

“Oh my God!” I say. “I had no idea I was that type of girl.”

“We'll stage an intervention later, Dom,” Arla quips. “For now, read on.”

“This isn't the first time it's happened,”
I continue reading.
“I've noticed Nadine staring at us before, mostly at Dom, but I thought it was my imagination. Then I thought about it a little more and realized that Nadine cannot be trusted. ”

Sounds like Jess flip-flopped in her judgment of Nadine almost as much as I've been doing. As I read more it's clear that Jess was just as confused.

“There's something not right about her, but I don't know what it is,”
I read
. “Maybe she's autistic. When I caught her tracing her tattoo with her finger, she reminded me of the O'Brien kid down the block.”

Hold on a second. “Nadine has a tattoo too?”

“What do you mean
too?
” Arla asks.

“Caleb said Napoleon has a tattoo, way up on his thigh.”

“Caleb's checking out Nap's thigh?” Archie snickers.

“Shut up, Archibald,” I say. “Isn't that weird that they both have tattoos?”

“They're from the East Coast,” Arla reminds us. “My father says things can get pretty wild out there.”

“Have you either of you ever seen it?”

“I don't check out girls' thighs,” Archie replies.

“Nope,” Arla admits. “But Jess must've seen it. Maybe in the gym.”

The class bell interrupts our conversation, but I'm not yet ready to give up this new connection to Jess. “Arla, would you mind if I borrowed this for a few days?” I ask. “Just to, you know, read the whole thing and see if there's anything else in here.”

Nodding her head, Arla agrees. With one caveat. “Just don't let your father see it,” she instructs. “Unlike my dad, yours is actually good at the whole upholding the truth, justice, and American way thing.”