The Moon Tells Secrets (24 page)
Read The Moon Tells Secrets Online
Authors: Savanna Welles
If you know its name.
I saw only broken glass at first, shining in a pool of jagged edges, then its eyes, narrow and amber, gleaming like a tiger's from a far corner of the room. It was tall, standing on two legs. What form had it taken? How much of what was human lingered inside? Did it know I was here to kill it?
Where was Davey?
I wanted to scream the words out, like I did in the church that time, to feel his presence like I had before. Yet I knew he was something else now. A Davey I didn't know, had never seen. Was he hiding from it? From me? Had it wounded him? Killed him?
I braced myself against the door, stealing strength and calm from its hard, smooth surface. I waited for it to lunge before I shot, to make its move before I did.
“Davey! Come to me. I want to see you,” it said.
Nothing within me movedânot my breath, my heart, or the hand that held the gun.
“Wherever you are, Davey, come out so I can see you, so I can hug you once again.”
It had taken my voice. It would use it to kill my son.
Something soft and furry rubbed up against my leg like a small dog or large cat does, and licked me with its rough tongue. I stooped down and touched his head, not sure what animal he had become, hoping my touch would tell him I was here, let him know who I was, that those words weren't mine.
“Davey,” it said again. “I'm over here next to the desk. Come here now!” It stunned me to hear my own voice, angry and demanding, commanding him from across the room.
But it had told me where it was.
Three bullets. Three chances.
I stooped again, feeling around in the dark for the soft, curly hair of his animal back, but he wasn't there. Had he gone, run to what called him?
I won't be small like that again, like I was in church today. Never. I'm through with it.
But he was still small. He'd come up only to my knee, not nearly so strong or big as he needed to be. He wasn't ready, even though he thought he was.
“No,” I said, not realizing I'd spoken aloud until the word was said. It came toward us, meeting Davey halfway, its gait rambling and uneven. It was unsure of itself on two legs; it killed better on four. Had this been the thing Dennie saw before it tore her apart? And Mack, thinking it was human until it showed its other side? I had to see it for myself, to know where to aim so I would shoot it and not my son. The light switch was on the wall near where I stood. I felt for it, turning it on, bathing the room in light. Startled, it looked toward me, momentarily blinded.
There was no biker or dowdy woman with lace gloves this time. No old woman in soiled black raincoat, wearing garish makeup to hide what was there. It was Anna, dressed as Luna had described Doba that day she came to find us.
The resemblance was striking, as it must always have been between the cousinsâso close, they could be mistaken for twins. Same steel gray hair, skin as smooth and brown as leather, black bright eyes. But the hands were the paws of a wolf. I could see Davey now, too, what he had become. A wolf cub not yet grown with gray fur and dark eyes like those of his grandmother, and I remembered the first time I saw Anna shift, when I had run away to hide from what she was.
“Doba!” I screamed, stepping from the door, aiming, firing. I heard the ping of the bullet as it cracked the side of Dennie's desk, missing her by a foot.
It turned in my direction, ambled toward me with halting steps, unafraid and vicious, bearing the pointed teeth of the old homeless woman, yet it had Anna's eyes filled with the pleading light that was often in them when she gazed at me, the look that showed how much she loved us. I thought of how she'd tried to warn us about themâthe family that was bound to her.
They gain power by committing an act of horror. Often it is the murder of a blood relative.
Anna's child. My Elan.
I fired again, the memory of what she'd done to Elan squeezing the trigger, realizing too late I'd forgotten to call its name.
“Davey!” it said in Anna's voice, calling him as she had when she would fry bread for him in her kitchen, a voice as sticky sweet as the sugar candy he loved. “Come to me, my Davey. Let me see you as you are now. How grown and fierce you are.”
And Davey trotted toward her, an obedient child, head held high in anticipation. It stooped gracefully, as if to deliver a treat, then grabbed him fiercely by the neck, squeezing, shaking, then tossing him to the floor. He hit it with a squeaky, tremulous cry and then scrambled away, paws scraping the floor. It howled deep from within its animal throat, a final, triumphant killing sound.
Who guided my hand this time? Was it Anna, Mack, Elan? I aimed straight and shot clean, screaming its name as I did, then watched with horror and fascination as it began to change. Anna's face stretching into the wolf, shrinking into that of Doba. Arms and legs pulling themselves into those of a woman; its torso slowly taking human shape. Yet the paws remained the same, even as she shifted. Doba's thumb-less hand, Anna's ring still tight upon a finger.
In the silence, I could hear only one breath, my own. Davey lay where she had thrown him. He stared at me with eyes that didn't belong to him, those of a frightened orphaned cub who had witnessed the death of a loved protector, a member of his pack. He had heard her voice, Anna's voice, and he had seen her change before his eyes. Doba was blood, as Anna was, and the blood that had captured him flowed deep. I was their killer.
Whose was he now? Hers or mine?
And if it kills me, I don't care. I'd rather die than live like the kind of freak I am. Kill me if it doesn't.
He limped across the room, still wounded, and stopped at Doba's body, touching it with his nose, sniffing it, licking it with his small, rough tongue, and my heart squeezed tight because he was my son. His animal eyes took me in, head leaning to one side as an animal does before it attacks, pondering how to kill. He moved toward me, then warily circled me in that tight room, baring his fangs, a growl, her growl, coming from deep within his throat.
“Say my name,” I said to him. “Say my name.”
He tipped his head to one side, as if he couldn't quite hear, a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. I wondered if he was listening as he always did to another voice, another sound that had always been closed to me.
“Say it, Davey. Say it!” I screamed, ordering him like I had throughout his life: Eat your vegetables. Say your prayers. Get ready for bed. Do your homework. Stay inside. Listen to me when I speak to you. “Goddamn it, Davey, say my name! Say it now. Now!”
It snarled, slow and sharp. A growl, not word, not name.
If the creature remains unchanged, its evil runs too deep and it will die.
“Say Raine!” I screamed, begging to hear something in that sound, just underneath it.
“Rrrrrr.” Was he trying to say it, form it with this animal mouth of his? Was I imagining it? He moved closer to me, head bowed.
“Again, again, again!” I screamed like I did when we would go through his multiplication tables. Listen to me. Say them again, again, and again.
“Rrrainne.”
I knelt down to his level, grabbed his round soft head, and held it in my hands, not afraid of him anymore.
“Raine,” I said. “Raine. Raine. Raine.”
I thought about that time in church, my annoyance, me scolding him because he called me by my name, not Mom, and tears came into my eyes. If I could hear him say my name once more, just once before I died. Before he did.
“Raaaiinnee.” It came out low, buried somewhere from within him. “Raine!”
He changed as Doba had, bit by bit, each animal part transformed into human. Legs, arms, torso, and finally his face until he lay beside me, the son I knew and loved.
“Mom!” he said, crying as hard as I was.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
We sat at Cade's kitchen table, the four of us. Too tired to think or talk. Davey had put on a pair of Cade's gray sweats and was finishing off his second glass of apple juice. I watched him, loving him more than I ever thought I could.
After a time, Luna spoke. “So how do you feel?”
“Okay.” He was a kid again, not saying more than he had to.
“What do you remember?” she said, and he gazed at me, knowing we shared a secret that neither of us would ever tell.
“Not much.”
“Want some more juice?” Cade asked.
“Sure.”
Cade went to the refrigerator, poured out another glass, and handed it to him. “Took a lot out of you, huh?”
Davey shrugged. “Not much.” He gulped down the glass and handed it back to Cade for a refill, which was promptly given.
“You sure you're okay, Davey?” I asked after a minute.
Davey looked at me, his head cocked to the side. “Hey, you think you can call me something else now? Davey's a kid's name.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know, Mom. Maybe D or King D or ⦠Wolf,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Something cool like that.”
“Wolf?” I asked, unbelieving.
“Not a great idea,” Cade said. “How about just ⦠Dave?”
“That'll do,” he said with a shrug, and for the first time in a week, we all laughed.
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Savanna Welles
is a New Jerseyâbased writer.
The Moon Tells Secrets
is her second paranormal romance. She also writes mysteries and children's books under the name Valerie Wilson Wesley. You can visit her Web site at
savannawelles.com
or sign up for email updates
here
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also by
savanna welles
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Contents
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE MOON TELLS SECRETS
. Copyright © 2015 by Valerie Wilson Wesley. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06116-4 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5419-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466854192
First Edition: March 2015