Moonset (13 page)

Fourteen

“They disappeared for a few years after high school. All of them had bright futures, but they didn’t pursue them right away. No one knows what happened—why they left so suddenly.
Until they turned up in London, enrolled
in school and petitioning for working
internships with the government.”

Adele Roman
Moonset Historian: From a college
lecture series about Moonset

The rest of the morning was a blur.

My last class before lunch was Economics, and thankfully I walked into the room to see Malcolm already in a seat near the back. A class with someone I knew. There wasn’t much chance of sharing a class with either Bailey or Cole, but I was a little shocked that the three of us hadn’t shared more classes together. There’d been a few times where we all had nearly identical schedules.

“How’s your day been going?” Mal asked as I slid in behind him.

“Not bad,” I said, thinking of Ash showing up as my advisor.

His eyebrow raised. “Are you blushing?”

I turned away immediately, dropping my bag on the desk and resting my head on it. Mal didn’t press the issue.

On my lunch break, I went to the office to find out about switching lockers. The secretary first tried to assure me that I was over exaggerating about how big the mark on my locker was until I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of it.

“And this happened today?” she asked, looking at me with a hint of suspicion.

“I didn’t mark up my new locker,” I said, trying to suppress my annoyance. Finally she agreed to have someone from the maintenance staff look at it.

As I walked out of the office, I caught sight of Jenna coming towards me.

“And this is my brother Justin,” she announced, looking from her companion to me and back again.

I recognized the girl. “You’re Ash’s friend,” I said.

“Maddy,” the girl replied, a little frosty. “I remember you.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I remember you, too.”

Jenna looked between the two of us, a hint of a smile in place. Jenna found a friend on the first day? That was weird enough in itself.

“Listen, you guys should come hang out with us after school,” Maddy said, glancing down at her phone. “It’s this little hole-in-the-wall place that almost no one knows about. Ash’ll be there. I know she’d like to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I think we can do that.”

“Cool,” Maddy replied. “It’s called Mark’s. You know where the coffee shop is on Main Street? It’s right by there, like a block away.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “We’ll try to stop by.”

“Well, this is an interesting place to bring me,” Mal said a half hour after we’d gotten out of school, squinting up at the building. “Is this part of some life lesson to make me appreciate all I have?”

I glared at Malcolm, but really, I was glaring at Maddy. Of
course
it had been a trick. She’d been too nice, and too helpful.
And
she’d taken to Jenna like a duck to evil, which only proved that she shouldn’t be trusted.

Mark’s
, the hangout that she’d suggested we check out, turned out to be
Saint Mark’s.
A homeless shelter.

“I’d give her some points for moxie, but the prank itself is pretty lame,” he added.

“Shut up,” I said. “No one says ‘moxie’ anymore.”

“You’re just mad that no one says you’ve got moxie.”

“Stop saying moxie!”

It was like a spell of its own. I knew he was going to say it again. So I did the mature, responsible thing, and ran into the first store I could find just to put some distance between us. I knew Malcolm would never act like the embarrassment he was in front of an audience.

But the store I had chosen was so much more. The moment I crossed the threshold, it was stifling. The walls were simply drenched in hangings—paintings, art, objects, and garbage. Shelves were crammed with knickknacks and weird bookends, one holding nothing but a series of bronzed elephants. Another table was weighted down by an elaborate crystal chess set. When I picked up one of the pieces, not only did the table rock alarmingly, but I didn’t recognize the design in my hand. And the board was strange, tri-colored instead of dual.

It was nearly impossible to walk down the aisles because they were so narrow. Each step, I was afraid I’d bump into something and start a chain reaction that would topple everything in the building.

Mal had no similar feelings. He moved at ease through the store, occasionally picking up something that caught his eye and studying it from all angles.

“Welcome, boys!” A man literally popped up from behind a glass countertop in the corner. As we approached, I saw the sliding glass panel was open, and he was carefully removing everything from inside. From here it just looked like a lot of ugly, tarnished jewelry. “What can I do for you today?”

“We’re just looking,” Mal said. “But thanks.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, straightening one of the trays full of rings.

Mal and I continued browsing, but I couldn’t help but keep turning for the door. “Maybe I just got the name wrong, and the place she was talking about is right around here and we missed it.”

He saw right through me. “You have Ash’s number, right? Just call her.”

“I can’t
just call her.
And say what? ‘Your best friend sent me to the homeless shelter?’ Yeah, real nice.”

“You need to relax, man. She’s just a girl.”

“You’ve met her. She’s not exactly a normal girl.”

He held up a trio of books that were wrapped up in a ribbon. One of them was a copy of
Wuthering Heights
. “She’s a girl. Get used to not understanding half of what she does. That’s how they rope in precious little boys like you.” He ruffled my hair and I jerked back, nearly bumping into a display full of postcards.

The man behind the counter piped up again. “Looking for a present for your girlfriend?”

I turned back to him, really seeing him for the first time. He was older, with thinning gray hair and dressed in plaid. He looked more like a librarian than a shop owner. “No, thanks. She’s not my girlfriend!” I said a little too quickly.

“Ahh,” he replied, “but you want her to be?” His eyes focused shrewdly on me. “I’ve got just the thing.”

He crouched down and started rummaging through the shelves he had been working on, eventually pulling out a tray filled with necklaces. “I’m sure she’ll love one of these,” he said. “You’re lucky; I’ve been cleaning out the stock all week, weeding out the things that aren’t selling.”

I wanted to tell him that it looked like most of the stuff here wasn’t selling, but I didn’t want to be rude. Curious more than anything else, I walked to the counter. There was a hallway opened up behind the counter, leading into a kitchen badly lit with fluorescent lighting. That and the yellowing wallpaper made it look like some tragic seventies parlor.

“Ethan Alexander,” a raspy voice bellowed from somewhere beyond that kitchen, “where the hell is my
TV Guide
?”

“Oh, hell,” the man muttered quietly. “Be right back,” he said, although I noticed he pulled the tray back and slid it back under the glass before he turned. “Coming, Dad!”

He didn’t need to bother. A much older man hobbled his way into the kitchen and from there into the hallway, moving with a determined gait. He favored one hip and kept a hand on one of the walls as he walked. “I told you not to touch my
TV Guide
,” he bellowed louder.

“Dad, I’m with a customer,” the man pleaded. I saw a moment of fear in his eyes—being embarrassed in front of a total stranger by his father.

“Always with a customer,” his father growled, finally halting in the doorway. “Where’d you put my—oh my sweet Jesus.”

I didn’t want to watch the man get tongue-lashed by a father who clearly needed medication, so I’d knelt down and started looking at the jewelry through the glass. But at the man’s gasp, I looked up again—to find him staring right at me.

“Can’t be, can’t be,” he muttered, suddenly wringing his hands in front of him. “Dead and buried, Sherrod Daggett is. Always knew he’d come back from the dead. Back for me!”

The old man swiveled back to his son, as though all his hip problems were nonexistent. “I told you he’d come back for me! He always said he would!”

I stiffened, looking to Malcolm, but he’d heard it as well and was walking up right behind me.

“Dad, it’s just a customer,” his son said, holding his hands out. He turned to the left to catch my eye. “Sorry about this,” he murmured. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go find your
TV Guide
.”

The man voice got thicker the more worked up he became. “You don’t never listen, boy! Sherrod Daggett! I told you he’d come! I told you.” The man stared holes into me. “You won’t get it back! You know it’s mine.”

Malcolm’s hand settled on my shoulder. “Now we know what they were hiding,” he said quietly.

“Dad!” Ethan started shuffling him back into the hallway.

“He said he’d come back for it, don’t you remember? I told you!” There was a sudden plea, a need for his son to understand him.

“You gave it back to him,” the son said gently. “Come on, your shows are about to be on.”

“My shows,” the man said, suddenly melting down. “I gave it back?” he asked, sounding completely lost and uncertain.

The two of them disappeared back into the kitchen. “Everyone knows you look just like him,” Mal said quietly from behind me.

“But he
recognized
me,” I said. “He knew Sherrod’s name. He knew he was trouble.” That shouldn’t have been the case if the man wasn’t a witch, but neither he nor his son had shown any sign that they knew anything about magic. If nothing else, the son would have recognized us the moment we walked into the store, and that hadn’t been the case.

“I am
so
sorry about that boys,” Ethan came back into the shop with false cheer. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and his smile was just a bit too wide. “My dad doesn’t always remember to take his pills.”

“It’s no problem,” Malcolm said, taking point. I don’t think I could have lied very effectively at the moment. The man’s accusation was like a sucker punch to the stomach.

“He’s been getting so confused lately,” he confided. “He’s convinced all the people he used to know have turned into monsters. Half his stories are about evil children who want him dead.” He laughed a false, overcompensated laugh. “Can you imagine?”

“So whoever he was talking about was some kind of student here?” Mal asked. The question was laced with casual interest.

Ethan shrugged. “How would I know? Dad was the head of the history department for near on thirty years. Didn’t make much sense, he
hated
kids.” He picked up where he’d left off, pulling the tray of necklaces back out of the cabinet. “So … how about that girlfriend of yours.”

“We’ve actually got to be going,” Mal said, clapping his hand on my shoulder again. “Justin here has a lot to do before school in the morning.” His grip on my shoulder tightened, and I half walked, and was half pushed back the way we’d come.

The shopkeep’s eyes squinted, but he didn’t argue. A silver chain dangled between his fingers. Mal led me to the door.

My father had been here? And people in town knew him? Had he gone to school here?

Was this where Moonset began?

Fifteen

“There was a growing unrest between the classes
of witches. The Covens had held power for so long, they expected to hold it forever. They were
nearly untouchable. All that changed on
Dark Monday, with the London bombing.”

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

Mal and I agreed not to say anything to the others for the time being. At least until we could start to figure out what was really going on in Carrow Mill. Jenna and Cole were loose cannons on the best of days, and knowing that our parents might have had history here would not have ended well for anyone.

The next day at school wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Jenna had fully embraced the dark side. Or encouraged Maddy and her entourage to become her disciples.

“So you never told me how Mark’s was yesterday,” Jenna said, appearing at the side of my locker like a vampire emerging after sunset. She grabbed one of the belt loops of my jeans, her smile twisting dangerously. “Was it everything that memories are made of?”

I pulled away from her, and slammed the locker door. Someone had come by and sanded the symbol off my locker door, but now there was an ugly tan stain where the original color was exposed. Tan-colored lockers? Who’d ever thought that was a good color?

“Was that your idea?”

Jenna covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were confirmation enough.

“Are we really doing this, Jenna? We’ve got more important things to worry about then whatever grudge you’re carrying. You’re pissed at me, I get it.”

“Relax,” she said, with her hand still covering her mouth. Whatever she said next was so low and garbled I couldn’t make it out. Her hand dropped, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m not the one who’s
pissed
,” she said.

It’s not until a couple of minutes later that I realized what she meant. The color of my jeans suddenly faded, significantly, turning from dark to pale blue as though the color simply dribbled out the bottom. All except the crotch, which was still the same dark color. It looked like I’d pissed myself.

Jenna 1, Justin 0.

“Nice shorts,” Ash announced, sliding into the desk next to me during homeroom.

None of the counterspells I knew had worked on the jeans, and even trying to enlist Cole to cast an illusion to make them look normal hadn’t worked out. “I’m not getting Jenna pissed on me,” he’d said, wide eyed and nervous. “Pissed
off,
I mean.” Mal had refused to drive me home to change, but had offered up the change of clothes in his gym bag. I had to cinch the waist twice to keep the pants up, but they were better than nothing.

I rattled my fingers against my desk and ducked my head away. It was bad enough that I had to deal with Jenna’s wrath. Did Ash know what had happened? Was it spreading around school that I’d supposedly wet my pants? The fact that I was in shorts stood out a little, since it was January in New York and all.

“Oh, no witty retort? Come on, Mercutio. You have to have a thicker skin than that.”

I didn’t even blink at the name. Shakespeare was the new theme obviously. “If you’re looking for witty retorts, you want one of the older, more sarcastic siblings,” I pointed out. “Though I’d stay away from Jenna today if you value all your limbs staying attached to your body.”

“Ooh, snarky,” Ash responded, eyes sparkling. “Getting me all hot and bothered,” she said, fanning herself. “Tell me more about these severed limbs.”

I laughed.

“There we go,” she said, ducking her head down so that our eyes met. “Glad to know a wardrobe malfunction didn’t completely kill your sense of humor.”

“It wasn’t a malfunction,” I started, and then stopped, because how was I supposed to explain Jenna’s spell?

“What was it then? Sartorial assassination?” Ash leaned across her desk. “Relax. Jenna dumped water all over you, big deal. Don’t get all emo on me again.”

That was the story they were going with? I exhaled, feeling a tiny bit of my stress fade. “It’s not that. Not
just
that,” I amended. “I found out some stuff about my family yesterday that’s … stressful.”

“Family stress? If you found out you’ve got another sister like Jenna, that might be a deal breaker,” Ash said. “One queen bee is enough, thanks.”

“Nothing like that,” I said, trying to hold my smile.

“Then what?”

She said it like that was so simple. Like I could lay my problems out and she’d sympathize, we’d have a moment, and both of us would move on. But the reality of the situation was living under Moonset’s shadow was a complicated life—one that no one outside the five of us could really understand. Especially not a normal person who thought magic was nothing more than card tricks and sleight of hand.

I shook my head, conjuring up my own sleight of hand to hide my thoughts behind a smile. “Nothing major. Nothing that should ruin the day anyway.”

She settled back, looking pleased with herself. “Excellent. Then as a reward, I’m going to let you buy me coffee.”

I looked at the clock on the wall. “Are we even in the same lunch period?”

“I mean later, Lysander. Tonight.”

Like a date? Instantly the cool and calm conversation was gone, and in its place was something heavy and terrifying. My heart became an overwhelming cadence.
Tonight
implied a date. Didn’t it? My mouth dried out, all the moisture in my body rushing to my hands, which were clammy and gross.

“Sure,” I said, looking away again. Hoping for indifferent, praying for casual, but my voice cracked right in the middle. I coughed, cleared my throat, and prayed for death. It was the only solution now.

Ash didn’t laugh, like I expected. Not that I expected her to mock me or take huge amounts of enjoyment in my suffering, but I expected at least a little tinkling of laughter. But there was nothing. No reaction at all. I looked up, saw her tucking a book back into her bag. “Great. I’ll see you at the coffee shop after school? Six or so?”

“Uhm, yeah. Sure. Six sounds good.” I could go home with the others and figure out a way to ditch them all by then.

Suddenly, everything was looking up.

It was easier sneaking away from everyone than I thought. Mal was watching a football game on our TV for some reason, and who knew where the others were. I left a half hour early, figuring the walk would do me some good.

By the time I finally walked into the coffee shop, it was almost dark already. That was my least favorite part about winter—the fact that the sun set so early. It was just barely past six when I walked inside, but the sky was already overcast and nearing black.

“Running late, Caliban?” Ash was set up near the front corner, framed by glass windows on one side and green and black walls on the other. It started to snow a little bit as I sat down across from her. There were already two coffee cups on the table, both still steaming. She hadn’t been here for very long.

Caliban? That was a name I didn’t recognize. “Shakespeare?” Because it would be just like Ash to shift conventions without a word.

“
The Tempest
,” she smiled. “You should know that.”

“If we don’t read it in English, I don’t know it,” I admitted.

“Heathen.” But she smiled as she said it. “So how was the rest of your day? I see you found pants. Always an improvement.”

I looked down, and then focused on the cup in front of me. “Do I even want to ask?”

Her eyes twinkled.

“Is there even any caffeine in this? Or is it all sugar and syrup?”

She lifted her cup to her mouth and took a sip, but her eyes never left mine. It took a minute before I realized I was being prompted yet again. She glanced down at my cup, and her eyebrow quirked in challenge.

It wasn’t until I’d taken a sip of something that was a little bit pumpkin and a little bit spicy (and better than I will ever admit out loud) that Ash cleared her throat. “So what did you do that made Her Highness so angry?”

I eyed her warily. “Don’t let Jenna hear you call her that. She’s already amassing a hit list around school.”

Ash leaned back in her chair, the very picture of composure. “I’m not scared of your sister, Justin.”

“You should be,” I muttered. All I needed was a war between Jenna and Ash.

“You’ve met Maddy, right?” Ash asked. “She’s like Jenna-on-training-wheels. Trust me, I know exactly how to deal with girls like Jenna. She’ll crush anyone she thinks she
can
crush, and never look back.” As if realizing that sounded a bit harsher than she planned, she added, “I get it. Having to start over at new schools, build a new reputation. It’s got to be tough. Everyone copes differently.”

“That’s just Jenna,” I laughed. “It’s not about school or anything like that. She has to be the star, and if she’s not, she has to destroy whoever’s in her light.” I realized how that sounded, and I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

Ash leaned forward, tucking her hand under her ear. “People need to vent sometimes. It’s okay. I can’t imagine it’s easy to live with a sister like that.”

“It’s not so bad, most of the time. It’s just that she tends to go out of control, and I’m supposed to be there to pick up the pieces. It gets annoying.”

“It’s not your job to clean up after her,” Ash said quietly. “You’re not her parent, Justin.”

“Yeah, but I kind of am. I mean, we’re all we’ve got.” After a moment, I rushed in to cover. “I mean, we’ve got our foster family and everything, but it’s been the five of us for so long that we’re really … close.”

“Yeah, but it seems like all you do is cover for her. Even now, you’re venting about how hard it is to live with Jenna, and you’re making excuses for how she acts,” Ash pointed out. “You’re allowed to have a life of your own. It doesn’t have to be all about Jenna—even if she expects it to be.”

The truth was that I wouldn’t have the first clue about how to do what Ash was suggesting. I’d spent so much time running behind Jenna that I never had much time to think about my own life. Everything I did involved the others. Covering for them. Helping them. Keeping them out of trouble.

A few minutes passed, and I didn’t say anything else. I was too busy thinking, wrapped up in seventeen years of thoughts. Who was I, if I wasn’t Sherrod Daggett’s son? Or Jenna’s twin, or Mal’s little brother?

“I didn’t mean to make it all maudlin,” Ash said, trying to force a laugh. “Come on, Lady Macbeth, let’s have a smile.” She looked down at my cup. “Did you want extra whipped cream? I could do that, if you like.”

I didn’t reply right away, and before I knew it, Ash was gone from the other side of the table, only returning a minute later with an industrial-sized can of whipped cream. “The best weapon in a girl’s arsenal,” she smirked before spraying an absolute tower of topping onto my coffee.

The moment the tower started to bend under its own weight and toppled off the side, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You’re the strangest girl I’ve ever met,” I told her, and that was the truth.

“I’m an enigma,” she admitted. “I don’t like being predictable.”

“See, I prefer predictable. I just don’t get too much of it.”

Ash grinned, but there was a moment where the smile faded, where something else floated to the surface. It was only a moment, then the smile was back in full force. “You never did tell me what you did that pissed your sister off.”

I shrugged. What I’d done to Jenna was too wrapped up in Moonset and magic. “We … had a disagreement,” I said carefully. “A very big one. Jenna wanted me to side with her, and I agreed with Malcolm instead.”

“Wow. And you’re still breathing?” Ash looked impressed.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” I admitted. “But Jenna’s had a hard time letting it go.”

“Still making excuses,” she chided. “Tell me how you really feel. Doesn’t it suck, sometimes, having to pick up after her? Don’t you wish you could just do your own thing and let her handle her own messes?”

Before I could answer, there was a commotion outside. Several people hurried past the window, at least one of them shouting. A few seconds later, several more people did the same. They were all heading towards the town square.

“Is there something going on tonight?”

Ash had half risen out of her chair, her forehead wrinkled. “I didn’t think so,” she said slowly.

We both stood awkwardly around our table as yet
another
group of people hurried past the coffee shop, their eyes locked on something in the distance. When the police car, sirens blaring, flew past a few seconds later, we both went for the door. Even the barista trailed behind us, unable to escape the curiosity of the moment.

A crowd was forming in the square, surrounding and beneath the picturesque clock tower that defined the city square. Streetlights designed like lanterns lit the streets, and strings of lights in the trees brought the quaint and homey vibe. But there was nothing quaint or homey about the gathering crowd.

“What do you think it is?” I asked, as we approached.

Ash’s expression was grim. “Nothing good.”

“Can’t you hear them! They’re screaming,” a man shouted from somewhere beyond the crowd. I followed the eyes and craned necks of the crowd, and found the man somewhere near the top of the clock tower. Though it’s only a few stories high—four if I had to guess—he’s still a tiny figure in comparison. But his voice carries throughout the square, and cuts through the buzzing voices of the fascinated townsfolk.

“I saw him once. The sun! He fizzled and faltered, and then they locked the door on his cage of blood.”

“Come on,” Ash said, wrapping her hand around my arm. “They’ll talk him down. But we shouldn’t watch. It’s not right. He’s obviously sick.”

I would have left right then, except that the man shifted on his ledge, leaned forward like he was teasing the sky’s edge, and I recognized him. It was the man from the diner. The Harbinger.