The silver moon's curse
's
leaking through the windows. Fog still clung to the outside like it refused to let go, a
didn't believe it was but it breathed like something alive, respo
ld. My dreams had been thick with fragments: my parents' laughter, the crash of the accident, and
sweater that still smelled faintly like lavender, and
Not just the boxes, b
memories, and cold silence, but the study was still warm from a fire someone once lit and never truly extinguished.
d since the movers brought them in. I drop
oto frame of us on Cannon Beach, all three of us with the wind in our hair and that same
llowe
ound old photo albums. Real ones, thick and leather-bound, the kind pe
open the
There was Mom, barely out of college, her smile unburdened by time. Dad beside her, lan
os weren't j
ed in snow. It had always been here, a silent witness to generations. My great-grandmother. My grandfather. Faces I had onl
it, heart
. But the date scribbled on the back read: June 1935. Her name
I was named Eva Marie
I traced her image with my fingers, h
was
photo was
anor. The trees towered behind him like giants, and his face looked solemn, tense. Behind him, half
the photo clos
nse. Was it a trick of th
o
ng. Watchin
hoto down,
sliding with quiet signs. Inside were letters, a fountain pen still full of ink, and a faded map of Moonvale with strange markings circles around
nked
l m
as gripping the edge of the desk
writte
dge. The bottom left. I pulled, jiggled, even tried sli
just a small metal indentati
urse
fingers itched to know what was inside. Not just because
s had my pa
nd an attempt at journaling that quickly tur
. On the chain around my neck hung a necklace my mom had given me on my sixteenth birthday. I'd
pressed it into the i
ow and stiff like it had
e was
tied with a ribbon that had long since lost its color. I pull
letters. Doz
, written in my father's handwriting
he first o
eares
turned. We thought we had more time. I hoped the bloodline had weakened but
ced my hands over
in science, in logic, in cold facts and warm hear
g, if her dreams begin to change don't wait. Take her and leave
s three times.
t be real.
owling la
a beast, yellow eyes watching from the trees
rickled w
e box back inside. My heartbeat was t
stopped th
again, turned it over, and fou
ne La
the girl i
She was the first. The begin
orly again
the moon, but I could feel it pulsing beyond the w
me anymore. They were inside. Un
ng, I went bac
filled with old furniture and forgotten cobwe
door gro
r end. Covered shapes loomed under white sheets, like ghosts mid-convers
heavy cloth, was a trunk. I
simple, just
ing on a nearby hook and
ns, maybe more. Each one l
Langle
. The handwriting was
But it didn't. It began with the la
a town. It was a sanctuar
silver moon, not by c
of her descent, her awakening, her dreams, he
come somet
t human. Som
urnal, hugging
d again, as if e
yet. But something was awakening
or wasn't just
my re