Ayden drives his way to the front of our house, and helps me out of the car again. When we make it to the door, James opened it for us before we even knocked.
"I thought I could smell you coming home."
Ayden and I walk in to the house, and I see mom and dad finishing up with setting the table.
"Nice to meet you," mom says. She walks out of the kitchen and shakes Aydens hand, and Kai walks up behind her.
"Hey there," he says.
"Hi," Ayden responds.
"Why don't you come sit at the table? We made pot pie."
We all make our way over to the table, and food is placed in front of us by James. Wyatt walks into the room just then, and takes his seat by his dad.
"Should we bless the food or something?" Kai said.
"It's ok dad, he already knows about us." I say.
"What?!"
I told him about how Ayden found out about Luna after our ice skating date, but Kai didn't look like his usual angry self he turns into when he found he has been betrayed by someone. Instead he just stays silent, but looks guarded the whole time I talk.
"Well," he says when I'm done talking, "I guess we can give the pot pie to Ayden, it's not like we are ever going to eat it."
"He hasn't told anyone, has he?" mom asked.
"Of course I didn't, and I wouldn't," Ayden answers for me.
"Well in that case, I'm going to go pull out some real food for the rest of us," James says. He gets up to go to the fridge, and comes back with a bunch of uncooked, still bloody deer meat.
"Since you know about us, you wouldn't mind if we ate in front of you do you? We haven't eaten meat in a while, and we need to stock up," dad said.
"I just saw Brooke eat bloody meat earlier, so I don't think I will be phased by your eating habits, and stock up for what?" Ayden says.
"The new moon starts tomorrow," I tell him.
"Oh yeah, so that means every night the moon is new you are going to turn into a wolf all night, right?"
"Yes," I tell him.
"Why new moon though? What about full moon?"
"We are creatures of the night, so it's only reasonable that when there is all darkness in the sky, we would turn. When the moon is full, then we have a less likely chance of being hungry, though we could change if we still wanted. We would just wouldn't have a strong need of wanting to bite peoples heads off," Kai explains. I flinch at that last part.
"Does your kind have a heaven and hell?"
"Good question. Since the moon can represent both good and evil, and bring both parts out in us, it is only natural to end up in the sky after death. The stars are what we consider to be heaven, and the darkness of the night is hell," James said.
"We are each given a resting place in the sky. Those that have done good in their life will be seen every night, shining brightly, even when the moon isn't. For those that have done wrong, they are covered up by the night. Because they chose darkness, that is what they will get," Clarissa says. "If we were good, then our resting place provides eternal happiness. It is said each star represents a different pack, and we will all see our relatives at ours, if we are good."
"What about those that are sent to darkness?" Ayden asks.
"They are filled with an immense feeling of loneliness, and though they are sent to the vast darkness of the sky, the wolves that go there don't ever see each other. They are filled with an imense feeling of loneliness, with nothing and no one."
"I don't get the moon and stars for your world though," Ayden says, "If the moon doesn't shine here, it's shining on the other side of the world. As for stars, sometimes I see more in the sky than I did the night before, and other times it's the other way around."
"The way the moon is both respresenting good and evil, it is also two faced. That's why it shines brighter than it would somewhere else, or vice versa," I tell him. "As for the stars, humans look at it differently. If stars you saw last night are taken away the next, then that means another of our kind died and was sent to our version of hell. If stars are placed in the sky more than what you saw before, then whoever of our kind died was given to a shining star. Werewolves see our brothers and sisters in the sky every night. The good ones anyway. What you humans think is pollution taking away the stars at night, is really just because they don't deserve to be seen."
Ayden was quite for a long time. Kai still had a guarded look on his face about Ayden knowing too much, but when he opens his mouth, he says, "James, I guess you can let the boy see the forest for what it really is then, now that he knows this much."
Everyone gets up from the table, and we make our way to the back door. When James opens it for us, Ayden lets out a gasp.
