Blue Moon.

Chapter 20

The sound of my brown boots scuffed against the asphalt beneath my feet. My dark skinny jeans were tucked into the boots, I had on a black pea coat buttoned up over my cream colored long sleeve shirt, a peace sign pendant was hanging from a gold chain around my neck, and my chestnut hair was blowing in the cool breeze whirling around me.

I listened intently to the dried leaves scraping the concrete, and maintained a smile as I continued to walk forward. Perhaps tonight would be last time I ever walked down this lonely drive surrounded by dead, leave-shedding trees. Then again, perhaps this would be the first of many walks to come in the future. Who knew?

As I walked down the secluded drive, I felt at peace. My tiny hands were stuffed into my jacket pockets, and I walked with my head high, closer and closer to the black iron gate.

It was getting dark, and as I turned my eyes up towards the sky I found myself staring at a big full moon, glowing blue in the sky. It looked so vivid, so close that I actually stopped in my steps and admired it for a second. I wondered how long it would take to get from exactly where I stood to the moon. I wondered how long it would take to get to Mars, to Pluto, to other unknown distant galaxies, and if somewhere, elsewhere in this huge universe, someone or some kind of being was looking up at a moon too.

I shuddered and zoned in on the mansion before me, stopping short in front of the iron bars. I tilted my head and lifted a hand to touch the gate and feel its cold steel against my frozen fingertips.

I took in the yellowed grass, the over grown bushes sprouting up from against the house, the out of control ivy that weaved its way up the stone fortress, and reached just passed the second floor windows of the three story house. I gazed at the windows which had been drawn closed with red velvet hangings and felt muddled with emotions bubbling inside me.

It truly was a gorgeous house. It was hard to imagine how other people saw it; foreboding, a menace, haunted. There was nothing sinister about it, just that aged beauty that had some real history behind it.

I sighed out loud and leaned my hip against the gate, closing my eyes and reining in my thoughts. I though about Liam and what he could possible be doing tonight that would keep him from school tomorrow. Perhaps he and his family were camping, maybe they had decided to take a night off in a hotel, or could they still be inside the mansion, having a late night around a fireplace, playing a family board game.

And then my smile began to melt into a frown. Jake McCubbin's words had hurt more than I'd like to admit. Although anything he said I was usually able to just ignore, this time I knew there was some truth to what he had said to me earlier in the parking lot.

What was Liam doing hanging out with a freak with no friends, like myself?

Liam may have a different style than the boys and girls at Peterborough, but there was no denying his good looks and dark and mysterious attitude. He could fit in with anyone if he really wanted to, and yet he seemed completely bored and uninterested with the king and queen bees of Peterborough High.

Instead he chose to sit down at my lunch table that fateful day, and had never expressed a genuine regret for that.

Causing me to about jump out of my skin I saw my shadow stretch in front of me, suddenly aware of headlights pouring from behind me. Quickly I scrambled behind the shelter of the thick trees on either side of the drive as a sleek black car pulled up to the gate. I felt my purse slip from my shoulder and I let it fall to the ground, while an arm reached out from the black car and pressed a button on the stone gate post. A buzz ripped through the air and the iron gates opened, letting the car inside.

As it passed through and the gates began to shut behind the car, I lurked out from behind the trees and flattened myself against the stone post, my heart racing. I took a peek from around the post and saw that the car was parked in front of the deep threshold. I saw an old man clad in black step out, I assumed it was cliff, and watched him open up the backseat door of the car.