Mysteries of the Moon

Chapter 1: Home

Home brings a sense of nostalgia that can't compare. Waking up in a warm bed on a brisk and grey autumn morning. The streets lined with 50-year-old oaks in front of every house. The season of pumpkins, orange and red leaves, and the distinct yearning for warmth that everyone searches for.

Bonfires dot the night sky like little personal stars on earth. Fall festivals that have become integral for the average American teenager. Some town takes the whole fall festivals to the extreme. Mine was one of those towns.

Every fall a festival to celebrate the coming fall moon sent the town into a frenzy. It held all the same fun pastimes such as carnival rides, games, and food trucks. Kissing booths maned by sleezy cheerleaders and the whores on the football team. Like I said we really got into it, so much so that at the end all the carnival goers howl like wolfs for the new moon.

All a part of the town's web of secrets.

Each town has their scandals and secrets. A teacher/student relationship, dead body found 40 years ago for no reason, the occasional home invasion. This town though, it was different. There was an urban legend that many never talked about.

From what I could gather, there were 5 families that were given a gift to protect the town from witches. The families were gifted the ability to turn into wolfs. Apparently, the moon goddess was the one to grant them these "gifts".

This superstition of werewolf's and witches was like the biggest secret in the world. It amazed me how so many of us knew about it but refused to talk about it like it was true. I mean we do live in the middle of a forest so seeing wolfs aren't an uncommon sight.

I could understand maybe seeing an abnormally large wolf and thinking something was odd that makes sense. However, the witch thing is something that made me more curious. I have always thought about the things that go bump in the night. How some of them seem so improbable that it's funny, to those that have real world connections that act as breadcrumbs to the truth.

Many of those breadcrumbs lead me down rabbit holes where I end up awake half the night searching for whatever I deem to be their natural conclusion. Most of those nights end up with my mom telling me to go to sleep around 2 am. My dad was never around, I guess he skipped out after he found out my mom was pregnant with me. I've never even seen a photo of him, and I honestly don't want to. I know he's not dead or anything, how I know this is beyond me.

Looking over to the blue light on my nightstand reading the time, it was one of those nights where I was up later than usual. Finally shutting down my laptop and scurrying over to my plush bed, tucking myself in so I can at least get 3 hours of sleep before I must get up for class in the morning.

Setting my alarms for three hours from now I see that my 17th birthday is rapidly approaching on the 20th. It's not like I wasn't excited for it, it was just another day for me at this point. Mom worked all the time, so I was usually by myself. My 5'9" 170-pound pencil body, I just did my thing and tried my best to be as invisible as possible.

While most of the time I can get by like a ghost, there are two spotlights that make me stand out to other. I have a rare condition that makes my eyes lilac in color all the time. The other being I have a form of vitiligo that causes my hair to have patches of white streaks that breakup the brown hair. The eyes are harder to cover than the hair, a beanie usually helps kind of like super mans glasses.

Being the "one with the purple eyes" it can be somewhat annoying. People tend to get stuck looking at them, so I have to move or look away. Keeping my head down is usually the safest way to go. I'd rather be Hal Shade the loaner, than Hal Shade the freak.

While I'm 5'9" my mom, Mary Shade, is 5'5" with wavy brown hair and green eyes. She grew up here but left to go off to college to become a pharmacist. The town drug dealer as I like to call her. After she graduated, she came back to open a pharmacy that doubled as a convenience store. The only way people were able to get their prescriptions was from the hospital.

From what I've gotten out of her, she met my dad at college but then he bounced when he found out she was pregnant. A piece of shit if you ask me, but I'm better off without him. She came back when she was around 6 months pregnant with me.

We moved back into my grandparents' old house. It's a cute 3 story colonial at the edge of town. Getting older they couldn't deal with the steps of the house, so they downsized. They moved into a little cottage at the edge of town with a little fairy garden in the front and probably an acre or two of land. It was a cute little house that I love going over for tea.

Mom kept the house full of herbs and spices, and plants speckling each room like an indoor conservatory. I felt at ease with all the plants around and the spices didn't hurt to have near when cooking as well. Each room was painted a different color, something we weren't scared of was color that's for sure.

While most of the house looked like a jungle, my room was different. I had some plants near the windows, but I had little led lights hanging from the celling that gave the room that warm look to it. I had loads of blankets littered all over my bed and the beanbag I had in the corner. To add to it I had a diffuser that I used with a couple different scents, the main ones being lemon grass and lavender. I made it a priority to have my room as comfortable and warm as possible. Being alone most of the time made me feel empty so I had to find some way to fight it.