Ash:Am I a joke to you? I’m here too.
Onny:Where??? Nm I’ll find you laterrrrr.
Onny:True??
True:Sorry, sighed so hard I blew my phone away.
Onny:ARE YOU ON YOUR WAY
True:Almost, Queen Onny! This peasant must first wash the grease off her tired skin, which she acquired from her hard toiling and manual labor on yonder motorcoach
Onny:FINE I’LL ALLOW IT
Ash:Onny bought CASES of Dr P for you. I saw them stacked in the kitchen. Like, at least 6 cases
True:Lol no way
Onny:~*~Needed to take extra precautions to lure a True beast out of the darkness.~*~
Laughing a little, True walked to the garage door and entered her house, kicking off her work boots and letting down her long black hair as she went. Her parents were already at Onny’s party, although they, too, were reluctant participants. Her mom, the fifth daughter of German immigrants, was an accountant’s assistant, and her dad, the only son of his Indian American parents, was an insurance agent (which explained True, who’d been born with a calculator for a heart). Needless to say, “magical midnight galas” weren’t on the Tandons’ list of necessities.
To be honest, True didn’t know why her parents went to the Diamantes’ parties every year; her mom and dad were as antisocial as she was. Maybe they thought they were setting a better example for her and that they’d inspire her to somehow become a social butterfly.
The thought led to some mirthful snorting as she crossed into the minuscule kitchen. After scrubbing her grease-stained arms off at the sink (good thing her mom wasn’t there to see), True walked into her bedroom and reached into her closet for her costume. If she was going to Onny’s magical horrorscope of a party and facing the boy who’d broken her heart, she would go as a powerful female scientist.
It was her way of staging a protest.
“Oh my god, Truuuuuuue!!! You’re here! You’re late, but you’re here!!”
Onny catapulted into True’s arms, nearly sending them toppling into a purple-lit ice sculpture of—whatwasthat? A bouquet of flowers? A swan? A woman with an axe embedded in her icy skull? Knowing Onny, any of those were equally likely—ofsomethingbehind them. It was kinda hard to see through the mask Ash had made for her (though the mask itself was beautiful; even True, who had no eye at all for art, could see that).
“Told you I’d come. I mean, the peasant hath arrived.” True held Onny away at arm’s length and looked her over. She was dressed in Renaissance-era clothing as the serial killer Erzebet Báthory, and looked, as always, like a high-fashion High Priestess from an ornate tarot deck. (True had learned what The High Priestess was through Onny-osmosis. Being Onny’s friend probably made her the most enlightened skeptic this side of the Mississippi.)
“You look happier than usual,” True continued, her deep-brown eyes narrowing while her mouth twitched with contained laughter. “Did you sage your room and get high off the fumes again?”
Onny chortled. “No! I’m just starting to realize… Look, it doesn’t matter.” Her eyes darted shiftily behind her golden mask to Byron Frost, who was dressed as some sort of snotty English guy and was helping himself to blood-red punch. “Yet.” She turned her attention back to True just as Ash came sauntering up dressed in all gold and black as the Klimt man (though True was sure he’d used more poetic phrasing than that when he’d described his costume to her), grinning behind his own mask. “But check this out—Ash and I just noticed.”
Onny dragged True over to a nearby picture window and pulled back the heavy gold curtain. Confused, True adjusted her mask to get a better look at the massive garden, all bedecked for the night. Ash ghosted up to them and stood on her other side. “Um… nice… hedges?” said True. “I really like the net lighti—”
“Not the hedges!” Onny said, a little breathless, while Ash chuckled. “Look up at the sky!”
Not wanting to agitate Onny even more (she was clearly going through something), True dutifully did as she was asked. The full moon shone like a silver ball, flanked by a solitary golden star. “Huh. Pretty.”
Onny groaned and clutched her head, while Ash continued to watch in mirth. “No, not pretty!”
Ash cleared his throat. “Maybe I can help. True, do you remember what the legend says about the founders? How they’re twin stars in the sky?”
True had a vague memory of Onny talking about that at some point. It winked back into relevance. “Oh yeah. When they died, their love was so strong that they became stars in the sky, watching over the town forever, or something?”
Onny’s eyes glinted feverishly behind her mask. “Exactly,” she said, leaning in close to True. “But look up there.” She jabbed her finger at the window. “There’s onlyonestar—the Gentleman of Moon Ridge. Where, pray tell, is the Lady’s star?”
True squinted up at the sky. The mask was obliterating half her field of vision. “… Maybe it’s hiding behind a cloud or something?”
“No!” Onny shook her head emphatically. “Absolumentnot. You know why? Because of theother,rarely spoken-about part of the ‘Founders’ Fable.’”
True looked from Onny to Ash. “Uh-huh. Which says…?”
“Every so often, on a special anniversary,” Ash explained, “the Lady of Moon Ridge is supposed to descend from the skies to impart a lesson on true love to those who need it most. Onny thinks she might be here, walking among us tonight.”
