“Harriet and her daughter, Annitah, were known as the protectors of the Van Doren lineage, protectors of the moon children. Annitah understood nothing good could come from talking to anyone from either coven, but she loved her friend deeply and agreed to stay quiet.
“Siri’s feet maneuvered the woods effortlessly, and when she reached Bellamy, her nerves from the moment materialized because it was real, and she had been waiting on this moment for more than ten years. She slid behind a tree and waited for her heart to calm.
“‘Who’s there?’ called out Bellamy, peering through the dense woods with narrowed eyes. The fateful spring winds tangled her white hair with the sweeping breeze, giving her away. ‘You can come out,’ insisted Bellamy, noticing it was a girl. A girl who had colors he had never seen before. ‘I am not going to hurt you.’
“Siri peeked around the tree at first, and the two locked eyes before she reared back.
“She smiled to herself.
“He smiled to himself.
“‘My name is Bellamy,’ said the young man, walking closer toward the tree as if he had stumbled upon the world’s greatest treasure. ‘Are you lost?’
“Siri could not speak at first. Her eyes darted up to the sky, where stars sprinkled around the pinkish moon. She held her breath until it burned and she was forced to let it go, but it came out in sporadic spurts. Bellamy dragged his fingers around the tree, rounding it until he was face-to-face with her. Then he froze, for he could not imagine her kind of beauty being from this world, and his lips fell open in awe as the two studied one another. ‘What do they call you?’ asked he.
“‘Sirius,’ said she, and the sound was of unparalleled eloquence to his ears, strong enough to bury its way inside of him.
“Bellamy, with a shaken finger, reached out and touched his fingertips to her supple pink lips. Perhaps to make sure she was real, that she was warm and not something of the supernatural. And Siri let him, lifting her head and closing her eyes as his fingers moved gently across the most sensitive part of her face.
“‘The only beauty I have seen as close to this was the rare blue moon in a midnight sky during the first fall of snow,’ said Bellamy so low, she hardly heard it over her fluttering heart. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear and allowed his fingertips to wander as if she were art, tracing the sharp edge of her face. ‘It is as if you were born from the moon’s glow.’
“And the two spent the entire night together, and the night after that, and the night after that…
“Nights turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, Bellamy and young Siri keeping one another as their best-kept secret over the years in the deep dark forest while the rest of the world slept. At the start of spring, for her, Bellamy would pluck the first flower popping up through the blankets of snow over the forest floor, then howl with the full moon, maddened with emotion he would later realize was love. While Siri would dance with the seasons as acorns bounced in her dress pockets, hoping they would keep her young and live forever with him. They kissed passionately at sunrise, knowing each time the sun came up from over the cliffs, they may never get this night again.
“‘Meet me at the upside-down half-heart tree,’ begged Siri, reluctantly pulling away from his mouth, but needing to say it, and needing to hear the words he would repeat every waking hour. He pulled her in again, heart helpless.
“‘Bellamy, say it,’ said Siri into his mouth. ‘Say you will meet me.’
“‘I will meet you,’ replied he, oh, so painfully, knowing another day would pass without her before he would see her again.
“Siri kissed him one last time before she took off into the woods.
“‘SIRIUS VAN DOREN!’ shouted Bellamy, his hands fisted at his sides in protest of her departure, to keep her a little longer and see her face once more. Siri twirled around, and her white hair fanned out about her. Her bright eyes met his, and his existence shattered and rebuilt stronger from it. ‘I WILL LOVE YOU UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!’
“Siri smiled, causing Bellamy to take a step back as if it were a force, and to him, it was.
“‘And I will love you until the moon dies!” Siri sang, tears pricking her eyes.
Chapter 16
Fallon
I waiteduntil the town went to sleep before slipping out of Gramps’ house and headed for the woods on the opposite side of town. It was full dark, no stars, and the alleyways and shadowy streets were black currents flowing throughout the town like satanic veins in the quiet night. Once I reached the graveyard, I parked the scooter and walked the rest of the way between the labyrinth of gravestones, past the pet sematary, until I approached the woods.
Julian once said this town had a way of causing the mind to bend, to mix what was real and what wasn’t. Had it been real? Had we kissed in the Devil’s Playground only hours before?
For close to an hour, I walked along the forest floor in my pajamas with my beating heart in my stomach, a tingle still on my lips, reminding me it had to be real. But I had to see him—neededto see him. Under the moonlight, the sullen breezes had morphed into a bully, yanking and tearing the leaves off the branches, spreading horror throughout the woods. Branches ripped at my clothes as my feet shuffled across the forest for a sign of Julian.
The eerie call of an owl echoed above, and my eyes darted up, seeing the way the white tree trunks slashed through the darkness and into the sky.
I stumbled back when my foot caught under a fallen log, and my back hit a bare chest. I snapped my head back, my heart like a drum when I faced the person who always seemed to be there.
“You’re here,” Julian said, his words dancing in my hair. He lifted me upright, and when I turned, his brows jumped in a panic. “What are you doing here, Fallon? You can’t be here!”
I tucked my hair nervously behind my ears, remembering why I was here but too embarrassed to say. “I wanted to see you,” I admitted, my heart going a million miles per second. A shiver spread over me being within his reach, and I took a step closer to erase it. “I needed to see you again. We kissed, and it was …” I shook my head, words lost on me. I’d seen the way regret moped inside the oldest spirits—a ghost within a ghost. Death didn’t end the suffering; ghosts were haunted too. And if I didn’t say these words, I knew this would be a moment I’d suffer from. I had to get it out. I had to tell him. “I want to kiss you again. I want it all,” I confessed, then paused so suddenly, chin high and shoulders back as if I embodied a world of confidence. I sucked in a breath. “Do you want me the same way I want you?”
With a pained expression, Julian’s gaze touched over my face as he took a step back.
