The Mayfair Moon (The Darkwoods Trilogy 1)

“They won’t mind.” I said. “I’ll see if Uncle Carl can give you a ride later.”

Beverlee and Uncle Carl welcomed Harry and even told him to help himself to the kitchen if he was hungry. I needed someone to talk to, someone who had been there during the fight. Harry was better than any other, especially since he had become my closest friend. Uncle Carl agreed to give him a ride home in a few hours even though it would be late.

And Beverlee knew right away that Harry and I were just friends and there was nothing more between us. It was fine that I had a ‘boy’ up in my room alone with me, late at night. Somehow, I knew if it had been Isaac instead, Beverlee would not let him past the den.

“I really screwed that up,” said Harry. He plopped down on the chair next to my window.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I made an idiot of myself in front of Zia.” He put his elbows on his legs and leaned over forward. “She probably thinks I’m a joke.”

I smiled. “Harry, she doesn’t think that at all.”

“How do you know? You haven’t had time to talk to her since it happened.”

“No, but a girl knows when another girl is totally not interested in someone.”

Harry straightened his back some, looking across at me. “You think she’s interested in me?”

“Now, I’m not sure about that,” I said, sitting on the end of my bed, “I just know she’s not disinterested.”

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look,” I said, “if Zia was repulsed by you, you’d know it. Really though, I think you might have impressed her.”

Harry’s brows wrinkled. “Impressed her?” he said. “I get into a shouting match with another girl and then get my ass kicked by her boyfriend. I doubt that impressed anyone.”

I shook my head, smiling and then tossed off my shoes. “From what I saw, Julia got what she deserved. You did good by not punching her in the face, even if she’s a girl. Secondly, you were holding your own in that fight. I admit I was a little impressed.”

“Really?” he said.

“Yes, really,” I answered, “but me, on the other hand, got knocked on the ground, stepped on and crushed by no telling who, and I didn’t even get a punch in myself.” I laughed then and said, “If anyone looked like an idiot, it was definitely me.” I didn’t really care that that was true.

“Well,” Harry said with a grin, “a guy knows when another guy is interested in a girl and you could’ve puked in Isaac’s lap and he would still have a thing for you.”

My smile was warm and thankful. I needed to hear that. Well, in a roundabout way.

“That man,” said Harry, “he must be their dad or something.” He shook his head and shuddered. “Glad he’s not my dad—dude has some issues.”

Harry was right about that, but he didn’t know half of what I knew. That wasn’t saying much though because I was pretty clueless and in the dark about it all still.

Harry and I stayed up all night talking. I felt like I could tell him anything and I pretty much did. It was like having my sister back, when we would talk for hours about Sam Winchester and school and everything in-between. Since before Alex and I left Georgia, I hadn’t been able to confide freely in anyone until Harry came along. We were like two gossiping teenagers, but even better since he was a guy. Our gossip wasn’t one-sided. He offered a guy’s perspective and I offered the opposite. I knew he wasn’t going to go to school the next day and talk about me behind my back to someone else in our group.

I told Harry about my mom and her drunk, abusive husband. He told me about his older brother who was in prison for breaking and entering. Harry admitted he never liked to talk about that and that he was ashamed of it. I told Harry about my first kiss and that I was still a virgin. He confessed he was not a virgin, but had only been with one girl, who dumped him for one of his friends.

There was so much to talk about, so much that both of us needed to get out. Especially Sebastian, who we spent all of six minutes on. Harry veered off the subject, needing to fill that conversational space with something less depressing.

Only one thing was left in secret and I didn’t want it to be a secret any longer.

“If I tell you something,” I said, sitting up cross-legged on the center of my bed, “do you promise not to think I’m crazy?”

Harry laughed. “I can’t promise you that,” he said, “but I can promise not to tell anyone else why I think you’re crazy, if I do.”

I crinkled my nose at him.

“Okay, I promise I won’t think you’re crazy,” he agreed. “What is it?” He moved toward my bed and sat upon the edge.

I started to back out, but I needed someone to talk to about it. It should’ve been Alex, but that was never going to happen. It couldn’t be Beverlee because although I loved her and could trust her with my life, some things you just can’t tell the adult who’s taking care of you.

I sat there for a moment, absently twisting the corner of my pillowcase in-between my fingers.

“Do you believe in...,” I paused, regretting not rehearsing this beforehand, “...I mean, have you ever wondered if there are really things out there that exist other than humans?”

“What, like aliens?” he said.

He was totally interested.

“Yeah I guess so,” I said, “but what about other things...things like—“

“You mean like vampires, or ghosts?”

He was getting closer, a little too close. I was already backing out. This was crazy. Why was I being so stupid? I finally had a friend close enough I could confide in and gossip with and who wouldn’t two-face me and I was about to ruin it all with insanity.

So I decided to approach the question differently.

“Yeah,” I said, “ghosts, vampires, aliens...werewolves.”

Harry chuckled and lay across my bed; his shoes dangled off the edge. He brought his hands up and cradled them together behind his head.

“Nah,” he said finally. “Not really. Well, aliens maybe because face it, the Universe is just too big for us to be the only ones in it.” He turned his head sideways to see me rather than continue looking up at the sheetrock ceiling. “All that other stuff is just the product of old myths twisted into something fantastical over time.”

I sighed.

“Like that whole thing with Vlad the Impaler,” he went on, looking up at the ceiling again. “Sure, all that brutal stuff he did was pretty heavy, but every bit of it totally believable. People just passed the stories down through time, adding this and that, which eventually created Dracula.”

I crossed my legs Indian-style and rested my hands in the hollow of my lap. Maybe I should take it up a notch, I thought.

“What’s your theory on ghosts then?” I said.

Harry fell into a pensive moment, twisting his bottom lip in his teeth. “Maybe I saw a ghost once,” he revealed and I leaned forward, hopeful. “I was visiting Waverly Hills Sanatorium with my parents for Halloween one year—not sure if it was really a ghost, but I saw something.”

“So you really think it might’ve been a ghost?”

Harry shook his head. “Nah,” he decided, and the hopeful interest drained from me quickly. “When you go to places like that you’re already expecting to see something. I think it’s all in the mind.”

If Harry didn’t even believe in ghosts, I knew there was no way he would believe in something as preposterous as a werewolf.

“Why do you ask?” he looked over at me once more.

“Just curious,” I said. I tossed the pillow from my lap onto the bed and got up. “I’ll be back in a second. Do you want a soda or anything?”

Although disappointed, he didn’t push the issue. I think it was the one thing I didn’t like about him or about guys in general: when a girl says she doesn’t want to talk about it, the truth is that she usually does. I wanted him to pry it out of me. Of course, I would’ve pretended to be a little angry that he didn’t just leave me alone, but eventually I would’ve told him, when I was tired of pretending.

Hey, I never claimed to be completely unlike other girls. Some things just come with the territory.

I woke up with Harry’s smelly sock practically straight up my nose. Shocked and still half-asleep, I freaked out that there was a guy in my bed and so I shoved him as hard as I could into the floor. Right when I heard the loud thump! I realized what I had done.

“I’m so sorry, Harry!”

He stumbled into a standing position, his hand pressed around his ribs. “It’s alright,” he grumbled.

“I wonder why Uncle Carl didn’t take you home last night,” I said, looking around the room, still in somewhat of a daze.

Beverlee stood in the doorway of my bedroom. I don’t know how long she had been there.

“Because we fell asleep on the couch,” she said, “and I’m terribly sorry, Harry, both of you. I feel like a horrible parent, adult...whatever you want to call me.” Beverlee was clearly beside herself over this. She was practically stuttering. “Carl is going to call Harry’s parents and apologize. I just hope people don’t start talking. Oh God, I’m going to lose my job over this. Sandy and Marla at the store will have a field day with this kind of gossip.” She was getting Harry’s shoes for him.

“Beverlee,” I said, “calm down, no one is going to say anything.”

“Nothing happened, I swear it,” Harry said, taking his shoes from her.

“Honestly, Aunt Bev, Harry and I don’t like each other like that. We’re just friends.”

Beverlee seemed to calm down some. She dropped her hands to her sides. “Oh, I guess you’re right. I mean there’s nothing romantic about his feet being up your nostrils, or you halfway off the bed with drool hanging off your chin.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The whole situation was comical.

Harry and I talked with Uncle Carl before Beverlee drove us to school and convinced him that calling Harry’s parents was unnecessary. I was just glad he believed us and there weren’t any lingering suspicions.

The night at The Cove changed more than just Alex, or mine and Harry’s friendship. Things at school also changed drastically. In just a week, my group of friends went from Julia, Sebastian, Tori and Harry to just Harry and Zia. Julia was officially a ‘drop out’; Sebastian was officially ‘deceased’, but only by the school gossip. There was no proof of that, thankfully. Tori decided there were people at school better than us and she dropped us like last month’s fashion trends. She was a total witch, even to me when I had never done a thing to deserve it. I admit, this was the one thing I was pleased by.

The way I saw it though, things were now how they were supposed to be, all except for Sebastian. Julia made her own decisions, so I disregarded her as a loss. Sebastian, I thought, should’ve been with us because out of all of them, he actually fit in. But me, Zia and Harry were the perfect trio. We hung out everywhere. School. My house. Harry’s house. The skate park. But never Zia’s house. It seemed intentional and that was frustrating. I wanted to go to the Mayfair’s, not just for Zia, but because I wanted to see Isaac. Zia dodged my suggestion whenever I’d bring it up. After another week and still not one trip up the winding, dark roads, I was fed up with the secrecy and the games.