The Mayfair Moon (The Darkwoods Trilogy 1)

“Harry,” I said, standing there with my hand on a dolly, “it’d be a lot easier to use the dolly.”

His face turned bright red.

In an hour and a half, we stocked everything from canned goods and deodorant to paper plates and garbage bags. I was exhausted and my back hurt.

“I could never do this for a living,” I said, sitting on the floor of the cereal aisle with my back against the generic brands of pancake mix.

Harry was still placing boxes of cereal neatly on the top shelf in front of me.

“Shouldn’t have tried to carry the cans like that.”

Groaning, I reached behind to massage my back with my fingertips. “I know, but you don’t know it’s a bad idea until long after you’ve done it.”

“Well, you just do the light stuff then,” Harry said with his back to me. “I think I saw a box of mini marshmallows over there.” He failed to suppress the laugh entirely. It came out like he was snorting. I swung out my foot and nudged his shoe. “You’re so cruel.”

He agreed, still laughing.

“So, how are you and Isaac doing?” he said, putting another box into place. “I notice you haven’t been texting tonight.”

It never occurred to me how obvious some of my new habits were to others.

“We’re doing great.”

“Just great?” he said, turning around. He bent over and took out three more boxes of cereal.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Great is pretty good, I thought.” That sounded backwards to me, but I went with it.

“How great?” Harry finished shelving the cereal and started breaking down the box it all came in. He tossed it on top of the pile we had made over time.

“If you’re implying something is not-so-great between us, then you’re wrong.”

“I never said that.”

“It sounded like it.”

“Why are you getting defensive?”

I guess he was right; I was getting defensive. I had to be careful. Harry would want to know why and I would have no idea what to tell him. But it was too late to pretend that nothing was wrong. I pushed myself up from the floor and cut open a case of instant oatmeal boxes.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Harry began, “but if something happened and you need to get it out....”

“I know, Harry. Thanks,” I said. “Nothing happened. We’re still together, just trying to work out one minor issue, but it’s no big deal. Nothing major.” That was probably the biggest lie I ever told.

He knew I was lying, too.

“Hey, isn’t your uncle supposed to be here?”

I glanced up at the clock above the customer service booth, glad he didn’t probe further about Isaac.

“Probably just the roads,” I said.

The snowfall had reduced to light flurries within the past hour, but outside, everything was covered by it. Only one snowplow had driven past the store since before Beverlee left. I took that as a sign the weather wasn’t going to get any worse. Traffic, although light, was moving along at a normal rate.

I started to go back to the oatmeal boxes until I noticed a dark figure standing in the far corner of Finch’s parking lot. Moving out of the pool of light shining above from the fluorescent, I stood closer to the end of the shelf.

“Thirty more minutes and he won’t need to come anyway,” Harry said from behind.

I walked further up and edged my way toward the window to get a better look. The figure stood just out of the glow from the street light. He, if it was a man, wore dark clothes from head to toe. The way he stood there, still as a statue and staring toward the store, made my nerves short out like electrical wires.

“Me and Sebastian don’t hang out much anymore,” Harry went on, still shelving merchandise. “I mean, I get it and all, but it still sucks. Y’know?”

“Harry,” I whispered, as if the man could actually hear me from that far away, “come here.”

I felt him standing behind me then.

“Do you see that guy?” I said, taking my eyes off the parking lot for just a second.

“No,” Harry answered. “I don’t see anybody.”

I did a double take. The man was gone.

“No,” I said, moving quickly to the store window and almost pressing my face against it. “He was standing right there, off in the corner. He was staring this way.”

I turned around fully to face Harry.

“I can’t believe this,” I said.

“Don’t get so worked up, Adria.” Harry started to walk back to the aisle. “Could’ve been anyone; you’re really jumpy tonight.”

I turned around again. The man, with a grinning, maniacal face dripping with blood stood an inch from the glass.

I shrieked and stumbled backward, my foot catching under a metal newspaper rack. I fell hard on my side and newspapers came tumbling down.

Harry came running over.

“Holy shit!” he said.

Harry grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. The man’s eyes swirled black; his knifelike teeth glistening with blood.

Suddenly, Harry fell over the same newspaper stand that I did. He almost took me down with him, but let go of my arm just as he hit the floor.

“What the hell!” he shouted.

The man came closer to the window. His wicked, smiling face was like staring into the face of the Devil.

His hands were behind his back. He pulled his right arm out slowly and pointed his index finger upwards, the nail two inches razor-sharp and black like his eyes. His hand was covered in blood.

Blood stained the snow beneath him.

“I imagine uncles taste better than German Shepherds,” the man said so cold and menacingly through the glass.

I gasped. Harry had gotten to his feet and was trying to pull me backwards with him, but I pushed him away from me. I threw myself against the window, my face and the werewolf’s face separated by nothing more than a false sense of security. I banged my palms once against it, feeling the entire window shake and shudder.

“What did you do to him?” I screamed. “What did you do to my uncle?” I banged the glass once more; the palms of my hands stung.

The man grinned, revealing his deadly teeth even more to me in his malign expression.

Harry grabbed me more intensely and managed to pry me violently away from the window. I was mad with rage, trying to fight my way free, but Harry was too strong. I felt my shoes scraping across the floor as he pulled me into the nearest aisle.

The werewolf let out a menacing growl from outside, jerking back his head. The last I saw of him was how his hot breath had melted the cold from the glass.

“We have to leave!” I said. “Now! Can you drive me to my house?” I ran into the back of the store and grabbed my coat and canvas backpack from a file cabinet.

“Adria, what the hell was that?” he shouted, following behind me. “I’m not going out there. I-I’m not going anywhere.”

I forced my coat on angrily because it wasn’t cooperating. “Harry, listen to me.” I stopped directly in front of him. He couldn’t hide the fear in his face. “That was a werewolf. I know it sounds stupid and you probably won’t believe me, but I’m telling you the truth. Now, we have to find my uncle, alright?”

Harry’s head drew back in disbelief.

“A what?”

“I don’t have time for this,” I said, pushing my way past him. “If you won’t take me, then I’ll walk.”

I pulled the store keys from my pocket and unlocked the front door before tossing them at him. “Lock up if you decide to leave. In fact, lock up after I leave.”

And I went out into the cold night.

I didn’t give Harry a chance to pull his head together and speak, but I left him standing there in shock, completely disoriented.

I ran down the snow-covered sidewalk and past the streetlights, far away from Finch’s Grocery. I ran until I was out of breath and my throat burned from the cold. My shoes were wet with snow, all the way through to my socks. The streetlights became fewer and darkness began to surround me. A couple of houses were on each side of the street, but nestled many feet away and encroached by trees.

I unlocked the keys on my cell phone and called Beverlee. There was no answer and I broke down and started to cry.

The phone rang and BEVERLEE lit up on the screen then.

“Aunt Bev,” I answered frantically. I fumbled the phone to my ear and dropped it in the snow. “Where’s Uncle Carl?” I said, after finally getting the phone back into my hand.

“Adria, calm down, okay? I need you to calm down.”

Her voice shuddered quietly as if she had been crying, too.

“I can’t calm down. Please, just tell me what happened.”

I heard Beverlee take a deep breath.

A car drove past me; the sound of snow crunching under its wheels.

“Where are you?” she said suddenly. “Did you leave the store? Are you outside?”

“Beverlee!” I couldn’t help but yell at her. I needed to know the truth and she was angering me by holding it from me for so long.

“Carl is in stable condition,” she said finally, the tears choking her voice, “but he’s not been conscious at all since they brought him in.”

“Oh no, what happened? Beverlee, what happened to him?”

Headlights bore down on me from behind. I pulled the phone away from my ear and turned swiftly, on my guard. It was Harry. Thank God, it was Harry.

“Harry’s here,” I said into the phone. “I’m coming to the hospital.”

Harry hung his head out the car window and motioned for me to get in. I ran around the car and slung open the door, jumping inside with the phone still pressed to the side of my face.

“He was in an accident,” said Beverlee. “No one knows for sure, but by the looks of the car it might’ve been a deer, possibly a moose, that ran out and hit him.”

Oh my God, oh my God, I kept saying over and over in my head.

“Please tell Harry to be careful,” she said.

“I will.”

I hung up and just sat there, gripping the phone.

“First, your Uncle,” Harry demanded, “and then you have some explaining to do.”

All I could do was nod, agreeing. I had to catch my breath. I had to calm myself down and think clearly.

“We need to go to the hospital,” I said. “Uncle Carl was in an accident.”

“Okay, we’re going now.”

I got quiet again. I kept picturing the so-called accident in my mind. I saw the werewolf bash into the side of my uncle’s car, tossing him from it. I saw the car become crushed and mangled beyond identification, because that is exactly what would happen. Werewolves are enormous, formidable beasts. A car impacted by one would be like hitting another, better-built car head-on.

But the blood. The werewolf at the store was covered in blood. His teeth, his hands, all dripping with blood. He did this. He mentioned my uncle. But what exactly did he do?

“Oh no....”

I was never going to be able to think straight.

“Adria,” said Harry, “you have to tell me what that was. I’ll believe whatever you say, if you just start explaining.”