Moonset - Scott Tracey

“One of the more recent developments,” Illana began, “has suggested that we need to pay more attention to the lives you children are living.”

“ ‘We’ meaning the Congress, right?” Jenna questioned. “Have they decided to stop being cowards and start teaching us something useful?”

“Jenna!” There was a time and a place for airing your grievances, but in front of the world’s deadliest grandma wasn’t it.

Illana, however, didn’t look particularly offended, except by the decor in the kitchen. She turned up her nose at some of the “family”-themed wall hangings that had been put up before we arrived. “Quinn told me you’ve been … unhappy.”

“I was unhappy getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.” Jenna’s words were sharp, and her expression as dark as I’d ever seen it. “I’m pissed that we almost died, no thanks to any of you.”

Quinn cleared his throat.

“Not you, Quinn,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re perfection.”

His chest puffed out and he smirked a little. Clearly he was ignoring the sarcastic drip of

Jenna’s words.

“When you can prove that you deserve to learn more, I’ll happily teach you myself,” Illana said. It was clear she thought that day would never come. None of us were under any illusions about that.

“So you’ll risk our lives in the meantime? Just to prove some stupid point about responsibility?” Jenna demanded. “You’re insane.”

“So you’ll risk their lives just to prove you don’t care to be responsible?” Illana fired back.

“So what does that mean?” I interrupted, hoping to stave off the Jenna rant that would eliminate any hope of good will on Illana’s part. “You said something about paying more attention to us?”

“It means exactly what I said. We need to pay more attention. So we will. I’ll be staying on in

Carrow Mill, as will a few others.”

“You’re leaving D.C.?” Quinn asked, clearly surprised by this news. So maybe the family didn’t tell each other everything.

“Oh, great. More babysitters,” Jenna snapped.

“Just hear her out,” I tried.

“Are you kidding me, Justin? She’s one of them. We can’t trust her. We can’t trust either of them.” She brushed the hair out of her eyes, regarding me with something like genuine emotion.

“You used to know whose side you were on.”

“I’m on the same side I’ve always been on,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, dropping her eyes from mine. “I’m just starting to realize it’s not mine.” She stormed out of the room.

Illana waited, then rose to her feet. “Justin will see me out. Quinn, start looking into those theories for me. I want to know how many other surprises have been buried in the soil here.”

Buried in the soil? What? I looked at Quinn, who breezed past me. “He’s been a mechanic here for thirty years; it’s not like he ever went into hiding. The only reason we know anything is because he approached Justin and Mal.”

“I don’t care if he’s selling used cars on the side of the road,” Illana said harshly. “Someone didn’t do their homework. Especially during a time like this—that’s inexcusable.”

Illana headed for the door, and I followed in her wake. She must be used to it, I figured.

People scurrying after her, letting her set the current and forcing their direction. Jenna had been right about that much, at least. Illana was here for a reason, and it wasn’t what she was telling us. It wasn’t anything like what they were telling us.

“We’re still in danger, aren’t we?”

Illana didn’t pause. The door opened, then the screen door, and she stepped through into the afternoon sun. “There’s always danger. But danger and opportunity are fast friends. So take your opportunity, and show me who you’re going to be. A child of Moonset, or a child of the

Congress.”

Eleven

“Sutter and Denton, seniors, first brought the incidents to the school’s attention. Initial speculation was confirmed after a Coven was dispatched to Carrow Mill. Someone was altering the junior class: they had been made docile; their passions extinguished. At the time, no one wondered why Moonset had been immune … ”

Council Investigation Report

Eyes Only

When I came back into the kitchen, Quinn was waiting for me. I bypassed him, went to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of water. Why were the adults so hell bent on keeping us in the dark? They weren’t making it any secret that something else was going on in Carrow Mill, but they refused to tell us what.

“You should go check on her,” Quinn suggested, glancing towards the ceiling.

“Are you new?” He must be. Either new, or crazy. I grabbed my coat out of the front hallway closet. “I’m keeping my distance until she calms down. I’ll be over at Mal’s.”

“School tomorrow,” he said, almost sounding like a parent.

“You’ve met Mal, right? He loves a curfew almost as much as he loves school,” I called, already halfway out the door.

We hadn’t talked much about school. Or at all. The fact that it was tomorrow, and I’d forgotten, only proved how off kilter things were here. The weirdness of Carrow Mill trumped any attempt at normalcy. Sure, we’d done the normal kinds of school shopping—buying supplies, backpacks, the usual, but it hadn’t been any sort of priority.

Until now.

“Did you know school starts tomorrow?” I asked Mal as I walked into his room.

He didn’t even really need to answer. His bag was already packed and sitting next to his computer desk. “Is that a trick question?” he asked, looking up from whatever he was doing.

“You could have at least reminded me.”

Mal arched an eyebrow at me and closed the laptop. “Are we really going to talk about school right now? What’d she want?”

I shrugged. “We’re not ‘supervised’ enough. Supposedly, that’s why she’s moving to town.”

“She’s moving here? Can she even do that?”

“Is anyone really stupid enough to tell her she can’t? I have the feeling that the sun doesn’t even rise unless she wants it to.”

Mal crossed the room and closed the door. “I don’t think Nick’s home, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to look up that thing from the other day. The symbol?”

I perked up at that. “Any luck?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I know I’ve seen it somewhere before.”

“While we’re talking about it, what was that crap with Ash?” Mal looked confused, so I continued. “Interrogating her about the fire? Having her ask her dad? Aren’t you the one always preaching that we should blend in? That we shouldn’t call attention to ourselves?”

He snorted. “You’re just mad I wouldn’t leave you alone with your little girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Maybe I’m not the one that needs to remember that,” he said, suddenly serious. “I get that you like this girl and all, but you need to remember the situation we’re in. Odds are we won’t be here come prom night.”

“I’m not Bailey,” I snapped. “I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Do you?” he asked. “You should have seen your face after the mall the other day. And then at the coffee shop? You’re all blissed out on this girl.”

Where the hell was this coming from? Mal was the one who always had my back, and suddenly he was acting like a dick? “Are you jealous? What the hell, man?”

“Right, because I’d have to be jealous to think it’s a bad idea,” he snorted. “Get over yourself.”

“Then what is this? She’s just a girl.”

Mal laughed to himself. He crossed over to his closet, and began flipping through the clothes on hangers. Looking for something. Like our conversation wasn’t that important.

Something crashed downstairs.

In the aftermath, there was an audible silence. Both of us waited, listening, but there was nothing. “I thought you said Nick wasn’t home?” I whispered.

“I didn’t think he was.”

One of the doors downstairs creaked, a faint sound that we wouldn’t have heard if we hadn’t been straining for it. “It’s probably him, right?” I said.

“Of course.”

But neither one of us called out to check. Together, we crept out of the room and down the stairs. In hindsight, probably not the smartest move. It could have been another wraith. Or something else sent after us. Aside from the faint sound of our feet against the carpet, and hesitant groans in response to careful steps, the house was totally quiet.

As we reached the bottom landing, I tapped Mal on the shoulders and pointed down the hall.

Lights were on in the study, the door closed. But when I’d come into the house just a few minutes before, the door had been open and the room dark.

“Can you tell who it is?” Mal asked, glancing between the study to his right, and the path to the front door, to his left.

“You know all the same spells I do,” I said, trying to figure out if anything I knew would be useful here. Etheric maanu would tell me how many people were in the house. That wouldn’t help. Ethera maan could tell how far away they were. But nothing I could use to identify them.

“Yeah, but I don’t pay attention in class,” Mal responded, sounding aggravated. It probably annoyed him that he even had to ask. Magic was always his last resort. “If it was a wraith, it would have just blown up the house, right? Picked us up out of the debris?”

“Maybe,” I hedged.

He squared his shoulders and chose his direction. The study, then. I followed behind, grabbing the only thing handy that I could find. In a perfect world it would have been a baseball bat or a golf club. I had to settle for one of those blue-fringed Swiffer dusters.

I hefted the weight of it in my hands, already regretting the decision. Mal looked over his shoulder at me, smirked, and then pushed open the doors to the study.

The two of us went rushing into the room, me with feathered blue justice in my hands. Mal didn’t need a weapon of his own—he pretty much was the weapon.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mal snapped.

I had to step around him to realize who he was talking to. Jenna, half crouched behind the study’s desk, stacks of files and papers cleared out of the drawers and scattered across the top. She dropped a hand to her hip, rose even as her eyebrow arched at the Swiffer in my hands like a weapon. “What are you planning to do? Dust me to death?”

“What are you doing here, Jenna?” he repeated.

“Breaking and entering, completely ruining Nick’s attempts at organization, and general crimes against the crown, obviously,” she said blandly. “So either close the door and help, Dumb and Dumber, or go back to talking first downs and engines. Or whatever you boys talk about.”

“You can’t just go through all his stuff,” I said in shock.