Full Moon Hike by Julie Steimle (ebook e reader TXT) 📕

My wings popped out more, and I went invisible, not even bothering with the window this time.

“This conversation is not over,” I said, though I knew he couldn’t see me anymore.

He grabbed the window screen and hastily put it back into the window, though one side jammed before he could make it fit. By that time I had already gone through the wall and lighted back on the roof above his room. There I perched, listening for them and their imps. I heard Mr. Deacon first.

“Howard? Are you alone in here? I smelled something unusual a moment ago.”

Rick answered him. “Dad, it’s just me here.”

A half lie. I wondered if Rick used a lot of those.

“You know that demon is not like Tom. If she saw you as a threat, she would kill you,” Mr. Deacon said.

“You don’t know that,” Rick replied. I heard his feet cross the room from the window. His voice became more muted. “So, did you call them? They’re still alive, right?”

I heard Mr. Deacon exhale, his feet stepping into the room more. He even closed the door. “Yes, I called them. I spoke with Jessica first. Then Andrew.”

“And what did they say? Did Michael tell them about her?” Rick’s heart beat faster in anticipation. I realized then that he really wanted to believe me. It gave me so much relief.

Sighing with smidgen of defeat, Mr. Deacon replied, “Yes. He did. And in April too. So, that part was true. Michael Toms is not a traitor to the Seven. Jessica and Andrew both said they heard all about her.”

“So, then isn’t that enough proof?” Rick asked, waiting as his heartbeat pounded with hope, though I detected some doubt in it as if he really didn’t think his father would quickly give in to the idea of me not being so dangerous.

His anticipation was met by his father’s foreboding sigh. “The only thing I concede, son, is that she has not yet shown her true colors.”

Moaning, Rick dropped to his bed. I could hear his imps tell him to call his father stupid. It was a rather weak temptation, but then perhaps no other really made sense.

“Dad, please. I really do think these are Eve’s true colors.”

“Maybe for now,” Mr. Deacon replied, his voice beginning to sound more and more wolfish with each second. I looked up to the sky and noticed that the afternoon sun was dipping down and the full moon was rising. “But later I am quite sure her full demonic sense will awake. Maybe when she gets her first taste of human blood.”

“She won’t bite anybody, Dad. It won’t happen.”

“Something will drive her to it. Either to protect those that adopted her or some witch will drive it out of her. You’ll see.”

I felt sick. The worst part about hearing such things was that I felt a great deal of truth in it. It was something I just didn’t want to happen. I decided to push off the roof and head back to my family’s cabin.

It was with a brisk flap and a soar over the other cabins, hearing the distant shout of imps and the echoes of odd forest noises. Flying to our cabin, I slipped back through the wall into my bedroom. My sister was standing in there looking around for me with a puzzled expression, wondering where I was. Her imps were telling her to short sheet my bed.

Ignoring that, I decided that I ought to just sneak into bathroom and pretend I had been in there the entire time. However, when I got there, I found the door locked and I guessed one of my brothers was inside. Walking around the house invisibly, I kept looking for some good hiding spot that could give me an alibi, but none were available. Mom was in the kitchen. Dad was in the main cabin area. And there was no reason for me to be in my brothers’ room. I sighed and slipped back through the ceiling and rested on top of the roof, remaining invisible.

“Eve!” Dawn stuck her head out of a window. “All-ee all-ee all in free! Come out, come out wherever you are!”

I chuckled and slid down the side of the roof, materializing as I hung over the edge. “I’m up here.”

Dawn blinked at me, not even jumping back, and then rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve been on the roof all this time. I know you snuck off to talk to Rick. You are so predictable.”

“You knew?” I said as I climbed in through the open window. My wings had tucked back in so going through the wall was now impossible. “Then why were you just standing in this room five minutes ago looking for me?”

She stepped back and huffed, setting her hands on her hips. “Ok, smarty pants. I had only just figured it out. What did he say anyway?”

“Not much.” I hopped to the floor. “Just that his dad called two of the Seven to see if I had lied about Michael Toms or if Michael had gone traitor.”

“And?” She waited.

I huffed now. “Of course they’re all right. And that guy was no traitor. I was about to find out what is so important about this Seven, but his dad came in, and I think because the full moon is rising they’ll be going out soon.”

Dawn cringed. “He’s going to get all hairy again, isn’t he?”

I nodded and walked to the far door. “Of course.”

She sighed and hung her shoulders. “Too bad. Rick is cute without all that hair.”

“He makes a good looking wolf,” I said.

She stuck her tongue out at me, but we went out to join the others.

We gathered for dinner on the deck making toasted chicken and cheese sandwiches on the grill. Afterwards, drinking cold pop on the porch watching the sun lower in the sky, we talked about stuff that had very little to do with our current lives. Dad pointed the first stars to us as Mom went off and related the mythology connected to them from stuff she had learned in college, pointing to Hercules first then Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Then he talked about Orion and Pleiades, which would rise in the winter. I’d heard that story several times before, but it was fun to hear it again. As more stars came out, Will and Travis started to invent their own constellations, calling them outrageous names then making up their own mythologies for them, including Gorg the impaler and Zuthik, the itchy god of poison oak. I laughed along with them, though Dawn moaned. After that we went back inside and played a few rounds of Uno before most of us slipped off to bed.

Well, they all went to bed anyway. I was wide awake with the full moon high up calling me to go out flying. It was my first real opportunity to stretch my wings since we came to this mountain camp. Going immaterial and invisible, I slipped through the cabin door to the outside. Invisible, I started to fly. As soon as I reached the darker part of the forest, I went solid and visible again so I could enjoy the wind and the fresh mountain air blowing all around me.

It was almost the perfect evening, flying free, chasing the bats and spinning through the other nocturnal animals as they hunted. I practically clipped an owl as I weaved in and out of the trees for sport…. But as I said, it was only almost perfect because I just had to hear an imp shout somewhere below in the forest, and that took me out of my reverie. Gently landing in a nearby pine tree, I listened in.

“Light a fire. No one will know. You can put it out later. You’re cold.”

Typical imp. That area had a fifty-fifty chance of catching fire then spreading over the mountain. The man probably knew it too, not paying attention to the suggestion at all. I heard the man murmur to someone else with him. “Are you sure they’ll come this way?”

“The rabbit blood will lure them up here. Don’t you worry.”

“You said that last time.” The man then snorted, hocking a nasty hunk of phlegm at the forest floor.

I wanted to barf. Instead I went invisible to get a better look without being seen.

“But the older Mr. Deacon wasn’t tricked. Only his kid went for it, and you know what happened then.”

“Those kids and that monster won’t be up here this time,” the first one said. I recognized his voice now. It was the man that had pushed me over the railing. He really was a murderer at heart. “And as for his old man, I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve.”

“He won’t fall for those traps,” the third fellow said. “That werewolf is smart. You know that’s why he’s lived so long and got so rich.”

One of the men suddenly hushed the others. “Listen! Do you hear that?”

“They’re coming.”

I listened, but all I could hear was the rustle of small animals. However, I then detected two unusual heartbeats. I guess I hadn’t recognized them because they were more animal in their pace and energy. Of course the hunters didn’t hear their heartbeats, but were listening to the rustle of running feet as well as the occasional wolf cry.

The men waited with baited breaths, though I watched the ground below wondering what I ought to do. I saw two wolves go through the underbrush, both sniffing the air though the younger one with unusual brown hair limped with a slightly skittish pace. That was when I realized that Rick was actually peculiar for a werewolf. His father was all wolf, from his snout and tail to his manners of hunting. Rick the wolf actually seemed more human to me. It was an odd sight to behold, and I was almost mesmerized by it, but I then heard something cock.

“Look out!” I shouted without even thinking, and I jumped from the tree to the forest floor.

Both wolves scattered, the younger one trying to keep up with the older one. The three hunters popped up from the bushes shooting at both of them, though their aim had already been ruined. One of them shot at me instead.

I dodged, darting right behind a tree. Panting for breath I looked to my right. There my field of vision was clear, and I saw one of the hunters taking aim for the smaller wolf that could not keep up due to his limp. I could already see where the bullet would hit Rick. He would be killed instantly.

Springing from my hiding spot, I flew straight towards that man, pouncing on him and grabbing for his gun to wrench it away. One of the other hunters shot at Rick. I heard him yelp, though when I looked up from my fight I saw that the hunter had missed.

“Get it off of me!”

Fury mounted inside my chest at being called an ‘it’. I hated that more than anything in the world. Monster, somehow I could handle. But it?

One of the hunters jumped over the bush, grabbing me around the back. He heaved up a knife, I suppose, to stab me, his imps shouting for him