Challenge Page | Prologue Pt. 2

Luna waited impatiently for her moment. Finally, her father's car pulled out of the drive and she was free. Somehow, she still felt the need to be stealthy, even though the house was empty but for herself, and she snuck up the stairs tentatively. This was her father's domain, and she had never been allowed up here. But - she had to know. Her mother's memory was fading, but her recent teenage birthday made her want to get in touch with her roots. The thought had occurred that maybe there were some clues as to her mother's roots or perhaps about her mysterious disappearance in her old room. The room that had remained locked since she had disappeared. But while snooping in her father's desk downstairs, Luna had found a key hidden in a drawer. At the time, she hadn't had the opportunity to check whether it would unlock that door, but she had pocketed it with the hopes that this day would come.

Furtively, she snuck past her father's unmade bed, and approached the door that led to her mother's abandoned chamber. Clutching the key with a sweaty, shaking hand, she extended it towards the keyhole, praying with all her being that it would work. The key slid in the keyhole, and with a relieved breath of air, it turned smoothly and the lock made an audible "click" as it unlocked. The sound made Luna jump and look around worriedly, so she quickly retrieved the key and opened the door, slipping inside the dusty room.

Luna didn't know what she had been expecting, but the pleasant shafts of air on unbarred dirty windows wasn't it. All she could remember of her mother was that she rarely saw her, because she was always locked up in her room and completely off-limits. It had seemed logical that maybe she had been a prisoner. Clearly, that was not the case, despite the lock on the door. Peering past the film of dust and beginning to explore the room, the bed looked like a comfy haven of fluffy covers, and there was a large bookcase, a dresser and closet full of clothes that Luna could never remember seeing her mother wear. She wandered around the room, looking at a shelf of stuffed animals by the bookcase, the comfy reading chair, and the fuzzy rug on the floor. There was a vanity with neatly arranged makeup that looked nearly untouched, and even a half-read book on the nightstand by the bed. After looking curiously through the variety of clothes in the closet, Luna turned to the dresser.

She opened the top drawer, and, unsurprisingly, found a variety of underwear and socks. Too embarrassed to look through those, Luna closed that drawer, and decided to look at the middle drawer instead. She riffled idly through the clothes, wondering why her mother had so many things she never seemed to wear. Then, she noticed that one of the pairs of jeans was stuck to something on the back of the drawer. Worried that she'd rip it if she pulled too hard, Luna leaned forward and ran her hand along the back of the drawer carefully, expecting to find a stray nail or splinter that the jeans were caught on. Instead, a hidden flap opened up with a silent snap, setting the jeans free, and startling Luna.

She jumped back, still holding the jeans, and stared at the dark hole in the back of the drawer in wonder. Feeling like she was doing something horribly wrong, she reached into the opening and carefully felt around. Almost immediately, her fingers touched worn pages of an old notebook. Reaching farther inside, she found more notebooks. Very carefully, she extricated the notebooks, closed the trap door, put the jeans back in the drawer, and carried the pile of notebooks over to the bed. With wonder, she set them individually out on the bed, noting the dates on the covers. Picking up the newest one, she flipped through the pages, noting the fact that her mother's distinctive scrawled handwriting was spread out over all of the pages, arranged in seemingly daily journal entries. Then, the entries stopped. She leaned in and focused her eyes on the dark page, and read the last entry. There was nothing in it about leaving. Nothing about being worried she was in danger. Just an entry of a very unhappy person, noting the types of birds she could see outside her window on that day, and complaining of boredom.

A car engine on the street scared Luna out of the entry, and she raced to the window to see who might be on the street. In terror, she watched her father's car drive slowly into the drive, and she raced to collect the journals, close the drawer, leave the room, relock the door, and scurry to her own room a floor below. With an urgency fueled by sheer panic, Luna glanced around her room, searching for a hiding spot. Finally, she decided to hide the pile of journals carefully in her own dresser. She pulled out the bottom drawer, haphazardly stacking the notebooks in the space beneath the drawer, and carefully replaced the missing drawer. She sent up a silent prayer that her father and the maid wouldn't notice the notebooks hidden there, or at the very least, that the maid wouldn't alert her father to their presence.

The day passed by with interminable slowness. Acting normal so her father wouldn't suspect that anything was up was so very hard, and Luna tried to keep herself from literally cleaning up the whole house with her nervousness, because that would not be something she would normally do. With a sigh, she tried, once again, to read her schoolbook and figure out what the teacher wanted her to write for homework. Her little brother got home from an outing with his terrible hooligan friends, and immediately destroyed the kitchen for a snack, then came to annoy her, making it even more difficult to concentrate on her homework.

Finally, her older brother finally got back from his part time job, and finally rescued her from Max. Their father yelled for them to get to bed already, and disappeared downstairs to his "lair" - yet another place in the house Luna wasn't allowed in.

Shutting her door and silently locking it, she got out the flashlight she'd found in the kitchen earlier and rescued the oldest of the journals. Maybe she could find out more about her mother that way, since the end of the journals seemed less than helpful. As Luna went to open the first journal to the beginning, a faded and worn photograph fell out of the middle of the book. Startled, Luna just stared at the back of it on the floor for a moment before she got the courage to pick it up.

The back of the photo read, "The Wolffs." Then in a messy scrawl underneath, it read, "Me, with my family." There was no date. But at least there was a family name - Wolff. Who the heck were they. Luna had never heard of them, and she knew most the people that lived near her. Maybe they lived out in the Islands? or in Komorebi? Frustrated, she put the photo down beside her, and leaned in with the photograph to read the first entry. Unfortunately, the "date" only said "Saturday, May 21st." with no year, so there was no frame of reference to when it was written, but the handwriting seemed messier than the handwriting she was used to from her mother.

I guess today starts the rest of my life. Why did I listen to him? I don't know. I guess he just seemed so charming. I wanted adventure, I wanted to be daring and independent, so I left Moonlight Falls with him. I drank that nasty potion he offered me so we could live in the human world together. We could be in love and happy together. Only - it hasn't turned out that way. He isn't the person I thought he was. And now - now I have no choice but to stay with him. Ever after, I'll never see my family again. I'll never be able to go back to my home. They would never allow me back, since I'm no longer a Wolf. I left the pack for Jacques. It all seemed so romantic. I didn't realize I'd be giving up on so much. I didn't know I would lose my connection with the moon, that my very soul would be altered. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now, all I can really focus on is the tiny life inside of me. I wonder who they'll grow up to be. I cannot leave them here, alone with Jacques. And there's no way in hell he'll let me leave now that I'm pregnant. I'm truly stuck here. So ... I guess it's time to just get used to being human. Something I've never ever really been before. The part that hurts that most, is that my little baby won't ever know the Wolf they should have been. I'd never hear their little howls. I'd never teach them how to watch the moon cycles. Instead, I would be like any other human, and teach him to talk and walk and pee in a toilet and go to school. Somehow, I would have to just forget everything I've ever been. Oh, crap. Here comes Jacques. I guess I'll write more later. First I have to hide this notebook, my picture, and NEVER let him know I have them.

A thump from outside Luna's door caused her to nearly drop the notebook she held. Terrified her father would find the journal her mother had clearly kept hidden successfully for so many years, she quickly put it back in it's hiding place, tucking the precious photo away in between the pages of the journal, and jumped into bed, turning off the flashlight, and pretending to sleep.

Her father continued to bang around out in the kitchen or living room - it was hard to tell - and eventually, the pretending to sleep became a real sleep. A dark, dream-filled sleep filled with howls and low growling noises.

Challenge Page | Prologue Pt. 2