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  Hidden Moon

  Book 1

  The Keeper Saga

  K.R. Thompson

  Copyright © 2013 K.R. Thompson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical or ethnic events/traditions, locales, real people, living or dead, are used fictitiously and are a product of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Design: Alchemy Book Covers/Keri Knutson

  Formatting: Polgarus Studio

  ISBN-13: 978-1489569967

  ISBN-10: 1489569960

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my husband and son.

  Thank you for letting me play in my world and for never failing to bring me back to live in this one.

  You are my heart.

  I love you.

  ONE

  IF ANYONE HAD told me that my life was going to change this drastically, I would have rolled my eyes and told them where they could put that prediction. Everyone’s life changes, that’s what makes life what it is. But if I had been told the reason for this life-altering change was that I was part of a legend and an important key to a secret that had lasted hundreds of years, I would have thought they were insane. Myths, legends and fairytales were only stories found in books. I didn’t believe in them.

  And I was beginning to doubt happy endings existed, too.

  I watched tree after tree whip past the window of the passenger seat window. There wasn’t anything magical about us driving down the interstate, dodging amongst the endless range of mountains that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  If I had to describe this move, I would have said that it felt like a death sentence, which was kind of ironic since death was what brought us here in the first place.

  My dad died two months before in a car accident. We were left with nothing but a small insurance claim and just enough money to move north to my great-grandmother’s house. My great-grandmother, whom I’d never met, had died the year before and left us her big, rambling estate.

  “We’re gonna be okay.” The words that came out of my mom’s mouth were not convincing. “This is going to be good for us.”

  Neither one of us believes that, I thought, listening as her tone fell flat.

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine.” I tried to sound optimistic as I kept my face to the glass so she wouldn’t see the tears that filled my eyes.

  The road curled, and then plunged us into darkness as we started through a tunnel carved into a mountain.

  When you head through Big Walker Tunnel, Nikki, you’ve almost made it into the heart of the mountains. That’s when you’ll find the forest.

  I couldn’t remember how many times my dad had told me that, as if he were giving me directions should I ever need to find my way. Not directions to the town or even to the house, but rather to the millions of acres of national forest that ran for miles, surrounding everything. The town, the house, even the interstate were tucked away in that forest, so I never knew what he had been telling me to find. My one regret was that I hadn’t ever asked him what he’d meant. Now it was too late. He was gone and I’d never know.

  The exit was coming up with a small green sign pointing the way. Bland.

  You can say that again, I frowned. Not even a welcome to in front of it, or a guess at the population size. That sign did not seem all that welcoming.

  As the car slowed down for a stop sign, my little sister woke up from her nap in the back seat.

  “Are we there yet?” Emily brushed her dark brown curls from her eyes. Fred, her raggedy teddy bear and constant companion, was clutched in her other hand.

  “Almost,” Mom answered, “Just a few more minutes.”

  The road curved, taking us away from town and civilization. The mountains became taller and the trees came to the pavement.

  After another mile or two of nothing but forest, a small building popped into sight.

  As we turned down the gravel road beside it, I saw a carved wooden sign with an emblem of a howling wolf. “The Village,” I read aloud, “I wonder what that is?”

  “The Indian reservation runs behind it, so it has to belong to them. Maybe it’s an old sort of trading post of some kind. I’d say that the school takes field trips there.”

  My mother’s words sunk into Emily’s brain. “Indians,” she squealed. “I like it here. I wonder if they’ll teach us to shoot arrows?”

  I grinned. Six year-olds were not hard to please. Placate the kid with Indians and she loved the place, sight unseen. I caught the smile tugging at the edge of my mother’s lips. It was the first time since we’d left that I’d seen her smile.

  The ruts in the road made for a slow, bumpy ride and gave us plenty of time to look at a small two story house near the road. “That’s a cute house,” I said as I took a closer look and Mom navigated us around a huge pothole. The house was small, but seemed well kept. The windows had little boxes where bright, cheery flowers bloomed in bursts of pink and yellow. The swing on the porch swayed in the breeze. Whoever lived there had taken pride in their home.

  “Your great-grandmother gave a half an acre to a woman a few years back. She told your father that she was a nice woman who was just down on her luck and needed a place to call her own. I think she called her Anita, but I can’t remember a last name. It’s been too long. But anyway, the house must be her place. Maybe we can go introduce ourselves once we get settled in.”

  Our house doesn’t look as loved as that little house a mile back, I thought. Paint was peeling from every visible inch and the sagging roof over the porch gave the house a sense of foreboding. One downstairs window had duct tape across it, making it look like the house had lost an eye.

  Awesome. We’ve inherited a horror house, I thought as I got out of the car to take a look around. The house had been in the care of a real estate agency since my great-grandmother’s death and I had overheard my mother talking to them, being reassured everything was in good condition and ready for us to move in. Apparently, whoever she was speaking to liked to live in spooky, broken houses.

  I made a circle around the house and came back to the car. My mom still hadn’t gotten out yet. She was gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles had turned white.

  “Mom. Hey.” I tried to get her attention as I opened the driver’s door and attempted to tug her out of it. She felt as if she was concreted into the seat. I was beginning to think I would need a crowbar to pry her out. After a couple seconds of hard tugging, I managed to get her standing and decided now was the time to point out every possible good thing I could find.

  “Look how huge this house is. Emily will have tons of room to run around. We’ll get it fixed up, and then think of all the cookouts we can have in the yard. And hey, if it’s raining, then we’ll just eat on the porch. We’ll get us some rocking chairs, maybe even a hammock. And we could sit here and drink lemonade in the summer.” I was wracking my brain trying to think of things that people would do in the middle of nowhere. I should have Googled this place before we came. We weren’t anywhere close to civilization. I felt like a real estate agent trying to sell something that no one in their right mind would want.

  I could strangle that real estate agent, I frowned. This was all her fault.

  “Do you think it’s going to be okay, Nikki?” She turned to me, with a look on her face that was half-hopeful and half-skeptical, as if she wasn’t sure she should believe me.

  I stretched my fake grin back across my face as far as it would go. I figured I was showing her every tooth I
had. Once in grade school, I had smiled like that and a boy told me that I looked like the jack o lantern that his dad carved him every year at Halloween. I didn’t figure it to be my most convincing smile, but it was all I had at the moment. It must have worked a little because she calmed, and began looking at the front of the house.

  “Can we go in, Momma? Can we please? Can we go pick out our bedrooms now?” Emily begged as she hopped from one foot to the other. Her little brown curls bounced around her big brown eyes like tiny brown corkscrews.

  Mom bit her bottom lip for a second, and then she smiled, “I guess we may as well see how bad it is. Then I’m going to call that real estate woman. I know we had a clause in that agreement that everything would be kept up, and this definitely isn’t kept. I guess we should see what’s inside.”

  The first thing that caught my attention when we stepped inside was the big staircase that spiraled to the upstairs. Emily ran up the steps and started claiming her room as soon as she hit the top step. I followed her up as Mom finished looking through the downstairs rooms. I found Emily in the room she had claimed and walked down the hall into a bedroom that looked out to the woods on the side of the house. In an effort to be as happy as my sister, I played along and announced my choice.

  “This one’s mine,” I said at the top of my voice.

  Emily ran across the hall to see which one I had picked. She crinkled up her little nose in disgust.

  “That’s the little one,” she said slowly, as if she needed to explain it to me, since it was obvious that I didn’t understand. “The one down that way is a lot bigger. Don’t you want that one?” She pointed a finger down the long hallway toward the other end of the house.

  “No, I like this one. It’s plenty big enough. It’s twice as big as my old room.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” She wandered over to my window, went up on her tiptoes and pressed her face to the dirty glass to peer out. “I know why you like this room. You can look for Indians easier over here, right?”

  “Yeah, kid, that’s right. And I’m not trading, so get on out of here. Go find something to explore.” I swatted her butt as she giggled and ran past me.

  Yep, I can watch for Indians. I smirked. I had the room closest to the upstairs bathroom. I walked in and turned the knob and expected nothing. The water that came out in a steady flow surprised me. It was cool and clear, so I splashed my face and looked into the mirror above the sink.

  Water droplets clung to my eyelashes as I inspected the reflection staring back at me. A wild, blonde mass of chaos rioted around my head, but my brown eyes were clear and stared back at me with the complete calm I felt in spite of the circumstances.

  I decided to try the rest of the faucets in the bathroom. The hot water chugged out a brownish goo before it ran clear. All of the faucets and the toilet were in working order from what I could tell. I ran down the stairs and looked up to make sure the water I had just sent down the pipes wasn’t going to leak on my head.

  So far, so good.

  My mom finished up a conversation on a pink phone attached to the wall. She hung up and turned to me, “That was the real estate agent, she claimed that they didn’t know the house was in that bad of shape. They’re going to fire the man who was in charge of it. She’s going to send someone out in the next day or so to take a look.” She nodded toward the pink phone. “The landline is all that’s working, I don’t have signal on my cell.”

  I pulled my own phone out of my pocket. Nothing. Not a single bar of service.

  “Well, that’s lovely,” I muttered, then looked back up at Mom. “I’m going to see if I get anything on it outside.”

  I walked in circles in the yard. I held my phone over my head and I twirled it around my knees, but I couldn’t find the slightest hint that it was ever going to work again.

  You’d think this place would have a cell phone tower, I thought irritably, as I headed toward the back yard to try my luck there.

  But as I walked along the edge of our yard that bordered the forest, the fine hairs on the back of my neck started to stand on end. It felt like something was watching me.

  THE FOREST CALLED to him. He felt the whisper of the wind against his skin, the caress of the tall grass that brushed his legs. The forest was green before, but now it seemed vibrant. He reveled in his body. His sight was so much clearer when the animal took over. He could see every leaf in detail, every bit of moss that grew on each tree as he ran.

  Am I running? He wondered. It didn’t feel like it as it didn’t take much effort at all.

  It seemed the forest wanted him. It belonged to him, welcoming him like a long lost friend.

  He knew she was here, too. But this hiker didn’t belong—not like he did.

  He heard her. Her running steps seemed to echo through the trees, but he wasn’t worried. She couldn’t escape him. He was faster, and he was in no hurry. He would savor every second. Adrenaline coursed through his body, making him want to give chase. He smiled. No, he would do this slowly—it would be special. She was special, after all. She was his, only his. No one would take her away from him.

  He could taste her fear in the air and it excited him, coursing through his veins like a drug. He longed to take her essence, to make her part of him forever. He wished this feeling would last an eternity.

  She had stopped. She wasn’t running anymore. He didn’t see her, but it didn’t matter. The animal in him sensed her. There wouldn’t be any hiding, at least not on her part.

  Finding her would be child’s play, he thought, as he crept through the trees as silent as a ghost. Every instinct told him she was close, and his muscles grew taut in anticipation. With effort, he made himself slow down and come to a stop. His cold, dark eyes scanned for his prey. He could hear her, her labored breaths coming fast and hard. He was close now. So close.

  A slight movement to the right caught his eye. He spotted her then, cowering behind a tree like the pitiful, helpless prey she was. He noticed she hadn’t seen him and so he stood still, watching her with eyes that weren’t human.

  She was shaking, small tremors ran the length of her body, her eyes darting back and forth, searching until she saw him. He stepped toward her, forming an evil smile that became a snarl. Her eyes widened in terror as she watched the fur grow over his arms and legs, as his eyes slanted into those of an animal, and the last traces of humanity vanished. She backed up, never taking her eyes off his.

  “Please. Please don’t…” She tripped over a vine, falling down hard on the forest floor. Her eyes squeezed shut. This final, pitiful act drew him toward her. The temptation was just too great now. He could resist it no longer. He could no longer play the game. It had to be now. This was their moment. It belonged to him and this woman in front of him. And he knew in that instant, she was his, and would stay his forever.

  Her final cry echoed through the trees.

  Disposing of the body wasn’t quite as much fun, he decided. They always seemed to run the opposite direction of where he wanted them to go. He always had to backtrack anytime he made a kill.

  He sighed, heaving what was left of her on his shoulder as he walked through the forest. He had to be careful as the tree branches were swatting at him now. Nature never did like it when he hunted the hikers. He knew in a day or two it would forgive him and welcome him again as if nothing happened. That was one of the perks of being a creature of nature. It always forgave him.

  His journey led him along the edge of the forest. Usually, he didn’t mind this part of his walk since it brought him close enough to see the two houses that sat near the dirt road. He didn’t notice anything unusual as he passed the first one, but when the second one came into view, his blood ran cold.

  The house that should have been vacant held a small car in its driveway. He dodged farther into the underbrush and felt the briars dig into his clothes. He cursed under his breath as a single thorn scored the flesh of his upper arm. It was a small, quick pain that scabbed and healed before the
thorn ever left his body.

  He shifted his burden around on his shoulder as he ducked down behind a bush. There, in the back yard, he saw the girl. Then the fury came. His body covered in mist as the animal awoke, ready to hunt. She was close enough to the woods that he could get her without anyone knowing. She was staring into the woods as if she knew he was there.

  He was almost ready to grab her, when a woman came out on the porch.

  “NIKKI, GRAB SOME of the cleaning stuff out of the car when you come back in.”

  “Okay,” I answered, running back to the front yard in record time since the back yard had just freaked me out.

  There isn’t anything there but trees. You’re just being silly, I chided myself as I grabbed one of the boxes out of the truck. You just have an overactive imagination.

  Once I was back inside the house, the weird feelings left and I trudged the box upstairs to my mother, who stood in my room.

  “The moving guys are supposed to be here tomorrow, so we’ll worry about cleaning more when we get up in the morning. Besides, it’s going to be dark soon. We’ll all stay in your room tonight since it’s the smallest,” Mom said as she grabbed some cleaner. “I’ll take the bathroom. You take this one.”

  When she left, I started cleaning some of the grime off the window. Then I saw him.

  A boy that seemed to be my own age stood just inside the edge of the woods, staring up at the window. He wore a pair of jeans that fit snugly over his long legs, and a black tank top showed off the lean muscles in his arms. Those arms also happened to be folded across his chest as if he didn’t like what he saw. His long, straight hair hung to his waist and was so black that it gave off a blue hue in the places where the sunlight touched it.