Goddess of the Night Read Free

mother
lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. "You're shaking."
    "I just
wish . . ."
    "Tell me."
    "I just
wish I could be like everyone else."
    "Is that
all? Trust me, it's better to be an individual and to have your own
idiosyncrasies." Her mother sat back at the table. "There's
life after high school. Don't try too hard to blend in and be like
everyone else. Kids who do lose something important." Her mother
continued reciting what Vanessa called Standard Lecture No. 7.
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    She left her
mother talking to the wall and went upstairs to the bathroom. She
washed her feet. The water turned black and swirled down the drain.
    Then she took a
bath, put on pajamas, and went to her bedroom. She loved her room.
She had window seats and shutters, flowered wallpaper, and a bed with
too many pillows. Her mother called the decor "romance and
drama," and said the room looked like it belonged to a fairy
princess.
    She turned on
her computer and clicked on a program called Sky Show that she had
purchased through Astronomy magazine. A thin slice of moon
came on the screen. She looked at the date. According to the program,
today should have been the first crescent moon, a time when she
should have felt adventurous and filled with curiosity.
    But the program
had made an error. It was the dark of the moon tonight. Those three
nights when the moon was completely dark and invisible from Earth had
always had a strange hold on her. She felt nervous then, as if some
part of her sensed danger. Catty's mother said superstitious people
believed the dark moon brought death and
    19
    destruction,
and freed evil forces to roam the night.
    A breeze
ruffled the curtains. She hadn't left her window open. Maybe her
mother had opened it. She shut the window and locked it, then sat on
her bed and stared at her computer.
    The door to her
room opened. Her mother walked in.
    "I came to
kiss you good night," her mother said. "Why does it feel so
cold in here?"
    "My window
was open. You didn't open it?"
    "No, but
that explains the draft I was feeling all night."
    "My
program's messed up. Did you play around with my computer?"
    "Computer?"
    "Right."
Vanessa shook her head. "Silly idea."
    Her mother
kissed her quickly and started to leave.
    "Mom?"
    "Yes?"
    "Do you
know what this means?" She tried to repeat the sound of the
words she had spoken
    20
    earlier. "Oh,
Mah~tare Loon~ah, Re~gee-nah no-kis, Adyou~wo may noonk."
    "That
sounds like Latin." Her mother smiled. "That's what you did
when you were a little girl."
    "Speak
Latin?"
    "No,"
her mother said. "Hold your moon amulet that way."
    She glanced
down. After her father died, her nightmares had become stronger.
Always the same dream--black shadows covering the full moon and then,
like a specter, taking form and chasing her. She always woke
clutching the silver moon amulet she wore around her neck. She was
gripping it now.
    "Good
night, sweetheart." Her mother kissed the top of her head and
left the room.
    Vanessa stared
at the night outside her window. Where would she have learned Latin?
She knew it had to be connected to her power. If it weren't so late,
she'd call Catty. Now she'd have to wait until tomorrow to find out
if Catty had ever uttered words that she didn't understand.
    She crawled
under the covers. The cotton
    21
    sheets were
sun-dried and ironed and filled with the smell of sunshine. She
breathed in the fragrance and glanced back at her computer. For the
first time she noticed her alarm clock with the luminous hands. It
was turned toward the wall. She got up and turned it back to face
her. Then she noticed her wristwatch. It was turned facedown. Odd.
Maybe Catty had been playing around and left a calling card. She'd
have a serious talk with her tomorrow and tell her that this time her
jokes had gone too far.
    22
    Chapter 3
    PATTY AND
VANESSA sat at the counter inside the Johnny Rockets diner. The
smells of bacon and onions hung in the warm, thick air. Conversation
whirled around them in a mad tangle of