Scarlet Moon (Once Upon a Time) Read Free Page A

patient just a while longer.
Peter will surely have news.
    Down the road her father led the impromptu parade honoring his nephew. Ruth began to walk slowly, trailing behind. In her heart a nameless fear began to form, and she felt as though a shadow had passed over her. No matter what she did, she could not shake the thought that some darkness was about to touch them all.
    When she entered her home, she found her father and Peter already seated at the table. She joined them and within minutes they were all eating. She watched Peter under lowered lashes as he wolfed down hisfood. He attacked it, eating so much so fast that she thought surely he would explode.
    Out of courtesy, her father said nothing and neither did she. Instead they both ate and watched and waited. At last Peter pushed back his plate and shifted in his chair. He lifted his eyes and they darted between Ruth and her father.
    “Thank you,” he said. Hesitantly he continued, “It is good to see you both, to be here again.”
    “You are a welcome sight to us,” her father answered gruffly. Ruth glanced at him in time to see him wipe away a tear.
    They sat for a moment, the silence thick with unasked questions and answers they were all afraid to hear. Finally Ruth broke it. “Tell us your story.”
    Peter nodded slowly. “We sailed to Spain. It was a long journey and many died along the way. From there we sailed to France, and then down the Mediterranean Sea to Acre. There we fought. Some of us went on to Jerusalem, but many did not.”
    “And what of Stephen?” Ruth asked at last, unable to bear it any longer.
    Peter said not a word, but instead dropped his head into his hands and began to sob brokenly. Ruth stared fearfully across the table at her father, who held her eyes only for a moment before turning away.
    “What of Stephen?” Ruth asked again, her voice trembling.
    “He fell, outside of Jerusalem. He was killed in the battle; he died so quickly. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. They killed him and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
    All she could do was stare at him as he was talking. Over and over in her mind she told herself that it couldn’t be true, even as the emptiness in her heart convinced her that it was. She didn’t look at her father; she couldn’t just yet. Stephen was dead. They had both known it could happen. If she was honest with herself she had suspected it for years, but there had always been a part of her that held on to hope. Jerusalem was far away and the battle was doubtless long and hard.
    She stared down at her hands and noticed in an almost detached way that her fingernails were cutting into her palms and drawing blood. She forced herself to relax her fingers. Tiny droplets of blood beaded on her hands and fell onto her pants. That didn’t matter, though. Nothing mattered.
    “Everyone loved Stephen,” Peter continued. “He helped save so many. He even saved the duke’s life. He was so grateful he gave Stephen some of his own armor to wear, marked with the duke’s seal. I brought it back with me; he would have wanted you to have it.”
    He reached into his bag and pulled out a breastplate. He offered it to Ruth and she took it with trembling hands. The duke’s seal, that of a crescentmoon, was emblazoned on the front. She had seen its like before. She passed her hand over it and then cried out as she took a closer look. There was a red stain splashed across half of the moon.
    She stared in horror, the hair along the back of her neck standing on end and a sick feeling beginning to overwhelm her. At long last she looked up, her eyes seeking out Peter’s.
    “It’s blood,” Peter said, confirming her fear.
    The fog lay heavy upon the land, covering all in a shroud of gray. Death hung thick and rank in the air, and Ruth could smell the blood of some woodland creature that had been freshly slain in the night. The earth itself was dying, the cycle of the year coming to an end as one by one