Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 Read Free Page B

up to his waist and flowed gently past him. He gazed about him and saw Jennifer, sitting on the jetty behind a golden veil. It was her hair shining, glittering brighter than the stars in the night sky and glowing like burnished gold. It covered her gentle form, and lay spread beside her on the wooden platform. He waded towards her until the water fell below his knees. He stopped, as he saw Jennifer’s friends, all girls and as naked as the day they were born, laughing as they ran through the shallows, towards the river bank, splashing one another. The girls, all of them about Jennifer’s age, squealed in surprise at the sight of Jason’s equally nude form and stopped and stared at him for a number of seconds and he stared back. At a cry from one of them they ran off onto the beach and moved behind a large clump of bushes, where he imagined they had undressed.
     
    Jennifer stood up giggling and he heard, “Oh dear, you have frightened them off.”
     
    The dying sunlight bathed her body in an orange glow as she brushed her hair over her shoulders where it hung behind her like a shimmering bejewelled veil , leaving Jason standing there, unable to move as her eyes roamed over his face. He managed to say, “I, er, I am sorry, I, er, er, I only wanted to see if-.” He stopped, took a deep breath and said, “Was that you who spoke inside my head?”
     
    He heard something tinkle through his thoughts, something light, then heady, and he heard her voice once more, a strange echoing sound, “Yes, it was, are you happy with that, can it be our secret?”
     
    He opened his mouth to ask her something and broke off and looked beyond her as a light shone from a large house near the woods. Then he heard a man’s voice, loud. “What’s going on out there, Jennifer, are you alright?”
     
    She glanced behind her and said to him in a loud whisper that sounded unnatural after hearing her voice inside his head, “It’s my father. You’d better go. Quickly, hide somewhere, hurry now.”
     
    Without hesitation, he turned and ran through the shallows and dove into the current. He swam non-stop, his head full of Jennifer’s vision at the ford. He had nothing else on his mind as he swam, scattering the fish - one large pike included – on his way back to the willow tree.
     
    She’d watched as his body hit the water with hardly a splash, and waited for him to reappear on the other bank. “Where is he?” She was about to call out in her mind to him; she knew she could reach him, for now they were a pair, bonded forever, but she hesitated as her father drew near.
     
    He was carrying his bow, which was unusual at this time of day. “Who was that, my dear?”
     
    She couldn’t deny Jason’s presence, not to her father, his eyesight was just as good as hers and she could see farther into the distance than a hawk, “A boy I met in town the other day.”
     
    Her father was silent for a while, then he spoke, “Yes, your mother told me all about him. Come, it is time for our evening meal.”
     
    She rose up and watched her father as he walked back towards the house. She looked back at the river, at the bushes on the far bank; gazing downstream from where he had swum to her. She stood there for a while then whispered, “Jason, Jason, where are you, why did you run from me?”
     

     
     
    Chapter three.
     
     
    Encounters.
     
    Jason lay on the grass, sucking air deep into his lungs. He had, in his panic, dived below the surface and swum away without replenishing his oxygen supply beforehand, which forced him to surface twice for air.
     
    After a while, with Jennifer’s words running through his memory, he rose up and walked over to where his clothes were. The sun had sunk below the horizon and the light was fading quickly. He paused in his actions as a strange, but pleasant odour assailed his senses. It was a smell he would remember, he told himself.
     
    Standing still, he searched in the half-light sniffing the air and