Light of the Moon by David James Read Free Book Online Page A

fade. As the class came to life, so did I. Here, I felt as close to myself as I ever could, lost in the chaos of deadlines and gossip and words that had nothing to do with me. Working on The Hollow , the real me meant nothing, and that meant everything.
    The room buzzed with quiet whispers, clicked as computer keys pounded down, as the bell rang. No one looked up; The Hollow’s Homecoming issue deadline was yesterday.
    When the smell of cotton candy hit my nose, I ducked my head close to my desk pretending I was correcting an article.
    Not today , I thought. I don’t have the energy for this .
    “Hey, Calum,” a voice said, as sickly sweet as her perfume.
    I didn’t look up. “Hi, Tanya. I’m actually in the middle of this article for Knight. Sorry.”
    There were too many people noticing me today, too many moments that made me remember why I didn’t want to be noticed.
    I thought, Just let me be a ghost for one more day.
    “Oh,” she said. She must have leaned close because suddenly I could barely breathe. She tapped a highlighter-pink finger on my desk, slow like her words. “I was hoping you could, like, maybe help me with my article.”
    I shook my head. “Sorry. You know how Knight gets. I really need to finish this.”
    She whispered, “Too bad.”
    Sighing, I said, “I don’t think I’d be much help with the gossip column anyway.” I looked up to see her pouting.
    Her lips stuck together in shades of pink, strings of gloss hanging down like prison bars. She twirled a finger in her hair, leaned back, and giggled. “I think you’d be good at anything. By the way, do you like my new lipstick?” She puffed out her lips so the gloss bubbled in the middle. “It’s called Puck er-Me Pink.”
    “Calum, could you come here for a second?” Mr. Knight called from his desk, saving me.
    I quickly stood up. “Sorry , Tanya. Gotta go!”
    I almost laughed at the look on her face, as though her perfume had been discontinued.
    What a horrible day that would be.
    “What’s up?” I asked Knight. “I’m almost done with setting up some interviews for the Homecoming bonfire, I just have to ask a few more people.”
    Knight held up a hand. “Relax, Calum. I just thought you might need some space to, ah, breathe, so to speak.” He laughed under his breath, making me realize again how young he was.
    I pressed my hands to a paper on his desk, feeling my body lean forward into it. “Thanks.”
    Knight set his pen down. “Rough day?”
    It was one of those moments when a whisper wouldn’t do, but speaking normally was too much.
    So I nodded, breathed deeply, and felt words fill my lungs like paper breaths: Yes. It’s been a day I want to forget. Too much is running through my mind. My heart is beating so fast because I’m afraid my Dad is going to come back and finish what he started, come back for my mother and me. I’m afraid I am just like I’ll become him because sometimes I get so angry I can’t control it and then I can’t see and I explode in rage. And then there’s Kate. I don’t know why I’m afraid of her she’s all I can think about.
    He ran a hand through his thick, straw-colored hair, his eyes blinking beneath his black-framed glasses. He sighed, “I see. Me too. My girlfriend’s been getting really nervous about these Bloodletter attacks; one of her coworkers has gone missing. No body, just blood and gone like the rest. It’s been rough, to say the least.”
    A chill ran down my back.
    Blood and gone.
    “Do you think we should run a story?” I asked.
    Our eyes met. “No,” he said. “Not when it’s like this. We don’t run stories about this kind of thing, Calum.”
    “What do we do?”
    He drummed his fingers on his desk. “We think about the good things and pray the rest sorts itself out.”
    Words thick with the poison of sadness caught in my throat and fell out in a burning whisper. “But what if there are no good things?”
    Knight looked at me. He said, “There are