The Curse of the Silver Moon

Chapter One The Fox As I stared out the window, I noticed that the forest was calm and still. The sunlight pierced through the canopy, creating crisp-green light and an illusion of fantasy grandeur. A slight breeze rustled through the trees, causing the leaves to flutter gently, while some swirled to the ground. Looking at a forest like that, it was easy to take my mind off of what was about to happen to me. We were moving. My mom, my pesky little sister, and I were leaving our small-but-cozy city apartment for a huge, oversized house out in the woods somewhere. But at least it was only temporary. My great-uncle from my mom’s side of the family had recently passed away, and he had left his house to us. Since it was the house that we had lived in when Dad passed away, it was no surprise that Mom wanted to sell it. But in order to do that, she had to clean it up and put it on the market. The timing was very inconvenient and made me want to move even less. All I wanted to do was stay in the city and have my last few days of summer to be normal and fun-filled with all my friends. But as they say, tough luck. Because what I wanted was the opposite of what I was getting. I quit staring out the window, and I glanced around the car at my fellow travelers. Mom was sitting beside me in the driver’s seat, staring intensely at the road. The way that she was gripping the steering wheel made it evident that she was dreading this just as much as I was. My eleven-year-old sister, Kate, was sitting behind me, looking through my book. She didn’t even want to read it; she just wanted to look at all the “pretty pictures” on the sides of the pages. I sighed and looked down at my phone, getting very jealous of the pictures my friends were posting of them together, doing fun summery things. Kick. I felt a pounding on the back of my seat, and turned to see that Kate was taking all of her “I don’t want to move” anger out on it. Kick! I lowered my phone, stared straight ahead, and tried to ignore her. Kick!!! “Hey!” I exclaimed. “Mom! Kate’s kicking the back of my seat!” “I am not!” Kate huffed, and the headache-inducing pounding stopped. Mission accomplished. “Can’t you just figure it out on your own, girls?” Mom pleaded. “I’m trying to get us to the house on time, and—ARGH!” “What?” Kate and I both asked, forgetting about our argument for the time being. “Well,” Mom said, glancing at the GPS (which she had muted, because she “knew how to get there”), “it’s redirecting our route, so I guess I turned on Pine Road when I was supposed to turn on Cedar Road, and by how far we are, our trip is delayed by about half an hour.” “Are you lost?” I asked. “No,” Mom said. “I just read the street signs wrong. But we’ll get there. Don’t worry.” I was already worried. About everything. And then Kate said, “Oh no.” “What?” I asked, gritting my teeth. “Your bookmark fell out.” “What?!” “But I put it back close to where it was!” “Ughhh,” I groaned. “Now I’m going to have to reread stuff.” “Well maybe you should get a better bookmark!” “That doesn’t make any sense! Maybe you should learn to leave other peoples’ stuff alone!” “Girls!” Mom snapped. “Do not make me turn this car around!” “Please,” I begged. “Please turn this car around.” But instead, no matter how much Mom was dreading this, she sighed (loud), turned the music up (also loud), and started singing along to it (did I already say “loud”?) with a strain in her voice, continuing the drive. As we made our way along Cedar Road, Kate announced, “I don’t like it.” “You haven’t even seen it yet,” Mom said. “I don’t have to. I know that I don’t like it,” my sister grumbled. “I don’t like it either,” I mumbled. “Girls,” Mom said, “stop mumbling and grumbling. Please just give it a chance. For me? I don’t want to be here either…and you’re making it worse…” I lightly rolled my eyes and found myself staring out the window yet again. The forest along Cedar Road was slightly different. I know this sounds crazy, but I noticed a slight shimmer in the trees. Sort of like sunlight, but a little different, like a sort of magical presence was there. As I looked closer, I saw a glimmer of red fur, and then something that kind of resembled a fox was just sitting there, staring at me from amongst the trees. The reason that it only kind of resembled a fox was because it looked like it was badly mutated or something. Its fur was goldish-reddish, and its eyes had a golden hue to them, with a knowing glimmer. The absolute strangest feature, though, was that where it was only supposed to have one tail, it had nine. I was taken aback with shock. This was no ordinary fox. It was a nine-tail. The creature of legend! Trying to remember if seeing a nine-tail was good luck or bad luck, I pressed my face against the window for a better look. But to my dismay, the magical creature was gone. It had probably ventured back into the magical forest or wherever it lived. “Leanna,” Mom said. “You’re getting fingerprints on the window.” I pulled away from the window and whispered, “It was real. I know it was. But it can’t be…” “What was real?” Kate asked, staring at me expectantly. Mom turned to look at me, too. “Nothing,” I said quickly. “Awwww,” Kate said, disappointed. She glared at me, and I simply shrugged my shoulders. Mom just giggled and said, “You can stop your complaining, Kate. We’re here. Welcome to the family house.” She pulled the car into a long driveway enshrouded in leafy green. Kate and I stared out the windows in wonder. The house was colonial style—big, painted white, with old-fashioned dormer windows on the second floor and an old-fashioned front porch with a swinging bench and white columns supporting the floor above it. Boring. The exciting part was the yard. It was basically a huge meadow, lush green grass and tiny wildflowers just waiting to be run on. There was no fence, though. The grass just suddenly stopped at the trees of the forest. The forest. The luminous, haunting forest, with that magical, glittery…whatever it was. “It’s so big,” Kate said. “Cool!”