Free The Mayfair Moon by J. A. Redmerski Page A

to prove it, but will you tell me what’s going on with you lately?” She reached out and touched my ankle. “I thought you were warming up to us. You seemed great and then just like that you were hiding yourself upstairs like your sister.” She paused as though waiting for me to look at her while speaking and I did finally look away from the tablet. “Did something happen at school? Did I do something? Do you miss your mom? I know you must miss her, but I’m here for you if you need someone to talk to. You know that, right?”
    I hated her for being so likable. It made me feel guilty for giving her reason to ask such questions and worry about me as much as she was.
    Placing the tablet beside me on the bed, I gave her my full attention. The delicate lines around her lips curved subtly as she looked at me, softening the worried expression on her face just a bit. She wore a white long-sleeved button-up shirt with tiny blue flowers sprinkled all over the fabric. Beverlee reminded me of my mom; the way my mom used to look at me before she succumbed to that strange masochist lifestyle.
    I did miss my mom. But I had been missing her for at least six years.
    “It’s nothing you did,” I said. “I’m grateful you and Uncle Carl gave us a place to live. I know Alex is too, but she’s just taking things harder and I’m sorry for the way she’s treated you.” I smiled softly at Beverlee. “I’ll be fine. I’m just missing home a little, but I’ll be fine. I promise.”
    It did bother me that my mom hadn’t called once to talk to us, but that was something I tried my hardest not to think about.
    Beverlee returned the smile and then looked at the stack of books beside me with an inevitable curiosity.
    “My thing was vampires when I was your age,” she said, reaching over and taking The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings into her hand. She began flipping through its pages. “ Interview with the Vampire , The Lost Boys ,” she added as if to question my knowledge of them.
    She placed the book back down. “But I guess maybe werewolves are the thing now.”
    “Uhhh, not really,” I said, completely uncomfortable with the conversation. “I’m just reading it because I...well I have to write a short story for my Literature class and decided to do mine on werewolves.”
    “That sounds interesting. I’d like to read it when you’re done.”
    I knew my lies would get me into trouble eventually.
    “I’ve always found them interesting myself,” she added.
    “Werewolves?”
    “Uh huh,” she said. She tapped the book with the tip of her finger. “Never thought they were scary though. Nothing scary about turning into a wolf. Kind of cool, actually.”
    Oh god. Beverlee was thinking of the wrong sort of ‘werewolf’ here.
    I just played it off.
    Beverlee patted me on the leg and stood. “I do feel better than before I came up here,” she said. “We’re really glad to have you and Alex here; don’t forget that.”
    I spent the entire Saturday in my room, reading and surfing the net, but when I realized I wasn’t any closer to finding out anything more about ‘real’ werewolves than when I started, I put the books away and turned the laptop off completely. I don’t know what I was trying to find, but I was beyond frustrated with it all. What did I expect? Werewolves weren’t supposed to be real and researching them would be like researching UFO’s. There would be a book here and there about the possibility of their existence, eyewitness accounts that no one ever took seriously. Old village myths from centuries ago and random names of some professor or ‘expert’ who only the crazy truly believed in their research. After all, sane people don’t believe in the supernatural. Normal people believe what the majority believe and everything else is fiction. Right?
    It was late, after eleven o’clock when I heard Alex stirring in her room. There wasn’t anything unusual about that since