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

she made it a habit to actually come out of her room after Uncle Carl and Beverlee had gone to bed. Her footsteps faded down the stairs and I waited, listening. When she never came back up, my interest grew. The routine was usually to rummage the kitchen for something to eat and sometimes she would turn the TV on for a few minutes before heading back upstairs.
    Still nothing.
    And then something instinctive compelled me to look out my bedroom window. I saw Alex, dressed in only her gown, walking briskly behind the house and disappearing through the trees.
    I slipped on my shoes quickly, grabbed my coat and followed.
    I let the back screen door shut softly behind me and I leapt down the back steps, taking two at a time. The moment my thin Converse shoes hit the frigid ground, I regretted not doubling-up on socks and grabbing my hat and gloves while I was at it. I sucked in cold air as I ran, quickly realizing that my lungs were better off immobile, at least until I could breathe into the warm confines of my coat sleeve. My eyes burned; the layer of moisture coating them, stripped away by the cold October air.
    Dashing into the woods, I felt swallowed up by the immediate darkness. The wind whipped through the trees and bit the back of my neck and the bare skin around my ankles. I kept running, over brush and limbs and toward a thin stream of water, slowing down only enough to gauge my distance before leaping over it.
    Splash! I never saw the second sliver of black water until it was too late. My feet were soaked to my shins and the bitter cold stung my legs like thousands of needles.
    But I kept running.
    I knew Alex was just ahead of me. I had heard the same splash of water a minute before I found it.
    My run finally came to a slow crawl. I could see Alex through the trees; the length of her shiny, dark hair glistening faintly like a spider’s web.
    I stayed low behind the trees and off the makeshift path that was easy to lose as it was already so covered with leaves. The darkness engulfed me and the moonlight could hardly penetrate the veil of naked trees that stood so thickly together. I jumped and nearly shrieked when an animal darted past—I wasn’t afraid until that happened. The memory of the night in Georgia came back to haunt me in the worst moment, while I was practically all alone in the darkness of a deep, never-ending forest. Because of that fear, I never went far enough into the woods to let the house disappear from my line of sight.
    But I pressed on slowly.
    I could still hear Alex’s movements out ahead, though they seemed fainter. Her feet shuffled through dead leaves. Low tree branches snapped as she pushed her way through them. One snapped under my feet as well and I froze, but Alex never looked back. She continued her graceful trek through the forest as if she knew every downed limb and ankle-spraining crevice without having to mind her footing.
    Several long minutes in and I could see a small clearing out ahead, bathed by the moonlight. Alex slowed to a delicate walk as she got closer. I stopped and crouched next to a tree, trying to stay warm and failing miserably. The only part of me that felt heat was the skin around my mouth and the tops of my fingers as I continued to breathe deeply into my sleeve.
    Alex stepped softly around a maze of young trees. Faintly, I noticed that she was barefoot as she tiptoed over a blanket of leaves and dirt. I could see the white of her feet stained by a tenuous layer of mud. She entered the clearing where there was just enough light to see the outline of her gown and her naked form underneath it. I wondered how it was that she didn’t seem cold, though she wore less than I did.
    She reached out her hands in an unusual gesture then.
    It appeared she was talking to someone. An erotic undertone in her movements was completely odd to me. I tried harder to penetrate the darkness with my eyes, needing proof that this girl was really my sister, Alexandra Dawson. I began to