Light of the Moon

  Light of The Moon

  Light of

  the Moon

  By David James

  A

  Legend of the Dreamer

  novel

  Copyright © 2012 David Knapp

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews when credit is given to the author by name.

  First Edition

  First paperback printing, November 2012

  First e-format, November 2012

  Cover design by Keary Taylor

  Edited by Helen Boswell

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Knapp, David, 1986-

  Light of the Moon (Legend of the Dreamer #1)/ by David James. - 1st ed.

  ISBN-13: 978-1480082564

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my parents and sisters-

  because they have always believed in me.

  If not for them,

  my dreams would be only dreams.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Author's Notes

  Acknowledgments

  “A dreamer is one who can only

  find his way by moonlight,

  and his punishment

  is that he sees the

  dawn before the rest of the world.”

  Oscar Wilde

  “There is something haunting in the

  light of the moon;

  it has all the dispassionateness

  of a disembodied soul,

  and something of its inconceivable mystery.”

  Joseph Conrad

  ~

  “She closed her eyes, nervous.

  She had not sung for nearly twenty years.

  To sing was to remember,

  and she could barely even live.

  But now was not the time for fear.

  It rarely ever was.”

  ~

  Prologue

  The Child of Shadow and Light

  The Deep South, Louisiana

  1804

  Her skin was blacker than the shadowed sky above her, a mark of the memory of her ancestors. She was a descendant of the most powerful kind of people, those of hope and song, changed by the cruel binds of slavery. On the lone hilltop where only a macabre willow tree grew, she stood blended with the night. Her wild, dark hair rose up and away from her vernal face and eyes the color of wilted wisteria, reaching toward the shining stars and moon. The air near the Singing Tree was still, but the girl shivered as though a storm was rising.

  Beside the girl was an older woman with skin that matched her own but reflected a much larger piece of history. The woman’s eyes were white clouds in a dark sky, covered by a mist so fine many often forgot she was blind. Her eyes were a mark of the life she lived, of the sights she had seen and the songs she had sung to hide endless emotions. They were the result of hope, a moment in her history when she had found her voice, her song, and then, abruptly, the blade of a whip.

  Still, the woman saw more than most.

  “Daughter,” she said in a voice that was nothing more than a whisper, but because the night was so still and quiet it moved swiftly to the girl’s ears. She smiled down, teeth pearls against everything black, hugged herself and ran both hands down the backs of her arms feeling the raised puckers of skin forever damaged. She hoped her daughter would never have to live in slavery, but knew it was already too late. Her daughter had lost her ring finger on her left hand only weeks earlier. A punishment for loving someone she shouldn’t. “Are you listening, child? Are you ready? Is your soul, your ti bon agne awake?”

  “Yes, Momma,” the young child said, her voice threaded with apprehension.

  The girl had never been to the Singing Tree, had never seen her Momma even look its way. Children of the Night, as her Amma called them, were punished for wandering too close to the Singing Tree. Amma said it gave them too much hope to sing, so they didn’t anymore.

  But her Momma, the Woman of Prophecy, always had belief in her milky eyes, and this night was different from any other. This night was filled with secrets waiting to be told. It was filled with hope. With magic.

  “Close your eyes, child, and let me sing you a legend,” the woman breathed. She closed her eyes, nervous. She had not sung for nearly twenty years. To sing was to remember, and she could barely even live. But now was not the time for fear. It rarely ever was.

  The woman turned to look at the girl beside her. So young, so not ready to take on the world.

  Yet, the woman thought, she will have to be. This is the end and the beginning, and no one has any way to stop it. It is life and death, this prophecy, shivering through time like poison. When will it end?

  This was how it had been since the time of the first seer, Mryddin; legend passed from mother to daughter and back again. They had called him Mryddin the Merciful when she was a child, the only man strong and kind enough to love the witches. But now there was no time for mercy. If her child was not ready the legend would vanish, taking the world with it.

  So because the choice was made for her, the woman raised her hands to the heavens and began to hum the ancient melody her mother taught her; a steady, deep song, as if drums lived inside her. She planted her feet firmly against the ground, exhaled, and as if her breath was caught on wind, her voice lifted up toward the heavens and punctured a hole in the sky, sending a beam of light to shine on mother and daughter. The moon’s silver hand hugged them and the legend began, though she was careful to say only what was needed and not what was important. Truth needed to be kept quiet; the world was listening, and it was changing ever more.

  “It starts,” the woman said, “like so many stories do, with a boy, a girl, and a love that doomed the world. This however, dear child, is not like the stories you know. This is not a happy story with a happy ending. It ends just like it begins, in fire and blood and death. You see, child, this is the story of an angel who fell in love with the Devil, and the forbidden love that destroyed them both; their child of shadow and light.”

  The girl listened as her Momma told her the story of a beautiful angel and the love that scorned her. Of the child that began to grow inside her, killing her from the inside out.

  Soon, the girl’s throat began to feel dry and coarse, as though she had tasted the fires of Hell. She swallowed the bittersweet words of life and death when her Momma explained that for the child to live, the mother, the angel, had to die.

  “Why?” the daughter asked. “If she was an angel, couldn’t she live forever?”

  Momma just smiled and said, “There is a price for everything, even life and death and love. When love runs rampant in the depths of Hell, nothing is what it seems. Death was her
price to pay for love.”

  The girl felt her heart clench, but didn’t know exactly why. She became silent, her voice gone completely, and did not speak again until the story had left her mother and played in the air around them both once more.

  Momma’s voice grew quieter as she continued. She told of the child, who was banished from Hell, Heaven, and Earth to live in the limbo of the sky. “With him went the rest of the children who were not meant to be, the offspring of angels and those of their fallen kin, demons. They were cursed to stay trapped in the sky forever. Except, of course, there was a twist. Because of the child’s bloodline, he could not be trapped in the sky like the rest; the child of shadow and light is the only son born to the Devil himself. Instead of a life in limbo, the child fell to Earth and lived in secrecy through time. Though the Devil still searches, his son is protected by the blood of his mother, the beautiful and powerful angel, Gabriella. You see, the blood of the Devil is pure hatred, and the blood of an angel is pure love. Though cursed, the son can only be found when he falls in true love. Until then, the world is safe.

  “This,” Momma continued, “is where the prophecy begins. When the boy, the Dreamer we call him as he is free to walk through his memories by stepping through his dreams but never able to remember them completely, falls in love, true love, the Devil will find him.”

  The mother took a deep breath, and sang the poem that was the Legend of the Dreamer. She whispered the story of the boy who was reborn after every death, and of the three hands of the Devil that ran after him in each life. She cried sounds of despair as the boy fell in true love and the Devil came to find him. She sang a song of hope as one boy and one girl became lost in battle and in love.

  When the woman was done she looked years older. She had been warned against this, the way the prophecy ate you alive once you told it. It was written in the soul of every woman who kept it and, once spoken, was forever gone.

  “You must remember, child,” the woman said, “that there is always hope. The boy will fall in love. The Devil and his three hands will come for him and war will ravage the world. But in the end, there is only one question that we can ask ourselves.”

  “What question, Momma?” the girl asked in a cracked whisper.

  The mother smiled and turned to her daughter. Though she was blind, the woman imagined what the girl must look like: Nervous, wild, and almost free.

  “In the end, everything comes down to love. And so, we must ask ourselves this: Is love enough to save us all?”

  “Is it?”

  The woman smiled. “We can only hope.”

  The night was cold, but the daughter was so warm that she hardly needed the tattered shawl her mother had brought for her.

  “Momma,” she said through a smile, “Is it real, that story?”

  For a second, when she closed her eyes to wish the story true, she smelled the sea-salt air of her ancestors when they traveled across oceans for new land. It felt like a hug, the kiss of air against her cheek, and she knew that it must be true.

  “Do you think it so, child?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, her eyes still closed.

  “This air around us has been alive much longer than we, and in it are hints of history and death and life. In the breeze is our lifeline, our lines of blood spread through the ages. Not many can see this, however. Only a Woman of Prophecy has the sight to see the legend. Most think the air is just a wind, a wisp of nothing on a summer’s day. Most cannot see our stories.”

  The daughter could still smell the sea-salt air and she knew it was not a coincidence but a memory of her history, her family’s past.

  Was this magic? Her Momma had told her the magic tales since she could remember. Could they be real?

  “See who we are,” Momma urged her. “Embrace your past to see your future.”

  The girl felt the gusting wind rush around her like a swirling blanket of whispers. The air grew cold as images suddenly appeared before her, dancing in the moonlight. Tightness threatened to enclose mother and daughter as they began to see the past as it was so many years before, so far in the past that the air smelled as sweet as sugar and burned as menacingly as fire.

  “Momma! Momma!” her daughter screamed, though her voice was lost to a blinding windstorm that had just picked up. “Momma, what’s wrong?”

  “Child...” she spoke, her hand clutching her heart, weak after giving an almighty truth so freely. “It is time for me to leave this world and move on to the next. It is time for you to become what you must be, who you are.”

  “But I don’t know what you mean, Momma! Don’t leave me!” Pain seeped through her body. Agony like she never knew filled her soul.

  “You are the protector, child. All around you is the history of us, of our truths. Follow your heart and protect the prophecy, and when the time is right, share it with your own daughters. You are the Woman of Prophecy. You must save the world by saving the one who is the Dreamer. Without this prophecy the world will be under the spell of the three demons and the Devil himself. When Doomsday is certain, the Dreamer will find us. Let fate be your guide. We keep our secrets in the stars. Blanket the Dreamer in our sacred word so that he may save us all. Help him understand his destiny.”

  Just as the daughter shouted and a tear rolled down her night-lit face, a breath of wind escaped the starry night and carried her mother away as if on wings.

  Calm strength filled the daughter’s soul; a new beginning had taken hold.

  That night, the new Woman of Prophecy began to understand her obligation, her curse. She was the one who was entrusted with the poem. She would be the one to pass the legend down from mother to daughter until the Dreamer came and salvation was harvested once again.

  And so she waits until the voices of evil, of cold, corrupted greed become too loud to hear the warmth of those of truth and virtue. It is then that the Dreamer will come to save the world and fulfill the legend that the Woman of Prophecy keeps so guarded in the night among the stars. For they hold secrets, the stars; dark truths of beautiful and dangerous magic.

  PART ONE

  The Cruel Hands of Autumn

  Murder hits small town

  JEFFERSON COUNTY - Murder has hit the small town community of Lakewood Hollow, Colorado. Mayor John White was found murdered in his home late Sunday evening.

  After this highly publicized death, Sheriff Morgan of the Lakewood Hollow Police Department has stated “the horrific death of our beloved mayor is certainly linked to our high missing persons count.”

  Police officials across Jefferson County are stating that the count is up to 28 missing, and locals are calling this “the most perverse and sickening death spree Colorado has ever seen.” Morgan, however, has urged the public to consider that “aside from the death of Mayor White, there is no substantial evidence that the 28 missing people were, in fact, murdered. As of now, White is an anomaly in the current case, and possibly the victim of a copy cat.”

  While police have yet to locate any bodies other than White, all missing persons (including the circumstances surrounding the mayor) have left behind vast pools of blood. Morgan confirmed that blood at every crime scene “has been tested and each has confirmed who that missing person is.”

  The Bloodletter, as the media has named the rogue abductor, has taken to painting what look to be song lyrics on walls of each victim’s home in blood. Although unidentifiable to authorities, experts are working on deciphering the words and the message behind the Bloodletter.

  Morgan has stated that local units are “holding additional information until further notice while we work to solve the investigation with departments throughout Jefferson County.” Communities are being told to keep calm and act normally while authorities unravel the tragic mystery of the Bloodletter.

  Chapter One

  of Mist and Nightmares

  -Calum-

  The trees towered above, caging me in the clearing. A thick mist of fog crawled across the forest floor, rising a
nd falling in heavy waves of dark gray as if breathing.

  Down on my knees, I was shaking.

  Hands pressed to the ground, I was afraid.

  Pain broke my throat as I screamed. The mist grabbed my fingers and pulled, digging them deep into the dirt. I felt it crawl up my arms and down my throat; stealing my voice, it searched for my heart. It burned, this mist of nightmares. Sitting like ash in my lungs, it stole my breath.

  A howl broke through the mist and shivered towards me; the cry of this lone wolf made time beat half as fast. For that moment, the mist listened too, and I could breathe.

  My eyes searched the hollow for a way out, but found none.

  The trees clung to an amber glow that seemed to live and die around the jagged edges of their branches. With every breath I took, I could see the eerie color burst with life, subside with every exhale. One hundred tiny thorns reached for me, branches waving in the wary light.

  I looked up to see a sky of shadows mixed with the vestige of a few faint stars.

  In this nightmare, even the stars were trapped.

  Then, as the tops of the trees turned a bleeding red in the dark, the mist began to pull again. Leaves began to rip from branches, dancing with the wind in a circle over my head, covering all but a single patch of moonlight. Catching red on its way down, the light of the moon bathed the clearing in a bloody glow. Leaves dripped down with the light, falling slow as death.

  Suddenly, a burst of wind reached across the clearing and brushed the leaves next to me back and forth and back again. The movements were slow, measured, and left no mark in the cloudy mist that rose in sudden swirls around me. Still, I felt the frigid air surround me, touch my neck with a cold kiss, and when my hand pulled a drop of sweat from my nose, the wetness looked like blood.