By Moonrise Read online

  WATERCOLOR MOON

  A WATERCOLOR MOON BOOK

  Published by Watercolor Moon, LLC

  2900 W. Anderson Lane C-200 #318

  Austin, TX 78757 USA

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BY MOONRISE

  Copyright © 2015 by Jackie Dana

  Cover art © 2015 by James T. Egan of Bookfly Designs, bookflydesigns.com

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. Please do not encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s rights, and purchase only authorized editions.

  For information visit:

  JackieDana.com

  Book and Cover design by Designer

  ISBN 978-0692557907

  First Edition: December 2015

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my parents

  Chapter 1

  “I

  don’t want you driving alone.”

  Kate leaned against the pew in front of her, pretending to pray to a god she didn’t even know. The lingering aroma of incense filled the air, and the bells chimed the hour. Her mother had never worshipped in a church like this, but Aunt Teresa said Melanie would have appreciated the ritual. Kate didn’t argue the point, figuring one ser­vice was as good as another. “I’ll be fine,” she told her aunt. “I’d like to stay a little while longer.”

  “Leo told me you’d say something like that.” She placed a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “Take all the time you want. We’ll be waiting in the car out­side, and we’ll drive over to Alana’s house together.” With those words her aunt drifted down the aisle, her purple silk jacket billowing behind her as she headed towards the exit.

  Kate exhaled, the breath catching in the pockets of her cheeks. Her fam­ily had been hovering over her for three days now, fearing she’d fall apart like a dandelion gone to seed. They should have known better. She didn’t grow up to be fragile. Her mom had seen to that. They way they acted, it was as if they had never met Melanie or her daughter.

  She slipped from her seat and approached the coffin. Grateful it was closed, she placed her hand on the varnished wood. The ring on her middle finger sparkled in the light of the candles, a small cabochon crystal inlaid within a silver band. It had been her mother’s favorite ring, and ever since she was a child it felt like magic to her. And now it was hers, along with a lifetime’s worth of personal possessions she had never wanted to inherit.

  Caring little for proprieties, she leaned over the casket, as if trying to hug her mother one last time. “Mom, why now?” she whispered. “You still had so much you wanted to do.” It still was impossible to accept she was gone. A heart attack, they said, just past her 50th birthday. It was even harder to comprehend that this was the last time she would ever be with her.

  At that moment, a woman’s voice startled her. «Aleira. It is time to go home.»

  She opened her eyes and straightened up. Gazing around the chapel, Kate was ready to challenge whoever had dared to disturb her. Her com­plaint was forestalled when she realized no one else was there.

  Suddenly feeling foolish, she returned to her seat and gathered up her possessions and the program that featured her mother’s smiling face. If she was late to the wake, they’d be sending out a search party.

  ***

  Grief competed with concentration as she struggled to do her job.

  As she typed, she had to hit the delete key over and over to erase typos. It was an open secret that the partners were considering downsizing her team. Knowing that everyone was under scrutiny, she had no choice but to push through her grief to get everything done. Just focus, she urged herself.

  When she stopped writing for a moment, gathering her thoughts, the voice from the church returned, like a specter hovering at the edge of her vision, reminding her to go home. Even now, as she read her email, it was as if the speaker was there, whispering over her shoulder. Twice she had turned her head suddenly, as if she’d catch someone behind her, but no one was ever there.

  It made no sense. There wasn’t really anyone talking to her. She hadn’t ever heard voices before, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t losing her mind. Then again, her quick internet search on the topic of “hearing voices” was simultaneously unproductive and depressing.

  Was it grief, perhaps, or was she being haunted?

  She didn’t believe in ghosts, so she wrote it off as a product of stress and exhaustion. The weekend was coming up, and she could relax then.

  For an hour she was productive, and finished the first half of the market­ing campaign proposal. It had to be solid work, the best she had ever written.

  The voice in her head didn’t seem to agree with her progress. Like a song she couldn’t stop thinking about, the voice insisted she pay attention to it rather than to the work in front of her. Shortly before lunch she stopped to check her email, but that just encouraged the voice to repeat its message again.

  It was enough that she flung herself back in her chair, clutching at her hair. “Damn it, just stop!” she demanded of the imaginary entity, and then caught herself. Had she said that out loud?

  A friendly blonde head peeked over the partition. “You all right?” her col­league Janine asked.

  Kate buried her face in her hands in embarrassment.

  “I get migraines too. It’s probably the fluorescent lights.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Kate rubbed her eyes, contributing to the idea that she had a headache.

  In a low voice, Janine continued. “Maybe you tried to come back to work too soon. I know how close you were to your mom. I don’t want to be pre­sumptuous, but that’s a hard thing to deal with, and you haven’t had a lot of time to work through things. Maybe you should just take the rest of the week off?”

  “No, I’ll be fine,” Kate said. “Thanks for checking on me, but I’ve got a lot to catch up on. I’ll be okay.”

  “Can I at least get you something? Some coffee?”

  “Sure, that would be nice,” she replied, doubting it would help, and when Janine stepped away, Kate tried to resume her work.

  As she closed out her email and returned to her report, she was able to work solidly again for about half an hour, and a full page of coherent text scrolled up the monitor. Then the voice returned, so loudly this time that she couldn’t focus at all on the task at hand. «It’s time,» she heard a voice whisper over and over. With her elbows on the desk, she curled her hands behind her head, trying to keep from screaming. Then, sucking in an angry breath, she pushed herself away from the computer and marched down the hallway to the restroom, where she splashed cool water on her face.

  Gazing at her reflection, she shoved some stray auburn hairs behind her ears and rubbed her eyes. Today they wanted to be green, she thought abstractly to herself, often amused at her chameleon irises that changed depend­ing on her mood. She didn’t look crazy, which was some consola­tion. Not much, mind you, but she’d take what she could get.

  Be strong, she told herself, as if her mother was here to remind her. You can get through this.

  Her mother. She leaned against the sink as she pulled her mom’s ring from her finger to examine it more closely. Despite her mother wearing it for three decades, it remained a perfect circle with no scuffs or nicks on the surface. She slid it back onto her finger, where it fit perfectly, as if made for her.
r />   “Oh Mom, I wish you were here,” she said softly. She needed her sup­port, now of all times. Between the stress of this job and the wreckage of a failed relationship, her mom had been her anchor… and now she was drift­ing.

  “Get over it,” she told her reflection. “You have work to do. Make her proud.” Of all times in her life, Kate had no room now for self-indulgence or weakness. She couldn’t stumble now.

  She blinked and abruptly left the restroom.

  Walking quickly down the hall, she stopped at the entrance to her cubi­cle, and knew she wasn’t going to get any more work done. Grabbing her bag, she headed to the front counter. “I’m not feeling well,” she an­nounced to Thomas, a young hipster with black glasses who by day worked as their receptionist and by night played drums in a seventies retro band. “Will you let Roger know?”

  ***

  «Aleira.» The voice said insistently, as if trying to wake her up. It repeated the word once. «Aleira.»

  She had tumbled into bed, having found just enough energy to change into her nightgown, and passed out like she was drunk, sleeping for hours. Then the dreams began.

  «Who’s there?» She replied in her head as she rolled over and sat up, straining her eyes to see against the darkness. «What do you want?»

  She heard a sigh, as if someone stood beside her. A rush of air. Then the voice came again. «It is time.»

  “Why are you doing this?” She jumped from her bed and replied aloud, as if someone was in the room with her.

  «Step into the light.»

  “What light? What do you mean?” She could see nothing. There was no light. In frustration, she repeated once again, “who are you?” A part of her told her that she was still dreaming, but she felt compelled to participate.

  There was a rush of wind, a stirring of dust. «Step into the light,» the voice repeated.

  Again she asked, “who are you?” She looked around. “Where are you?”

  Suddenly there was water everywhere, as if she had been submerged into a deep pool. Before it could frighten her—for she never lacked a breath—it disappeared, and she was dry.

  «Step into the light,» the voice commanded for the third time. It was louder than before. Now she felt intense heat, as if a fire burned at her shoulders, but she was not injured by it.

  Kate could scarcely breathe now. What was happening now made no sense. If this was a dream, and not her losing her mind, she needed to wake up. But there was no time to figure out how to wake herself, or indeed for any further reflection of the situation. She felt something—or someone—push her from behind. As if she was on the edge of a precipice, she tumbled forward, but did not land on anything. In fact, she continued to fall, but never landed on the ground.

  Then there was light—very, very bright light—as if she had fallen into the sun itself. There was nothing else but light everywhere she looked. Even her own body seemed to be made of light.

  «It is time.»

  Standing before her, in the middle of the intense brightness, was a woman of great beauty and power. She wore a brilliant gown of silver, and her hair was like bright copper. Kate immediately knew that the woman had no true physical form, but at the same time there could be no more imposing figure.

  «Come to us. It is time.»

  “I can’t... I don’t know what you mean!”

  The woman clenched her fist and Kate’s breath was squeezed from her. «You are Aleira. The knowledge is part of you.»

  She desperately swam deep into her thoughts, into her most hidden memories, trying to make sense of this. “You have the wrong person. I don’t know what you mean!”

  Then the woman clenched her other fist, and she swooned. Suddenly impressions danced at the edge of her consciousness. Memories that were not hers, words and images that she could not interpret, came spilling through the cracks in her consciousness. Faces of strangers, hills covered with blue flowers, spiral towers, the crash of waves below her feet.

  “Don’t do this to me. I don’t know what you want from me!”

  «Come to us now.» The woman commanded her. «Step into the light. Otherwise all will be lost.»

  “That doesn’t make sense. I can’t do something if I don’t know how to do it!”

  With those words, the incessant voice finally went silent, and she was finally certain she was awake. And the only thing she could hear was the rumbling of thunder and the dance of raindrops outside.

  Climbing back into bed—her heart beating faster than her word processing speed, and apparently just as uncertain—she was trying to figure out the significance of the dream. Nothing made sense. What did it mean? Was she really supposed to do something, and if so, what? She turned to look at her clock. It was 3:00 am.

  She then looked down at her right hand. Her mother’s ring glowed softly in the darkness. “What the hell?” Sucking in a sharp breath, she froze in place, staring at her hand as if it belonged to someone else. With another deep breath and trembling fingers, she slid the ring off and tossed it to the blanket beside her. Suddenly the room was awash in silvery light, as if a beacon had been focused through the small circle and was spilling out the other side.

  “Step into the light,” the voice had insisted. What did that mean? What was going on? Was this some elaborate prank? Angry now, she knocked the ring to the floor, but the action made it glow that much brighter.

  “Get away from me!” She threw the ring out the window. As it fell, the light poured from the ring, extending outwards for a dozen yards like a big glowing ball. It still glowed brightly as it came to rest in the garden.

  She flopped back on her bed and tried to go back to sleep, but the memory of the mysterious woman’s command echoed in her head. Burying her head under her pillow did no good, for that just brought up an image of the woman with the shiny copper hair.

  “Damn it, why is this happening to me?” She launched herself from the bed and looked out the window. Nothing had changed—the light from the ring was as strong as ever.

  Whatever was happening to her, and whatever was causing the light, the guilt of tossing the ring outside gnawed at her. It was her mother’s ring, after all. She couldn’t leave it outside, for someone to steal.

  Disregarding the downpour and lightning crackling overhead, she ran barefoot across the wet garden path. As she entered the sphere of light, a prickly sensation was Kate’s only warning something was about to happen; then she saw a bright flash, and then there was nothing at all.

  Chapter 2

  Her limbs ached, but she couldn’t figure out where she had been hurt—or how. Kate heard someone else breathing, indicating that she wasn’t alone, and then she realized she was being carried in someone’s arms.

  Was she still alive? All things told, it seemed rather unlikely.

  Pain crept into her fingers and toes, and traveled up her limbs, setting her entire body tingling with a stinging, prickly feeling. Well, it wasn’t pain, precisely. It was like a foot falling asleep, except in this case every part of her body had gone numb, and now the blood was returning.

  The man holding her must have felt her tremble as her limbs regained sensation. “Bei ta shar rui,” he said, his words unintelligible but gently spoken. He set her down in tall grass, and she discovered she was wrapped within something warm and soft, that had the faintest scent of rosemary—a blanket, perhaps, or a coat. Then he knelt down beside her and put his hands on either side of her face, warming her ice-cold skin, and then stroked her cheeks lightly.

  There was no time to register fear, for she was unable to remain conscious for long. When she next opened her eyes the moon was much lower in the sky. She heard men talking, though she could not understand what they said. One held a cup to her lips. The liquid inside had a sour taste but she swallowed it all the same, feeling too ill to fight their efforts, and she soon fell back asleep.

  Chapter 3

  “Are you the one?” A heavy-set man grabbed her arm.

  “I’m sorry, I don’
t understand—” Kate tried to pull free from his grip, and her tongue froze in her mouth. She had no idea who he was, or where she was, other than that they stood in a narrow corridor carpeted with expensive rugs, with wall hangings draped across smooth grey stone walls. A few windows opened to a courtyard, giving her the idea that it was just past dawn, while the hallway was lit by candles perched on tall stands and oil lamps hanging on iron sconces. Having no idea where she was beyond that, it was just her luck that the first person she encountered greeted her with veiled hostility.

  The man who had accosted her was wearing a long tunic the color of weak tea over a white shirt laced at the neck and sleeves, with a belt that sagged low on his waist, and thick knitted tights tucked into sturdy leather boots. And he didn’t try to mask his impatience. “Bhara, are you the woman who they brought to the gatehouse last night?” He stared at her from under long wiry eyebrows, his brown eyes carefully appraising her appearance. “The guards told us that you were found in the torrapon. Who are you, and what were you were doing there? Surely you know that’s forbidden?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. Simultaneously flustered by her situation and disturbed by his tone of voice, Kate replied rudely, “what the hell are you talking about? Who are you?”

  His eyebrows arched at her questions, but he did not release her arm. In a low voice he stated impatiently, “I am not in the mood for games, Bhara. Tell me what you were doing there or I will turn you over to the Senvosra myself.”

  She tried to remember, though more for her sake than his. Only a few minutes before, she had awoken alone in a dark room, the air smoky and cold. She hadn’t recognized her surroundings—a small room with bare stone walls, with coals glowing dimly in a hearth near the foot of her bed. A neighbor must have found her—but where had they taken her, and who had exchanged her wet nightshirt for a thin slip? The chilly air made her shiver, and she had reached for the blanket. As her eyes had adjusted to the low light, she had spied a long woolen dress draped across a chair. As odd as it was, her shivering dictated action, and seeing nothing better, she slipped the gown over her head, and slid her feet into leather slippers that she also found on the chair. Unable to locate a light switch, she had just stepped from the room when this man had accosted her in the long hallway.