A Bite

~Fender~

Damn it! I thought that they would allow me to hear what they were going to talk about. Mr. Damon wanted me to leave immediately when the most thrilling moment had just begun. He didn’t want me to get involve in that matter. I was a bit upset, really, but what could I do? I’m not Ino Rays who can easily frighten a pureblood.

And the worse thing was, Frank didn’t want to tell me, even the slightest clue. He promised his father not to tell anyone, including me, his best friend. Again, I couldn’t do anything about that despite how upset I was.

But at least something gladdened my heart. That morning, Frank gave me the book I really wanted to read, the history of Moonlight Hills and the founder family. That wasn’t the book I usually read in history lesson or in the common libraries book. It was the real history of Moonlight Hills, the facts that most people didn’t know about.

I was in the most popular café in Moonlight Hills that night, The Tavern. Many people came there to hang out, date, or just having a little chit-chat. They had the best toast in town. But I don’t want to talk about the food or The Tavern itself.

I sat in the northernmost edge of that café, sitting alone with the book lying in front of me. The book was brown. No title in the cover, just some ancient stripe around the edge of it. I opened the cover, seeing the first page. It was a blank. I slid the page again and I saw a picture of werewolf, vampire, witch, fairy, and human together. They seemed like they shared their lives together.

What a beautiful picture, I thought. To imagine that all creatures live in harmony, I began to smile a bit.

I opened the next page, the writing began there. I read it carefully, trying to know what the book wanted to say. I read a few pages and I began to understand what really happened long ago in this town.

They intend to live in peace here, I talked in my mind.

It was said that Moonlight Hills was built by the entire creatures. The Dales represented the werewolves, the Damons represented vampire kinds, the Daltons represented the witches, and the Rovals represented the fairy kingdom. I wondered if there used to be a kingdom of fairy in this place. While humans represented by several families, led by the Blacks, who still existed until recently since human population was the majority. But I never heard about the Blacks.

So, there were Dales, Daltons, Rovals, and Blacks who were deleted from the history. The secret about the Dales is revealed somehow, even I still don’t know the most part of it. But what about Daltons, Rovals, and Blacks? Was their fate the same as Dales, I asked to myself.

I read the next few pages, still didn’t find the clue about the three families. I thought it took several days to finish this thick book, considering I had to study for mid-term exam and there were several trainings to face a regional football cup the next month.

I drank my ice chocolate using the straw, while my eyes were still staring at the letters one by one. I thought the book was confusing yet it was still interesting since there were some knowledge I didn’t get from my ordinary history book. There were some languages that I didn’t understand, and there were letters I even never seen before. Maybe Frank knows about this, I talked to myself.

“It’s Fender,” I heard the voice of a girl calling my name loudly.

I turned my head spontaneously. There were Angelica Brownwood and her two friends waving to me. They walked straight toward me. It seemed that they had been shopping since they brought many shopping bags in their hands.

Melanie Stanford, the girl who called my name loudly before, put her shopping bags on the table, “Here’s the handsome bookworm. How are you, Sweetheart?” she greeted me. She was right about me being a bookworm. I really love reading. I know it’s not so typical Jock like me.

“Fine, thanks,” I smiled.

“Angelica, how about you go home with Fender? Your home is the same direction with him, right?” the other girl, Gladys Cunning, said. She then looked at me who staring back at her, “Is it okay, Fender? You know that my home goes to the east while her home goes to the west,” she begged. Just like her name, she was really cunning.

I sighed faintly. I knew they had just seen me alone there and took the opportunity to bring Angelica home. It was true that Angelica’s home was the same direction with mine. Actually, it bothered me for them to come to me and asked about that thing. I just wanted to spend my time alone reading the book a little longer. But I couldn’t just say no.

“Do you still want to be here, Fender?” Angelica asked me, “If you want to stay here a little longer, I will wait for you,” she said.

I said no. I put my book back to my bag, and then I stood, “I’m ready to go.”

Gladys yelled excitedly, “Yay! Thanks to you I don’t have to go through miles to bring her home,” she then looked at Melanie, “Melanie, take your shopping bags. We’re going home,” she looked so happy and so does her friend.

Melanie took all her shopping bags and winked at me, “Bye-bye, Sweetie! Take care of her.”

I smiled, “I will,” I waved to them while they went away from us.

“Sorry to be a burden for you,” Angelica seemed so full of regret.

I shook my head, “Not at all. Are you ready to go home now?” I asked.

She then nodded.

***

Angelica rocked his body slowly while the car was running, enjoying the ‘Call Me Maybe’ song by Carly Rae Jepsen. It was coincidence that I had already downloaded that song into my mp3 player since that song was her favorite the most. Actually, I didn’t really fond of girl’s songs. But I was glad somebody enjoyed the song I already downloaded.

We passed through the main town into a lone road to the west, covered by the forest at both sides. We saw about two cars crossing our direction, after that we were alone there. It takes 15 minutes driving from the main town to Angelica’s home, then 10 minutes again to my home. The road was dark, no street lamps, only my car’s light and the moon’s light shone the road.

She looked so exhausted and stopped moving, but still laughing. The song wasn’t over yet. I focused on my front, but her sweating body made my eyes peeked on her several times.

She opened again the window which already opened a little, “Hufh, it’s hot here, right?” she said.

I chuckled, “I’m sorry the air conditioner is broken. You’re moving too much, Angelica. It’s in the moving car.”

“This is my favorite song. How could I resist not rocking my body?” she said.

The song was finally over, and suddenly she turned off my mp3 player. She whispered then, asking me to stop the car. I was a bit confused about what she had asked me, but I did agree. Perhaps it was because of nausea since the wind stroke her face from out of the window.

“Don’t tell me you want to throw up,” I was joking.

She looked at me in the eye, for several seconds we were caught in the silence. Suddenly, I felt a bit nervous. I didn’t know what happened to that girl, she just kept staring at me. I chuckled again, tried to ease the situation.

“Do you know why I like this song?” she asked.

Odd question, I figured. I just shook my head with an empty expression.

She chuckled softly, “It’s because the song represents my life so much. You know...when the first time I saw you, I already liked you so much,” she explained.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised when she told me that, but still, I was flattered. I didn’t know what to say. I just stared back at her, seeing her mesmerized face. Why now, the question crossed my mind.

“I know that it’s so sudden. But…I think it’s better to tell you now,” she said.

I hummed, “I don’t know, Angelica. How about your boyfriend?” I asked.

She fixed her sitting position, loosened her seatbelt and closed her body toward me, “Haven’t you heard that I already broke up with Tim?” she explained, “I think it’s a good time to start from the beginning. I love you, Fender.” She moved her face toward me. It seemed that she wanted to kiss me right on the moment.

“But, Angelica...” my word made her stopped moving forward, “I’m still with Susan.” God, why do I have to be a very nice guy, I told myself.

She smiled, “Everybody knows that you have an issue with her. I know you don’t like her anymore. Just like I said previously, it’s a good time to start over.” She touched my face, and then her face moved again toward me. She was right. I had an issue with Susan and she was so beautiful so that I couldn’t resist her charming temptation. For the moment, I was sure that she wanted to kiss me right away.

But suddenly, it was not the kiss I got, but her frightening scream. I was shocked. I had no idea why she suddenly screamed while she wanted to kiss my lips. She saw something, I was sure of it. There was something scary behind me. At the moment, I didn’t know what it was. But something, something with four legs and red eyes, were moving fast toward my car. Until, I looked behind me and that thing hit my car roughly. It caused my car to be tumbled to the sidewalk and into the edge of the forest.

We both screamed loudly when we felt like we were being shaken inside the car. Then it stopped moving with my head position at the bottom. My seatbelt prevented me to fall, but the situation was different for Angelica. She fell randomly since she loosened her seatbelt previously.

I saw her bleeding in her forehead, neck, and arm because of the fraction of window’s glass. And me...I was still stuck in the position. I was bleeding too, for your information.

Angelica stopped screaming. She looked so scared but she could manage the situation. “What is that? What is that?” she whispered. “Was it a bear? Or a lion?” she wondered.

“I’m stuck,” I complained while trying to escape myself from this seatbelt.

“I’ll help you, Fender,” she tried to untied me, but I thought she found it difficult. She kept trying to help me, until finally I fell and bumped into my head. I said ‘ouch’ very loud and Angelica just kept saying sorry to me.

Suddenly, the situation was thrilling again. I clearly saw a head of the beast with its big and sharp fangs popped into the car through the broken window. We both screamed again and totally freaked out.

It bit Angelica’s leg and tried to pull her out. Angelica screamed for help. I already reached her hands but I wasn’t able to hold her. That beast successfully pulled her out with it. I just could hear Angelica’s scream, it was going faint until it was finally gone.

My breath was rushing up. There was no sound but wind and my breath.

Angelica is dead. It’s that werewolf Ino mentioned about. I’m sure of it, I talked to myself. That was the first time I ever saw a werewolf, and it was crazy. In my mind, I just thought that I was going to die at the moment. I tried to fix my position. It was hard to move in overturned car. But before I found my best position, the werewolf appeared again.

Then, it was my turn that it bit my leg and pulled me out of the car. I screamed out as loud as I could, crying for help. But I knew that nobody could help me then. I thought that I was going to die. The beast kept pulling on my legs, dragging me through the bushes and it was really hurt.

But something happened, my shirt got stuck by the root and its biting on my leg was detached. There was not a thing crossing my mind but getting up and running away as fast as I could. I ran without knowing my direction, without caring that my leg was hurt so much. I was still crying for help even though I knew that nobody could help me.

But fortunately, I was wrong.

Suddenly a pair of human hands popped out from the back of the tree I was going to pass through. The hands reached my head, pulled me, and smothered my mouth very tight.

At first, I tried to break loose, but when he told me to calm, I knew it was the right thing to do.

I didn’t know who he was. He kept smothering me from behind so I couldn’t see his face. He only said calm for the second time. At the moment, I still worried about how we could escape from that werewolf. Until then, I realized that he had wings and brought me to fly away.

We flew fast to a higher area of the hill, to the deeper forest. For the first time, I saw the forest from above and it was so beautiful yet so eerie at night. I could feel the wind and somehow, I didn’t get sick.

Several minutes later, he put me back on the ground. Now I could see his face. From the top of there, everything could be clearly seen since the moon brightened every area of this place. He was a young adult, maybe about 23 or 24 years-old man. He was unfamiliar to me. He looked calm and friendly with his big blue beautiful eyes staring at me. The blue transparent but glowing wings on his back suddenly disappeared. From the moment I knew that he was a fairy. And as far as I know that fairy is a beautiful creature, he was very gorgeous.

He furrowed a bit, “Good greetings, Sirrah. Thy name’s Fender Luts, art not thou?” he asked.

What an odd way of speaking, I thought. I didn’t have any idea how he could know my name. I was a bit astonished. “How do you know my name, Sir?” I asked him back.

“So ‘tis true then. The name’s Hope Sanders. Is that ringing a bell, my friend?” he asked me. I just shook my head. I thought Hope was a girl’s name. He then chuckled a bit, “I am a kinsman of Frank Damon. I remember thy face. We hast met before, about two years ago. No wonder thou remember me not since we only met once. Well met again,” he explained, “May I humbly bade thou, how couldst thou be hither? ‘Tis a dangerous place to be.”

Oh, God, I know several fairies and they’re nothing like him, I talked to myself. I thought that he was using an old way of speaking. I didn’t really get what he meant. I wanted to ask him to repeat his sentence, but I didn’t do that.

I just told him, “It’s a werewolf. We were attacked by a werewolf. And I think it killed my friend.”

“Alas, I ne’er think that such race appears again hither,” he sighed, again I still didn’t get what he wanted to say about.

I saw my legs, it was bleeding and the pain feeling suddenly filled my body. I pulled my trousers a bit, revealing the blood and the wound of my leg. I just wanted to cry right away, “How could this happen to me? The wound is seriously severe.”

“Nay, thou dost not have to worry about the wound. It shalt heal. But, my friend, I woe thou. Thou art accursed. Thou shalt become one of them. All of God’s protection upon thee, my friend,” he said.

I tried hard to understand his words. I knew he tried to warn me something. I clearly heard that he said ‘thou shalt become one of them’. It was maybe old and odd, but it was still the same language I used. Did he mean that I would become one of them? Somehow, I remembered about a werewolf’s bite. Then, I realized that my life had been cursed at the moment.