(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 6; tombstones

"Why are we here again?" Jaylin asked, watching the party-goers pass by as Tisper adjusted herself in the visor mirror. The turnout was bigger than he remembered—but then again, it'd been half a decade since the last time he attended a party at the Sigvards.

"Cute boys, cute girls..." Tisper droned, fixing a bit of makeup that had smudged in her efforts. "Take your pick."

"I pick sleep."

Tisper reached over to fix a stray lock on his haywire blond head, then she said, "Well then, at least settle for the booze."

They snapped the car doors open both at once, and a blast of humid summer air conquered the comfortable cold of the AC.

As Jaylin left the car, his eyes followed the covey of people to the rustic anterior arrangement of the Sigvard Manor.

It was a beautiful home with high-arched windows and bucolic architecture, far from the municipal streets. The only way to the manor was along a private gravel road, now stuffed with cars on either side. The building sat on knolls of grassy hills, centered between trees twice as old as the city itself, and then swaddled all around by the dense privacy of an evergreen forest. And more prominent than anything was the fact that this place—all sixty-four acres—belonged to the Sigvards.

They were a family that had inhabited the city for decades, and they never let anyone forget it. It wasn't that they held any prominent position of power—Richard Sigvard was a lawyer who'd won a huge case in the early eighties, and since, he'd only become more and more distinguished in his aptitude for law. Mrs. Sigvard's donations to charity were often featured in the newspaper, but that was it. They'd done nothing all that significant for anyone. They were just rich.

From the spindly vine-crusted arbor on their front lawn, Jaylin took in the vibrant flora that wrapped around the home. Lush rhododendron bushes and the yellow bleeding hearts, sagging sad and beautiful from their hanging baskets. The bleeding hearts hadn't been here his last visit, but the red roses were—their vines as tall as himself, with long, wicked teeth for thorns. Oh, he remembered those roses. He was gagged by the nostalgic perfume of them as he passed.

It had been four years since his last visit to the manor and he hadn't expected all of the smells, how easily they'd draw his memories out. Even the the sound of the glass wind chimes were an awful, familiar song. They all took him back to that Fourth of July night. Back to Tyler.

Thankfully, the sounds and the smells were clipped off from the world as they stepped inside and Jaylin could smell nothing but perfume and sweat, hear nothing but EDM.

"I'm gonna use the bathroom," he called over the music. He needed a breather, and he wasn't quite ready to face those rose bushes again.

Tisper shouted back, "Do you know where it is?" but already Jaylin was splitting the sea of people down the middle. He couldn't forget where it was if he tried.

A large chest bumped into him—a woman, trying to reel him into dance. He smiled politely and slipped out of her grip. Once free from the crowd, Jaylin bounced up the staircase, carpeted and crescent and lined with slick wooden baluster railings. He slowed when he noticed the pictures hanging on the walls.

Four strong-jawed Scandinavians set the focus of the photograph. Lisa Sigvard—stoic, stout-shouldered, with a chin pointed to the ceiling in such a way that half of her life was either spent staring through the slits of her eyes, or gazing up to the stars. Standing beside her was her husband, Richard, his hair darker than the others, his eyebrows thick and furrowed, leaving deep lines that dipped permanently across his forehead. Anna Sigvard sat on her haunches in front of her mother, her long golden braids plating down her small, pale shoulder—her summer dress fanned out delicately across the carpet. Her brother, Alex Sigvard knelt next to her. He was younger. Jaylin had met Alex once before. He was the kind of kid you couldn't see through—the kinda guy that looked like he was always lost in thought.