(Free To Read) Bad Moon chapter 26; sunshine

Jaylin had questions, so many questions. It seemed to be the only constant in his life. When one was answered, two more were on the rise. When he thought he finally had a grasp on this twisted situation, something new would happen. Something substantial. This time, it was Imani.

Felix had been revolted since she’d left. He was always in a bad mood, but something was different about his brooding tonight. Jaylin wanted to ask about everything. He felt more in the dark than ever, but he only managed to get out a “wha—” before Felix was disappearing up the stairs to shower off the blood.

Another question.

Jaylin wanted to know just why they bled when they turned. Would he bleed too? Would it be as painful as it looked? Would he even turn, or would his body contort inch by inch, bit by bit as his arm had? How long would that take?

He needed Quentin. He needed answers. He needed to know how long it would take before the black on his body went away.

But Jaylin hadn’t realized that all the time he’d sat in the living room, with the stench of stagnant bleach and Lisa’s wax candles burning the air, he hadn’t been alone.

“He won’t be home tonight.” Lillabeth’s voice reached him like a timid touch on the shoulder. She appeared from nowhere, this friendly ghost of his. “Maybe you’d prefer to sleep in your room?”

There was a spill of disappointment in Jaylin’s chest as his heart sank into the depths like a stone. He was hoping to catch him when he came in—to ask about Imani. About the Bad Moon.

“Where does he disappear to all the time?” Jaylin asked.

“Sometimes work,” said Lillabeth. “Lately he’s been out surveying for scouts.” She looked hesitant to answer another question, and when Jaylin opened his mouth to ask one, she gestured with her feathered duster. “Go up to your room and I’ll bring you tea.”

Jaylin rose from the sofa, heels rocking against the hardwood. He’d barely moved in the past week and walking alone seemed a demand he couldn’t supply. His muscles felt like concrete—like carrying them on his bones didn’t make him stronger, they only weighed him down. His arm had blackened up to the elbow and beyond, and the pain Quentin warned him about had started to bite at his funny-bone.

He’d put on three pounds last he checked, but Jaylin’s weight fluctuated by the hour—not by the day. In the morning, he’d weigh a pound less than the day before. In the afternoon he’d put on four.

Whatever muscle he had felt atrophied as he towed himself up the steps, one weak ankle at a time. By now, the blood stainswere gone. It was like they were never there to begin with.

He hadn’t seen his room since he’d taken to sleeping on the couch. It’d been spruced up by the maids and smelled strongly of fresh linen. There was something new and eerie about it. Something that resonated in the floorboards beneath his feet.

A slick, black plastic caught his eye and Jaylin felt his heart gallop at the machine sitting on the study desk beneath his window. Quentin must’ve left him his laptop.

He popped it from his charger and took it into bed, sinking into downy covers and blankets made of faux fur. They were simple luxuries, but they were luxuries all the same. A bed that didn’t bow in the middle, on a frame made of mahogany, not hollow metal pipes and plywood slots. A laptop that booted up in under five minutes, with all the keys included. Food that didn’t look like, taste like, or—to Jaylin’s conjecture—contain dirt. There were none of the terrible things his life had been comprised of. Everything here was perfect—perfect apart from the lack of his mother and his friends.

It was strange to compare his own life to how everyday occurrences played out at the Sigvard mansion. Jaylin had realized over his short time of being here, that rich people were either incredibly lazy or incredibly busy; everything he could ever need was shoved right in his lap.

The screen lit up and Jaylin grinned at the sticky-note that’d been stuck to the screen.

Had Alex download some games for you. You’ll have to ask him for the WiFi password.

Jaylin fumbled to his feet with his laptop in hand, but by now, his black appendage had gone numb. The flesh panged like he’d taken a punch square between the muscles of his arm. He hadn’t even noticed the plastic of the laptop slip through his fingers.

He cursed as the machine clattered to the ground, the battery popping from the bottom compartment. He knelt to seat it back in, rotating the computer in his hands to make sure there wasn’t any visible damage. Then something in the screen caught his eye. The word Anna, reflecting in the glass.

He flattened himself to the ground and took a look beneath the bed, where a wooden crate sat in the far corner, Anna’s name marked on the front panel. They must’ve not checked beneath the bed when they took her things from the room. He wriggled his way beneath his mattress to retrieve the box, full of black VHS tapes. Maybe they were home movies, or a collection of work-out videos, like the ones his mom refused to part with. Whatever they were, they were Anna’s. Which meant they were too important to be put in the wrong place.

He carried the crate into the hall, where Lillabeth was polishing the glass of the Sigvard’s countless family portraits.

“Where does this go?” Jaylin asked. It always felt strange to approach Lillabeth first, especially when she seemed the type of person who hated to talk much at all.

Lilabeth glanced at him briefly from the corner of her eye, then her dark stare rolled back to the glass beneath her rag. “You can put it in the attic… the door is in the supply room.”

The crate felt heavier than it should in Jaylins hands, and he was forced to support it with his hip as he wandered down the hall, to the room he’d watched Lillabeth fetch a mop from once before.

It was cleaner inside than he felt a storage room should be. Each tool put away with care, each wash bucket empty and stacked into one another. But the most peculiar of all things were the rows of bleach bottles on the metal racks, each the same brand, stockpiled for three shelves up. Bleach to clean the blood, Jaylin thought. Bit by bit, this place and all the strange little things about it were beginning to make sense.

He had to fetch a stool from the corner of the room to reach the chain of the attic door, and he was assaulted by a cloud of angry dust the moment he climbed the steps.

The attic might have been the only part of the Sigvard’s home that wasn’t created for absolute luxury. It looked only like an attic—begrimed with dust and cluttered with old belongings. It smelled of mothballs and the single window in the room cast down only enough moonlight to see the floor in front of him.

Then, suddenly a second light flashed on and the darkness was consumed with it. Jaylin jolted at the loud sound that followed, his skin prickling as he watched static storms roll over the screen of an old box television. It sat atop a TV cart, little LED lights flashing beneath, where the VHS player spat out a tape entitled Alexander’s First Birthday.

He gave a look around, but there wasn’t a soul. Certainly, no one holding a TV remote; it was only Jaylin in this old and eerie place. So a television had turned on by itself. It wasn’t the strangest thing to happen here. But the coincidence—for it to have happened as he was carrying up a box of VHS tapes, that was what made the hair on his nape stand on end.

Jaylin set the crate down and took a look at the black, sleeveless tapes inside. Many of them were Hollywood productions, with the movie title still stuck on. Grease, Ten Things I Hate About You, Pretty in Pink. Anna must have had a thing for classic romances… he could relate to that.

But at the top of the pile was a tape with no printed label. Instead, it wore a white paper sticker in the center, the word “Nadaline” written in elegant cursive.

Jaylin slotted the tape into the VCR and knelt on the dusty hardwood, watching the static on the television changed direction.

Then the screen went black.

“You are my sunshine…”

Quentin’s voice settled into his chest, a low melody, hummed so rich and tender, Jaylin could feel his breath leave him for the beauty in it.

“My only sunshine…”

The black blinked away and the camera panned up, squiggles rolling vertically and tearing the screen down the middle as it settled into focus.

“There we go.” This voice was one Jaylin hadn’t heard before. Soft and sweet, chirping with laughter. The kind of voice that seemed to ward away all the wrong in the world. The screen squiggled erratically and Jaylin squinted his eyes to try and make out the image. “How the hell do I focus this,” the voice behind the camera groused to herself. Then, the fuzzy picture started to straighten, all of the images aligning at once. And Jaylin was staring into Quentin’s brilliant smile, his grin dazzling, his strong face clean-shaven and glowing in the sunlight. It was the first time Jaylin had ever seen him without the shadows of stubble on his jaw. God, he looked so young.

“Should have just used your phone.”

“Oh, hush. This way, she’ll have it forever.”

The image turned bleary again as the camera was spun around. He recognized Anna instantly, her long golden hair tied back in a messy bun, stray tresses fallen over her face—a dimple on one cheek as she grinned, but none on the other. She smiled as brilliantly as Quentin did. They were beautiful together.

“She’s been doing this all morning,” Anna said into the camera, then she turned it over to Quentin, who had pressed an ear to Anna’s stomach—her flower blouse pulled up over her bulging belly.

He started to sing again.

“You make me happy when skies are gray…”

A tiny lump pressed out against the skin of her belly and Quentin’s grin grew wide. He looked to the camera and laughed as a second lump kicked at the womb. “She’s never done this before.”

“She knows it’s you,” Anna said.

Jaylin’s heart strained in his throat. He couldn’t see properly past the tears that welled, but he could hear Quentin. He could hear how happy he was as he sang to a child who only existed in videotapes.

“You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Jaylin covered his mouth and let out a sob into his hand. A sickness peeled away at his insides.

It wasn’t only Anna who’d died in the car accident.

It wasn’t just Anna

“Jaylin,” a quiet voice called him from the door of the attic, where Lillabeth stood with a remote in her restless fingers.

“What happened to her?” Jaylin demanded, the tape playing on behind him. Quentin’s singing, the ripples of laughter. They were ghosts—horrible, haunting sounds. “Did she—”

“She died. With her mother.” Lillabeth approached gingerly, a small hand resting on the ball of Jaylin’s shoulder. 

“I don’t want to see anymore.” He reached forward to stop the tape when Lilabeth caught him by the wrist.

“Jaylin keep watching,” she urged, squatting down beside him. Her gentle fingers squeezed. “There’s something you need to see.”

Jaylin wiped at his face and turned his focus to the grainy picture.

Quentin had taken control of the camera and the screen blurred and jumped again as he turned it on Anna, who rested a palm on her pregnant stomach and smiled.

“Oh, I’m sure I look great. Haven’t put on makeup in two weeks. Welcome to motherhood, I suppose.”

“You look beautiful.”

Anna cracked into a dashing grin, one so sweet and humble, Jaylin knew it would haunt him for some time to come. Because a smile this lovely didn’t exist anymore, and because when it died, Quentin’s died with it.

Then he saw it—the blanket falling from Anna’s shoulder. He saw the black of her bicep, the way it consumed a path up the flesh of her neck. He saw it in her hands as she fixed the blanket back into place. Just like his own, her bones changed beneath her skin, her nails curled at the tips of her feeble fingers. Her flesh had turned obsidian black, her hand bent and deformed into something nightmarish. Something beastly.

She was a lichund, Anastasia Sigvard.

She was a monster.

Just like him.