Command the moon, p.1
Command the Moon, page 1
Command The Moon
Kathryn Moon
Copyright @ 2019 Kathryn Moon
Command the Moon
First publication: February 21, 2019
Editing by Sara Box
Cover by Covers by Combs
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kathryn Moon
ohkathrynmoon@gmail.com
Created with Vellum
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This is a Magical Ménage Romance and is not suited for those under the age of 18.
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Contents
1. Gifts and Curses
2. Sharp Edges
3. Johnny, Be Good
4. Fragile Things
5. Love Spells
6. Gentlemen Callers
7. Turn Around
8. One Week
9. Open Doors
10. Waxing, Waning
11. Setting Traps
12. At the Opening
13. By Night
14. Lovers and Madmen
15. A Cliffhanger
16. Cracks in the Amor
17. Dark Waters
18. Luke Wolfe
19. Odd Fellows’ Hall
20. Full Moon
21. Hex and Burn
22. Balancing
23. Union Reunion
24. The Solar Eclipse
Epilogue
Also by Kathryn Moon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Lana. This one is thanks to you. So suck it.
Also, I love you. You are the best!
If I command the moon, it will come down; and if I wish to withhold the day, night will linger over my head; and again, if I wish to embark on the sea, I need no ship, and if I wish to fly through the air, I am free from my weight.
-Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook By Daniel Ogden
Chapter 1
Gifts and Curses
October 8th 2000
“Why did my mother die?” Zee asked.
She’d found Aunt Noddy in the kitchen after midnight. Or Aunt Noddy had anticipated Zee’s late night visit to the kitchen. Four years into life on Swans Island and Zee had yet to know if her Aunt—Great Aunt, really—didn’t sleep at all, or simply had (another) supernatural ability to tell when a young girl might need to talk. Over a plate of muffins. Which she and Aunt Noddy would surely pay for eating early by the wrath of a teenage Sam in the morning.
Zee watched her aunt’s careful hands break off the top of the muffin, revealing the soft, still melty, chocolate chips inside.
“Because we are cursed, ved’mitchka,” she said, ‘little witch’ in her old tongue, and she then added, “with a gift.”
Zee’s eyes stretched wide and her mouth hung open as she thought this through. “Gifts can’t be curses,” she said.
“Gifts are curses,” Aunt Nadia said gently. “Curses make you special, and gifts set you apart. They are cut from the same cloth.”
Nadia patted the counter and waited as Zee lifted herself up to sit there, passing her a muffin.
“Believe it or not, ved’mitchka, but when I was little, Nikolaev girls were treated even worse on this island than they are now,” Nadia said before taking a large bite. Her elbows rested on the counter next to where Zee sat, heel tapping against the cabinet doors.
Zee wrinkled her nose. Earlier that day she’d been chased across the playground by awful Chris Murphy and his pack of rabid classmates as they shook handfuls of stones and flicked them at the back of her ankles as she ran. She found a hiding spot behind a utility door and chanted an invisibility charm to herself. I am small, I am quiet, I am forgotten, I am invisible. While she hid she thought of what her aunt might have done, imagined turning around on the playground stones and stirring up a wind to blow all her terrorizers to the ground. Imagined casting them to sleep so she could have one afternoon of peace.
“My sisters left the island—lived lives that didn’t belong to them. Normal lives. They came back, eventually, after their husbands had died and my nieces were born and grown, but it was late and they were already sick. Zoya, your mother and Samara’s mother, came back too when they got sick, but it’s not this house that keeps us well. It is our gift,” Aunt Nadia said, waving a pale hand in front of the small candle in its holder. Flame flared to life and then died out again as her hand drew back to her muffin.
“Our curse,” Zee echoed.
“You leave a gift untouched, it spoils, turns to rot,” Nadia said. “And that rot will spread.”
“Our mothers died because they were not witches,” Zee said. “I have to be a witch.” The muffin turned to glue in her mouth. She thought occasionally - and only sometimes, because Aunt Nadia and her cousin, Sam, were everything to her, but sometimes - of not being a ‘Nikolaev’ girl. But this was out of the question. Her last name was Lane—her grandfather’s name—but it didn’t matter. She was Nikolaev. There was no erasing her blood.
“No, my little darling,” Aunt Nadia said, smoothing her fingers through Zoya’s thick coffee brown curls. “It’s not about ‘have to.’ You are a witch. Your mother was a witch. Witches must make magic.”
June 9th 2017
Zee came in through the greenhouse after closing the shop that evening, canvas straps of grocery bags digging into her shoulders. She plucked a jasmine blossom off her favorite plant and cupped it to her face to sniff. Sam was in the kitchen, white blonde hair frizzing out of her ponytail as the black pot on the stove steamed in her face. She was standing on the same old brick Nadia had used. There were two traits that ran strong in the Nikolaev family, magic and a diminutive stature. Sometimes Zee thought Sam looked a little like Nadia, fair and slender. Her own resemblance had been washed away by whoever her father was, making her a shadow version of her cousin, dark hair and eyes and skin that tanned at the first blink of the sun.
Joni Mitchell was crying on the stereo. She’s gotten into tarot cards and potions, she’s laying her religion on her friends.
“I don’t like this song,” Zee said.
Sam startled over the stove, and Zee couldn’t tell if she was surprised to see her back from the market, or surprised to hear the music.
“The wood sorrel outside needs looked at,” Zee added.
Sam wrinkled her nose. “Fussy plants. That one never liked me. Noddy was better with the wild ones.”
“Like us,” Zee agreed and Sam smiled.
“Did you hear the news?” They said at the same time.
Zee huffed and hefted her bags onto the counter. “Damn. I thought I got that one first.”
“Maria James called.”
“What? Why?”
“Some people here like me,” Sam quipped, glancing at her cousin.
“What?! Why?!” Zee teased, arranging the grapefruits and lemons together into a bowl.
“I think it has to do with Cam actually,” Sam said drily. Cameron Cleeves, Sam’s hunky, marine meteorologist, nearly-fiancé was popular on the island. “I think she was calling to see if he was back. She asked if you were home too.”
Zee snorted. “She probably wanted to strike the blow first. Unfortunately for her, absolutely everyone at the market took special care to tell me You-Know-Who was back in town.”
Sam hummed sympathetically and then lifted a sodden sack of herbs up out of the pot. Zee took a sniff. Rosemary, Rose, Rose Geranium…power, peace, protection.
“You have a theme going there. Are you worried about us?”
“Just stocking up,” Sam said. She glanced at Zee over her shoulder and Zee could feel the stare on her back. After a pause Sam added, “It’ll be good for the island.”
Zee snorted. “What good has Johnny Sharpe ever done for anyone?”
“People will come to see his studio, to see him work.”
“Swans Island is fine,” Zee said. “We have…lobsters. And, you know, scenery and hiking and stuff.”
“And a locally renowned fortune teller,” Sam said.
Zee bit her lip to stifle her annoyance. But it was true. While the locals might not like Zee and Sam, they loved referring tourists to the island witches on the cliff. And Zee made good money on those tourists. Something she would be sure to forget to thank the townie assholes for later.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said after Zee’s silence. “He was awful to you.”
“Mrs. Humphrey wants another baby,” Zee said, hoping to steer the conversation away from her old heartaches. It probably didn’t even matter now. She’d dreamt of someone new the night before. Maybe fate would give her a new soulmate to break her heart. She glanced at Sam and added, “Let’s have s
“So she can show up tonight and you can do that thing where you have it ready at the door and just take the money, and make them think you can read their minds cause you’re psychic?”
“I am psychic,” Zee said, feigning offense. “And I don’t need to read their minds. No one on this island can keep their mouth shut. I know exactly what they think of me.”
Chapter 2
Sharp Edges
August 28th 2002
Two weeks before seventh grade Zee dreamt of a tall, tall boy with stinging warm hands glowing with life. She dreamt of the fall of his pale eyelashes on his cheek, the cracking hiccup of his laugh, the knuckles of his fingers all nicked and scraped and scratched red. She dreamt of him standing between her and the rest of the school, the island, bright and shining and safe. She dreamt of covering his skin in marks for protection, for care, for healing.
Nadia called these dreams pesnya dushi or soul songs. A melody for her heart to follow in finding the perfect match. At twelve, Zee was obsessed with love magic. She swooned over the women who came to the house, tear streaks on their cheeks and wild-eyed, begging Nadia for answers in the cards or potions. Nadia refused the latter but Zee made them little trinkets of flowers and string and shells she’d picked off the shore. Nadia said the charms were stronger than a little girl had any right to weave a spell, but were safe from working any manipulative magic, so she let the women take them home.
On the first day of school Zee saw the boy standing at the end of the hall. He was tall, tall, tall. Almost twice her height. His hands and elbows were scabbed brown and cracked. His hair was a terrible electric orange, like he’d rubbed a highlighter through the strands, color too loud for the slow changing island, too noticeable. His cheeks were streaked red as people passed him in the narrow hall, as smaller boys shoved against his side and hissed ‘someone put the fire out!’ and 'move, matchstick!’
Zee watched him from her little locker by the drinking fountain and felt like her whole world had turned into a kind of symphony. The girls’ giggles and squeals were the woodwinds, the boys’ cracks and cackles the brass section. Her heart was thrumming like a hundred violins, bows vibrating in the air together. And as he walked down the hall, every step was the drop of a mallet on a big bass drum in Zee’s head until he continued right by her and into the office.
Zee found him in English. The teacher made him stand and introduce himself.
“‘M Johnny Sharpe,” the class snickered, “’n I'm from Philadelphia.” He mumbled through the words, blue eyes staring down at the bright toes of his new sneakers.
“Go ahead and take a seat behind Zoya Nik-Lane,” the teacher said.
Johnny Sharpe’s eyes widened, their color turning electric and brilliant, as he walked up the aisle to the desk at Zee’s back. She smiled, and her body tingled like the fireflies lighting up the yard in July as she stared back at him. The room was quiet but Zee could feel that music rushing through her blood. This is a soul song, she thought. Here is my match.
She twisted in her chair as he crumpled down into his desk, knees knocking into the frame of his seat. His face was red, clashing with the awful soda pop orange of his hair, and his gaze was startled as he looked back at her.
“Your hair looks cool,” Zee said, smiling, wanting to reach out and slip her hand into his, feel the warmth she knew was radiating there like a sunburn.
He blushed darker, eyes skidding around the room as all the nearest faces watched them, waiting. “Shuddup about my hair,” he hissed.
The teacher cleared his throat and Zee jumped and twisted back around, a wave of queasy unhappiness crashing around in her gut, swirling up into her chest.
“Witch,” she heard him mutter.
He’d already heard. Aching fissures of pain spread through her chest. Before she could even say hello, he’d heard about her. And from them. The fissures filled with ice. She didn’t hear another sound, not a word from her classmates or teachers, or a single note of music, until the day was almost over.
That night she thought maybe she had said the wrong thing too. She had only wanted to undo the insults from the others, wanted to show him that it wasn't the whole island who disliked strangeness and newness. But maybe he didn’t want to be defended in front of the others. She would try again. Something smaller.
But a week later Johnny Sharpe joined forces with Chris Murphy and Zee’s locker was full of slimy toads. She carried them out to a nice shady spot outside and told the toads, and herself, that Johnny Sharpe didn’t deserve to share a soul song with her.
The dreams kept coming.
June 9th, 2017
Zee never understood why people thought their house on the cliff was haunted. Because the Nikolaev women were witches? What did that have to do with ghosts? Ghosts hung around for unfinished business, or too much stubborn resentment. Just old energy that couldn’t wash out of a place. But witches took care of their shit before dying.
When Zee had arrived, six years old and freshly orphaned, she thought the house looked like a place out of a fairy tale, not a horror story. Traveling by boat to a little island off the coast of Maine and moving into a beautiful white house with shutters and porches and towers and a greenhouse in the back that glittered in the sun? Being surrounded by wild gardens and stone paths, flowers blooming right to the edge of the cliff over the sea? It sounded like something from a fairy tale. She’d stood at the edge of the white gate lined with big, black hollyhocks, stunned out of the frightened tears she’d been dripping since a social worker had explained that she’d be leaving Virginia (and her home and her school and her friends). Zee wondered if this was the part where they put her in the attic and made her do chores.
But Aunt Nadia was decidedly not the wicked witch of stories. She wasn’t Glinda either. She was beautiful with hair that shifted in the light, from pink to gold to anger red, like Zee’s mother’s with added streaks of ash. She was quiet too, voice like a purr, never shouting and doubly frightening for it when she was on the hunt for misbehavior. She let Zee pick her own room and then lock herself in it to cry for a day. The next day she and Sam lured a rumpled little Zee out of the room with the promise of an actual tea party, with tiny sandwiches and mismatched dishes in the garden. Tea time was a regular affair at the house on the cliff and on the first day Sam taught Zee where to find the wild strawberries growing and how to stain her cheeks with flowers.
Now, of course, the house was technically haunted. But Zee didn’t think Nadia would appreciate being called a ghoul or a poltergeist or anything like that. And while she did still reside in the house out of stubbornness, Zee suspected it was a stubborn love. For the house, and for Sam and herself.
Sam left after dinner to fill orders at their shop, The Lab, an organic health and beauty shop. (The storefront did good business in the busy months of the island, but the online orders came in year round and kept the pair of them comfortable and the property taxes paid.) Zee cleared away the dishes, boxed up Mrs. Humphrey’s spelled muffins and then went up to Nadia’s room. She knocked three times and opened the door. The spinning wheel in the corner was turning, the treadles pumping, wool tangling on the twirling flyer.
“You’re making a mess,” Zee said to the room.
She'll need knot magic, something simple, but it won't be an easy pregnancy, Nadia said.
Zee could see a red streak of her hair out of the corner of her eye, and smelled the same perfume Nadia had worn as long as Zee knew her, black tea and roses. She closed her eyes and Nadia grew clearer in the dark space behind her eyelids, hovering just over her shoulder, warm and curious gaze on her cheek.
