Moon Sworn

My hair was the same red-gold as Evin’s and cut into a short, elfin style. That felt different. I touched it lightly, feeling oddly bereft. It should have been longer. Had been longer.

There were fading bruises and cuts over my cheeks and above my eyes, and one earlobe looked as if someone had taken a knife to it. Weirdly enough, that apparently didn’t prevent me from wearing earrings. They were overly large stud earrings with a blue stone in the center, and really ugly. I tried to take them off, but the damn things seemed to be attached to my flesh and would not be budged.

I frowned and undid the shirt instead. The bruises over my torso were as bad as they’d felt, and the gunshot wound looked puckered and red. It wasn’t infected, but it had been. If I’d been able to change before the accident with the roo, why hadn’t that healed? Surely I would have taken steps to heal my own flesh?

But then, if I’d been depressed, maybe not.

Maybe not remembering anything was a good thing, not bad.

I stepped back, then caught sight of the wallet sitting on the bedside table. I opened it up and dragged out the driver’s license tucked into the one of the side pockets. The picture was crappy—as they always were—but the face on the license matched the face in the mirror. And the name listed was Ha

Even if I didn’t feel like a Ha

I shoved the wallet back onto the dresser and headed out the door to find Evin.

It turned out the villa apartment wasn’t very big. There was a second bedroom next to mine and, next to that, an average-looking bathroom. The main room was one big space comprised of a kitchen, a dining area, and a TV

area. The furnishings were a basic, durable pine, and the curtains and cushions consisted of an almost garish blue and yellow flower print. There wasn’t much in the way of decorations, but I guess you didn’t need them when one wall was glass, and the vista beyond was all white sand and blue ocean. Even at night, it was a sight to behold.

Evin was sitting at the table under the small front veranda reading a newspaper. I followed my nose to the coffee machine, made myself a drink, then grabbed an apple and headed outside to join him.

He looked up as I sat down, and there was a decided wariness in his gray eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“I’d be great if some uncaring bastard hadn’t cracked my head open earlier tonight.” I took a sip of coffee and winced at the sharp, bitter taste. Definitely not to my liking, but it was hot and strong and better than nothing.

“Ha

“You’d be weird if you could see souls, too.” I glanced at him over the rim of my mug. “Why don’t you know about that?”

“Maybe because it was never mentioned?” He shrugged. “We may spend a lot of time together, dearest sister, but we don’t tell each other every single thing that goes on in our lives.”

But we do … Or at least, I thought we did. I bit into my apple, enjoying the juicy sweetness, then said, “So what secrets are you hiding from me? Aside from the fact you’re apparently moon-sworn.”

“That’s not a secret. You just can’t remember it.” He picked up his cup, and I saw with surprise it was tea rather than coffee.

When did my brother start drinking tea?

“How long are we staying here? And how long was I out?”

He raised his eyebrows. “What, sick of the place already?”

Wary was more like it, but I didn’t say that. I simply shrugged. He folded the paper and put it on the table. “You slept through the entire day. And we paid for seven days, and we won’t get a refund if we leave early. Neither of us can afford to lose that sort of money, so we’re stuck here until then.”

So I’d wasted a day. An entire day.

“And after the seven days are up?” I couldn’t help tensing as I said that, because the words of that stranger still echoed in my mind.

“After that, who knows?”

If he was a part of whatever was going on, why wouldn’t he know? There again, if he did know and this was a plot rather than the imaginings of a sick mind, why would he tell me?

I munched on the apple and watched him watching me. It felt weird, like we were strangers rather than brother and sister.

“What happened to the doctor you were going to call?” I tossed the apple core into the tussock grass lining the veranda. The birds and the ants could feast on what remained.

“This town has only one doctor, and he doubles as a coroner when there’s a murder. So, we’re no longer his first priority.” He hesitated, then said, “You better keep taking your tablets until we talk to him.”

I raised an eyebrow. “They were for depression and I don’t feel depressed.”

He tapped his fingers on the table, a soft drumming that for some reason a

The emotion in his voice, particularly when he said that last bit, had tears prickling my eyes. It was the truth—

the honest truth—in a sea of lies.

I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Okay, I’ll take the tablets. Where are they?”

“In the bathroom.” He leaned back. “I think I’ll go to the pub for a meal. You interested?”

I snorted softly. “Like this? Thanks, but no. I think I’ll stay here and have a bath.”

“Cool.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

I shrugged. “Don’t hurry on my account. Enjoy yourself.”

“Like that’s—” He caught the words, and shrugged. “I’ll bring back some beer, if you like.”

I nodded, wondering what the hell he’d been about to say, and why he’d checked it. I finished my coffee as he disappeared into the darkness, then I stood and made my way into the bathroom.

There was a pill bottle sitting on the ledge underneath the mirror. I picked it up and read the label—these were definitely my tablets, and they were dated several weeks ago. I frowned and tipped one out into my hand. They were large and brown—more like something you’d feed a horse. I contemplated the tablet in my hand for several seconds, then clenched my fingers around it.

I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t.

I dropped it into the shower and crushed it underneath my heel, then turned on the taps, stripping off the shirt before stepping inside.

I kept the water cool because of my sunburned skin, but it still felt like bliss. For several minutes I did nothing more than stand there, letting the water sluice off me, washing away the worst of the blood and dirt even as the chill began to seep into my body and ease the fires burning there.

After I’d washed hair and skin, I turned off the taps, grabbed a towel, and stepped out to dry myself. Then I swung around and headed for my bedroom. There was a suitcase at the foot of the bed. The clothes in it were a mix of old and new—some of them smelled of me, but most didn’t.

I grabbed a pair of faded denims and a low-cut T-shirt but didn’t worry about a bra—the strap would have rubbed the half-healed wound.

Once dressed, I glanced at the time. Evin had been gone for twenty minutes. That left me an hour and forty minutes to do my investigations.

I grabbed my wallet and the apartment keys then headed out. The night was still crisp and a little on the cool side. The sigh of the waves washing up the shore mingled with the distant sound of laughter and music. All the nearby villas were silent—maybe everyone had gone into town. From the little I’d seen of this place earlier, there probably wasn’t much else to do.

Once clear of both the villa area and the nearby caravan park, I broke into a run, cupping my breasts with my hands to compensate for my lack of a bra. The rubber soles of my shoes made little sound on the dusty road, but the little puffs of dirt that rose with each step meant I’d be noticed if there was actually anyone about to notice. But even though there were one or two houses that had their lights and TVs on, no one seemed to be paying any attention to what was going on in the street.