Page 4 of Blood Moon

A knock on my door had me spinning to face the sound. I shot a hand out to grab the post of the footboard.

“Yeah?” I assumed it was my brother coming back to hang out.

“Tinsley? Can I come in?” Mom asked from the other side.

As I swayed on my feet, I eyed the distance between me and the door. The odds of me making it there without falling over weren’t good. The mattress was so much closer. So I cautiously made my way up toward the pillows and fell back into the cushy mattress. “Yep!”

My mom entered my room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Tink, are you sober enough to listen to me?”

“Of course!” I assured her as I struggled to get back up. Once I was upright, I tucked my legs up to sit cross-legged. That’s when I noticed that my mother carried a small box about the size of a paving brick.

She had one brow cocked in disbelief as she eyed me.

“I’m gooood,” I promised, and she gave a soft snort of laughter but nodded.

“I have one last gift for you today,” she began. “This box has been passed down in a matrilineal progression for centuries. The difference this time is that it’s specifically yours,” she explained with a soft smile.

“What do you mean, it’s specifically mine? If it’s been passed down through the generations, then it was yours too,” I shot back with a giggle because my mom sounded a bit looney tunes. Also, I was still a bit tipsy.

“No, Tink, I was merely holding it in safe keeping for you. I’m giving it to you, knowing you’re the one who will open it,” she replied with a humored shake of her head. “This box belongs to the first female child born in our family every one hundred years. Before you, it was your great-great-grandmother’s.”

“Umm, okay? Well, what if someone had five girls?” I joked.

My mother gave me a stern glance.“It would still go to the first one born on that hundredth year—but that doesn’t happen. For as long as our family history has been documented, there is always one girl born to each female—and only one girl.”

“Umm, okay?”

She set the ornately detailed box into my lap.

“What’s in it?” I asked, eying it suspiciously.

“I honestly don’t know. I can’t open it.”

“Huh?”

“According to the tale, only the intended is able to open it, and not until her twenty-first birthday.”

Realizing I had quickly sobered, I stared at the black wood. The woman intricately carved onto the top wore what appeared to be a diaphanous gown that hinted at her delicate form beneath it, and she was surrounded by flowers and vines. Without realizing, I had been tracing it with my fingertip. That’s when I saw that the tips of her ears drew up into points.

I reached for the clasp, but my mother gently rested her hand over mine to still its movement. “Wait. Let me leave first.”

My brow pinched in the center as I stared at the box, then at my mom. “You don’t want to see what’s inside?” I asked.

“If I was meant to see, I would’ve been able to open it,” she replied with a shrug and a smirk. She got to her feet and kissed my head. “What I do know about that box is that it was stressed to me that it was a tightly kept secret that shouldn’t be shared outside our family. Do you understand?”

I nodded my understanding.

“The legend says that besides your family, only your ‘fated mate’ is allowed to know about it. They are the only one who will kill to protect you and what’s in there. He is one you will be able to trust implicitly,” my mother sagely explained, then left my room.

This time, when my fingertips touched the clasp, there was a tingling sensation that started where I made contact. There was a soft click as the latch popped. Cautiously, I opened the lid to reveal the contents. Inside, there was an embroidered black velvet bag. Beneath it, a small leather-bound book.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what was on those pages.

* * *

After opening that box, my life was never the same again.

Of course, I’d shared what had happened with my twin. We had come up with the idea of me going back in time to retrieve highly sought-after collectibles from a time when they were common, everyday items. What started as a small online selling opportunity had quickly become Neverland Acquisitions.

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