Blue Moon

Living as a young lady in the early 17th century is not easy. One must be poised, flirtatious yet modest, must act her age, and most importantly, must love, listen to, and obey her mother. Dont get me wrong, I loved my birthmother. But when she died of a heart attack in her sleep, my father was quick to remarry. It was only after he remarried to Jesanya that this story really begins; it begins with my heart being trapped inside a locket.
----->
It was my stepmother's fault. It was my seventeenth birthday (and let me just tell you right off, my stepmother fervently believed she was a witch), and she was trying to put a spell on me to make me beautiful. It wasn't my idea; I thought I was fine the way I was. But she wouldn't take no for an answer.
I can't really be sure if the spell went horribly wrong, or she did it on purpose to have my father all to herself; anyway, some part of the spell most definitely succeeded. After that, all evil seeped from my body, and I couldn't do anything mean, bad, or selfish. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Sometime in the middle of the spell, my soul and body separated, and my heart floated into the first open thing it found - my birthmother's locket hanging around my neck.
I don't know what happened to my body after that; I was too busy freaking out to pay attention to it. Soon I heard a tiny click, and I was locked inside.
----->
I was trapped in the small gold locket for a very long time, waiting for someone to find the key to unlock my soul. There was a family within which I was passed down from generation to generation. Eventually, somehow, I wound up in America. I'd watched the world change while I was in the locket; I'd heard secrets, tales, watched it grow and morph I learned so many new things, but what I discovered about myself was the most important. For instance, I discovered that my bodiless soul had certain powers. I could send flashes of images to my lockets wearer, like messages. I could speak through the wearer. I could basically control them, bend them to my needs. But since I was incapable of doing anything selfish, I couldn't force them to help me unless they were willing. Few were. Only one woman, Analese, who became very dear to me, spent her entire life searching for the key to set me free. She never found it. On her death bed, she gave the locket to her son to give to whomever he married, as she had had no daughters.
When she finally died, exhausted and disappointed, her evil son threw the locket into a lake and forgot all about it.
I sat in the dark and cold for many years. I saw many creatures, and even humans, but none of them found me, hidden in the depths. Then one day, a young man wearing a very funny-looking mask was searching the bottom of the lake for something. He saw a tiny glint of light, something small and shiny sticking halfway out of the sand. He reached for the locket and surfaced. He studied the smooth, heart-shaped locket lying in his hand, so pure. "Beautiful..." he murmured. He fingered the tiny keyhole set into the locket, small and innocent in the right upper curve of the heart. He gently attempted to open it, but to no avail. "It's locked," he said, trudging out of the water.
"What is?" A man walked up to him on the beach, wearing nothing but shorts, and carrying a towel and a bottle of sunscreen.
"This locket I found," the young man said. The other man took it and considered it.
"It could be worth a lot of money, Luke."
Luke smiled and took off the mask, placing the locket around his neck. "I dont know. Maybe. I have a strange feeling I was supposed to find this necklace."
"Whatever," the man said, and walked off. Luke admired the locket a moment longer, and then headed home.
The first few days I'd send him images of a young girl, screaming and crying. He'd wake up gasping and desperate for answers. Of course, he didn't understand that what he had seen was not a dream. "That was weird," he said. But then it was forgotten. Then I began to show him images of a heart and a soul being trapped in a locket along with the girl screaming.
It took him several days to realize that the strange dreams hed been having had started when hed found the locket. But he still couldn't figure it out.
Over the small amount of time I spent searching his thoughts and memories and sending him signs, I found out a lot about his life. His name was Luke Masters, he was 19 years old, and he lived in North Carolina, U.S.A. His parents died when he was 7, and his older sister spent her time traveling the world (with who knows what money) and flipping through boyfriend after boyfriend after boyfriend. He was basically a loner, and his only friend (not a very close friend at that) was the man from the beach, Carl.
I visited him one night in his dreams. I stood by a weeping willow next to a river in a forgotten field that only existed while he slept. In this dream field, he and I existed as two separate beings; I was free to roam in a body similar to my own, and he moved around in a body like his. When he walked up to me he seemed to understand. "You," he said. "Are you the one who's been sending me these dreams?"
I gave him a wry smile. "I am."
He studied me closely. "Who are you?"
"I am Whitley."
"Whitley..." he said, trying it out. He ran his fingers through his dark auburn hair, already ruffled from sleep. "What are you doing here, Whitley?"
"I need your help." I looked up through the branches of the willow at the soft breeze rustling through the puffy white clouds. "I'm trapped."
"Trapped how? You're standing right in front of me."
I smiled again, chuckling a little. "This is where it gets confusing." He tilted his head in interest. "It all has to do with the locket you have around your neck."
He fondled it for a moment, thinking, contemplating the situation. Then it dawned on him. "You're trapped inside the locket. But how is that even possible?"
"A spell put me here."
He looked around. "So am I trapped in the locket too?"
I laughed. "Oh, no. This is all like a dream to you. This is one of the ways I can talk to you."
"Talk to me?"
"As long as you're wearing my locket," I paused, and walked up to him, gently picking up the necklace with my three forefingers. "As long as you're wearing it, I can talk to you. In your dreams, in your mind, I can even talk through you, using your body as my own." He backed away a little. "But only if you want me to."
"Why only then?"
I sighed in memory. "The same spell that locked me in the locket prevents me from doing anything selfish or evil."
He sat down on the grass. "So, you need my help?"
"Exactly."
"What can I do?" He stared up at me, his icy blue eyes wide in frustration.
"You can help me search for the key."
"You don't know where it is?"
"Well, if I did, I wouldnt be here, now would I?"
He shook his head and laughed a little, the first time I'd seen him do so since he'd found my locket. "This is all so..." He squinted, searching for the right word. "Weird." He stood back up and began to pace. "How do I not know this really is just a dream?"
"It feels like a dream to you because you are sleeping right now."
"But I'm right here!"
"No. This is a representation of you. Like a spirit of sorts. It's not really you, which is why it seems like a dream. But this apparition of you is connected to your body." I pulled a branch from the willow and scratched a deep gash in his hand.
"Ow!"
"So when you wake, that will still be there. That's how you'll know it wasn't a dream."
"Ow," he said again. "Did you really have to do that?"
I smiled. "Yes."
Suddenly his body began to fade away. "What's going on?" He shouted.
"You're waking up."
He faded into nothing.

----->
He woke with a start, a deep pain in his right hand. When he lifted it, there was a fresh cut in his palm. The memory of his dream hit him like a headache. He didn't want to sound crazy, but he had to make sure. "Hello?" he whispered. "Are you there Whitley?"
"I am." My voice echoed in his mind.
He fell out of bed in shock. "Well," he said, his face to the floor, "either I am certifiably insane, or there's a woman living in my brain."
"Actually, I'm in the locket," I corrected him.
He sighed. "A woman who will probably correct every little thing I say."
"Believe what you want." I snickered.
He sat up, got dressed, and sat at his desk. "Okay. Tell me what I need to do."
I didn't answer.
"Well? What do I do?"
"I - um, well, I don't really know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"I don't know."
"I understand that! What don't you know?"
"Um, where to look. My friend many years ago, Analese, she and I searched for the key. All over the world. We never found it."
He rubbed his temples. "Let me think then." After a few moments of fidgeting and squirming and little thinking, he finally said, "Can you read my thoughts?"
"No."
"But you're inside my head!"
"Not really. It just sounds like it to you. So when you talk to me, always speak out loud. I won't hear you if you ask me a question in your thoughts."
He shook his head in frustration. "So, tell me about Analese. What did you do together? How did you search?"
So I told him how we went from place to place, all the places Id ever been, alive and in the locket. He thought some more. "Okay. Were going to take this from a different angle."
"So you're going to help me?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I am."

----->
"Just a few provisions. And I have to tell some people goodbye." Luke was walking down the street, headed to Carl's house. When he knocked on the door, Carl answered it quickly, dressed in suit pants and a seriously stained T-shirt that was way too small for him. There was a yellow substance on it that looked like fresh mustard. It disgusted me. "Gross," I gagged.
"Shut up," Luke retorted.
"What?" Carl asked. "I didn't say anything."
"Oh, sorry, yeah." Luke stammered.
They stood awkwardly there for a second, neither moving to do anything. "You're like two teenagers on a first date. Say something!" I told Luke.
"So," he said, clearing his throat violently.
"Oh, yes, that was such an ice-breaker," I said sarcastically.
"Will you just be quiet?" Luke whispered.
Carl's face was perplexed. "Are you okay, Luke?"
"Uh, yeah," he grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "I just came to tell you that I'm leaving for Britain."
"Oh. Well, I'll miss you bro." They hugged awkwardly. "Later," Carl said, returning inside.
When the door was closed and Luke began to walk away, I said, "Well, that wasn't awkward at all."
"Do you ever stop talking?" Luke shouted irately. A little girl on the street started to cry. He looked at the mother apologetically. "Sorry."

----->
Before Analese, the person that owned my locket was a little girl by the name of Jenna. She lived in a small village in the hills of Britain. When she was eleven years old, she was attacked by a beggar in the streets. He stole my locket from her, and I never saw her again. A year later, Analese had bought the locket in a market.
Luke decided that we would go backwards, searching among all the people I'd known. He spent a lot of money to buy a plane ticket to Britain. He slept the whole way there.
In the dream field, we spent hours just talking. I told him about my years in the locket, my powers, things I'd seen, and he told me about his childhood, his family. "Doesn't it get lonely?" he asked as we lay on the ground next to the willow, watching the clouds go by.
"What?" I smiled.
"Being trapped in the locket. I mean, besides me right now, you're the only one here."
My smile disappeared. "Yeah. It gets lonely."
He sighed. "I can't imagine it."
"It's pretty insane, I know," I laughed.
We laughed together, until he asked me something I wasn't expecting. "Where does the river go?"
"What?"
"The river, right there. Where does it go?"
"I honestly dont know. I've never been outside of this field. I stay close to the tree."
He stood up. "Let's find out."
"What? Why?"
"I dont know. Because there could be anything here. Maybe we'll find some answers."
I shrugged, and we began to walk along the river bank. We didn't talk, just listened to the pad of our feet and the swift rush of the water. We followed the river for a while, but there was nothing else save for sparse trees and green fields. Finally we came upon a tall, gray block of stone, smooth and rectangular rising up from the ground next to the river. "What is it?" Luke asked quietly.
"I don't know." We sidled up to it and discovered that covering its surface were names and dates and facts. I ran my finger along it. "Maurice Louis, 1693 to 1737, died of Tuberculosis," I read. "I knew him," I said, baffled. "When I was alive. He was a teacher." I studied the rest of the names. "I knew all of these people!" I began to breathe heavily. "Analese DeGoma. 1922 to 1984, died of old age. James Manfelt, 1814 to 1849, died of Cholera." The next name was barely audible through my mangled sobs. "Jenna Donnle, 1935 to 1949, died of smallpox." My tears were uncontrollable now. Luke wasn't sure what to do at first, but after a few moments he pulled me into his arms and let me cry on his shoulder. "They're all dead," I sobbed. "Everyone of them. What do we do now?" He let go of me and studied the stone. "They were all people you knew, so what if..."
My tears faded into sobs and eventually sniffles. "What if what?"
He ran his finger along the names, mouthing them as he did so. Then he stopped. "Who is Jesanya Zeller?"
I froze. "My stepmother. Why?"
He turned around to look at me. "Because shes over 400 years old. And still living."
Walking back to the field, we discussed the situation. "Maybe she knows something. Do you know where she is?"
"The last time I saw her she was still in Britain."
He began to fade away again. "Then were still going to Britain," he decided, and disappeared.

----->
After a few days of traveling, we arrived in what used to be my old hometown, but now was only a poor set of shabbled old houses and decrepit buildings. "There's no way shes still here," Luke stated.
"No, I... This might sound weird, but I think I can feel her. Do you feel that? The deep, echoing thrum of magic under your feet? She's here somewhere. I know she is." Luke walked along the now almost non-existent pebbled dirt road, observing the fallen houses, overgrown gardens, and dusty furniture. He stopped in front of a small yellow house, whose front right corner had collapsed. "This was my house," I said. The door had fallen off its hinges and lay on the ground, where it housed many an insect. When he walked in, the rooms weren't really discernable anymore, because most of the walls had fallen to termites. "What happened here?" he wondered out loud.
An answer rang out through the room. "A terrible storm raged. Everyone either died within it or ran away before it hit."
"Who said that?" Luke asked.
I answered him. "It's her. Luke, I need you to do one more thing for me."
"Anything," he breathed.
"Let me take over your body. You'll still be able to understand what's going on, I'll only have control of your voice and your body. It will be as if we'd switched places."
He nodded. "Done."
"Just say these words in Latin, 'I grant you power. EGO tribuo vos vox.'"
He repeated after me. "EGO tribuo vos vox."
In Luke's body, I walked through the house until I was outside again, behind it. She waited there for me. She sat underneath an old, twisted and dying oak tree, on a frayed blanket in the shade. Her paper-thin skin and frail body showed the obvious signs of extreme aging; her hair was pure white and her eyes flashed the dull color of a pale gray. "Jesanya," I spoke in Luke's deep, raspy voice.
She looked up to me and her feeble stare chilled me. "Whitley. I've been expecting you. Have a seat."
"How did you know it was me?" I asked as I gently rested his body on the edge of her blanket.
"You are the only one who has a reason to come see me anymore."
"How are you even still alive?" I questioned her.
She sighed shakily. "Many blue moons ago, just after this tree had been planted, I cast a spell on myself. It was meant to grant me immortality and eternal youth, but the spell went wrong, as all my spells do. I was granted only immortality, which is why I will always live forever, but will forever age."
"So you see now the effects one of your spells can cause. Look at me! I'm speaking to you through someone else! I'm trapped inside a locket smaller than your fist! Look at what you did to me!"
She smirked. "But look at what you can do."
I stood up angrily, clenching my teeth. "Do you think this is funny? I hate living like this! I demand to know where the key is."
At this she laughed. "There is no key."
I stopped; my breath caught in my throat. "What?" I croaked.
"The key is long gone. Its been over 400 years, Whitley. Did you honestly believe it would make it that long? It's faded into dust by now."
I collapsed in a heap on the ground. "Then what do I do now?" I gasped. "How do I get myself out of here?"
"There is still a way." I sat up when she said this, and she smiled. "To unlock the locket."
"How? Tell me how!"
"First, you must promise to do something for me."
I closed my eyes. "Tell me," I said.
"When I've told you," she reached behind the tree and pulled out a stake carved from the tree's wood. "I cannot kill myself. I need someone to do it for me."
I stood back up and grabbed the stake from her. "Tell me how to unlock it."
"The key now will be some kind of emotion; but it must be expressed, put into action. You'll hear the lock click when you've found the right emotion and expressed it."
"Tell me one more thing," I demanded. "Why did you cast the spells on me?"
She looked away. "I loved your father very much. I would have done anything that I believed would please him. Turns out it didn't. He left me."
"So you did it on purpose?!"
She nodded carefully. "They were my only two spells that ever worked. Beauty and entrapment." She looked to me again, her gray eyes piercing. "Now your end of the bargain."
I threw the stake out into the distance and shouted, "If I killed you, how would you live with all you've done?" Then I walked away.

----->
Outside of my broken down village, I stopped. I said aloud to the Luke inside my head, "Now say: 'I take the power back. Capio tergum vox.'" He didnt say anything. "Luke? You must say the words or you will never get your body back."
He groaned. "What if I dont want it back?"
"Why ever wouldnt you?" I asked incredulously.
"Look at you. You have a body now. You can do whatever you like! You're not trapped."
"But you will be. Why would you do something as selfless as that?"
"I don't know." He paused. "I feel like I could do anything for you."
I smiled. "Thank you. But there's a chance I could live in my own body! And I could never take your's away from you. Besides, the spell wouldn't even let me."
He sighed. "Okay. Capio tergum vox."
On the way back to America, he slept again. We sat underneath the tree in the dream field and thought of emotions that could be the key.
"Anger?"
I made an angry face and growled. "Nope."
He laughed. "Sadness?"
I thought about all the years Id been in the locket, and it made me sad. I shook my head. "Nothing."
He blushed. "How about - no, never mind, forget it."
"What is it?" I asked.
He blushed again. "How about l-love?"
Now my cheeks went red. "How would we express that?" So he closed the space between us and kissed me.
When nothing happened and he pulled away, we both blushed at the same time. "Maybe not," he mumbled.
"Wait," I said. "There's another kind of love. I think I know what to do." I grabbed his hand and dragged him all the way to the stone. I stopped in front of it. "These people were my friends," I said solemnly. "I loved them." I gathered some fallen branches from the trees. I made a cross for each person that had passed, digging one branch in the ground and crossing it with another, binding them with hairs from my own head. One for each loved one," I said, and wiped away the single tear that had fallen from my eye. What I heard after that shocked me into giddiness. "Did you hear that?" I asked Luke in disbelief. He nodded and smiled from ear to ear. I screamed in joy and ran to him, and he spun me around and kissed me. Then he disappeared.
He had to wait until he got home to release me. He couldn't do it out in the open! He sat down on his bed and almost opened it.
"Wait!" I shouted. "Luke, if the locket's still here when I get out, can I have it?"
"Of course," he smiled.
He waited for a moment to see if I'd say anything else. When I didn't, he took a deep breath, opened the clasp, and...

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