Chapter 6

The next day Lumae had expected to see Samantha, but for some reason she had never shown up. She had kept waiting and waiting until night time struck, when she started getting worried, so she quickly transformed and went to search for Samantha, following her scent. When she got to the place where her scent was the strongest, an eerie smell of blood, rushed to Lumae's nose. She desperately started searching even harder, she had to make sure that Samantha was safe, until she came across a puddle of cold blood, leading to Samantha. Lumae gasped in shock, taking a step backwards and falling to the ground. She couldn't move, she couldn't see through her tear filled eyes, she couldn't hear anything but her heartbeat. She was frozen.

It took her an entire 3 hours to get back to her senses, she knew that she couldn't just leave Samantha like this, she had to do something. She took off her jacket and covered Samantha's face and started digging a hole beside her, tears falling as she did so. When the hole was big enough, she went towards Samantha and tried rolling her in, but for some reason Samantha's body was a lot heavier than Lumae had expected, and she couldn't get a proper grip in her wolf form due to the dampness of the forest, so Lumae transformed back into her human form. Looking at her muddied hands, she felt tears welling up again, but she suppressed it, wiped her hands down on her shirt and tried rolling Samantha into the hole once more. She slowly managed to lift the side of the Samantha's body, but still struggled to completely roll it over, so she put both her arms under Samantha's body and tried rolling Samantha over with all her strength, leaving her to yell out as she struggled to roll Samantha over, when Samantha finally rolled into the hole, Lumae accidentally slipped to the ground, with her hands landing in the cold puddle of blood. Once again it felt like Lumae couldn't move, like she was frozen or paralyzed, but she pushed through it and started covering Samantha's body with dirt, sobbing with each heap of dirt that falls over her body.

It took her another 3 hours to completely cover Samantha, in that time, Lumae had also made a little cross out of bark and fiber, decorating it with a few forest flowers that she found nearby and placed perfectly at the top of Samantha's grave. She knew that it was time to go back to grandpa Will when she saw the first rays of sunlight peeking through the trees. When she arrived at grandpa Will's place and went inside, grandpa Will was already making breakfast. As soon as he looked around at Lumae, his expression immediately changed from happy to worried. He went to Lumae as he saw her muddied clothes and bloodied hands, "Lumae, what happened, who's blood is this?", Lumae looked at grandpa Will in a emotionless expression for a bit, looked down at the ground in thought then with a whimper said, "I found Samantha in the forest...", she lifted her blood-stained hands, to inspect them,"I-I didn't know what to do, so I-I just...", suddenly all of the emotions that Lumae had suppressed came flowing through, her confusion, sadness, fear, all came crashing down on her and her knees gave in. Grandpa Will had caught her just before she could hit the ground and tried stabilizing her in order to at least take her to her bed, when he got her to sit down, he hugged her tightly, not knowing what to say or how to comfort her, then he remembered that she is still covered in mud and blood, "Deary, how about you go clean yourself up a bit, you know, get some of this blood off you, okay? I'll go run the bath", he then calmly walks out and into the bathroom.

Lumae could hear the bathtub being filled in the distance. She was a bit calmer now, well she wasn't crying, she wasn't angry, she was just, there, she was emotionless once again, she looked around her room, where she saw a bunch of wolfsbane flowers that she grew from the ones that Samantha gave her years ago. Lumae then stood up and walked towards the flowers, memories of Samantha rushing through her head with each step she took, she then reaches the flowers, which were placed into a pretty blue, indoor square flowerbed, she touched one of the flowers, as the vision of Samantha's body suddenly popped into Lumae's head, the gruesome scene that she saw, and she realized that Samantha's death wasn't actually an accident. She picked up the flowerbed and threw it against the wall, causing the flowers to escape from it along with the dirt.

As soon as grandpa Will heard the loud "thud" in Lumae's room, he rushed towards Lumae to see if she was alright. As he came in, he was met with a floor of flowers and dirt. He went to Lumae, wrapped one arm around her shoulders and held her hand with his other, "Hey, it's okay Lumae, it's okay". He then slowly led her towards the bathroom, "Stay right here, I'll go get you some clothes", when he leaves, Lumae was left alone in the bathroom. She looked up at the mirror and saw herself, dirty, messy, bloody, she didn't know how bad she had really looked until she saw herself in the mirror. Not even moments later, grandpa Will came in with clothes, "Here you go deary, just shout if you need anything", and he left once again. After the nice long bath Lumae wanted to go to bed, she was exhausted from everything she had done, she knew she was missing school, but that was the least of her worries. She laid down in bed, not even covering herself and fell asleep.

She was deep asleep, when suddenly the image of Samantha popped into her dreams again, Lumae jolted up as she awoke from the vivid image. She then proceeded to go to the bathroom and wash her face, then went to the kitchen where grandpa Will was preparing her favorite breakfast, "Good morning grandpa Will", he turned around pretending to be surprised, "Oh so the birthday girl has finally awakened from her slumber, go sit, breakfast is almost ready". Lumae sat down at the dining table looking over to the gift box behind the couch, that wasn't well hidden and chuckled. Grandpa Will then came to Lumae with a plate of breakfast and coffee, placed it down in front of her, then headed towards the couch, "So I've been thinking, since you're 18 now, this is the perfect time to give you this", he picked up the box behind the couch and brought it to Lumae. "What is it", she said excitedly, "Oh no no, you'll have to see for yourself", he smiled and watched eagerly as she carefully tried to unwrap the giftbox, when she saw what was inside, she immediately gasped, "You're joking right", grandpa Will smiled, "No, not at all, it does belong to you after all, now you can choose what to do with it", Lumae, still surprised took out her mother's few belongings out of the box, neatly packing them on the dining table. As soon as everything was out of the box, she jumped into grandpa Will's arms, "Thank you, this is the best present ever", grandpa Will smiled again, but then came to realization, "Oh, but you really do need to finish getting ready or you'll be late for school", Lumae then jumped into action, quickly devouring the amazing breakfast, grabbing her mothers belongings, placing them on her bed, then got ready, as she was busy putting on the finishing touches of her outfit, she decided to put on her mother's necklace, with the blue crescent moon pendant, then heads out, "Bye, grandpa Will, see you later".

Lumae had been living with grandpa Will for the past two years ever since Claire, the new girl from two years ago, pulled that stunt. Lumae had also gotten a little ritual for herself where she goes into the forest every morning before school to visit Samantha's grave, she sometimes even replaced the old flowers when they started to wither and she talked about anything interesting that had happened the previous day, but she usually couldn't stay too long otherwise she'd be late for school. She then headed off again, preparing herself for Claire's rude remarks as she walked in, but it seemed like luck was on her side today since Claire was absent. Lumae's mood instantly brightened, but realization struck as she remembered that Claire wasn't the only one that gave Lumae a hard time....