There were six days until the next full moon, and that evening Ainslie realized with some bewilderment that she hadn’t spoken to Carrie in days, other than a few text messages scattered throughout the day. She supposed she had been busy, but it was still a bit of a startling idea.
Ainslie refused to be one of those people who said ‘oh, I’m too busy, I’ll get to it later, or I’ll wait for her to call me’ until it had been months since they had spoken, though. She had made that mistake in high school and lost friends for it, and she certainly wasn’t letting it happen with Carrie.
The phone rang long enough that Ainslie wasn’t sure Carrie would pick up, and when she finally did she sounded out of breath.
“Whew!” Carrie announced, heaving a sigh. Ainslie could hear a door slam in the background. “I was carrying groceries up the stairs.”
“Isn’t that the sort of thing a roommate is supposed to help with?” Ainslie asked blandly.
“Man, she’s tiny,” Carrie replied, and the tone of her voice made it sound as if she was convinced her new roommate was approximately the size of a guinea pig.
Ainslie snorted. “That doesn’t mean you can’t expect her to help with things,” she pointed out. “I don’t think it works that way. Besides, what happened to her being the model roommate?”
“The apartment is so clean now, you have no idea. And there’s, like… actual food on the table every night. I only have to cook like half the time instead of all the time,” Carrie gushed.
“I cooked,” Ainslie protested, though she felt only mildly put out by the teasing.
“You baked,” Carrie corrected. “There’s a difference. Muffins are great but they only count as real food for breakfast, and even then, only sometimes.”
“Picky, picky,” Ainslie sighed. “But it sounds like everything is going alright there.”
“Pretty well, yeah. How’s life with the billionaires going?” Bags rustled in the background, presumably as Carrie started putting away groceries.
“Pretty well,” Ainslie parroted back. “I told the girls that I’m in a relationship with their dad. Well, I told two of them. Andy figured it out on her own.”
“Ooooh,” Carrie crooned, her tone conspiratorial. “Sounds like things are getting serious over there.”
“Maybe,” Ainslie acknowledged.
Carrie fell silent for a moment when Ainslie didn’t immediately deny the accusation. “Good for you,” she finally decided. “You deserve it.”
Ainslie groaned and flopped face down on her bed, turning her face so she could properly speak as she groused, “Don’t go getting all soppy on me. You’re supposed to be the tough one.”
“You aren’t here,” Carrie sighed wistfully. “Until I get more of a bead on the new roommate, I need to be sweet and sour to make up for your absence.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Ainslie sighed, shaking her head to herself, “but I wish you luck with that.”
*
There were five days until the next full moon, and most of the leaves in the yard were either on the grass or turning vibrant colors. It was a mild day, and though it wasn’t particularly warm, there was hardly a cloud in the sky that afternoon.
Andy darted across the yard, looping around piles of leaves as Paisley and Lily pursued her, both of them in their animal forms as they chased her. Finally, Lily simply charged straight through one of the piles.
And then there came the sound of hooves on the pavement. In a flash, Andy shoved Lily right back into the leaf pile as she emerged and hastily scooped leaves over top of her, and Ainslie tossed her jacket over Paisley just as she flopped down onto the grass as flatly as she could, so she mostly resembled a lump in the fabric rather than an identifiably canine shape.
The farmer whose paddock was just across the street came riding up the road on one of his horses, and he slowed the gelding to a halt in front of the house. He lifted a hand in a wave and offered a pleasant, “Good afternoon, ladies! Up to anything exciting?”
Ainslie pasted a smile into place. “Just enjoying the weather while it’s still warm enough to do that,” she replied, and Andy nodded stiffly in reply.
The farmer grinned. “Not a bad idea,” he replied, and he gestured down to his saddle. “I’ll let you ladies get back to it.”
With another cheery grin, he urged his horse back into motion. It wasn’t until the clatter of hooves over pavement had faded that Ainslie picked up her jacket and Lily sat up in the pile, leaves still piled on top of her head.
For a moment, everyone was silent, and then Andy suggested blandly, “I think maybe we should head back inside.”
It seemed like the best idea.
*
There were four days until the next full moon, and when night rolled past, Ainslie couldn’t sleep. Every so often, the house just seemed too quiet, as if something was going to charge through the window to get her. She didn’t know why she felt like that, except that maybe it was because she was still so unaccustomed to living in such a rural environment.
She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling until she heard Malik begin to come up the stairs on his way to bed. Ainslie debated with herself for only a moment before she tossed her blanket aside, swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet, and stepped out into the hallway.
“Malik?”
He paused with a jolt, startled, and turned to look over his shoulder at her, his expression curious in the dark hallway.
“Do you mind if I sleep in your room tonight?” she asked quietly. “I’ve been trying to fall asleep, and it’s just not happening.”
For a moment, there was no reaction. And then Malik nodded slowly and held a hand out to her. Quickly, Ainslie closed the distance between them and took his hand, letting him lead the way into his bedroom.
Nothing exciting happened; all they did was sleep. True, Ainslie didn’t turn away as Malik got changed, but neither of them were teenagers anymore; it was going to take more than a brief glimpse of Malik’s shirtless back to get her in the mood, and she doubted anything like that had even occurred to him.
Ainslie slept well that night, with Malik’s warmth spooned up behind her and his arm draped over her middle, heavy and comforting.
*
There were three days until the next full moon, and Ainslie’s excitement was growing. Considering that, it was no surprise that Malik managed to surprise her; she was as oblivious as anything that day.
He shuttled the girls out of the house in the mid-afternoon and told Ainslie that they were going to a sleepover, and that was all he said on the topic. He wouldn’t answer any of Ainslie’s questions after he told her to get dressed in something nice, nor when he was ushering her out of the house and into the car. He kept mum as he drove the car not into Grey Chapel, but into Crestholme, no matter how Ainslie prodded and nagged at him to figure out what was going on.
She figured it out pretty quickly, of course, when he pulled the car to a halt on the curb in front of a restaurant. The sign read The Hidden Garden in elegant script, and though Ainslie had never been inside it—when would she have been able to afford it?—she had heard rave reviews about it.
She stared in awe as Malik led her inside and gave his name to the hostess, and she gaped as the hostess led them through the restaurant to the back garden, to where their table awaited.
It was only once the hostess took their drink orders and bustled away that Ainslie leveled an expectant look on Malik and wondered, “How long have you been planning this?”
“Oh, not for too long,” he replied easily, waving the question off. “They don’t take reservations that far out; only a few weeks in advance.”
Ainslie rolled her eyes with good-natured exasperation. That hadn’t quite been the question she was asking.
“Well, if this place is actually as good as I’ve heard, then those few weeks are going to be well worth it,” she replied, folding one arm on the table. She leaned one elbow beside her arm and perched her chin in her hand, leaning closer to him as she did.
The food was incredible, of course. She hadn’t expected anything else.
*
There were only two days left until the next full moon and when the girls got back to the house in the early afternoon, they were beginning to get excited. Even Andy seemed to be looking forward to it, much of her anger and resentment soothed by the knowledge that she didn’t need to spend the full moon alone, isolated from the rest of her family for a reason she couldn’t control.
It was good to see them in such good moods. They chattered and laughed as they walked with Ainslie along the sidewalk in Grey Chapel as she led them to the park, because with all three of them being spritely meant that there was no end to their energy and if they kept bouncing off of the walls in the house then Ainslie was going to go insane. Much better, she decided, to let them bounce off the playground equipment.
She had Paisley’s hand in one of her own and Lily’s in the other. Paisley’s other hand held tight to Andy’s, and every so often they lifted the small girl, her shoes leaving the cement as she whooshed through the air until her shoes touched the ground again. She laughed and laughed each time, as if she really was flying.
It was a pleasantly cool afternoon and the sun was high in the sky. Leaves littered the sidewalk from the trees that lined the road on either side, and every restaurant and cafe they walked past smelled amazing.
It was a good afternoon, all things considered, even if Ainslie had to carry Paisley back to the car after they were done at the park.
*
There was just a day until the next full moon. Or just a night, rather. Ainslie tried to keep herself busy that day to make sure she had burned off all of her energy by the time she headed to bed, tried to avoid repeating the mistakes of last time when she’d barely slept, but it didn’t work out. Instead she just found herself feeling completely worn out as she sprawled in bed, and yet still too wired to sleep. She stared at the ceiling. Malik breathed deep and even beside her.
There had been an odd conversation with Maria earlier that day, and it came back to Ainslie then as she watched the way the wind in the trees shifted the shadows over the ceiling.
From what Ainslie had gathered, Maria had never shown much interest in the were-animal aspects of the Carson family’s life. She had never accompanied them to the farm for a full moon. Considering that, something she had said stood out in Ainslie’s mind.
“There’s nothing you need to worry about; I won’t be anywhere near the house tonight. Sometimes people other than Mr. Carson and his family have plans on such a night, too.”
Of course, Ainslie was entirely aware it could have meant nothing. It was just the way she phrased it in terms of the full moon that set the alarm bells in Ainslie’s head to ringing. Warning, warning, be on the lookout.
She had acknowledged before that she could just be paranoid about certain things. She still acknowledged that then. But even so, she was never not going to worry about Malik and the girls.
She turned the words over and over in her mind, trying to puzzle some sort of secret meaning out of them. Not that she expected it to do much good; she had already proven that she wasn’t any good at puzzles or codes or mysteries.
It was late enough that it was early by the time she finally fell asleep, and she supposed she was just doomed to a string of exhausted full moons. She wasn’t too bothered. If the last time was any indication, she would be too busy to notice that she was tired.
It was a good feeling, in a strange way. Though she knew it would be better if she just got a full night of sleep, she was still looking forward to it, regardless.