Blood Moon

Chapter Eight - Becoming Lilo

Being human took far more practise than I imagined. My initial deadline for the target's deaths had been a week but by then I had only just mastered speaking. Don't get me wrong the mechanisms of the human body are easy enough but the rules!

For example, how am I supposed to know humans don't shit in gardens?

Nina, the girl, watched me practically the whole time. Her sad eyes, inspecting my movements as I failed at every human test she set. It didn't help that with just me and her in the house there weren't many people to learn from.

Of course, Albie visited regularly too but she had stopped staying for long. Once, I caught her eyes weeping water.

Perhaps it is just Nina who does not think humans should shit in the garden. Perhaps she is part of some shunned cult of 'toilet' users. After all the hat did not seem to stand for witchcraft, there were no symbols on her walls, no black cats and anyway she couldn't truly see me.

Besides from Nina all I had was books. These I consumed. Many of Nina's were truly peculiar; Romeo and Juliet being perhaps the most ridiculous. Though it was from this I learnt about the spell she'd tried to cast in the first days, for she had long ago stopped 'kissing' me. Most of them were much better though, there were books on war, cakes and my favourite, stars.

I even learnt about my sisters and me. Humans seemed to have one theory for our bodies and one for our actions. Apparently our bodies are 'fungi', simple creatures that think about no more about the world than your average plant. Our actions they blamed on the fae. Nina had looked at me so fearfully when she'd found me chuckling after reading that. They thought I was a little winged human who loved smiles and sparkles! There is no doubt I will miss the surprising nature of mortals as I feast on their decomposing flesh.

It was exactly a week after I had arrived at Lilo's body, that I came to a terrifying realisation. I was lying in the grass, my body stretched out in the sun, squeezing the words from a book of war. I realised Lilo's mouth was smiling and that it was mine. I had stayed too long.

Nina was lying down beside me, a book in hand too. In one swift movement she turned to me. "Who are you?" She reached out, clenching my hand so hard it went white. "And what." She spat the words and the weakest of spells hit me. A witch, after all, this was going to be interesting. "What have you done with my Lilo? You have not chattered or painted or sung once since the woods. I can feel there is no Lilo here, where is she?"