Hour of the Moon

Chapter 18: Summons Under a Bleeding Moon

Waya

After the white wolf, I didn't sleep—I called a meeting.

The Chapel smelled like old wood and damp wool, breath fogging in the cold. Pews creaked beneath our people as whispers rippled the room. Twelve elders sat in a dark half-moon behind the pulpit, faces cut in shadow, judgment polished to a shine.

"I encountered a wolf twice my size," I said, voice steady because it had to be. "He wasn't alone. Hybrids—wolf crossed with hyena—ran with him. He warned that in two months Cherokee will perish."

I hesitated, then let the blade fall. "He said it ties to... Wohali."

The name detonated. Murmurs sharpened into gasps.

"Blasphemous!" my father roared, rising like a storm. Bronze skin flushed, fists clenched. He started toward me—habit more than intention.

"It's the truth," I said. Sweat prickled my nape; fear in me was old and well-trained. "You can beat the messenger, but it won't bury the message."

My mother's hand found his shoulder and pressed. He sat, jaw ticking. She didn't look at me, but her touch on him was a small shield meant for me.

Elder Tallulah rose—Ahiga and Kachine's grandmother, a tall woman built like a mast with a Navy spine. Handsome, not pretty; a face that had weathered too many seas.

"If Waya speaks true, we plan now," she said. "We protect our own and the townspeople. Our duty is older than our pride."

"I agree," said Elder Elu, blind eyes clouded but unflinching. "Our ancestors charged us to keep this ground."

"Charge and duty," Elder Hosa snorted—short, stout, healer with a garden-gnome scowl. "This threat isn't a fever we poultice and pray over. This changes everything."

The elders' voices braided, rough and anxious. Elder Enola lifted a hand; the room cooled.

"The council will reconvene with a decision by end of day," he said. "Until then—disperse. Keep silence outside these walls."

The congregation drained out in a rustle of coats, boots tapping the aisle like rain.

My shoulders should have lightened; they didn't. Unease pooled in my gut.

A warm palm settled on my shoulder. My mother. "You did well," she said softly. "Pay no mind to your father's thunder."

"He'll never approve," I said. It came out too boy. "Not of me."

Wohali had been the sun of our house; I've always been its weather. My mother's love wrapped me in quilts; my father's disdain lined them with stone.

"You were brave," Nani said, stepping in, voice careful on my brother's name. "Wohali would have been proud." Her lip trembled; guilt struck clean as a nail. I nodded, useless.

⸻

That night, I found her sobbing on the couch, small in the dark. In her palm lay the ring Wohali had given her—gold catching the lamplight like a memory that wouldn't dim.

Imposter, something in me hissed.

"What are you doing up?" I asked.

She wiped her face and forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Couldn't sleep."

"I heard you." I looked at the ring. "I wish he were here too."

Shame crossed her face and stayed a while. "Sometimes I swear I feel him. Then morning comes and the grief resets."

I should have crossed the room. I should have gathered her in. Instead, I hung there in the doorway like a bad habit.

"Do you regret it?" I asked, hating myself even as the words left. "Being with me?"