Onyx Moon

Chapter 3

Ora's eyes flicked open. Her bedroom was draped in darkness, aside from the thin strip of streetlight that slipped through the split between the curtains. The faint light trailed across the pillow and over her cheek. Still stunned and groggy from her lucid dream, she snatched the ringing cell phone that had so rudely interrupted her slumber.

Before the phone chirped one last time, she flicked the talk button, and a sassy, dolled up face smirked back at her on the screen.

Vanessa, her best friend since playing munchkins together in the kindergarten play, had a round face covered with shimmering silver powder over her naturally olive cheeks. Dark wavy locks that were usually set free to bounce across her shoulder were now pinned back so they wouldn't get in the way of her glossy, charming smile. Long black lashes in front of green irises blinked a hello.

Ora imagined the disaster of a face Vanessa must have seen on the other end. A face just woken from sleep, numb and white. Droopy eyes and matted dirty hair.

Vanessa's first words confirmed the suspicion. "You're a mess. Have you been just sleeping all day?"

"No," Ora answered with a yawn and a rub to her puffy eye. "Only for the past hour or so..." Daylight hadn't been gone for long. The aroma of Saturday spaghetti creeping in from the kitchen told her that supper had already been served, and her father probably decided not to wake her. "It was weird, Nessa. I think I had a dream."

The old lady's words echoed from her lost slumber, "Two bodies with one soul...."

"Well, where have you been? I've tried to get you on your cell all day and must have sent you like, ten messages." Vanessa's voice was like artificial cherry flavoring. It seemed sweet at first, but sometimes left a sickening after taste that usually resulted in a headache.

"Um, let's see..." Ora said, not working very hard to conceal the hint of anger in her tone. "My grandma's funeral was today, my brother left before it was even over, and I haven't spoken to my dad since we got home. But he's probably passed out drunk in his office. So I thought I would lock myself alone in the dark and take a little nap."

She fell back on the bed and pulled the lavender comforter over her head, as if she intended on going back to sleep, still cradling the phone on the pillow.

"Oh my gosh! I totally spaced. I'm so sorry."

Ora responded with silence.

"Hey, I know you're upset, but you still want to pout about that?" Vanessa wined. "It's been like, what, three days since she died? The respectable grief period is over. Want you need is to come out with me tonight."

Ora fought to keep her eyes from disrespectfully rolling to the ceiling. She winced at the thought of being dragged to another one of Seven's parties with Vanessa's new group of peculiar friends.

The Ravyen Coven, they called themselves, were no more than a cult of weird metro kids from her school who liked to dress like they lived in the underworld. Their secret society "held court" in an abandoned warehouse in the rundown part of the city. Their parties were usually full of obscure music, strobe lights, and meaningless rituals, accompanied by an acceptable amount of illegal substances.

Vanessa had become enticed by them a few weeks before, the last time she had invited her to one of their meetings, they had to have something called "spiritual meditation" first. That same evening, in a daring stunt, she saw Spencer Weirs light another voluntary boy's back on fire – all to absorb his heightened energy, Vanessa later explained.

Seven, the cult's gorgeous, manipulative leader, passed around a suspicious looking goblet from which everyone reverently sipped. Later she saw some girls drinking from another cup that Ora could tell wasn't a soft drink by the bloody veins that had surfaced in their eyes. The Ravyen party soon became her last option on her list of Saturday night festivities.