The Child of the Moon

Chapter Eight

8.

"Now?" My jaw drops. "My dads will kill me if I leave now. They'll ground me for ages."
"They might move their base again," Halley states, turning around and prepared to leave, "This may be our only chance to get the scepter."
"But they said it was new," I argue, "Why would they change it immediately if they just set up the base?"
"Theea." Phoebus gives me his concerning look, but I'm more focused on that nickname he gave me. Nobody has called me that before. "If they find out we know where the base is, they'll move it as quickly as possible."
"If my dad kills me, I'm blaming you guys."
—-
Halley's car is a silver, Chevrolet van. She jumps into the front seat, and Astra follows in after her. She lifts the handle and pushes the seat forward, so I can get into the back. Phoebus happens to sit right next to me, while the other three sit in the middle, right behind Halley.
That means Phoebus and I are alone in the back of the car.
"So, uh," he chuckles, once we're on the road with our seat belts buckled, "You know all the Dwarf Planets, right?"
"Yeah, there's Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Eris, and Pluto, right?" I state. Dwarf Planets were a pretty easy thing to learn when I was in Astronomy. I love mythology, and all of those planets were named after Greek or Hawaiian gods, so it wasn't that hard to remember.
Phoebus nods, then smirks (I swear, that smile makes me fluster everytime I look at it), "Well, Moonlight, that's good, because I don't have to tell you the names and stuff like that. Halley was forcing me to tell you all about this stuff."
Moonlight. He just called me Moonlight. I don't even know how red my face is. All I know is that I'm playing with my hair the next moment, and I stutter a, "Yeah..."
"The Daughter of the Moon is fluttered by the Son of the Sun's nickname. She twirls her hair with her finger, as she gazes into his eyes, feeling an emotion called love." Nestor narrates, and then spreads his hands wide out on the word "love".
"Nestor!" Phoebus yells, his face is red, as well.
I feel a ping in my stomach. My face freezes. Does he know I have a crush on him, too?
Phoebus and I turn away from each other, too red to speak. Jove spins her head back to us, and puts her arms on the seat, which makes her turn her whole body around. She begins to speak, but Halley cuts her off.
"Jove," she sighs, barely audible from the back, "Please put your seatbelt on. We're getting on the highway now."
"Ugh, fine. I don't understand why you don't yell at Nestor for it." Jove groans.
"Hey!" Nestor yells.
"I'm just saying!"
"Seatbelts. On. Now." Halley demands, sending a glare at them through the head-mirror.
And with that, the two turn away, still sending looks to each other.
"I'm," Phoebus stutters, then clears his throat, and turns back to me, still as red as a chili pepper, "I'm sorry. Nestor can be like that sometimes, and he likes to tease."
We hold a stare for a couple of moments. The sunlight pours on his face, and his once dark, black eyes, turn into beautiful honey rays. The outer part of his eyes turn into a dark green, while the inner gradually changes to brown. It's like leaves changing from Summer to Fall.
After a long moment I murmur a, "Yeah." Once more.
His golden locks shine even greater with the sun piling on them. It shines as much as Hera's golden apples, from her tree.
He smirks at me once more, and tensions builds between us. My heart is expanding out of it's chest. It feels like it's soaring through the air and clouds. The ping in my stomach is still there, and has been ever since I sat next to Phoebus.
"And the romance continues to build between these lovebirds as they chirp their song together. Their love for each other is undying. They will continue to chirp for an eternity." Nestor narrates once more, turning his head back.
"Nestor," Halley threatens, keeping her eyes on the road, with her sharp voice.
"What? You ship it, too. We all do." Nestor argues.
"Don't make me turn this car around, young man." Halley keeps one hand on the steering wheel, and uses the other to shake her finger at Nestor. Once she shakes her finger in Nestor's face, Phoebus flinches.
Halley sighs, and turns back to the road. We're definitely on the highway, because all of the signs I see are signs that are signifying the next exit or if there's food around the next exit. The trees sprout out of the sides of the highway. They're at a towering height, and in the middle of the highway, the gap between the one going North and South, the trees are still there, but there's a hill going downwards.
Halley's car isn't that clean. There's wrappers in the cup holders, and on the floor, and there's gum under Astra's seat. The front seat beside Halley is all full of stuff like paperwork, a pocketbook, and other items.
Phoebus and I dart away for each other for a couple of minutes, and then Phoebus brings back the conversation Halley wanted him to teach me.
"I'm assuming that you don't know what powers the Children of the Dwarf Planets gain when they have their weapons." Phoebus speaks.
I move my body back towards him at a slow pace. "No," I mutter, still taken aback by Nestor's narrations, "I don't."
"Well," Phoebus exhales, crossing his legs, and folding his hands behind his head like this is going to be a long conversation, "For starters, it explains why Child of Pluto are greatly trained in combat. They can see one or two seconds ahead of time if they desire, which gives them the ability to see their opponent's next move."
"Then why did Honos run into that wall when you two were fighting?" I question, twiddling my thumbs together.
"Like I said, they can only do it if desired. If they don't focus on the power, they won't be able to use it."
I stare into his honey-rayyed eyes casted from the Sun. My heart pounds even faster, and my palms become sweaty.
"The Children of Eris and Ceres are usually next in command." Phoebus continues. "Children of Eris have the ability to change their appearance into anybody in the world. That may not seem useful, but it can be dangerous. The Children of Ceres are also dangerous, because they can feel people's emotions. If they touch someone, they can tell how they feel about someone or something.
"Next in line are the Children of Haumea. They have the power to teleport, as you saw before you passed out, and while we were fighting them. They are also very hard to defeat in battle, like the Children of Pluto. They usually take Children of Haumea out for important missions like yesterday.
"Lastly, the Children of Makemake have the power to tell what planet is someone's parent if they haven't been told yet.
"That's why Halley was so worried about a Child of Makemake. She was worried that he would figure your parent out."
I glint up at Halley. Her eyes are still on the road. My body drops out of relief.
Phoebus lays his elbow on the side of the car that has the cup holder with it. His cup holder is pretty empty, and only holds one juice box.
I look back to Phoebus, and twiddle my thumbs, asking, "What would happen if I were to captured by the Forces of the Children of the Dwarf Planets?"
Halley must have heard the question, because she immediately scrambles her hand to the radio and blasts the volume up. She begins to belt out the notes of "Without Me" by Halsey.
Nestor joins in, along with Astra, who is singing the notes in her head voice, which makes me able to tell she's a Alto. Jove sits there, annoyed with this music.
"Why can't we play some Alternative like Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Fall Out Boy, or Panic! At The Disco? Anything but this crappy music." She complains, crossing her arms.
Phoebus starts speaking to me, but I can't hear him over the blasting melodies and harmonies.
"What?" I yell.
He continues to speak. He continues until the song is over, and during the intermission, I say, "I couldn't hear you."
"Oh," He smirks at me, again, "I'll tell you later then."
Then we continue to have some small talk until "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" comes on by P!ATD, and my inner emo can't control myself.
Jove and I start screaming notes, and Phoebus is chuckling the whole time we're singing.
I know I'm not good at singing. I actually suck at it. The only reason I know a little about music is because my father took Choir during school.
The thought of that haunts me when the song finishes. What will my father do when I get home? Will he be happy that I'm home or will he ground me? John will probably attempt to calm him down, but I doubt that will work. I mean, I did just meet these people three days ago, and I'm already really good friends with them, and I'm crushing hard on one of them.
I try to clear my mind of those thoughts. I don't want to feel guilty. It's like I'm going on a road trip with some friends; it should be fun. Except it's not a road trip. We're going to the place I've been warned about for the past three days. We're going to the place any Child of the Moon shouldn't go.
But yet I still am.
---
We arrive at Providence after an hour of belting notes. Jove convinced Halley to switch to the alternative station, and when "Mr. Brightside" came on, all of us started screaming the notes, except Astra and Phoebus. Astra was still singing in her head voice, but she was singing in a higher key, and Phoebus was dying of laughter from our singing.
We check in at a Hotel called "Hilton". I'm surprised that Halley could afford that money, thus her having three children live in her household, and never seeing her work.
Jove, Astra, and I end up being in one room, while Halley, Nestor, and Phoebus are in another.
The hotel room looks like a normal one: Two beds, one cramped bathroom, a window to stare out into the world, a cabinet-desk (It's conjoined with a chair at the desk), and a tv on top of the cabinet-desk. Just a hotel room.
Jove is carrying the kind of bag that leans over one shoulder, and is similar to a satchel. She's wearing ripped jeans and a dark purple t-shirt, and her orange hair is stuck up in a messy ponytail, like mine. Astra's the only one with her thick hair down.
Jove lays the satchel on one of the beds. She states, "I claim this one."
Astra plainly says, "Okay." Then her face turned into panic. She backs up against the wall. "Oh no."
"What?" I ask, my face dropping. "Are you okay?"
"My bow. I left it at your house." Astra starts speaking so fast I can barely understand her. "I didn't think we would need it at the mall. I didn't know a Child of Pluto would be there. Now we'll never know if danger is approaching, or if a Child of the Dwarf Planets is there. I won't be able to defend myself or you, Cynthia. We have a greater risk of being captured, and Halley will kill me."
"Calm down," Jove comments, reaching down into her bag, and lifting her hand back up from deep inside it to reveal a metallic blue bow, and a quiver with arrows, "We got it on the way to the mall. We passed Cynthia's house, and since you weren't going after her we assumed you didn't have it." She shrugs, then tosses it over to Astra, who barely catches it.
Astra breathes a sigh of relief, "Thank you."
We get our beds ready. I offer sleeping on the floor, but Astra insists. She says she feels rude if she left me like that. So, I have the bed nearest to the window, Jove has the bed nearest to the bathroom, and Astra has the floor, with a blanket under her, another over her, and one single pillow,
Once we set everything up, Jove reaches into her bag again, and picks out her sais. She stabs one into the ground and my jaw drops. "We're on a high level? What will the people below us think? Plus, Halley has to pay for that."
"Relax," Jove gives off a smug look, "Halley won't pay for it. You know how we told you about the Planets erasing memories on leap day?" She doesn't wait for a response. "Well, guess what? They can do that everyday. She does that for everything. That's what she does for her house mortgage, and it's even how we got into here." Jove gestures her hands wide out to the room. "She erases their memory that she ever has to pay them anything."
I turn to Astra, in shock and disgust at the same time, "Is this true?"
She stifles a nod, like she doesn't want to admit it.
My mouth doesn't speak any words, but my thoughts are running around. Does Halley really put on an act to convince me she's a good person, and she's not a, how do I say this in a family friendly way? Female dog?
Jove notices the awkwardness in the atmosphere. She speaks up, "Why don't we talk about something else? Like crushes, perhaps?"
My face turns into a tomato. "Maybe something else?" I ask, hoping we don't land on this subject.
"Oh, come on, Cynthia," Jove hulls her sai out of the carpet, and pats the seat on her bed, giving me a signal to sit next to her, "It's obvious who you like. Nestor and I have started making bets on it, and I'm in the lead. He told me to talk to you about it if I'm in the same room as you and Astra."
"Astra already talked to me about this yesterday night." My face is a deep crimson, and my body burns thinking about him. "I wouldn't like to die of a heat stroke today."
"Fine, but I'm letting you know, if you ever want the key to fluttering Phoebus, just call me. I know all about his secrets. He, Nestor, and I are like a trio, but I'm not even a Child of Venus, and I can tell you guys are falling for each other." Jove chuckles, laying her sais back in the bag.
"Yeah," I mutter, barely audible, but still loud enough for both Jove and Astra to hear me, "sure."