Wolf Moon Rising Read Online Free PDF

was summer, and she wore a
    dress that clung to her body. She had long black hair and a little
    bounce to her walk, and she moved with the grace of a dancer.
    For a while that summer, there had been a band of hippies
    living in the woods by the stream below the Old House. On hot
    afternoons, they swam naked in the river and several times, al-
    though he had been forbidden to do so, David had gotten up the
    courage to spy on them.
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    He had seen her naked, stretched out on a fl at rock in the
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    Lara Parker
    sun, or tiptoeing through the shallow rapids, her body like a
    wood nymph’s, and he thought he had never seen anything so
    beautiful. She reminded him of Bernini’s statue of Apollo chas-
    ing Daphne through the forest. In the myth, just as Apollo
    caught her, Daphne was transformed into a tree, her hands and
    feet turning into twigs sprouting leaves where her fi ngers and
    toes had been.
    He and Jackie had become friends, even though she was
    usually reserved when she saw him. But one night, when the
    moon was full and they were sitting around the campfi re, a
    strange thing had happened. She took his hand and led him
    away from the group. Her eyes glowed with mischief and she
    held his fi ngers so tightly they pinched. She fed him some kind
    of strange- tasting drink, and then she lay down with him in a
    huge pile of fallen leaves. She was trembling when he kissed her,
    the fi rst and only kisses of his life, and he had felt her body
    against his with the leaves rustling beneath them and pricking
    them with their stems. Just that once. And then, she had be-
    come distant again. Often when he lay in bed, he thought about
    that night and the memory left him aching.
    After the fi rst winter storm, his father had given him per-
    mission to play around on the snowmobile stored in the garage.
    Since he was fi nally sixteen, what he really wanted was a car, but that was not about to happen. His father felt he was still too im-mature, and he had made some stupid mistakes when he was
    younger his father wouldn’t let him forget.
    Th
    e sled was an old Ski- Doo that ran a little rough and
    jerked when it went uphill, but it was better than walking in
    the deep snow. He’d been fi ddling with it, trying to improve the
    per for mance, and sent off for some parts in the mail. Its rumble was supremely satisfying since he had taken off the factory muffl er and replaced it with an extremely loud expansion chamber.
    Today, as he glided over the snow, he fi gured the engine was
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    about 2 percent more powerful and maybe 50 percent louder. If
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    he were going to be noisy, he might as well howl. Pressing on
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    Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising
    the throttle, he gunned the sled up a rise, feeling the vibration
    of the engine— and his body fl ooded with a new sense of pur-
    pose because he was thinking of the promise he had made to
    Jackie.
    Two days earlier, he had driven the snowmobile over to the
    Old House in hopes of seeing her outside, and maybe taking her
    for a ride. Th
    at afternoon the air had tasted bitter and the day
    felt brief, as though gray dawn and gray dusk had merged with-
    out stopping to warm things up in the middle. Th
    ere had been
    no wind, only the stillness in the air before it would snow, as if
    everything was holding its breath. Th
    e ground was crusted over,
    but he had still gunned the sled over the icy patches, sometimes
    hitting a rise and catching air. He remembered how the revving
    sound shattered the silence like a fi re alarm announcing his
    presence long before he arrived, giving her time to hide herself
    away if she wanted to.
    But almost as if she had been waiting for him, he had found
    her sitting on the snow- covered porch of the Old House, lean-
    ing against one of the massive columns. He had released the
    throttle and skidded, displaying a bit of bravado in hopes that
    she