Once Upon a Haunted Moon (The Keeper Saga) Read Online Free Page A

don’t know where she goes to eat people or how we’re gonna kill her,” Erik grumbled as he discovered the hole had penetrated his shirt and burnt straight through, “Well, crap! These were my favorite jeans!”
    I had known Wynter as Mrs. Graham ever since my kindergarten went on our first field trip to the reservation. Though her face was pinched with birdlike features, and a perpetual dour expression, the only power I felt she had was the ability to call your parents for misbehavior and send you to the principal’s office. Although it was a power she used deftly, and with great pleasure, it hardly seemed reason enough to kill her.
    The whole mystical, fairy being who feasted on human flesh and wiped out entire races of humanity was a little hard to swallow, even though I had seen her in her true form in the wall of Nikki’s house, ready to bargain with an old woman for her life. After that particular thought, my allegiance to Mae Harmon won over that of the school librarian.
    “I know where Mr. Graham lived years ago. It’s that little house across town near the railroad. She could be living there.”
    “It’s a place to start. Let’s go!” Adam announced, and then gave me a rather direct look with his strange, gold eyes, “We’re not going to kill anybody…not yet.”
    I thought he meant to be reassuring, but I still felt the weight of dread settle deep in my stomach like it was full of heavy rocks. Fifteen minutes later, we walked across the train tracks.
    The small clapboard house sat in an old, dejected heap. The walls bowed in the middle as if they were searching for support for the rusty tin roof whose weight they no longer wanted to bear. Nearly all the windows were broken and the small porch sagged toward the ground. It was clear no one lived there. The house would surely fall to the ground at the first hint of a strong wind.
    “Tommy, Michael, stay out here and keep a look out. The rest of you guys, come on,” Adam started toward the house with Nikki right behind him. A crow landed on a power line above our heads, watching us intently.
    “He’s kidding, right?” I asked Erik, “That house is getting ready to fall in, there’s no way she’s in there!”
    Erik grinned. “Adam’s not the joking type.” He jogged to catch up with Adam, who carefully navigated his way up the rotten steps.
    “There’s magic here,” Adam warned in a low voice as we came up behind them. The porch did not, in fact, cave in. Instead, it made low sizzling sounds, like there were electric currents zinging all around it. “Magic always recognizes magic. This one senses our wolves. Either Wynter’s here, or she’s spelled this house against trespassers.”
    “‘Tis both, actually…” Wynter answered, opening the door, to gaze out at the group of us huddled on her porch. Her dress was made of thousands of miniscule books. They moved as she spoke, their tiny brown and white pages fluttering. “I am here, and my home is indeed spelled. I have expected you to come, so the magic knows to let no harm befall you,” she looked deliberately at Nikki, then her huge, bottomless, blue eyes flickered over the rest of us, “although I had not anticipated the arrival of an entire village…”
    “This ain’t all of us, lady,” Erik mumbled crossly under his breath a scowl etched in his round face. Wynter arched a neon-blue brow, and looked over our heads to Tommy and Michael who stood guard by the railroad tracks.
    Adam gave Erik a warning look, and then turned back to the tall, blue-haired fairy who regarded him coolly, “We have questions we need to ask you.”
    She nodded, and then stepped back in invitation for us to enter the dilapidated shack.
    As soon as we walked through the weather-beaten door, the house transformed. Thick white rugs cushioned the gleaming wooden floors. Intricate wooden bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling and the two sofas and a chair sat in the middle of the room. Various