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Page 1 of 4 Chapter 1
a Nightcreature Novel by Lori Handeland A storm beneath the Thunder Moon is both rare and powerful. My great-grandmother believed on that night magic happens. She neglected to mention that magic could kill. Mid-July in northern Georgia was an air conditioner salesman's wet dream. In theory, the creek behind my home should have been balmy. In practice, it wasn't. Nevertheless, I dropped my robe and waded in, then I lifted my face to the full Thunder Moon and chanted the words my e-li-si, my grandmother, had taught me. “ I stand beneath the moon and feel the power. I will possess the lightning and drink of the rain. The thunder is your song and mine.” I wasn't sure what the chant was for, but it was the only one I remembered completely, so I said those words every time I came here. The repetition calmed me. The memories of my grandmother were some of the few good memories I had. According to her, a chant spoken in English was worthless. Only one spoken in Cherokee would work. Unfortunately, she'd died before she could teach me more than a smattering of the language. I'd always meant to learn more, but I'd never found the time. She'd left me all her books, her notes-what she called her “medicine.” But I couldn't read any of the papers she'd gathered into a grade school binder, so they accumulated dust in the false bottom of my father's desk. I'd loved her deeply, and I mourned her every day. I missed her so badly sometimes a great black cloud of depression settled over me that was very hard to shake. “ Someday,” I whispered to the night. “Someday I'll know all those secrets.” Lightning flashed, closer than it should be. The moon still shone, though clouds now skated across its surface. Thunder rumbled, a great gray beast, shaking the hills that surrounded me. The Blue Ridge Mountains had always been home. I could never desert them. The mountains didn't lie, they didn't cheat or steal, and most importantly they never left. The mountains would always be there. They were as much a part of me as my midnight hair, my light green eyes and the skin that was so much darker than everyone else's in town. My ancestors had been both Indian and African, with a good portion of Scotch-Irish mixed in. My toes tingled with cold, so I rose from the water and snatched my white terry cloth robe from the ground. I slid my arms into it, and the silver glow of the moon went out as if snuffed by a huge heavenly hand. The wind whistled through the towering pines, sounding like an angry spirit set free of bondage. I stood at the creek and watched the storm come. I liked storms. They reflected all the turmoil I'd carried within me for so long. However this storm was different than those that usually tumbled over my mountains—stronger, quicker, stranger. I should have started running at the first trickle of wind. Lightning flashed so brightly I closed my eyes, yet the imprint of the sky opening up and the electric sheen spilling out seemed scalded into my brain. The scent of ozone drifted by, and the thunder seemed to crash from below rather than from above. I opened my eyes just as the lightning flared again far too soon. A horrible, screeching wail followed, and a trail of sparks tumbled from the sky in the distance. “ I got a bad feeling,” I murmured, then watched the roiling sky for several minutes until the cell phone in my pocket began to buzz. I don't know why I'd brought the thing. Half the time I couldn't get a signal out here. The trees were so high, the mountains so near. Often I got back to the house and realized I'd dropped the phone either at the creek or somewhere along the path. Nevertheless, I was too much my father's daughter to ever leave home without it. Dad had been the sheriff in Lake Bluff, Georgia, too. “ McDaniel,” I answered, wincing as needles of rain began to fall, the wind picking up and driving them into my face. “ Grace?”
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