Chapter 19: Aunt Dodo

People usually got together for their clan meetings in late afternoon or early evening, regardless of when moonrise was going to happen.  If the moonrise wasn’t going to happen until five am, well, they’d just plan to stay until after moonset in the evening of the next day.

With some races, like vampires or basajauns, their forms weren’t affected, so their clans could keep a regular schedule regardless of moonrise and moonset, and their members could go to work or school like normal even if the full moon was still high in the sky.  With other races, like weres or specters . . .

“Homework on the night of the full moon,” Kegan griped to me over the phone as I rang the doorbell of my great-aunt.  “Can you believe that?  Mr. Vampireclanjiangshi does not understand!”

There were times that I was smug to be in Geometry instead of Pre-Calculus with her.  This was one of them.

Aunt Dodo was taking forever to answer the door, as usual.  This was why I hadn’t bothered to tell Kegan to call me back later.  She’d called just as I was walking up to the house while Collette was driving away.

Collette, by the way, had driven me to Aunt Dodo’s.  I’d asked her to fly there with me, because flying was way cooler, but my older sister had said no way.

Or rather, her exact words had been, “Are you kidding me?  I’m not flying with you again until you’ve got a flyer’s license!”

Which was totally unfair.  I’d only crashed into her once while navigating.

Anyway, Kegan kept griping while I rang the doorbell again.

“I told him specters couldn’t be expected to do homework, and he said, ‘Just turn the textbook and assignment and a pencil insubstantial before the moon rises,’ all unsympathetically.”

“Uh huh,” I said, though that sounded like a pretty reasonable response to me.  Specters couldn’t go substantial during the full moon, but they could turn other stuff insubstantial beforehand.

“Oh, and then!” Kegan exclaimed.  “And then!  Then James Wereclanchimpanzee complained that weres wouldn’t be able to write during the full moon, and Mr. Vampireclanjiangshi said okay, the weres could turn in the assignment a day late, and hello!  A chimpanzee can totally hold a pencil during the full moon!”

“Well, maybe he can’t do math as a chimp,” I said.  “My dad doesn’t understand human speech during the full moon.”

Kegan snorted.  “No way.  It’s blatant favoritism.”

I rang the doorbell again, and then knocked hard.

The door opened, and my great-aunt thrust a plate at me.  “Surprise!  I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!”

“Oh, thank you,” I said, taking one.  It seemed she had forgotten she’d told me she was going to make them.  “Kegan, gotta go, I’m at my great-aunt’s.”

“Get in lots of trouble.”  I could hear the mischievous grin in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I snorted.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and ended the call.  I took a cautious bite of the cookie in my hand, afraid how it would taste.  To my relief, it tasted like it was supposed to, so I gobbled the rest down.

“How’re things, Aunt Dodo?” I asked.

“Oh, lovely,” she said, beaming.  “Would you like to help me choose the movies we’re going to be watching tonight?”

“Uh . . . movies?” I asked with misgivings.

“We usually watch movies during the full moon,” she said.  “It’s more interesting than waddling around squawking.  Is there anything in particular you like?”

Probably not the same movies a bunch of old ladies over sixty would like, I thought, but I followed her into the house and into the living room.

Then she laid out a selection of twelve movies.  They were not what I’d expected.

“Those are all recent releases!” I cried.  “None of them are in black and white!”

“Well, of course not.”  Aunt Dodo looked puzzled.  “Who’d want to watch boring things?”

I looked closer at the cases.  “Wait . . . why are they all action movies?”

“Oh, I love a good thriller,” she grinned.  “And I won’t say no to a cute detective.  Anabel loves the cute martial artists.”

Okaaaaaay . . .

Apparently the old ladies were closer to typical teenagers than my best friend, who loved old monster movies.  That was weird.  I really hoped they weren’t going to start painting each other’s toenails or something.

“I’m not sure it’ll make much difference to me what we watch,” I admitted.  “I’m pretty simple-minded once the full moon rises.  I can understand human speech, but only if I’m interested in it, which I’m . . . usually not.  Um, that reminds me, you’ll want to make sure your trash is outside so that I can’t root through it.”

“Oh, I did that before you came,” she said, waving her hand.

Really?  You remembered something?

“But do me a favor,” she stage-whispered, leaning in close.  “Don’t tell Victoria you don’t care what we watch.  She always wants to watch slow-moving romance movies.  If I have to watch Gone with the Werewolf one more time, I’m going to scream.  I told her we could only watch interesting movies tonight because of you.”

I snorted with laughter.  “Okay, I won’t.”

Kegan had tried to force me to watch that movie once because she thought Rhett Wereclanwolf was super gorgeous.

Yeah, ten minutes of watching pre-Civil War South, and I had been sooooooo done.  Kegan insisted the movie got more interesting once the romance was a huge part of the plot and the war was over and all the southerners were unhappy about surname reform and carpetbaggers, but, like, I seriously couldn’t bring myself to care about a bunch of slave-owner main characters.

“Here, pick whichever one you want to see most,” Aunt Dodo said briskly, picking up the many cases of movies and handing them to me.  “We’ll watch that one first, just in case you can’t focus on anything after the full moon rises.”

I took a seat on the couch, pushing aside a well-worn cozy mystery novel with a werecat on the cover, and went through all the movies.

“Is that werebird on the back cover a main character?” I asked, holding up one of the cases.

“I don’t remember,” Aunt Dodo said.  “I’ve only seen it twice.”

Of course not.  I tried not to roll my eyes.

“Oh, but I remember it has a twist ending,” she said excitedly.  “I can’t wait to see what it is.”

That might be an advantage to having a bad memory.

I read the back of the case to see if there were any clues — and then my phone rang.

I wriggled it out my jeans pocket and answered it.  “Hello?”

“Lisette,” a somewhat familiar voice said, “would you mind explaining why there are about a hundred baobhan siths in my backyard right now?”

I jumped.  I jerked the phone away from my eye and checked the display.  Sure enough, it was Georgie.  I put the phone back to my ear.

“Ummm,” I stalled.  “Ummm . . . I don’t know why they’re in your backyard . . .”

He noticed the emphasis.  With annoyance, he said, “Do you know why they’re in New Yeti?”

“Not . . . exactly,” I hedged.  “I mean, I could guess, but . . .”

“Guess.  Please.  Guess.”

“I think they’re getting ready for the full moon,” I said.

His voice rose to a roar.  “In my backyard?”

“Well, it kind of makes sense,” I explained.  “They’re going to be taking two minutes here and there from random people.  I didn’t really think about it, but the easiest place to do that would be a big city.  I’m not sure why they’re at your house, but . . .”

“Lisette,” Georgie said, and I was pretty sure it was through clenched teeth, “I don’t want baobhan siths in my backyard.  The werevulture clan is going to be here in two hours.  My parents will be home in less than ten minutes.  The last thing I need right now is a hundred baobhan siths!”

“Have you tried asking them why they’re there?”

“No!  I thought I’d stay inside, where they can’t take my time and kill me!”

“Hmmm . . .”  I bit my lower lip.  “You’re really going to have to talk to them.  Try opening the door and stepping outside.”

“No chance,” he said instantly.

“Okay, I’ll try to talk to them.  They can’t steal my time over the phone.  Put it on speaker and yell, ‘The phone’s for you guys!’ and throw it outside at them.”

“Sure.  Hope that works,” Georgie grumbled.  There was the sound of a door sliding open.  Then his voice became more muffled as he put the sound on speaker.  “Hey!  You guys!  Answer this phone!”

There was a lot of static and chattering I couldn’t make out.  Then I heard a familiar voice.

“Hello, Lisette.”

My blood ran chill.  It was the baobhan sith clan leader.  So he wasn’t dead, after all.

“Hi.”  I swallowed.  “So, you’re okay.  I’m glad.”

“I won’t tell you the feeling is mutual,” the clan leader said sourly.  “I’d rather have our time stone back.  But the majority of the clan thinks living through a full moon is a better idea, so now we have our current predicament.”

Aunt Dodo stared at me in puzzlement.  “Who?” she mouthed.

I shook my head.  Now wasn’t the time to explain it.  I’d tell her after the phone call was over.

“So, what’s your current problem?” I asked.

“The fact that we do not seem to . . . I believe the phrase is ‘blend in.’”

I was puzzled.  “But it’s the full moon.  Everyone looks a little strange during the full moon.  You’re hiding your feet, aren’t you?”

“Of course we’re hiding our feet.”  He sounded insulted.  “We always hide our feet.  Our boots were designed for just that purpose.”

“You’re not still wearing your pilgrim outfits, are you?!”

“And what else would we wear?” he asked coldly.

I put my face in my hand.  Seriously?  Seriously?!

“Okay, get some normal clothes,” I said, trying not to sound incredulous.  “If you want to blend in, you can’t look like you came from four hundred years ago.”

“We had figured that out,” he snapped.  “We came here to acquire some.  But your friend will not open the door.”

“He must’ve opened the door to throw the phone out.”

“He threw the phone out of a second-story window.  And he only opened that a crack.  There was no chance to slip through.”

I snorted with laughter.  Smart move on Georgie’s part if he hadn’t wanted them to zip through.

“It’s not funny!” the clan leader snapped.  “We’re all going to lose a month of our lives tonight!  We have to replenish it!”

The laughter in my throat died.  “Okay,” I said.  “Well . . . tell me something.  Do you have to feed tonight?”

“Yes.  It’s a full moon.”

“Do you have to take an entire month?”

There was a long pause.  “No,” he said sourly.  “But if we don’t replenish the consumed month, our lifespans will have dropped.”

“Could you, like, theoretically, just feed off each other?”

“If we wanted to do that, we would have stayed behind the time stone!”

So they could do that.

“I’ve got it!” I said triumphantly.  “Then just feed off each other for this full moon!  You’ve got time to come up with a better solution than stealing time from people!  Once you cross that line, you see, it’ll be hard for people to accept you.  But you don’t have to figure out the solution tonigh—”

“No,” he cut me off.  “That kind of thinking requires us to never feed at any point.  It has been tried.  It leads to us being forced to live for less than five years after we’re turned.”

“No, I mean, just as a stopgap —”

“There will be no stopgap!” he snarled.  “We will feed tonight and replenish our time, or we will require that our time stone be fixed.  If not by you, then by another!”

I groaned.  So much for the time vampires being reasonable.  I wished their stubborn clan leader had died.  Maybe then they would’ve been led by someone who liked me, like the lady who had given me the baobhan sith phone.

But that gave me an idea.  Maybe I could ask to talk to her instead.  “Hey, are you all in Georgie’s backyard?”

“We left the women and children at home,” the clan leader said stiffly.  “We will bring enough time back for all of them.”

I groaned audibly.  Of course they had.  Of course they’d left behind all of the people who would have been less suspicious standing around staring at strangers.

“Hey, how did you even find Georgie’s house?” I asked, realizing I had no clue how they had even known where he lived.

“One of us followed your car to its destination, obviously.  They walked while your car drove.”

Baobhan siths with their time-bending.  Sheesh.

“Did anyone follow me to Sky City?” I asked suspiciously.

“That is none of your business,” he said in an aloof tone.

In other words, yes.  I’d been right to fear that baobhan siths might show up at Aunt Dodo’s house this full moon.  My grip tightened on the phone.

“I see,” I said, trying to keep calm.  “Well, it’s nice to be trusted and all.”

“Why should we trust you?” he asked acidly.  “You are the one who destroyed our time stone.”

Arrgggghhhhh!  I was having flashbacks to delivering Georgie back at home!  His grandfather had totally blamed me for everything, despite the fact that it had been Georgie’s decision.  Seriously, what was with stubborn old men clan leaders?!  My grandpa was much better than either the baobhan sith guy or Georgie’s grandfather, but . . .

Hang on . . .

An inkling of an idea occurred to me.

“I’ll call you back, okay?” I said.  “There’s someone I urgently need to call right now.”

The clan leader sounded very annoyed.  “Nothing is more urgent than us getting our clothes so that we can —”

I hung up, maybe a touch gleeful about doing so, and found Georgie’s grandfather’s number in my contacts.

Miraculously, he answered the phone immediately.  It didn’t go to voicemail, and he didn’t seem to have blocked me, either.

“Hello?” the werevulture clan leader said in a sharp tone, sounding very unfriendly.

“Hi!” I chirped.  “You’re an unreasonable old man.  Can you talk to another unreasonable old man and make him see reason?”

There was a very, very, very long pause.

“. . . Excuse me?”

“See, there’s this situation.  Promise you won’t get mad.”

He sounded on the verge of a fit.  “About what?!”

I sighed.  He was already mad, wasn’t he?  This wasn’t a very good beginning.  Still, it had to be better than nothing.

“About the hundred baobhan siths in Georgie’s backyard.”

“WHAT?!”