Amber In The Moonlight

Or—

“Amber!”

—worse.

“It’s your friend!”

Amber ground her teeth together, turning her gaze back to the closed curtains. Then she was in a rush, heart hammering as quick as her footsteps to the back door.

“You can’t be here.” The words were spat through Amber’s teeth and delivered with the same rigidity as her spine.

In the doorway stood the last damn person who needed to be here tonight.

“You say that,” Viv said, “but I’m here anyway.”

Amber felt the need to slap Viv, or perhaps bite her. Both would end badly.

“I want to be here for you, for this.”

“You can’t.” Amber shoved her mother out of the way and made to push the door closed in Viv’s face.

A boot blocked it.

“Fucking… stop it!” She gasped and heaved against the door, fighting against the push from the other side. “It’s dangerous for you to be here for this! Just stay away!” Her mother’s hand gripped her shoulder to pull her away, but was forcefully shrugged off.

“I’m not leaving. We both know you’ve been taking your wolfsbane, and you’ll be locked up safely.”

“I don’t want you to see this!” Amber’s gasping turned into a gulp, the admission hitting too close to home. She didn’t want Viv to see her at her worst. She couldn’t…

The pushing from the other side stopped, but the boot stayed wedged in the door. Amber angrily brushed at a tear before the face through the gap could see it.

“I’m not going to think any worse of you if I see you transform. I’m still going to be here for you in the morning. I’m going to prove that to you.”

“You’re a pain, you know that? Always wanting to get involved in my mess.” Amber wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. And she sure as hell didn’t want to start breaking down now.

“I already told you, dumbass, your mess is part of you, and I really like you.”

Amber really didn’t want to cry. “You’re a persistent arse, you know that?” Her shoulders slumped in defeat, then finally she took a step back from the door. The moment the door swung open she flung herself forward to burry her face in Viv’s shoulder. She definitely wasn’t crying. In that moment she felt genuinely loved, and it scared her. That this person before her could be so determined to face the worst of her and stay by her side the whole way through. Viv was a fool. An awful, horrible, amazing fool. It felt like she had tricked Viv somehow, into thinking she was a better and more deserving person than she really was.

It was only an uncomfortable clearing of a throat behind her that reminded Amber of the time. She blushed to remember that her mother was witness to her little breakdown. Amber’s fingers only dug firmer into Viv’s flesh, unwilling to let her go. But she had to.

“I have to go downstairs now,” she said weakly. Her hands lingered on Viv’s shoulders even as she pulled away.

Viv’s hand gripped hers before they could part contact completely. “I’m going to stay outside the door. I’ll be right there with you the entire night.”

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?”

The way Viv’s lips quirked told of how easily she recognised the fondness underlying Amber’s words.

There was no pleasing her mother, but that Amber had given in to Viv’s persistence meant that the whole family had too. Hands joined, Amber clung tighter to Viv with every step down into the cold basement.

It was a familiar room of concrete walls, floor, and ceiling, with no windows and only a single dull light. Claw marks covered every surface, even the back of the solid iron door that marked the only way in and out of the room. The only furniture inside was a tattered old mattress, bare and speckled with blood.

Amber shivered at the cold. “You may as well steal the pillows and blankets from my bed if you’re going to stay down here all night.” The square landing at the bottom of the stairs and before the door looked as dark and unwelcoming as it was sure to feel. The shivering that ran through Amber’s body no longer stemmed from the cold as she took that first step into the underground room of concrete. A familiar sickness rose within her. “I’ll be alright,” she said, trying to assure Viv of all people. Amber looked to her mother. “How much time?”

“You’d best go now.”

Amber wasn’t sure how Viv was going to deal being left alone with her mother, but that was the least of her worries right now. She wanted to take one last desperate kiss from Viv. But her mother was watching, and she was sure she heard a noise from her sister Joyce at the top of the stairs.

“I’ll be right outside this door the whole time,” Viv said, seeming to grasp her urgency.

There was little Amber could do now but nod. She felt her hands being squeezed in Viv’s before she finally pulled them away and stepped back into the cold room. Her eyes were on Viv’s face as the door closed on her. The metallic thud of the heavy deadbolts on the other side told her that she was locked in for the night.

She couldn’t stop shivering.

Viv had asked her only once whether her transformation was painful. The only answer Amber had given was a pursed-lipped tight nod.

Fingers fumbling, barely able to function, she untied the cord around her waist then pulled the silk bathrobe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor beside the door. The cold hit her expanse of bare skin, covering her in goosebumps. Rubbing at her skin didn’t help much. Amber shuffled her frozen feet to the threadbare mattress and curled up on it, waiting.

She’d learned long ago that hiding from the moon did nothing to stop the transformation. Just the anticipation was enough to invoke full-body flinches. Her mind provided her with enough details that the sympathy pains rippled through her nerves before the real thing could even take.

But there was no denying the feeling when the real thing came.

It started in the heart, those beats of fear turning into heavy thuds of adrenaline, quicker and quicker. Then it was her bones, creaking and crackling as they expanded, breaking and reforming themselves anew with shattering pain. Amber’s whimpering didn’t turn into howls, though, until her own flesh began to tear. Her muscles pulled and groaned unnaturally, ripping, growing, filling with blood to take their new form. Through her skin a million needles seemed to pierce it as fur sprouted all over. With each moment her howls of pain became less human and more animal, even as her jaw extended into a snout and her teeth grew sharp, and her vocal chords pinched and shifted.

She was still aware, though. She was aware of who and where she was as she lay panting on her side, her howling subsiding back into whimpering. Her only solace was that the soundproofing on her little underground prison was strong enough to hide even the loudest sounds of her pain from Viv. Amber couldn’t bear to let her hear that.

The smell of Viv came through the door, through the small cracks where spells kept all sounds at bay. It was always the coconut of her hair oil, and something uniquely Viv hidden underneath. She was still there.

She was still there.

Getting up onto all four feet, Amber padded over to the door and sniffed about at the cracks.

She wanted to rip into that flesh. That werewolf urge would always be there, even when the wolfsbane let her ignore it. And she could ignore this and simply know that Viv was still there.

Though no sound could make it through the spellwork on the door, Amber scratched her claws down the door in a pattern of three in hopes that the vibration would make it through. It was her signal to Viv that she was there, just on the other side.

And there she would stay.

Amber curled up against the door, laying her head down where she could continue breathing in the smells coming from underneath it. At least her fur would keep her warm.

...

She dreamed of running.

And of hunger.

Amber’s mouth was salivating when she came to, and her body stiff and cramped. A slab of cold metal was pressing against her back, pushing into her and making her slide a few inches across the floor. 

The door. 

She groaned, understanding that she was human again, and she’d spent the night on a hard concrete surface. A good stretch helped her crack those aching bones, before she gave the door enough room to open up.

And Viv was still there.

Amber couldn’t feel shy about being naked when her mother had been there to wake her up every morning after a full moon spent at home. She felt the silk of her bathroom around her shoulders before she comprehended that the two had entered the room. Her eyelids felt so heavy, like she could sleep for an eternity. But there was her mother helping her to her feet on one side and Viv helping on the other, tying her bathrobe securely and helping her up the stairs to the land of the living.

She found herself nestled on a sofa in the living room, a warmth settling by her side. Viv was by her side.

Breakfast after full moons was always steak, extra rare just like she liked it. Her father had been preparing it while her mother brought her upstairs. The plate was set on her lap.

Amber was just about drooling, though rather than dig into it right away like she normally would, she paused.

Viv.

Amber no longer cared that both her parents were awake and watching, she grabbed Viv’s face and pressed a determined kiss to her lips. There were no words for what she felt about Viv staying the night.

Amber is a self-harmer. Skipping her wolfsbane is just one form of this. If she skips her wolfsbane, then while she’s locked up all alone the wolf will bite its own arms and legs. This leaves her with bad wounds by morning when she’s back in human form. Matron Abbott tries to supervise Amber’s wolfebane doses because of this, to make sure she’s really drinking it. Amber’s gotten pretty good at nonverbal vanishing charms.

“Amber, come here I need to talk to you.” Her mother, Nicole, had the phone in her hand still, having just finished the call. She didn’t sound pleased.

Nicole at least had the courtesy of speaking in English for Viv’s sake. Amber looked back at Viv, unable to say how long she’d be because this kind of talk from her mother was hardly the norm.

The moment they both reached the kitchen, Nicole switched back to Mandarin.

“You told the whole family you’re gay?! Why?”

Yup, Amber was correct. Her mother wasn’t pleased. “Why not?” she shrugged. At least she now knew what this was about. In each and every one of those Christmas letters she was forced to write to her overseas family, she’d told them about her sexuality. An international phonecall back from them couldn’t have been cheap.

“We agreed we wouldn’t be telling them yet.”

“You and dad agreed. I didn’t.”

“You should have said something. You could have at least warned us.”

“Warned you?” Amber snorted disrespectfully. “Yeah, hey mum, I’m about to write this thing that’s going to be super embarrassing for you because apparently you still live in the twentieth century and care more about appearances than giving a fuck about whether you’re making your own daughter feel ashamed or not.”

“Language, Amber!”

“I’m done.” Amber turned her back.

“Don’t walk out on me!” Nicole was trying to keep the volume down, but Amber was sure that this was only because they had a guest in the house. Even if that guest couldn’t understand them.

“What, you’re going to try tell me after all this that you’re not ashamed of me?” Amber asked, flinging her arms out. She had, at least, turned back towards her mother.

“I’m not ashamed of you, dear.”

“Yes you are! You’re embarrassed because of something I am! At least this time it’s not about the werewolf thing, because you’re always ashamed about that.”

“I am not, and you should stop insulting your elders.”

“Sure.” Amber’s tone was clear that was the last thing in the world she would do.

“I’m not ashamed that you’re gay. You father and I just wanted some time to process it before telling the family.”

“Oh of course, that’s the reason.” Amber rolled her eyes. “You want to process it.” She drew out the word ‘process’ in a skeptical fashion, which in Mandarin had a nice ‘eeeeee’ sound at the end. “Makes sense.”

“Amber...” Nicole knew she was being purposefully insolent.