The Winter Moon Chronicles
By Mary Ann Kirkpatrick
Inspired by Amy Holt
Have you ever wished that your life could be at least the slightest bit different? I have. I love my life, my friends and family. I do really well at school and church. But, I used to sometimes think that my life was extremely repetitive. It also seemed awfully similar to everybody else’s. I wished it could be different, just a little, so it would stand out from everything else. I wished it would be like the fantasy books I love to read, like Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia. But like everybody else in the world, I thought magic only existed in the books and movies. Oh, how wrong I was. But I'm getting ahead of the story. Let me tell you about myself.
My name is Marina Kirk, I'm 17 years old and I live in Lincoln City, Oregon. I'm the youngest of four children. I have wild, curly, red hair the color of a copper penny and grey-blue eyes. I have five best friends- Amber, Andrea, Lina, Shania, and Corrine. My friends would play a big part in the adventure I would go through to be here where I am today.
Our story begins the last day of autumn. I woke up to an early, slightly misty morning. But that wasn't unusual weather for the Oregon Coast. I got out of bed, went to the window and opened the curtains. I stood there for a few moments watching the waves slowly lap up onto the beach while the mist hovered delicately over the surface of the water. I turned to face my closet and picked out an outfit of a soft, white top, a black, military-style jacket, a dark red scarf, and a pair of dark jeans. I headed down the stairs after stopping in the bathroom to do my hair- smooth and feathered around my face.
“Good morning sweet pea!” My mom greeted me.
“Morning,” I said groggily. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Just a bowl of cereal.” Mom said pouring milk into her own bowl.
“Great.” I said slightly sarcastic. I got up and went to the cupboard pulling out the box of Rice Crispies.
“Did you sleep well?” My mom asked.
“Yeah, but I had this weird dream that I woke up from at about 2:00 this morning.”
“What was the dream about?” she inquired.
“Well, I was on the beach just walking along, it was all foggy, and then I saw this bright light out a little bit toward the sea.” As I was explaining it to her, my dad and my brothers, Adam and Caleb, walked in one at a time. But they weren't listening, only focusing on breakfast, just like men.
“I turned to look at it and the light swirled around in mid-air. As I walked out to reach it, the waves separated for me. When I reached it, the white light turned this vivid blue. I reached out to touch it, and I woke up.” I explained.
“Wow.” she said.
“Yeah, I know, it just makes me wonder what it means.”
“Hmmm, well I don't know. But what I do know is if you don't hurry, you're going to miss the bus.”
“Right, okay.” I got up and rinsed my bowl out, put it in the dish washer and hurried to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
When I came back, Mom had placed my backpack on the counter stool. I picked it up, flung it over my shoulder and grabbed my flute where I left it on the counter.
“Love you Mom.” I told her.
“Love you too, have a good day!”
I rushed out the door and ran down to the bus stop. There I met Lina and Andrea. “Hey!” I greeted them.
“Hey!” They echoed in unison.
“Are you ready for the History test?” Lina asked me. She flipped her long ash-blond hair over her shoulder and looked worriedly at me from her clever blue eyes.
“Yeah and no,” I said hesitantly, “I pretty much know it all already so I just read it over and repeated it.”
“I'm so worried, I got like five wrong when I was quizzing with my sister, but I kept working on it and I think I'm ready, but I'm not sure.”
Lina most of the time gets awesome grades but she always stresses over them beforehand. I think she has a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder.
“Well I spent about an hour and a half studying last night and I feel pretty confident.” Andrea said. She had her dark brown hair with auburn highlights in loose curls.
At that moment the bus pulled up. We clambered on and Lina started stressing again.
“If you're that worried about it, give me your notes, I'll quiz you.” I told her.
She reached in her backpack and drew out her purple history notebook. I took it from her and opened it to the Post-it note.
“Okay, in what year did Napoleon Bonaparte declare the French Revolutionary War?”
Andrea and I took turns asking Lina questions for the remainder of the bus ride. Finally we reached the red brick building that was Taft High School, home of the Tigers. When we got inside, we walked to our lockers together while Lina and Andrea were laughing. But, I was thinking about the dream I had last night again. It was like I was off in my own little world; I didn't hear a single thing they were talking about and Andrea had to say my name three times before I looked at her.
“Marina? What about you? Don’t you think Josh is the biggest jerk?” she asked me. Josh is the football jock in our homeroom that is always butting in and disrupting class with rude comments.
“Oh, yeah he is so annoying.” I said.
“Marina, are you okay? You were spacing off again.” Lina asked me.
“Oh, yeah, it's just,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “I was thinking about this dream I had last night.” I told them about the dream and they stared at me in awe.
“It sounds just like a fantasy book!” Andrea exclaimed.
“Yeah, that's so cool!” Lina added.
“It's weirder than fantasy, to me at least.” I told them.
“Okay, enough with the fantasy comparison, let's analyze it.” Andrea said. Andrea is the psychologist of our group of friends.
“Why?” Lina asked her.
“Well, most dreams mean something, so if we analyze it we can come up with a possible meaning.” Andrea explained.
“Do you know how to analyze dreams?” I asked her.
“Um...” She hesitated, “No, but I'll go check the library for a book about dream analyzing.” She resolved. If Andrea doesn't know the answer to something, she'll find it at the library.
When she finished saying this we arrived at our homeroom, Mrs. Carter.
“Well, well, if it isn't the book club!” came a voice from behind us. We turned to see who it was, and, not to our surprise, it was Josh.
“Shut up, Josh.” I said.
“Hey, hey, I'm just making a comment.” Josh said moving past us running his hand through his light brown hair. His dark eyes had their usual sly glint.
“Well, you know what they say, better seen than heard.” I retorted venomously. Andrea and Lina giggled nervously.
“Ouch, that hurts, Marina.” he said, faking remorse.
“Josh, just for once, can you just leave us alone?” I asked.
He hesitated before answering, as though he wanted to say something, but instead retorted, “How could I leave such pretty girls alone without anyone to talk to except each other and their books?”
“Maybe by paying attention to any of the swooning girls who worship the ground you walk on?” This was true, even though he was a jerk; he was a cute jerk who manipulated all the cheerleaders and majorettes.
“Speaking of pretty girls,” he said as though he hadn't heard a word I had just said, “You know there's a bonfire tonight on the beach, and I was wondering if you would care to accompany me?”
I broke into spasms of laughter, unable to even breathe. “Seriously, who dared you to do this?” I asked between gasps.
“Nobody, I just thought you might want to go and spend some time with the half-back of the football team.” he said innocently, his face was impassable, and I could have sworn (if I hadn't known any better) that he was blushing.
“Whatever, I know there's no way you would do this of your own accord.”
“So is that a yes or a no?” He asked shyly, which was an odd tone to my ears coming from him.
I took a step toward him. “Josh, even if you really wanted to go out with me, I would never go out with such a crude jerk like you.”
I pushed past him to my seat in the front of the class. I focused on pulling my notebook out of my bag and staring at the title of the lesson on the board, resisting looking back at him. Just then my friend Corrine took her seat diagonally to the right of mine.
“Hey!” she greeted me.
“Hey.” I grumbled in return. Corrine knows me well enough to know that when I'm in a bad mood she should let me cool off before she asks any questions.
Then Mrs. Carter entered the classroom smiling and said, “Good morning class!”
“Good morning Mrs. Carter!” We echoed back.
“For today's lesson, we'll be reading and discussing some of Shakespeare's first sonnets.” She said.
As she continued with the lesson, I tried to pay attention, but I had my thoughts elsewhere. I tried to resist, but eventually I took out my calculator and used the reflective glass to look at the room behind me. I focused it so that I could see Josh a few seats back. He was slouched in his seat, with a grim, depressed look on his face. His expression was one I had never seen before on Josh. He looked like he wanted to fall into a pit and die. Suddenly, he glanced my direction, and in surprise, I dropped the calculator, which made a loud noise as it hit the floor. Mrs. Carter looked up from the literature book that she had been reading from to look directly at me. I muttered a, “Sorry,” and picked up the calculator. She frowned and returned to the book without comment. As I felt my cheeks grow pink, I hoped that Josh hadn't realized I was watching him.
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