My Moon

"Look Gigi! You can see the sun today!". The young girl pointed to the horizon, where behind a thick blur, a round yellowish orb lay suspended. "Ah! It seems that you can! What a blessing the universe has provided for us on this lovely solstice! Faraday, could you please hand me that ball of twine?". "Only if you promise to tell me a story!" Faraday bargained. The young girl giggled and spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. Her handmade linen skirt bloomed with the movement, revealing a vibrant purple morning glory hidden beneath the pleats. "Of course, my moon," Greta replied, "What type of story would you like to hear? A fable? A thrilling adventure tale? Oh! What about a love story?". Taking the twine from Faraday's hands, Greta began tieing lines between the tree branches, creating a parimeter around her humble woodland cottage. She hummed songs of times past as she worked, her time stained fingers still as nimble as they ever were. Faraday watched in admiration as her grandmother bustled around the property, never showing fatigue and always wearing a smile. As she worked, her sleeves slid down towards her elbows. Her skin was taught and knarled with scar tissue. Seeing this, Faraday looked away out of respect. In mere seconds her head was filled with questoins. Curiosity finally took hold. " I want you to tell me a story about you and Gogo. Tell me about the monsters that hurt you.".

Greta paused for a moment to absorb the request from her only grandchild. She reached into her apron and pulled a handful of small tuning forks. She began hanging them strategically from her twine parimeter. Inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, Greta turned to Faraday. " Are you sure that you are ready to hear stories about Gogo? Isn't wasn't that long ago that he passed, my moon.". "Please Gigi. Mom never talked about him, and now she's gone too." Faraday sat in the grass, looking up at her grandmother with anticipation. Greta swallowed hard. She knew that this young girl had no idea what the world really was... but she had to pass on the stories, or they would die with her. "Help me finish this project, and then we can go inside and have story time. We must finsih before dark.".

The blip of a sun began to set. Greta's breath shortened and her chest got tight. "This should do fine, come on inside.". The house was dark. Carefully measuring her steps, after triple baring the front door, Greta led Faraday down a flight of stairs and into the basement. "Gigi, I can't see anything. Why aren't the lanterns lit?". "Here we go," Greta sighed as she struck a match, "We are going to sleep down here tonight.". Lighting oil lamp after oil lamp, the basement began to show its true size. It was a house beneath the house, with living quarters, water closets, and even a parlor. "Have a seat dear, I'll tell you all about Gogo..."

Gogo, more formally known as Magnus, was Greta's husband. Greta began regailing the tales of how they met when she owned her own herb shop in a decent sized city not too far from where they built their forever home. Magnus was a quiet man who would move mountains for Greta. None of the family knew what Magnus really did for a living, it was always passed off as "government work". In 2025 the level E3 electromagnetic pulse hit the earth from deep space. The power grids were rendered useless. Within mearly a decade, plants and wildlife began to reclaim what had been stolen from them. This event brought to light the existance of life off of Earth, as well as the irefutible evidence of Cryptid life. Magnus became very involved after the incident, eventually disclosing that he had been studying Cryptids since his early college days and that the contract work he did was under SCI security clearance. Magnus had always been a man of science, yet he always found time to listen to Greta's tangents about magic. With the high strangeness involved with the cryptids, they both came to the conclusion that both magic and science had to exist.

In the distance, the hum of a tuning fork could be heard.

Greta stopped her story telling to listen. "That's just the tuning forks you hung." Faraday explained, hoping to get back on track with the story. Greta turned the lamps down and returned to her seat. "But do you know why they are ringing...?" Greta pulled a heart shaped locket from her shirt and removed it. Faraday listened to the song being made by the forks outside. It was getting louder. Greta handed the locket to Faraday and said "They are ringing because it is close. The magnetic pulses it emits are getting stronger. Take this locket and guard it with your life. Gogo gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you.". Greta started blowing out all of the lamps as she signaled for Faraday to sit down. Before extinguishing the final lamp, she placed her index finger over her mouth and quietly exhaled a "Shhhhh.".

Silence. The tuning forks were no longer humming. Faraday's hair on the back of her neck stood up. The whole room felt static. A soft red glow entered the basement from the top of the stairs. Brighter and brighter it became as someone or something descended the stairs. Terrified, Faraday opened the locket. Inside was merely a single switch. Without hesitation, she flipped it. The two red orbs that were once moving about the basement suddenly stopped. As her eyes focused, Faraday saw the large creature from which the red light was coming. Large feather-like wings thrust forth as the creature seemed to be in pain. With a single downward thrust of the wings, the creature exited the basement and was aloft in the night sky. "Don't flip the switch off yet" Greta whispered from the darkness, "let it fly far away from here first".As the lamps were being re-lit, Faraday noticed the detailing on the outside of the heart shaped locket... a purple morning glory.