BLOOD MOON

Rose felt her mother die, and it was already the third time today. She swayed unsteadily and nearly dropped to her knees before she found purchase on the cenotaph where her mother's name was written.

"Here lies Selene Frey. Beloved mother and daughter."

This time, when Rose swayed, it had little to do with the shades; she blinked away tears at the edge of her vision. She refused to cry, refused to show weakness. She clenched her fists so tightly they could draw blood. She should be angry, furious. And she was. But now, she was more tired than anything else. She wanted to kneel and cry or lean on the cenotaph and slide down until she sat on the grass beside the smooth black stone that marked the grave. But she couldn't do that either. Her family was here. And they were watching.

Why couldn't I have come sooner? She wondered. The news that her mother had died had come late, as though it was intentionally delayed. And it was, her mind added. Not only did the information come late, but before she'd got here, her mother had already been buried. Almost as though someone had wanted to hide something about her death. And Rose thought knew exactly who.

The first thing Rose had done had been to go home and scour the place for any magical trace she could find to piece together the puzzle of her mother's death. It had been cordoned off by yellow tape that showed the police investigation was still ongoing but Rose didn't care about that. She knew the police wouldn't find anything important and even if they did, her family would make sure it had scrubbed every trace of incriminating information clean. She could only hope that they had been negligent and had forgotten to take care of the actual scene of the crime. But to her disappointment, they had been very thorough; the magic traces in her mom's home had been scrubbed clean. When she tried to peer into the dreamscape, she'd found...nothing.

Soon enough ,the police pulled up, no doubt alerted to her presence by the report of a nosy neighbour reporting a trespasser on the deceased woman's territory. Rose had heard when the call was made but she just didn't bother with it. She was sitting on the front porch when two officers showed up. They approached tensely with their hands on their weapons, after the initial interrogation and they established who she was, they "politely" requested she follow them back to the station for an inquiry, which Rose didn't mind because she had some questions for them herself. And then came the questions.

Where were you on the night of the murder?

Did your mother have any enemies?

Do you know what could've caused that?

Rose knew they were curious, angry even for answers. Her mother had lived here for quite some time and these people had grown to be fond of her. For a moment Rose felt a pang of sympathy for their frustrations but only had boring answers for them. Why bother with the normies, she wondered, someone would be along in a while to alter their memories of the event shortly and they'd probably recall the event like a gas explosion or something along those lines. And after a while, the whole event would be like a dream. Meanwhile throughout the time Rose had been there, she kept trying to scour the place through the dreamscape but unlike at her mother's place where the vestiges had been scoured clean, these had just been scrambled. Instead of images, visuals, and impressions that she could make sense of, it was a kaleidoscopic mess that she couldn't understand. She was done here, the police - to no one's surprise - were more clueless than she was. It was time to leave. Soon enough, they let Rose go, albeit reluctantly and so she found her way to the last place she would be able to pick up any trace of her mother, the graveyard.

If her mother's body lay here, as she suspected it should, then Rose was certain she would be able to pick up clues of some kind. And the moment she neared the grave she began to pick up the scent of shades so strongly it caused her nose to wrinkle and her eyes to water. Although they were growing fainter by the second.

Had she been able to come back earlier, she'd have been able to pick up impressions about her mother's killer on the spot and then chase them down and rip their hearts out and then tear them to shreds but only after slowly torturing them...Rose tasted blood. She shut her eyes and took deep slow breaths. Feeling the fangs retract as she did so, her palms suddenly felt wet with what she shortly realized was blood even as the claws that had shot out also began to retract slowly. She took deep breaths and slowly lowered herself to her knees before the graveside.

THE DREAMSCAPE

To any other observer, she'd look like she was mourning the death of a loved one. But that was not what Rose was doing. She would mourn later when her mother's murderer was also lying six feet under - and that was if she even left anything at all to bury.

If the grave was empty or a fake body buried here, Rose would've immediately known too. Strong emotions left an imprint behind on the fabric of magic that filled reality. These imprints were called shades. And death left behind stronger emotions - and therefore stronger imprints than most. So strong that walking through a murder scene would feel like wading through a wall of jelly to Rose. Of course these would fade away over time.

But when still fresh, shades would emanate strongest from the dead body. Even when it had all but faded from the surrounding environment, bodies were known to carry shades for centuries and perhaps even millennia. Of course with the unintended effect of reanimating corpses. Certain supernaturals were gifted in picking up such imprints and deciphering the information hidden in them. And some more than others. Rose was digging up the shades of the night of her mother's death.

Rose knelt with her eyes closed, hands hanging limply at her sides, and after steeling herself for what she was about to witness, then she took a deep breath. Drawing in all the magic in her environment into her lungs and holding it there, opened her eyes. The landscape before Rose had changed. From the cold frigid day, with skies overcast with clouds to one that was for most intents and purposes best described as simply dark. Here Rose didn't kneel before a grave. But alone in an expanse of dark nothingness, it lasted for a second and then the next thing, she was back at her mother's house. Observing events as they played out through her eyes.

Her mother was at home in the kitchen, when something caught her attention, and with her mother's heightened senses, Rose couldn't tell whether what she was hearing was within the house or far away in the next neighborhood, magic shades carried visual shades as well as audio, but Rose had always had trouble distinguishing sound in shade dreams like these and she never dared to tarry for too long in them either, for fear of catching the attention of the spider goddess by accident. She shivered at the thought and turned her mind back to the task at hand. Her mother initially ignores the sound, but Rose can pick up on emotions such as worry, fear, and anticipation? Rose is puzzled and doesn't understand, she tries to draw in more of the shade dream and she picks up on other previously subtle emotions, impatience sticks out like a sore thumb. Her mother had been expecting someone. But she was worried about that visit. This was strange. Now Rose was filled with so many questions.

Who was her mother expecting and why? Since her mother had taken her and left the family, she had never been one to entertain guests, at least not the kind that would cause her to be terrified. Even back in the family, she would stare down the Patriarch without flinching but now she was shaking, trembling even.

Then just as her mother decides to go out and investigate, the windows of the house explode inwards simultaneously. Then Rose hears her mother scream - a sound of pure terror that rattles Rose to her core and then the image goes pitch black. Cut off.

Rose stumbled out of the wolf-dream and steadied her hands to either side of her gasping for breath. She had only just steadied herself when she realized that she was not alone.