Club Luna

Paige raised her voice slightly as she announced, "So before we get started, I wanted to thank Melanie for hosting our meeting this month. And thanks to Cerys for providing the burgers and hotdogs."

"No worries," Melanie replied. "We've got the place till half past ten. That's when my dad gets home from work. So we can talk club stuff and magic until then, without anyone overhearing."

Cerys added quietly, "The burgers and hotdogs came from my uncle Carl."

"Well please pass on our thanks to your uncle then," Paige replied. "Anyways, I think it's time we got started with the official meeting? We can always go back to video games and snacks afterwards."

It was about seven thirty Friday night, in the middle of September. We'd all just finished our second week of school, and since the full moon was happening on Monday it was time for our first official Club Luna meeting of the new school year.

Except we couldn't hold the meetings at school anymore, since we no longer had a teacher supporting us. Technically we could have used the same classroom as before, apparently Paige and Brooke still had keys since May Hawthorne never bothered to get them back. It wasn't safe to use the class though, since Ms. Fields or someone else might walk in on the meeting, and we didn't have any friends in the faculty to protect us.

Enough people liked my suggestion though, about mixing meals and club meetings, so Melanie volunteered to have us all over for another BBQ. Then after we finished eating we moved down into her basement to do the club stuff where her neighbours wouldn't see or overhear anything.

"First thing on the agenda is from Brooke," Paige stated.

The tall blonde thanked her girlfriend, then announced "I'd like to bring someone new into the club. I met her at college, and I already know she's another supernatural. She didn't go to our high school though, she only just moved into town last year. And Melanie already knows her. She's Melody, the shape-shifter."

Kaylee frowned, "Why? I mean, why her?"

I was positive what she was really asking was why another supernatural. I hadn't forgotten the stuff she said under the fairy influence, about how the club was supposed to be for witches only.

"Club Luna is about researching the supernatural, right?" the tall blonde replied. "I think we need to diversify, have more supernaturals involved. Miss Hawthorne basically taught us to distrust other supernaturals. I think in retrospect that was wrong. I think we need to be inclusive, and I think having Cass, Melanie, and Nina with us has already proved that's the right way to go."

Paige looked thoughtful, but didn't respond yet. So I spoke up, "Like Cerys said, new club new rules. I'm all for being inclusive."

"But what would a shape-shifter bring the club?" Kaylee asked. "Apart from being able to change her own appearance, she can't really do anything else right?"

Melanie pointed out, "I couldn't do anything but change into a wolf when I first joined. Turns out that's still useful though. Y'all were happy to have me and my nose around more than once."

Cerys added quietly, "It brings another point of view. New perspectives. Brooke's right, May taught us to be suspicious towards supernaturals, and that's wrong. Cass and Melanie and Nina and Mrs. Underwood are all proof of that."

"I know this isn't how Club Luna gained new members in the past," Paige commented, "But that's just another thing that changed last year. And I don't have any objections with bringing in new club members this way."

The wolfgirl asked, "How'd y'all do it before? This feels a lot like how I got involved, I kind of assumed that's how it's always been."

Brooke shook her head, "The first three years I was part of Club Luna all the new members were personally selected by Miss Hawthorne."

Kaylee explained, "She'd keep an eye on the new grade nine students, and usually around November or December she'd have a good idea who'd be compatible with the club. Then she'd talk to them one at a time in private, and whoever was interested would get invited to the next club meeting. That's how all of us joined, but Miss Hawthorne didn't do that last year."

"I suppose that's my fault?" I asked. "Maybe she decided to hold off on inviting new students, after I wandered into a club meeting."

Brooke grimaced slightly, "Possibly? Then Melanie joined us about two months after you did. Maybe May figured two new members was enough for the year."

"She probably didn't want any other new members to distract her while she was busy messing around with Cass and me," the wolfgirl stated with a scowl.

I nodded in agreement, then noticed Kaylee looked like she wanted to say something else. She was probably going to try and defend May's actions or something, but fortunately Paige spoke up first.

"We've strayed off topic here," our club leader stated. "So let's get back to the matter at hand, ok?"

After a glance around at everyone she continued, "It sounds like the majority are in agreement? Are there any objections, or are we all ok with Brooke inviting Melody to join us?"

I looked around as well, but it seemed like the others were all ok with it except for Kaylee. She didn't exactly vote 'no', but she didn't vote 'yes' either. She basically just abstained.

After waiting a few more seconds to be sure there weren't any objections, Paige stated "Then it's agreed. Brooke, you can talk to Melody and see if she's interested. If so then you can invite her to join us. Maybe at the next club meeting, or maybe we can get together sooner?"

"Thanks," the tall blonde replied. "I'll let you all know on the group chat how it goes, if she's interested."

There were a few murmurs of understanding and interest, then Paige took over again. "Next thing on our agenda is from Kaylee. What did you want to talk about?"

The redhead blushed slightly as she sat up straight and adjusted her glasses. She almost seemed embarrassed as she addressed everyone, "So I'm taking a page from Mar- I mean Cerys's book here, and trying to be more objective and open-minded about things? Two days ago I overheard my dad talking about something that came up at work, and it sounded like it might be the sort of thing Club Luna should look into."

After a brief pause she continued, "On Tuesday night my dad and his partner were called to Mill Creek Park. Police found a young woman with unusual wounds to the side of her neck. She was incoherent, barely conscious, and acted either drunk or high. Actually the way she was acting, they thought maybe she'd been drugged and assaulted? They took her to the hospital and it turned out she'd lost a significant amount of blood, even though there was barely any blood on her body or at the scene."

She added, "Yesterday I heard dad mention the victim again, apparently after a couple units of blood transfusion she was doing a lot better. He also said that blood tests didn't detect any kind of drugs or alcohol in her system when they brought her to the hospital. He says it's a mystery what happened, but I'm sure you all know where this is going."

"You're thinking vampire?" Paige asked.

"Yeah," Kaylee nodded. "The problem is I don't have any hard evidence? I don't have the victim's name, I don't know that the 'strange wounds' on her neck were bite wounds, and all this happened Tuesday night so it's already three days old. I've told you everything I know about the incident, which maybe isn't enough to go on."

Melanie commented, "Mill Creek Park is only like ten minutes from here. It might be a long shot but we could go over there now and have a look around. There might still be a scent."

"If there's enough scent for you to pinpoint the spot where it happened then I might be able to scry for more information," Brooke suggested. "I've been learning a new spell that should let me view past events? The drawback is you have to know exactly when to look, and you have to be looking in the right place."

Paige decided, "We'll head over there as soon as we're finished the meeting. Melanie, is it ok with you if we all come back here afterwards? We can continue the social after-meeting stuff when we're done investigating the park."

The wolfgirl nodded, "Sounds good to me."

Our club leader looked to Kaylee again and asked, "Was there anything else about the vampire or victim? Or do you have anything else for the club?"

"That was it," she replied.

Paige thanked her then turned her attention to my little sister and asked, "Nina? You texted me that you had some news you wanted to share with the club? Is it something about you or Cass? Or Socha?"

The small demon blushed slightly and shook her head. "I know it's maybe not a big deal to some folks, but I was really worried about the dog that the fairies made disappear?"

I wasn't surprised to hear that, and I almost smiled at the idea of my fifteen hundred year old demon sister being worried about a dog she's never met. At the same time Kaylee looked a little uncomfortable, like she wanted to say something again but was keeping her mouth shut. Which didn't surprise me, since she definitely thought it wasn't worth worrying about.

Meanwhile Nina continued, "Last week I tracked down the humans it belonged to and emailed them about maybe helping them try to find it? They wrote back that their dog came home all by himself! They said it was just before dinner time on August twenty-fifth, he wandered into their backyard and barked at the door. He was dirty and hungry, but they fed him and took him to the vet the next day to get him checked out. They said he was ok though, whatever happened he wasn't hurt or anything. And now he's home safe with his family again, which made me really happy."

She had a wide smile on her face by the end of the story, and I smiled as well as I told her "That's really good news!"

"That was the day the fairies were banished," Brooke pointed out. "Wednesday the twenty-fifth. Do you think sending the fairies home somehow brought the dog back?"

Paige shrugged, "Who knows? I suppose it doesn't matter how it happened, the good news is the dog's back home safe and sound."

"Yeah!" my sister said with a smile.

"Thanks for the update Nina," our club leader responded. She continued, "There's only a couple things I want to cover before we wrap things up. It's not exactly club business, but Cass is there any news on your situation? I assume your moms are still trying to figure things out."

"Nothing new going on with me," I replied with a shrug. "My parents still want to re-do the rune circles that got broken, but I keep telling them I don't want to do that. It doesn't fix anything, it's just a temporary measure. And it doesn't sound fun. So we're trying to come up with some alternatives, but it's probably going to take a while."

"I hope you all can find a solution that keeps you safe," Paige responded. Then she looked to my little sister and asked, "How are you doing at school? Are you fitting in ok?"

Nina had a bit of a grimace on her face as she answered, "School's harder than I thought, but it's still fun. Cerys and Melanie are in half my classes which is nice. I've had a few close calls though."

"What do you mean, what sort of close calls?" Kaylee asked.

My little sister cringed slightly when the redhead addressed her, "Like accidentally mentioning I can speak a dozen languages from eastern Europe and the middle-east, but my French is rusty since I haven't been there since the House of Valois beat the House of Plantagenet."

"You mean the Hundred Years War?!" Kaylee gasped. "That ended in the middle of the fifteenth century!"

Nina blushed a little brighter, "Yeah... Ms. Hughes knew exactly when it was too. That's also the sort of thing I'm not so good at? I can tell you what life was like for people back then, but I don't know the exact dates of when big stuff happened. It wasn't that important at the time. And uh, they changed the calendar system at some point so even if I did know the dates of things, it'd still be wrong."

"All right," Paige replied. "I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I hope you're a little more careful and avoid those kinds of slip-ups in the future."

The tall brunette turned her attention to our former Touhou witch and asked, "How about you Cerys? I know this past month's probably been hell for you."

The young blonde shrugged, "I'm ok I guess."

I got the feeling there was a lot more to it than that, like maybe she wasn't as ok as she claimed. I didn't want to put her on the spot though, if she wanted to keep stuff private that was up to her.

Meanwhile she added, "I had another follow-up with the doctor, he said my scalp's healing normally. I'm still wearing the hat though because my hair looks like crap. And technically I'm supposed to be living with Carl and Maisie, but Mr. Caetano has been letting me stay here with Melanie most of the time."

"Cerys?" Kaylee spoke up. "Sorry I never even thought about this before, but maybe could I help with some healing spells?"

"Nah it's fine. Doctors will freak out if my head's magically all better when I go to my next appointment," Cerys replied.

That was all the official club stuff, so Paige brought the meeting to an end then asked "Is everyone ready to head over to the park now? We can come back here afterwards to hang out, maybe play some games if that's ok with Melanie?"

We were all ready to go except for Cerys, who said "I'm going to stay here. I'll take care of the dishes and stuff, maybe tidy up the kitchen. I've been helping out with chores and stuff like that for Mr. Caetano, since he's letting me live here and all."

"You don't want to go and check out a possible vampire attack?" Paige asked.

Cerys shook her head, "No. That was a 'Marissa' thing. I'm not... The only reason I was here for the club meeting is because I live here now. You all go and do your thing."

"Can I stay and keep you company?" Nina asked. "I don't know anything about vampires so I won't be any help at the park anyways."

Melanie looked torn, but she had to go since we were relying on her nose to pick up the vampire's scent. She gave her girlfriend a hug, then the rest of us set out for the park while Cerys and Nina stayed behind.