Becoming the Luna

"Going somewhere baby?" My mom asks, raising her head from the drawer she buried it in to look at me.

"Yes, I told you that I'm going to see Mae." It is a Saturday and the rest of my friends are on their crazy family trip to the woods that they are all so secretive about, they have some weird family cultures.

"Oh yeah." She hums, going back to searching for whatever she was searching for. "How long will you spend there?"

"Just a couple hours, I already texted her and she's expecting me."  I say importantly, brushing non-existent dirt off my shorts.

My mom just raises her head again to give me a bewildered look. "She just lives across the street." She deadpans. "You can literally see her through your bedroom window, you miss your friends don't you?" She clucks sympathetically.

I try to glare at her but quickly dip my head when a flush start painting my cheeks. "I don't." I pout in a muffled voice.

"Sure, sure." She waves me away. "Have fun baby."

I huff out a breath, practically stomping out the house. I am not overreacting, I'm just really nervous. 

I convince myself, bringing out my phone to ring Mae, I can see her house but I need to be sure, what if I knock on the wrong door and have to talk to a stranger? I internally panic.

"Hello?" Mae picks and I have a sigh of relief.

"Hi Mae, I'm almost at your house." I tell her brightly.

"I know Hayden." She replies in a blank tone. "I can see you through the curtains." 

"Oh really you can?" I say with interest, swivelling my head around to find her.

"Yes, now…"

"Don't hang up." I say desperately, quickening my steps.

A pause, "What? Why?"

"Um, because I'm almost there." I say sheepishly, crossing her yard and up the stairs. "Actually I'm here!"

The house is similar to mine, a quaint bungalow with a white picket fence but while mine is done in soft coral and gray, hers is a solid dark blue and white.

The door swings open to reveal an exasperated Mae, with her phone still against her ear and glaring at me.

"If you weren't so adorable I would have yeeted my phone at your head." She threatens me, that look of exasperation still clear on her face. "Come in." She invited, leading the way into a house so different from mine, maybe it hits so hard, the stark contrast between our houses because I never visit anyone.

"My parents aren't in but they usually don't like me bringing people over because of all these." We step into the living room from a hallway and my jaw falls open.

Plants.

Everywhere, of different sizes and shapes.

I make a face. "Grass?" Because there weren't any flowers anywhere, just leaves, weird leaves.

Mae hides a laugh behind her palm. "Maybe." She agrees. Yes, go up to my room, there aren't any 'grasses' there.

The plant filled living room is actually captivating and I have to yank my gaze off them to follow Mae.

"Are those peppers?" I ask worriedly as we start up the stairs.

She glances over the banister and grins, "Yup." She replies, continuing up the stairs.

I glance down again at the huge vases of unrealistic large pepper plants and make an indistinct sound of affirmation.

"My mom is Nigerian-American, well it's mostly her Yoruba heritage showing so loud." She laughs lightly and I smile, still unable to comprehend what could be done with all those peppers.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Mae asks curiously as soon as we step into her room and I choke and trip simultaneously.

"W-What?" I stutter, trying to regain my balance and my breath.

She just grins at this. "You know, the cute one that acted like his heart was connected to yours and if something happened to you, he would go down too." She explains in detail and I want to run out of her house or just go over in a dead faint but instead, I stand staring at her with wide eyes, a dark blush crawling up my cheeks.

She shakes her head. "As I said, adorable." 

"He, uh, had to go for a family trip." I mumble, still standing in front of the open door in case I had to make a quick escape from Mae's bluntness.

She flinches slightly at this. "A family trip huh? He told you this?" She glances up at me.

"Yeah." I say absently, finally able to look around her room for the first time.

I gasp at what I see, I really needed to visit more people if their houses were all this eccentric, paintings of all sizes and kinds were on the walls, and was even painted on to the wall itself.

"Wow you paint?" I gape, fascinated. "Wolves?" I tag on with a slight frown, all her paintings were of wolves.

"Yes." She says vaguely, waving a hand as if to brush away the topic. "It's a passing fancy."

I look around again, it didn't look like a passing fancy to me but I wasn't about to mention that.

"I'm really surprised that you decided to move to Pine Creek, it has a ridiculously small population and even so people only leave Pine Creek, they never move in." I tell her, situating myself on the bed, like her hand movements said I should.

She just shrugs. "I like the scenery."

I look out the window, staying out of my head and house long enough to note queer things, like how there were only three of us living on the street even though there were five houses on each side or house there still managed to be so much trees in a town this close enough to the city.

"Me too." I say and mean it, I like the quiet, and the space, the simplicity and the quaintness.

"So you've lived here for how long?" She asks, rolling around on her bed, her curly hair in a loose knot atop her head.

"All my life." I reply.

"You're the hidden LeBaron grandchild aren't you?" She glances at me.

I wince at this. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Ever wanted siblings?"

I look at her at this. "Yeah, Shana has lots and Virgil has twin older brothers, I know they can be annoying but I still didn't mind."

"I can totally relate." She sighs, dropping her head onto a pillow. "My parents refuse to have another child because according to them I'm already a handful."

I snicker at this and it earns me a pillow to the head.

"I understand them but it's not fun being all alone, they are rarely around so it's just me and my paintings." She says in a sad voice.

My eyes water at this and I blink rapidly, no crying! No crying!

"Didn't you have any friends?" I can't help asking before realizing how inconsiderate that sounded. "I'm sorry for intruding."

"Nah, you're cool." She drawls. "People are scared of me, that's just all there was to it really."

I raise my head in shock to stare at her, she looked harmless, yes that was the word.

"Why would anyone be scared of you?" I ask incredulously, she literally looked like a doll come to life.

She turns around on the bed so she can face and a disturbing smile graces her pretty face. "Hayden, do you believe in magic?" She asks in a strange voice which gives me goosebumps.

I give her a skeptical look. "Not really, I might read a lot and come off airheaded but I know the line between reality and the unreal." I say firmly.

She just hums at this, looking thoughtful.

"Is that why the other people ran away, because you're a unicorn?" I ask seriously.

She blinks at my question. "What?"

I shrug. "You're too pretty to be a witch and I don't think fairies have magic so..." I trail off shrugging again.

She makes a face. "So your next option was a unicorn?"

"Sorry." I chuckle sheepishly. "I don't read lots of fantasy so I'm not sure how magic works."

She shakes her head, having the fond look on her face again. "Adorable." She comments, leaning forward to touch my hair.

"Do you mind?" She asks, her hands hovering over my hair.

"Not at all."

Her hands dive in and she makes a soft cooing sound. "Your hair is so soft, can I braid it, pretty please?" She asks seriously, with high puppy brown eyes.

"Sure knock yourself out." I reply noncommittally. "Just please don't tangle it." I add quickly, used to my mom and Shana making messes out of my hair.

I close my eyes as her hands splay out my hair into partitions and start to make rhythmic movements through the strands of my hair, my scalp is sensitive but her intricate braiding doesn't hurt.

"Now that I'm not scared away by your magic, do you think we could become friends?" I ask in a slight doze, bold for reasons still unknown to me.

"Yes, most definitely." She replies with a smile.