Read Online The Next Full Moon by Carolyn Turgeon - Free Book Online Page B

as if she’d been expectingthis to happen, as if she saw something this miraculous happen every day.
    The swans were strangely still, the mass of their white feathers gleaming like ice, like freshly fallen snow, over the clearing.
    â€œThey have all come,” Helen said finally, “to meet you.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Ava asked.
    â€œWatch.”
    And just as she said the word, something happened. The birds . . . transformed. In a movement so quick and surprising Ava could barely register it, the birds had arms and hands and their feathers became feathered robes and suddenly the clearing was filled with beautiful women, each of them holding a feathered robe in her hand.
    Ava gasped.
    â€œI have . . . ” She pointed, unable to finish her thought.
    They were all holding feathered robes, like the one Ava had, shoved under the bed.
    And they were naked, their hair streaming down and covering their breasts, their legs pressed together. All pale and blond in the moonlight. Beautiful, smiling, watching her with jewel eyes.
    Ava could feel her eyes filling with tears. Was one of them her mother? She had never, in her life, seen anything more astonishing or beautiful than this. And she felt herself fill with light. It was the only way to explain it: the happinessthat comes from feeling, even if you don’t know why or how, that you’ve come home. But she was far from home, wasn’t she? She had never seen this clearing before and yet she knew these woods, knew every bit of them.
    She turned, once again, to Helen.
    â€œWe are swan maidens,” Helen said, before Ava could ask. “We change in the full moon.”
    â€œSwan maidens,” Ava repeated. It seemed to her, all of a sudden, the most wonderful thing to be.
    â€œWhen your mother met your father, it was during a full moon. We were swimming. We loved to swim in the creek in our human forms.”
    â€œShe was . . . she is a swan maiden?”
    â€œYes, she is one of us,” Helen answered. “She stayed here for a time, but then she had to return to us. She was never meant to live in your world. But she not only lived in your world, she had a child in it. And so you, Ava, you are like us.”
    â€œIs that why . . . ”
    â€œYes,” Helen whispered, and there were tears sparkling in her eyes, too.
    â€œI have a robe.”
    â€œYes, a feathered robe. Yours will let you transform, too. Put it on, and you will become a swan. Take it off, and you are human again.”
    Ava felt herself staggering under this new information. Her head couldn’t even really contain it. Could it be true?Anything could be true right now, here, in this moonlit clearing, after what she’d just seen.
    One of the maidens stepped forward and approached Ava. “Welcome,” she said, in a strange, singsong voice. “We have been waiting for this day. I am Lara.”
    â€œThank you,” Ava said. “I'm Ava.”
    â€œWe know.”
    It hit her then, what they were saying. That she, Ava Lewis, was a part of this. This magical, wonderful world around her, where swans turned into women, under the full moon. She felt she would burst with the fullness of it. Even if it was a dream, it was the best dream she’d ever had, one she hoped she’d have again and again.
    She laughed, then, with delight.
    â€œI wish I had my robe here with me now!” She eyed Lara’s robe, and Lara laughed, too.
    â€œWe can only transform using our own robes,” Lara said. “You should have had her bring hers, Helen.”
    â€œI did not want to terrify the girl,” Helen said. And then, to Ava: “Lara was with me and your mother that day, long ago.”
    â€œIs my mother here, too? Can I see her?”
    Helen and Lara exchanged a look. “No,” Helen said. “In time you will see her again. But she wanted us to come to you, to explain to you what has been happening to your body. We