Chapter 13: Hidden In A Book With A Red Moon

One evening, Caph found Ran in the study surrounded by a pile of books on the floor, frantically flipping through pages in search for something.

He was late tonight, which would usually make her snappy, but today she was too preoccupied to even notice his presence in the room.

She flipped to the end of her book without finding what she was looking for, grumbling to herself in annoyance. Then, she dumped it unceremoniously on a wobbling tower of books behind her and repeated the process with the next book on the shelf.

'What are you doing?' he asked. Usually, she handled the books in her father's study like they were ancient relics.

Ran slammed the book in her hands shut and growled.

It was banished to the top of the highest stack.

'Searching.' She pulled out another book and began leafing through the pages at a rapid rate, crinkling the yellowed pages as she went.

Caph crouched next to her, taking in her flustered and bristling profile. 'For your father's collection of erotic books?' He blew warm air into her ear. 'You don't have to look for that. I'll teach you.'

Her coal black eyes burned him like a slap across the face.

There was suddenly a thick book between them.

'My mother burned those books to a crisp in the backyard a long time ago.'

The tips of her ears peeking out from either side of the book in her hands were pink.

Caph leaned back and decided not to tease her further. She looked anxious today. 'I'm looking for my father's notes on all the Red Moon Summits he's ever attended.'

Once every four years, the full moon circling the earth turned blood red. It was traditionally a day on which all werewolf packs were to honour a truce by ceasing all fights and putting all disputes on hold. Pack leaders would gather at one location to share knowledge and build friendships.

'I vaguely remember him saying that he hid it in a book with a picture of a red moon.'

He'd offer to help but now that he's brought up the topic of erotic books, he won't be able to concentrate. Ran was wearing an oversized t-shirt that hid her shorts—if she was wearing shorts at all...

'I'm going to take a nap. Let me know when you're done.'

Caph sat behind the desk, leaning back in the swivel chair.

Ran slammed the book down on one of the towers of books behind her, scowling. The stack came tumbling down. 'Help me put these books back on the shelves. I'm done with them.'

He thought of refusing. But there were so many stacks of books.

And for some reason, tonight she looked anxious—

'Is there an order?' he asked.

Sounds of vigourous flipping. 'Yes. Each stack is one shelf.'

Caph began to organise the mess Ran left in her wake. His muscles were aching belatedly from running around the various warehouses and factories the Eridanus werewolves operated around Punggol and the outskirts ofButtercup Town.

He stared bleakly at the title of the book in his hand: The Encyclopaedia of Flowers.

Why did Ran's father keep all these old and useless books?

Werewolves had no use for botany—what they needed to know about plants was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and the rest was just a matter of smelling for poison. Moreover, there was more updated information the internet.

Besides books on plants, there were shelves of books on anatomy, extinct animals, economics, astronomy, and even one on how to build a ship.

'Why don't you just search the books with illustrations of a red moon instead of every single book in this study?'

Ran paused and stared at him. 'How will I know what kind of book has a red moon in it?'

The stacks of books seemed to be endless even though Caph had been working as fast as he could.

Ran was halfway around the room already, a whirlwind of destruction in her wake.

So she thought of that already. Caph had already put back all the astronomy books Ran rifled through. If he had been right, she would have found it already.

Ran resumed her vigourous flipping and he stopped working to think.

The previous Alpha had organised his study systematically. Based on the shelves he finished rearranging, Caph noticed the books were sorted by subject and genre, then by the title. Ran had started with her father's special werewolf lore books on one side of the room.

'The only books with illustrations of moons are astronomy, astrophysics and maybe geography,' he said distractedly.

Ran was already looking through books on mathematics, her t-shirt riding up to reveal black shorts underneath.

Why was he feeling disappointed?

'That leaves fiction,' Caph mumbled to himself. She wasn't paying any attention at all. 'Novels don't usually have illustrations, so just picture books then.'

He walked over to the small section of fiction books on the other side of the room.

Ran's eyes followed him. 'Usually means 'might be'. It's not foolproof.'

Caph shrugged. 'It doesn't have to be. Accurate and fast is better.'

She snorted and continued flipping mathematics books. 'That only works in battles. This is admin stuff.'

'I'm the one attending college,' he pointed out.

When he had gone through every picture book, he replaced them on the shelf and returned to the task Ran had delegated to him.

She raised her eyebrows. 'Accurate and fast, you said.' She seemed to be in a better mood now.

He grinned at her. 'At least I was fast.'

Ran stood up, dusting off her pants. She held up a rumpled legal pad with 'Red Moon Summit Notes' in messy handwriting on the cover. A large book lay open on the ground where she had been sitting.

'Well, I'm faster. I found it.'

Caph stared at the illustration of the red moon on the opened page and flipped the book to check its title.

'A Giant Book of Superstitions...' he read. 'Right. Humans have plenty of myths about red moons too.'

The smile on her face was triumphant but she did not gloat. Ran probably considered that sort of thing immature, Caph thought as he watched her read through the notes written by her father.

She had better things to do.

No, that wasn't it.

He watched her sit down at the desk, placing the old legal pad on the darkwood table. Her fingers leafed through the pages frantically but her eyes didn't seem to focused on the words.

She was nervous.

She had been behaving oddly all evening too.

'Are you worried about the Red Moon Summit tomorrow night?' he asked.

Ran looked up at him, her eyes disoriented for a moment. She frowned.

How did he know that?