4"I can't believe it! Your own wedding, and you're wearing black?"
"It's not black, it's dark grey," Luna mumbled, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.
Cecilia snatched shut the fashion magazine and dumped it on Luna's messy bed. "It's a wedding, not a funeral, Luna!" she exclaimed, glaring into her friend's grey eyes with her own dazzling green ones. "Look, you're my best friend, you've always been my best friend, but I just have to say it: your fashion sense is zero. I can't let you just run loose and mess up your own most important day!"
Luna really did not want to have this discussion again. She had experienced it too often over the past nine years, ever since they had both been twelve years old and Cecy had insisted on finding her matches in every random video they watched in Geography class. She had never wanted to listen to Luna's insistence that no one in his right mind would ever want to marry someone with a problem like hers. But then, that was just Cecy. "No one's going to care what happens to you on full-moon nights, they'll only care about how pretty and smart and perfect you are!"
Not that Luna thought herself perfect. She wished she could be more like Cecy, more graceful, more catlike, and not so grey and clumsy and just… wolfish. She wished she could have as good table manners and be a little less hungry during school lunches, and get straight 'A's like Cecy did and always look so clean and neat and tidy as Cecy did. Cecy was also the first to have a boyfriend, though she was also the first in school to ever last less than an hour in a relationship.
"You'll get married, I'll make sure of that!" was Cecy's daily statement, and she sure did work hard on that. While Luna toiled through Potions and kept confusing spells, Cecilia ploughed ahead, learning complex spells three levels above the rest of the class, hunting after teachers with metre-long lists of questions, and upending the whole school library in search for a perfect enchantment to find her best friend a husband.
And then, at last, when they were both sixteen (the year of Cecy's disastrous boyfriends) she made her discovery. She dashed into school one day with a Cheshire cat grin playing across her face, so happy that she literally glowed and had to be sent to a very confused school nurse. At the first best opportunity, she bubbled it all out to Luna: after years of experiments, she had concocted a potion of her own, an invention more perfect even than the famous potionist Blubski's various discoveries.
"Of course, we want someone intelligent for you, not some oaf," Cecilia babbled during break time, shooting a glare at the class worst, Eddie Brended, as they passed him. "Since anyone smart at this school would definitely make sure they're not drinking some weird stuff, I think just handing out a potion would never help. There must be a better way."
Just by chance, a higher class was having a bake sale that day. Cecy stopped in her tracks, staring ahead with her mouth wide open, revealing her rather pointed canines. "What?" Luna asked, secretly relieved that the chatter had ended.
Without saying another word, and with a trance-like look as if she didn't know anyone else was there, Cecy turned around and rushed straight home, a mad potionist gleam in her eyes.
It took only a week for Cecy's enchantment to be perfected. Luna wondered what had happened to her friend, who stayed home for a whole week, never even giving her a call. When she finally came back the next Monday, Cecy was dragging along a bulging bag. "Tadaaa!" she exclaimed, holding it as high in the air as her skinniness and its great weight allowed.
"And what's that supposed to be?" Luna asked, alarmed, hoping that she hadn't kidnapped a possible groom and taken him along. The size of the bag made this theory quite believable enough.
Cecy lowered her voice. "I have found it! At last!" She squealed with excitement. "You'll find someone in no time!" And she opened her bag to reveal a high pile of sweet-smelling cakes. "Enchanted pies!" she exclaimed. "You'll have that engagement ring in no time!"
Luna couldn't deny it, that first day was quite fun. Throughout Literature class and Mathematics, the two of them giggled in the back row, trying to decide who to give an enchanted pie first.
"Sam, let's give one to Sam, he's pretty good-looking!" Cecy whispered excitedly, sending glances towards the boy just in front of them who was busy showing off his muscles to some other girls.
"Samson? No way! Ew, no way!" Luna giggled in reply. Most of the lesson they were close to rolling off their seats in laughter. They never got even close to making a serious decision, so by the end of the day they were no further than at the beginning.
"Look, we must give away at least one, Luns," Cecy insisted as they left the school building. "Otherwise I'll give them all to my school bus driver!" Quite an evil threat: just ahead, Luna saw the driver in question – squint teeth, almost bald – spit a puddle of chewed-up betel nut onto the pavement at his feet.
"Can't we…" she began, only to be interrupted by a loud, rude voice from behind.
"Hey! Look who's there! It's Cecilia along with her mucus friend!"
Luna stopped and looked over her shoulder, glaring at Raven, their tall, dark-haired classmate and the most popular boy in the year, if not the entire school. Cecy just rolled her eyes, walking on and tugging Luna's sleeve to make her come along. "Don't you dare listen to him!" she hissed. "He's just such an idiot…"
"Ew, Cilia, how could you live in a nose? Don't you have a better home? Yuck!" Raven went on loudly. His gang of friends burst into peals of laughter.
"Don't listen don't listen don't listen," Cecy said, though by now it seemed to Luna that she was saying it more to calm herself than for any other purpose. She could see her ears reddening ever so slightly beneath her brown-blonde hair.
"Weird to have you walking around school though, someone must be dying because you've abandoned his respiratory system!" More laughter.
Cecy stopped, rolling her eyes, then turned around to face the boys, a predator glow in her eyes. She truly looked like a wild cat about to pounce, and probably she would have pounced if she didn't have such remarkable self-control. In any case, not even she herself could keep her sharp tongue from doing the pouncing. "Raven Crowell - and what kind of name is that - I'm sure that you didn't even know what cilia are before today's biology lesson. And if it weren't for me, I'm sure you would have forgotten the moment you left the classroom, with that brain size of yours! Anyway, if you're bored, I suggest you do your homework for once instead of picking on students smarter than you." She whipped about and marched a few steps down the corridor before remembering something and turning around again. "Oh yes, and have a good day eating carrion, Crowell!" she added coolly. Then she rushed on ahead, followed by Luna.
"All right, if there's one person you don't want to give enchanted pies to, it's Raven. He's definitely right off the list!" Cecy ranted. "And don't make that face! I know he's been your crush for ages, but seriously… I won't have you marrying such a monster!"
Luna, utterly miserable, didn't say anything.
"Hm, maybe we should start handing these out though," Cecy said, looking down at the big bag of pies. "Tell you what, we give one to everyone in class - except for that idiot Raven, of course."
Cecy loved taking over, so Luna remained silent and just tagged along after her, resigned to her fate.
"How do these things work, anyway? Is it some love potion thing?" she asked after a while, watching some utterly horrid boys gobbling up their pies.
"Oh, no, nothing as stupid as that!" Cecy exclaimed. "My enchanted pies bring out no false emotions! They just make clearer those that are still… hidden." She smiled. "In other words they reveal to someone the person their heart truly desires. Doesn't that sound romantic?" She sighed. "A perfect advertisement for Cecy's Home-made Enchanted Pies… doesn't that sound nice?"
"Wait a moment… do you mean to say that you think that every single boy in our class likes me?" Luna asked incredulously.
"Why of course! Duh!" Cecy said, taking another pie from her bag and skipping over to the lockers, where Samson was showing off again. Luna couldn't help doubting. How could so many people fall for her of all people - she wasn't nearly as pretty as Cecy, never mind the other girls, and she wasn't as intelligent. And anyway, didn't anyone know of her problem, her secret? Well, maybe that was just the point - they did not.
The next day, Cecy was so full of excitement that she was once more running a temperature. "No, I'm not!" she squealed when Luna told her. "You know I have permanently inhuman temperatures so stop threatening with the nurse! I can't wait to see what happens!" She skipped from one foot to the other, looking around for the first boys to arrive.
They did arrive, and they had really changed quite drastically. But not exactly in the direction Cecy had hoped. Samson was the first. He rushed right up to Luna and Cecy once he saw them, and, bubbling with excitement, Cecy whispered, "I knew it! He'll be right down on his knees begging you do marry him!" And she giggled.
Well, he did go right down on his knees. And he did beg for someone's hand in marriage. But not Luna's. "Cecilia, I can't live without you! Tell me you'll never leave me!"
Cecy's smile turned instantly into a frown. "I guess you've mixed something up, Sammy," she said. "You're talking to the wrong person. Start again."
Samson looked completely confused. "But… Cecilia, I love you, I completely adore you, I need you…"
A frown turned to a scowl which turned to a glare which turned to a truly evil expression cats have when they are utterly horribly furious. Swearing at a dumb-struck and horrified Samson, she grabbed her things and rushed off, Luna hurrying after her as always.
"What in the world was that about?" Cecy fumed. She rarely swore, so Luna knew this must be pretty bad. "Don't they even know that I've sworn celibacy and will never marry even if they look double as good as a supermodel? Anyway, it's you they should like! It's you they love! Not me!"
"Well… you really are quite a bit smarter than me, Cecy, you know…" Luna began, but Cecy's face was carrying that cat-like expression again so she gave up.
"The next person who dares…" her friend hissed. She turned to the lockers, then turned back looking less angry than close to throwing up. "Don't look," she cautioned Luna. "Do not look. I can't believe it… they're just… gross!"
Luna did look back. Two other classmates were kissing so much it simply did look disgusting. "I never knew Nick liked Wren so much," she said.
"He's not meant to! I gave him an enchanted pie!" Cecy exclaimed, and Luna wouldn't have found it at all strange to see clouds of smoke rise from her ears.
"Well… didn't you say that enchanted pies release formerly hidden true feelings?" Luna said slowly.
Cecy growled somewhere in her throat and truly did sound like a cat for a while. Probably new moon was close by and she hadn't taken her cautionary pills. Accidents always did happen when she was extremely excited about something.
"Even smart people can be wrong, can't they?" Luna said cautiously. "And to look on the bright side… at least now I won't have as much choice problems… since two are already off the list…"
"Let's just hope no one else will go off the list soon…" Cecy muttered, cracking her knuckles in a truly frightening way.
Potions, Spells and Maths passed slowly and tediously. The boys were all looking at the wrong people. Some looked like they would kill each other because they both fancied the same girl. The only normal one among them seemed to be Raven. And he seemed most surprised at the strange romantic disease that seemed to have befallen his comrades.
During lunch break, Cecy decided to lock herself up in the bathroom because she didn't want to be stared at any longer. "I'm going to be a nun!" she exclaimed with a mouth full of cat food. "I hate this! I think I'm going to leave school now, never mind what my parents say! I'm going to go to the next closest convent!" Pause. "Um… Luns? D'you have any idea where the nearest convent is? Gah, and are they even going to accept someone who turns into a cat every new moon night? Oh, what am I going to do?"
"Maybe you could invent an antidote to your enchanted pies," Luna suggested, talking from the other side of the toilet door.
"No! Ew, no! I hate antidotes! Anyway, what can I do? The damage is done! What I need is a memory potion! Or a spell! But there's no permanent one so maybe I'll have to hit every boy over the head with a huge gigantic hammer instead. Would be more practical but oh, I hate violence!"
By the end of the day, Cecy was no longer excited, but depressed and furious, especially at herself. "I should never have been so proud about my own inventions! It was all my fault. Please forgive me for instilling you with false hopes, Luna! Will you?" She gazed pleadingly at Luna like a cute little kitten and Luna would have stroked her had she not been a few centimetres taller than her.
"Maybe you should take your pill next week, Cecy," Luna said. "Someone might start to suspect."
"Oh, yes, maybe," Cecy said. "I wish I could transform all in one go like you, it's so annoying to slowly become a cat over one whole gigantic stupid day." She kicked a stone.
"Well, at least turning into a cat doesn't hurt," Luna sighed. "And at least you can take medicines to help you, for me there's absolutely nothing. And I scare off everyone and I can never go to any full moon parties. Just remember to have your wedding on some other time than full moon, okay?"
Cecy stopped and glared at her. "I'm not going to have a wedding, for the one thousand millionth time!" she growled.
Luna just laughed and sprang out of reach of Cecy's claw-like long fingernails. "Just a joke, just a joke!" she shouted over her shoulder.
And then she banged into someone and almost fell over. She looked up. For a few seconds, she stopped breathing. "Wow, watch where you're going," Raven said, then dodged past her and strode quickly over to his bus. Luna couldn't help watching wistfully after him. He hadn't called her names this time…
Language lesson. Boredom. "Cec… do you by any chance have more enchanted pies?" Luna whispered.
"What? You still want that useless rubbish?" Cecy asked. "It doesn't work, it's stupid."
"But do you have any?"
"'Course. But we've tried already and they're no use." Cecy turned back to her essay, scribbling away at the speed of light as usual.
"Could you give me just one?" Luna asked.
"What, to eat it yourself? It tastes like normal pie, Luns. And it will have you running after some random person and I do not want you marrying a stupid oaf or an idiot bully, thank you." She glared at Raven's back as she said that.
"Please… just give me one."
"Gah, what a beggar you are." Cecy put away her pen and handed her essay to the teacher. "Fine, I'll give it to you then," she said once she was back. "On one condition: don't do anything stupid."
Luna didn't do anything stupid. She didn't do anything, for that matter, at least not for a while. The enchanted pie sat at the back of the fridge in a large paper bag so that Luna's little sister wouldn't decide to steal any, and Luna spent her weeks at school or at home or, at some nights, growling wolfishly on her bed and tearing up old teddy bears with her fangs.
It was not that she hadn't already decided what to do. The problem was, she didn't know how to do it, or whether it was right. Who could ever love a werewolf? Even if anybody liked her right now, how would that person react if she told him the truth?
Then came the day. She knew she couldn't keep the pie in her fridge much longer. Her seventeenth birthday had come and gone. Keeping a pie for a week could be fine, but for two months?
Fortunately, Cecy's potion was a perfect preservative and the pie looked completely fine. Luna took it along to school carefully wrapped up. "And what's that you're bringing?" Cecy asked when she saw it - she had forgotten about enchanted pies and was instead more interested in designing Luna's wedding dress.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," Luna said, looking around. Where was he? Would she dare give it to him?
"Hm, back to the topic… Do you agree with lilies and red roses in the bouquet? Well, of course you do, you're my best friend, I know you, okay, so, white lilies and red roses…" Luna wasn't really listening to Cecy's half-monologue, ignoring the scribbling of her friend's pencil on the sketch. "You'll look really pretty, you know," Cecy went on, admiring the portrait. "Maybe we'll straighten your hair for the occasion…"
There he was. Taking a deep breath, Luna took the pie out of her bag and walked up towards him. "Um… Raven, I… I baked this and… well… no one else wants it, so…"
Raven looked down at her and then at the pie, slightly confused. "For me?" Luna nodded quickly. Then, before he could refuse or say anything, she shoved it into his hands and rushed back to Cecy, who was still talking about the wedding dress as if she had never left. Probably she hadn't even noticed Luna's absence.
"I still have that wedding dress design, you remember, you know? From four years ago?" Cecy was now skipping about excitedly again. "Okay, I'll get to work right now, do some corrections… I'll come again for the measurements!" And she dashed out of the door before Luna could say anything more, almost banging into Raven. "Oh, hi Raven!" she said quickly, then skidded on down the hall.
"What was that about, my dear?" Raven asked, looking after her.
"The werecat just decided to pay the werewolf a visit and tease it a bit," Luna sighed, getting up from where she had been sitting on her sofa. "She just likes to decide things, that's all," she said, hugging her fiancé. "She's always wanted to direct a wedding, and since she won't ever be having one…" She shrugged and smiled.
"Well… she has made quite an interesting nun," Raven smiled. "I'm curious what she cooks up for the wedding…"
Luna just smiled to herself. She already knew all of Cecy's plans: enchanted wedding dress, enchanted pies, enchanted ceiling and enchanted confetti. And maybe a trap or two as revenge for Raven's cruel jokes…