"Why are you doing this to me," Asteria grumbled in the passenger seat of her Chevy Camaro. The thing was a classic; made in '71 and still going strong with custom parts modeled after the originals and fine tuned. It belonged to her dad at one point and she prided herself on taking care of it just as he did. That pride was currently stuffed into the backseat with the rest of her crap while her uncle Liam drove down the high way.
"I already told you," Liam said while shooting her a look. "Moving to Forks for your senior year will be good for you. My work means I'm in and out of the house too much and Charlie will be able to keep an eye on you better than I can."
Translation: Asteria had been screwing around too much junior year and he wanted Charlie, a cop, to keep her on course to graduate. Never mind that she hadn't seen her other uncle, or anyone on that side of the family, in years. She was really regretting that D in algebra last semester. And the C in chemistry. And throwing that party while Liam was out of town.
"Whatever," was Asteria's brilliant reply before tossing in her headphones and ignoring him. Her relationship with Uncle Liam had always been somewhat strained. He rebelled against his parents as a teenager and became distant from the family, while her mother had remained closer to her parents. It was something they never discussed much. Asteria's parents died in a car accident when she was fourteen, and with no surviving grandparents she had been handed off to Liam.
Asteria reluctantly admitted that Liam did the best he could and she did appreciate him. He had a very hands-off approach to guardianship that suited her just fine until she took it too far. Damn, that party was a bad idea. So now he was passing her off to her Uncle Charlie, her father's younger brother, in the hopes he could somehow steer her back on course.
The drive to Forks, Washington from her little town of Greenfield, Wisconsin was a ridiculous thirty hours which they crammed into the space of three days. Still, they didn't bother discussing any other mode of transportation; Asteria would drop dead before she left her Camaro behind. The original radio was still working in the car, and Asteria refused to get a newer one with an AUX port or CD player. When she wanted to play music she had a Bluetooth speaker. However, she settled for most of the car trip with brooding silence and her headphones plugged in.
Asteria honestly wasn't sure who was happier to climb out of the car as they pulled into Charlie's drive. More than likely it was Liam, seeing as he wouldn't be stuck in this new hell. He got to catch a flight back home in the morning. Still, she knew it was more than likely teenage angst making her so resentful and she'd miss him eventually. Right now she wanted to kick him in the shin though.
Charlie came out to greet them and she had to admit right off the bat: that was one heck of a mustache. "Asteria, it's good to see you kid! And Liam, it's been a while," Charlie greeted as he shook Liam's hand.
"Charlie, I can't thank you enough for offering-," Liam started before Charlie cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Nonsense, Asteria's my niece too. I'm more than happy," Charlie said before the silence hit. She took it he wasn't a man of many words, and it seemed like any talk of emotion was out of the question, which suited her just fine.
Liam popped the trunk and started grabbing bags with Asteria following suit. Charlie made a move to grab them as well before Asteria stopped him.
"The rest of them aren't important right now, thanks Uncle Charlie. I'd rather get the room set up first before dragging everything up there," she said, to which Charlie nodded. In reality there was a whole lot of contraband she wanted to sneak in later, without two pairs of eyes watching her unpack.
Charlie led them into the small house and up the stairs. "Up here are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Mine is the master down on the right, and Bella's old room is that door across from it. You'll have the spare bedroom on the left, I know it's a little smaller but-,"
"No, it's perfect," Asteria cut him off, understanding that he didn't want to give away Bella's room. Although to her knowledge, the last time Bella set foot in this house she was like seven or something. Old habits die hard though.
The room was small, but at least it was nice. The walls were a soft blue with cream curtains and a view of the backyard. She could see a sturdy looking oak tree outside her window and the wooded area further back. That was all she really cared about. Besides, her lavender bed set would go well with the room.
Two hours later and the men were downstairs having a few beers and talking while Asteria set her room up and finished lugging her stuff upstairs. She survived a minor heart attack as two bottles clinked together inside a bag while she was going up the stairs. Thankfully the game was on in the background and they were too preoccupied to notice.
The walls were still fairly plain. Asteria had put up a few posters and photos, but otherwise kept them bare. Her clothes barely fit in the dresser, which was saying something as she didn't have that many to start with. The true blessing of her room was discovered as she moved the dresser over to a corner. It seemed that her room had an extra heating vent that didn't work and was hidden under the dresser. All it took was removing a few screws and suddenly Astrid had a perfect hiding place. For the time being she tossed all her contraband into the vent and tossed her bags on top. That would hopefully be enough to hide it for now. Maybe she would convince Charlie she needed an area rug?
Dinner was served, which turned out to be pizza since Charlie had the culinary prowess of a college frat boy. Unfortunately that was something Asteria was used to and had adapted to with Liam, so she had become an average cook. It looked like she'd have to cook here as well.
Things were fairly boring that night as Asteria looked up at the ceiling, wishing she could get some sleep. Of course, the universe as a rule hated her so eventually she heaved a sigh before peeking her head into the hallway. Charlie's door was shut, and she could hear Liam snoring down on the couch. She quickly threw on a hoodie and her boots before attempting to slide open the single window in her room. It made a slight squeaking noise that made her cringe before she slid it fully open.
Now, Asteria had a fairly good survival instinct, and she knew that because she promised herself she wouldn't attempt to sneak out the window until she could do it in the daylight and get a better look at the distance and how sturdy the branch was. Unfortunately, there was a deeper part of her in her core that said "screw it" more times than she could count, which is how she found herself dangling one foot out of the windowsill to judge if she could make it to the branch without killing herself.
Asteria had both legs swung over the windowsill before she paused and went back inside. She came back moments later with a backpack slung over her shoulder. In actuality, the jump onto the branch was fairly smooth and she was down in less than a minute. She sent up a silent prayer that she would be able to get back in as smoothly.
Asteria wove her way around the backyard carefully, sticking to the shadows in case someone looked out the window. Thankfully she had the good sense to wear a black hoodie and throw on some dark jeans. She waited until she started stumbling in the woods before pulling out her flashlight. A little too late she realized there were probably wild animals out here, but hey, there were in Wisconsin too and that never stopped her. She took a couple more steps before reaching into the backpack and pulling out a bottle of whiskey.
Asteria had managed to smuggle seven bottles with her, which she found fairly impressive. Still, she wondered if her fake ID would work around here or if she'd need to get a Washington one. She shrugged before taking a long swig straight from the bottle and kept walking. There was a natural path cut into the woods which she recognized as a deer trail. She followed it a little ways before finding an uprooted tree that had fallen over and she rested on it.
The clouds that usually hung over Forks cleared up just enough for a few stars to poke through the treetops as she idly played with the necklace around her neck. It was a rose quartz pendant shaped like a crescent moon, and hands down one of her favorites. It had once belonged to her mother.
Which brought Asteria to her own family secret. Much as she tried to deny it, she carried the same genes as her mother, and her mother before her, and so on and so forth through the family tree. The tree with roots in Salem, Massachusetts and Scotland before that. The tree that survived every storm. The tree with roots in magic.
Of course, Asteria didn't know much about it. Her mother had died when she was fourteen, before Asteria had really 'woken up', and her grandmother had passed three years before that. Asteria took another, longer drink of whiskey. Dead parents, witchy powers, and teenage angst was a hell of storm to get through.
For the most part, Asteria completely ignored the witchy side of her. The inkling at the back of her mind that something was about to happen, the suffocating tidal wave of auras coming off her peers, the cold wind that occasionally flared up around her; all of it was easily suppressed by a combination of alcohol and stubborn indignation that it was not her burden to deal with.
In retrospect, it was probably fairly easy to pinpoint how Asteria got carried away junior year. As much as she wouldn't admit it to herself, it was getting harder to ignore her own fate and drowning it in cheap booze wasn't going to make it go away. It did however, cause her grades to slump and get in trouble for one too many rowdy nights. She had a deep suspicion it was only going to get worse too. From what she knew about Charlie, he seemed a little harder to pull one over on.
She stayed there in the woods for a while, drinking and looking up at the stars. Eventually Asteria sighed and drug herself back up through the window and into the room, albeit a little less steady than she was. It took a lot of concentration to be quiet and not stumble but she managed somehow. Pulling aside the vent grate, she carefully tucked the whiskey back into its spot before picking up a worn, leather bound book and stroking the cover gently.
Asteria told herself the reason she kept the book was strictly as a memento. It was a family heirloom, seemingly passed down from mother to daughter throughout her family for generations. The old pages were completely handwritten, although after a handful of pages the handwriting would change. The very front page named it a book of shadows, something witches used to write down everything they could about magic.
Asteria never really read most of the entries, just some of her grandmother's, and the entirety of her mother's. When she first found it in her mother's things she assumed it was some sort of trick. After Asteria noticed her powers coming in at fifteen she sorted through boxes of her mother's belongings to find it. Turns out it wasn't a fun joke after all.
There was at least one thing that helped, which Asteria followed religiously: an entry in her mother's own writing called her necklace a 'shield' and claimed to help block the push and pull of people's energy that always left her feeling drained. She discovered her mother's necklace and followed the instructions in the book about leaving it in moonlight during a full moon while covered in a bowl of rock salt. She felt like an idiot for doing it, but it did seem to help.
Eventually Asteria drifted off to sleep while lying fully clothed on her bed, the book still cradled in her arms.
