prelude

for bonnie

She woke up in a sweat. Her chest was heavy and it felt water was sploshing around in her lungs, her mind playing along with the illusion that she had swallowed salt water. Her hands moved around to grasp something. The pads of her fingers felt the scratchy material of the bedsheets. White but there were stains that previous washings couldn't get out. She could still sense the previous activities on these sheets. When people would hide away in the room she resided in, tearing away at their clothes as they were consumed by lust. Her fingers pressed deeper into the stiff fabric and she could feel something else. Cold, bitter; the scar death left behind. That would explain the splotches of dingy brown. In a way, it was familiar. It didn't feel safe. It wasn't by any means safe.

But it was something real.

Her eyes fluttered close as focused on her breathing. Her lungs burned as she tried to breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and repeat. She was fine, she wasn't drowning. The water in her lungs were simply an illusion.

She fell asleep to the sound of the ceiling fan whirling overhead. The last thing she heard was someone calling a name. "Matt!"

.

.

.

.

She is walking out a gas station. The large Big Gulp in her hands was a colorful concoction of strawberry, blue raspberry and a hint of tropical slush. The icy beverage was good for the blazing sun overhead. Her vision was being blocked by the large sunglasses she wore over her face. Her car rested on the side of the road, a baby blue Bug; a gift from her grandmother. The grandmother she walked out on.

Shelia Bennett had been many things to various people. To the townspeople of goodie-two shoes Mystic Falls, she was a crazed alcoholic who couldn't keep a grip on her sanity since her wife up and left her husband of nine years and her two daughters. She was the woman who people witnessed having a shouting match with a rebellious fifteen year old one sunny afternoon as she carried her ten year old sister down the stairs.

The teen had called her so many things.

Crazy, senile, a drunkard who couldn't couldn't keep her wayward daughter to stay in town. Those were the nicer ones.

They had witnessed a seventeen year old girl getting chewed out by said crazed woman for being busted at a college party. If few remembered, they would have witnessed a freshly eighteen year old girl sneaking away from her grandmother's house in the sleeping hours between night and dawn, climbing into her car and never looking back.

Eight years on the run.

Eight years since she left Mystic Falls behind in her rear view mirror. Almost a decade had passed. How was her grandmother? How was her sister? Her dad she didn't really care too much about. She had seen him a few months ago, while in a crowded bar in Nevada. He had been with some of his business partners when he had spotted her in crowd. He was standing to come to her when someone had blocked his path. She was out the door before he made his way to the bar and half way down the road when he exited the bar.

Placing the cup of sugary goodness on the hood of her car, she reached into her bag to grab her keys. When she looked up, her grandmother's reflection was standing right behind her. She let out a shriek and whirled around expecting to see Shelia Bennett's scowl of disapproval, but found nothing.

She whirled around to see the reflection.

"You're not losing your head child." The spectator said. "This is the only way I can connect with you, since you've given up on communicating with the spirits."

"G-grams?"

Shelia nodded. "The one and the same. It's been some time since I've seen you Row."

Row. No one called her that anymore. It was just Rowan. Never anything else. Row reminded her of home, of her life in that hellhole. It reminded her of the pigtailed little twerp she left behind.

"How?" Rowan asked, referring to her death. There was no other way her grandmother could have found her. Shelia was on the other side and it wasn't a good thing.

"Magic comes with a price, darling. I've mentioned that many times."

Rowan nodded. "So why the visit after eight years?"

"Your sister, child, that's why I'm here."

Her entire form stilled. "What about Bonnie?"

Shelia's eyes dimmed, the scowl on her lips flattened and she took a deep breath. "Your sister has been through much hell since you left."

"What happened to her Grams?" Rowan asked. She was dodging the question and she was not going to have that. Whatever happened to Bonnie, she was entitled to know. Bonnie was her sister. Her blood.

Shelia sighed. "I wanted her to be happy. I...wanted her to find peace."

There was a sinking in her stomach. It was like stones has been thrown into a well, and the more that there thrown, it filled her belly and she was being weighted down. It was like that dream. Water in her lungs, struggling to breath, crying out for someone. Or the time she woke up in utter pain, her entire body unable to move for some time. Days it had been. She had been laying in the backseat of her Bug, in so much pain that she cried. The storm that had brewed had been a result.

"She's dead," Rowan choked out, her voice raw. There were tears in her eyes, there was a lump in her throat. Her magic was going haywire. Her sister was dead. Her baby sister was gone. "I...why didn't I feel it?"

"Bonnie hasn't been a witch for a while," Shelia said. "You need to get to Mystic Falls."

"Why?"

"For Bonnie." Her grandmother vanished from the window after that.

Rowan sighed and jerked her car open. She grabbed the cup of Big Gulp, placed it in its holder and started her car. She looked in her backseat. A makeshift bed with her next day's clothes folded up. She always kept her money in the glove compartment and it was spelled so only she could open it. Her duffel was in the trunk. She reached for the glove compartment and looked at the only few photos she kept.

A picture of her and her family when they were actually a whole unit. There was one of her when Bonnie was born, all squishy and alien like. She took the picture of her and Bonnie: ages 12 and 7 respectively. Rowan had just joined the spirit squad and Bonnie had been her little carbon copy. Matching pigtails, smiles and clothes. Shelia had made Bonnie's uniform. She smiled weakly.

"Hold on there, blue bell. I'm coming for you."