Our mother was a witch. Somehow, at birth, my sister and I came out each with only half of a normal witch's powers, but enhanced. I'm mostly a medium, empowered by spirits. My sister drains off elemental powers from nature.
We learned a lot of secrets... And we carry, today, the most important one to the town called Mystic Falls.
.: Chapter One :.
It was past midnight.
At this late hour, citizens of a small town such as Mystic Falls weren't adventurous enough to stray out of their houses and risk having their peace disturbed. Entering one of the streets, a car came to a silent stop.
"Paige." A female voice and then a pause. The female leaned from the driver's seat towards the sleeping girl, placing a hand on her leg and beginning to shake her meekly. "Paige, come on. Wake up. We're here."
Beginning to groan and twist, Paige's eyebrows furrowed gently as she struggled to slide her eyes open. She did come to her senses, but sleepiness wouldn't let her hazel orbs reveal themselves.
"We are?" Paige's voice sounded slightly raspy and absent, "Why are we still in the car, then? We've got business… to do…" How the girl's sentence faded out to a yawn brought a smile on her sister's, Felicia, face. That smile faded out quickly, however. Leaning back into her chair, she stared forward through the window.
"It's a basic thing, really. We left in such a rush that we didn't even look for a place to stay at for the time being," Felicia said in a solemn monotone. Paige's eyes shot open, straightened her back, ran a rushed hand through her dark hair and fixed her elder sister intently for a few seconds of silence.
"Are you serious?" Paige huffed and Felicia's face came to be driven by certain guilt, "We're going to spend our 'vacation' in the car? I would have brought a bucket of water to bathe in it, because I don't trust lakes in—"
"We're not going to live in the car. Nor bathe in a bucket. And it's not a vacation," Felicia assured her, an eyebrow bolting up in slight amusement. The elder Sanders sister's almond shaped eyes, sunk in the same shade of hazel, but drawn by thick layers of black eyeliner gave her a mystic look, even as she glanced at Paige with tire and frustration. They did resemble one another, not too obviously however; aside from the average physical differences like height and body type, Felicia's hair was, for instance, about two shades lighter of color than Paige's, and only by a palm longer than the shoulders, whilst Paige's was already covering almost her whole upper back.
Slightly puzzled, Paige lowered her head. "What are we going to do then?" she asked with a square of her shoulders.
Slipping the keys out of the lock, Felicia slid out of the car and Paige's reply was to do the same. The door slammed on her part and she circled it until she joined Felicia's side, covering the ruffled hair behind a little hat.
"Simple," Felicia responded and bent her knee forward, "We'll go find something."
"You think that?" Paige raised her eyebrows and blinked, "Because Mystic Falls looks, to me, like a dusty old town with little to no attractions and, therefore, no reasons to have any motels lay around."
"Not motels, but I'm sure that we will find a welcoming old lady willing to host us for a night."
Paige's eyebrows bolted even higher. "For one night? Do you honestly think this is all that it will take us to find the Bennett witch, and then Silas and do all that we have to do?"
A soft breath passed Felicia's lips. "One night, or two, or three… We'll see. It's not that desperate." Her sentence ended when she flicked gracefully on her toes and proceeded to move. Paige gave her surroundings a quick inspection and jolted out of her spot, to follow her sister, when the car behind her announced with a set of sounds that it had been locked.
"Where are you going?" Paige questioned impatiently.
"Find us a place to sleep."
"We can't just wander around randomly – Do you seriously have no clue? I mean, you've been here before."
Felicia's head fell to a side as she stopped and tried to clear her mind, in attempt to remember the path towards the Grill. "I have, but it was only a day. And I didn't get to memorize enough of it. And to answer you more specifically, we're going to the Grill – public place, should be good enough."
The elder Sanders turned left on the street and Paige remained behind for a second, her head falling back as she uttered, "And if we still can't find a place, I guess I'll know what it's like to sleep on a pool table."
- BG -
Matt Donovan slipped a glass, filled innocently with nothing more than some plain juice, across the counter, into April Young's pale hands. "Here you go," Matt said through tired breaths, dropping down rather harshly the rag that he had been constantly using to wipe off tables. Chairs were pulled up on those recently cleaned tables, arranged mathematically; an old radio was playing some tunes, simply to cover up the voices that, as silent as they were, still echoed in the emptiness.
"Thanks," April smiled sympathetically and lifted the glass to her lips.
She tugged a little smile at Matt's lips. "Yeah. Thanks for the help, April. I mean, ever since… what happened to Jer, I've been alone in here and nobody even wanted to apply for a job." His oceanic eyes met hers – she was looking at him like she was a child listening to a story and that amused Matt to the point of him puffing out a soft chuckle. "I think I would've died," he continued.
"Oh, I don't think that," April replied and fidgeted around in her chair, "But you're welcome. Yeah, no problem. I don't have anything to do and I figured out you needed help."
"I know the feeling," Matt said bitterly, "It means there's nobody home for you. So you hang out with people while you can."
April blinked slowly and she forced a tiny smile. "Yes, like that… Plus, I feel safe with you. You're… normal and –" she cut herself abruptly and her words spluttered out like incoherent stutters, "I mean, not like the others aren't… They are, I guess, just not human. And they're kinda creepy at times."
"No, I know. Not all of them, though. You can still be around Caroline, Bonnie and Ele—" He stopped. He'd almost forgotten about Elena's current condition. His head fell down solemnly, as April watched him with dryness in her throat.
"Elena…" April said sadly, "I'm scared of her, I think. Scared. I can't believe it, she was such a good friend to me all along, but all that she's done—"
"Hey," Matt cut her off in a somewhat hostile manner, "Don't be like that. Elena did nothing but protect you. You can't just tell someone all the crazy stuff going around here. The problem is that Rebekah has been manipulating you. If it's someone you shouldn't be around, then that's her."
April's lips parted –
"Sorry, we're closed!" Matt barked and the next sound to come after that was the bell clinging from the opening door, with the image of Felicia and Paige stopping suddenly. They exchanged brief, wandering looks and then Felicia turned to look at a frustrated Matt and a confused April.
"No, we…" She definitely wasn't sure of what to say.
"We don't need drinks or something like that," Paige interfered and stepped ahead of her sister, "We're just lost and we came to a stop here and we don't want to sleep in a box under a bridge… So, if you could help us out, that'd be great."
Matt blinked. He pulled out from behind the counter and approached the two girls with a somewhat interest. Sighing, yet with a welcoming glisten in his eyes, he straightened his back and shrugged his shoulders. "Sure… What do you need?"
"A place to stay," Felicia responded lowly.
"Uh," Matt seemed a bit reluctant as he turned towards April who decided to join them, too. He twirled his head back around and rubbed its top lightly. "I'm not too good at showing people around, especially where to stay, but there's a nice, old lady. She sometimes lets kids she likes spend a night or two with her."
"Kids she likes," Paige repeated doubtfully.
"Oh, don't worry!" April suddenly beamed and then smiled awkwardly, "You two seem nice, I'm sure she won't mind." A moment of silence. April held out her hand just when Felicia was about to give a reply.
"I'm April Young and he's Matt Donovan. Nice to meet you."
Felicia shook her hand (while nodding at Matt who was proceeding to shake hands with Paige), "Felicia Sanders. And this is my sister, Paige."
"So, what is it that brings two young girls in a place like this?" Matt asked, with no harm, although none of the sisters was truthfully expecting a set of questions to answer to. They exchanged some looks and decided that they wouldn't take a seat at one of the tables, just to point out some more than they didn't plan to stick around the Grill for too long. But still, out of politeness, Felicia tried to give him an answer as obscure as it could get.
"We were on our way to find someone and something occurred, so we stopped here."
Matt's and April's faces didn't give away that they found anything wrong with that answer… that, until Paige decided to interfere with something that stretched Felicia's large eyes even wider.
"Do you happen to know of Bo –"
"They don't," Felicia cut her off sharply and then eyed the two confused humans reassuringly, "Excuse her… She lives with the impression that everyone knows our aunt."
Paige arched an eyebrow. Someone could have thought that she wasn't the brightest of the bulbs, but she was quite clever. The problem came in the fact she couldn't get her brain to think before spilling out something, usually important and usually with possible harsh consequences.
"Yeah," Paige added with a nod, "I guess I'm just desperate."
Matt didn't pry on any deeper and he just shrugged nonchalantly. "Alright… It's your business. I won't hold you any longer. Good luck." The moment the words rolled off of his tongue, Felicia twirled around, placing a hand around Paige's shoulders and spinning her around, too. Before exiting the Grill, they flashed the two some smiles and promised that they would return for something to eat while they were in town.
- BG -
Her name was Mrs. Flowers.
She wasn't out of ordinary, just an old lady who happened to had outlived her family, in some cases, and who had been left alone by nephews. Now, a house with three floors was hers. She could have rented the other two floors, but she was a plain woman whose favorite hobby was to take care of her cats and garden, definitely not interested in money.
Felicia and Paige had found out all of that once they had arrived at the house, in the middle of the night and apologizing for the latter. She was surprisingly more than welcome to help out girls "as beautiful and tired" as they were (though she did seem a bit reluctant about keeping Paige in after she had almost knocked a vase over her cat). While they had bargained for a price for around 2-3 nights, Mrs. Flowers assured them that the number of nights was "flexible". The room was incredibly nice, with floral patterned walls and pictures of cats hanging to it, but it had TV, a bathroom and even a small fridge. The best part was the size of the bed, however.
Felicia leaped into the bed, letting out a soft groan as she sunk into the sheets; her sister was bent over a table, playing with a deck of tarot cards. It was already a habit of hers, ever since it was proven that they were right in 9/10 of the situations.
"Why didn't you let me ask about the Bennett witch?" Paige asked with a narrow of her eyes, head spinning over her shoulder. Felicia rose from the bed and crossed her legs underneath her.
"If he did know her, chances are he'd tell her we were looking for her," she replied with a blink.
"And isn't that what we want? I mean, how else do you expect us to find her?"
Felicia clicked her tongue, one of her cheeks puffing lightly and her head dropping to a side. "Stop asking. You don't function too well when you're tired; it's all about strategy. You don't want people to be paranoid about us, do you?"
Paige stared at her for a second and then drifted her gaze away, less hostile. Shaking her head gently, she returned to the cards that she had already arranged on the table, upside down.
"I don't know, I'm just saying," Paige murmured and started, lazily, to turn the cards around, inspecting each one for a few seconds before moving to another, "I want to get over with this as soon as possible. I don't think it's smart to grow too close to these people, we might get dragged into who knows what."
Paige felt Felicia's slim and long fingers hook around her shoulders, in a calming manner. "That's not going to happen," the elder Sanders said, "We'll just say what we want to say and we'll let the Bennett girl, and whoever else, handle it. Is that alright?"
Paige's lips curved up lightly as she rotated her head. Letting out a soft sigh, her hand reached out for the last of the cards and flicked it around –
The card suddenly went engulfed in flames; Paige jolted up from her chair with a gasp and Felicia sat up abruptly. By the time both of them were alert and puzzled, up on their feet, the fire had already been put off by itself.
"…"
Paige's head spun towards Felicia, a frown on her face. Felicia's eyes were fixed absently on the table, following with her gaze as a trail of smoke started to rise from it. "Don't look at me," Felicia uttered and shook her head.
Paige crossed her arms over her chest, giving her sister a doubtful look and at the same time trying to swallow down the shock. "Oh, really?" she murmured, "I clearly remember that you've set them on fire before."
"Because, I told you, they weren't authentic and you wouldn't understand."
"See?"
Felicia eyed the girl soberly and her eyebrows rose up, slowly. "It wasn't me this time."
A bit reluctant at first, Paige unlocked her gaze from her sister's figure and drifted it towards the table. With a few hesitant steps, she wandered towards the table and bent lightly over it, trying to read its front without actually having to get too close to it.
"I hope it's not another death threat," Felicia said dryly, "We already went over it."
"No."
Paige straightened her back, an impassive look veiling her face as she stared coolly down at the card, specifically at part where almost all written words had been burned out, side from four.
"It says fate."
A/N: So, this was chapter one! It was, of course, a little bit centered on the sisters, but I just want you guys to get accustomed to them somewhat. :)
What did you think? Do you want it to continue?
