A/N We're 2/3 of the way through! Only 10 chapters left (although he's considering writing a sequel if he gets enough reviews/follows/favorites). As always, feel free to review with requests/writing prompts or send them to me through PM. Mwah! 3
Addison spent the weeks barely clinging onto her grades as she tore through the internet and the library books trying to find anything she could about ghosts and the afterlife. She even began to study witchcraft and stumbled upon northern European paganism. She instantly found a kinship with the latter, and couldn't help but fascinate herself with the pantheon of gods and the strange creatures in their mythology.
She especially liked the magic involved. One would carve runes and imbue them with meaning. Then one would sacrifice to them something that mattered. Some modern practitioners chose to sacrifice money or food, and others gave pain or blood. The secret was, it had to be something you genuinely didn't want to give away. It wasn't the earthly value of the object, but the true spiritual value that it held for you. You would then ask the gods to accept your sacrifice and imbue the rune with some special quality or to give you some special message or gift.
You could never ask for a specific item however, you could only ask them to help push your fate towards a certain goal. She once made her own set of runes, and as a sacrifice she dug her nails deep into her flesh and gave her comfort away. She cast the runes and asked what was to come. The 3 runes that landed before her were Thurisaz, Hagalaz, and Dagaz. Thurisaz was a complicated rune. Though simple to draw, the old poems explain that it is of an evil giant. It is the rune that describes possibly the pain of child birth or losing one's virginity. Next was Hagalaz, which was plain as day, this was a rune of destruction and death. Finally was Dagaz which seemed to be the most hopeful. It spoke of a dawn, or clarity, or perhaps an awakening of some sort.
She didn't quite know how to translate this into a prediction of sorts, but she felt hopeful in that while she had come to expect suffering from this life, the idea of a sunrise in her future was unexpected.
She had eventually given in after passing the "The Great Cupcake" book and had dug through the pages. It appeared to be a book in which the author had collected cupcake recipes from around the world. There was Cayenne Chocolate cupcakes from Mexico, Custard Filled Cupcakes from France, and even a Mochi Cupcake made from sticky rice flour that was steamed and filled with a red bean paste, then given a pink cherry blossom petal out of icing for a top. She stumbled across a cupcake that someone had the audacity to name "The Perfect Cup Cake", this one was from Ireland, it was a dark chocolate cupcake with a splash of scotch whiskey for flavor, and a dark cherry icing mixed with powdered sugar until the icing went from a dark red to a perfect light pink. Finally, one of the dark cherries was placed on top and the whole thing was sprinkled with sugar that had been mixed with the cherry juice and dried to produce red sugar sprinkles. The name under the submission was Lilliana McTerre.
Because McTerre was her mother's maiden name, and because the cupcake looked so perfect, Addison decided that she would make this cupcake for her sweet 16th birthday which was just 1 month away.
As she began planning out her birthday, making a neat little list, her phone vibrated.
She pulled it from her hoodie pocket and unlocked the screen. There was a text message from what was listed on her phone as "Johnny Rotten." It read, "Sorry for being such a jerk, I bought you a birthday present. Can I come to your party?"
She responded, "There is no party."
"Can I see you to give you your present?"
"Just give it to me at school."
"Please please please meet me after? I promise I won't be weird, I'll just come to your dad's place, we don't have to do a date or anything."
"Fine, but if you do anything I don't like, I'll punch you in the wiener."
She added to her list, "Get first birthday present since mom died..."