'Daddy, I'm alone

Cause this house don't feel like home.'

X Ambassadors

Unsteady

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I froze. The tray was still in my grasp which grew tighter as I stared down into the trunk. My smile faded and my heartbeat pounded in my ears along with an incessant ringing of silence.

The bottom partition was filled with more boxes and leather-bound books, etched with strange emblems everywhere. On the inside of the trunk. On the boxes. On the books. Everything. All different. No meaning.

Tucked in various places, between all the strange things, were jars and vials containing labels and herbs. Some of the herbs were crushed, some were whole. Some were liquified elixirs. I picked them all out one by one, along with the pestle and mortar that was tucked underneath a bundle of candles. Whole bay leaves, lavender, hibiscus flower petals, coarse and fine salt, sage, belladonna, vervain, wolfsbane –

Wolfsbane.

To my knowledge, wolfsbane was a poison. In Mr. Leland's class, we talked about its usage in ancient Rome, Greece, and even Asia as a medicinal herb before they knew how toxic it was. Its other name was monk…something. I stared at the faded, dried purple flowers hanging delicately on the sprigs, stuffed into the jar. Wolfsbane. This wasn't a run-of-the-mill ingredient that could be found in every home throughout the state. This was poison.

My eyes flicked past the jar in my hand and at another smaller vial. Witch hazel.

Witch.

"No," I closed my eyes tightly and held up one hand in protest to my own monologue. The poison filled container quickly found itself safely on the ground, out of my hands. Instead, I reached in for one of the books. "No. You're insane. Just...don't read into this stuff. Gran was just really into holistic medicine. Maybe. Just like Grandma Kathy… apparently." The vervain and belladonna that Olivia used earlier. It was a coincidence. It had to be. It was a coincidence that both sides of my family had this stuff.

The binding of the book cracked roughly as I lifted the cover and began to flip through the old black-and-white photographs with little notes written on the borders. Most of them, apparently, were pictures of Gran when she was a little girl. The weirdest part was how much Bella resembled Gran. I was momentarily jealous that I didn't have an old relative to compare myself to. I looked nothing like my paternal grandparents with their dark hair.

One picture caught my eye as I kept flipping through. It was Gran, holding a white rabbit, snuggled into her arms. There was another girl beside her, much younger, snuggling a black rabbit.

'Helen, 15, with Andrea, 6.'

My mouth twitched. I wondered who Andrea was.

And she kept showing up.

Before my eyes, Gran and Andrea grew, each picture filling in a jump through time. As they grew, the pictures changed, not only in ink quality. The context was more group oriented, always the same faces. More mysterious too, since they weren't labeled besides the dates and weird partial circles that were different on each. It wasn't till I flipped through five more pages full of 'reunion' style pictures that I realized the circles looked like moon phases, always in order from new moon, through waxing, to full moon, waning, and back to new. The pattern never deviated, but there were fewer people in each picture as time progressed.

Then, suddenly, Gran was in a wedding dress. Grandpa stood beside her and I could see where Uncle Charlie got his handsome features. There were lots of pictures of them on their day and, again, there was Andrea, wearing a bridesmaid dress in the background. I recognized many of the faces from the previous pictures. For a split second, mafia ties flashed through my mind and I snorted. The more realistic explanation was distant family that I would never know. Maybe Charlie had an idea.

Happy pictures of Gramps and Gran passed by with more side effects of aging before another wedding appeared in the album. This time, it was Andrea in a white dress with lace over the entire thing, even the sleeves. It looked like a fall wedding from the number of leaves on the ground. I chuckled, coming across a picture of Gran and Andrea holding pumpkins, peaking out from behind them. It seemed like such silly behavior for a fancy wedding. I loved it. I loved how happy the looked.

Andrea. I stared at her colorless face and took in the lack of shading in her hair. It was fair, like her eyes. There was something growing more familiar in the mystery woman's face. The way her v-shaped face was accentuated by perfect cheekbones, the crinkle of her nose as she squinted in laughter, the way her upper lip thinned out as she smiled up at her new husband who had a very prominent chin and jaw.

'Mr. and Mrs. Thomas White'

So, Andrea grew up and married Thomas White. In a matter of 20 minutes I had watched her change from little girl holding a black rabbit to a married woman. Clearly, she was someone very important to Gran. I felt a little bad that I didn't know her maiden name. Gran didn't have siblings, so perhaps a cousin. Maybe just a friend.

I flipped the page, the last page, and found only two more pictures.

The first picture was labeled 'Me and Andrea, Thanksgiving'. Gran and her friend stood in nice dresses beside a fireplace, arms around each other. Andrea's other hand was placed on a very pregnant belly.

The second picture was a baby wrapped in a blanket with frilly edge.

'Andrea's Amy, December Third. New moon.'

Mom. My brain was catching up, and the gears were grinding so hard that my head was pounding. Her birthday was December third. Her middle name was Andrea.

Andrea looked familiar because she reminded me of Mom.

Because she was my biological grandmother.

"Oh my god," I whispered, frozen for a moment before setting the album aside and digging for the next one, but there were no more pictures. It went straight to the other album I found first, which never referenced Andrea or Thomas at all. Mom had become a Swan by that point, and there was a missing piece of the story. I tore through a journal that sat on the top, ignoring everything else and strictly searching for the name Andrea or Thomas. "Come on, come on! That can't be…it."

My hand paused. There was something on the previous page that wouldn't let my mind continue. I slowly flipped back and saw the word.

'Vampire'.

No. No, no, no. The image of the man from the woods with Bella flashed in my mind, along with Edward Cullen. This was a coincidence. I had simply stumbled upon some story that Gran had been writing. The only problem was that the handwriting didn't look like hers. It was so intricate that it was hardly legible to my eyes. I had to focus intently to read the passage.

'January, 1936

Half the coven has left us now. They felt it was far too unsafe with the vampire coven lurking to the south to stay in Forks. The deaths have not come and they seem to be different. As matriarch to this coven, the duty of safety falls to me, and I have my children to worry about. I will find their leader and speak with them. If I can see them alone.

Beverly'

There was a line before the next passage, separating the notes.

'March, 1936

After two months of watching I have finally caught the leader while he was alone. I approached him under guise that I was a mere human with far too much curiosity but he knew right away. He smelled what I was. I readied to flee but he begged me to believe him. This new coven feeds only off the blood of animals. It is hard to trust that he means our kind no harm, but he knows about us and has not struck for our blood. He knows what our blood could do for them yet holds to his word, nor has the tribe rid of them.

His name is Carlisle.'

My eyes squeezed shut as a lump formed in my dry throat. I tried to swallow against it, but the tightness worsened. Carlisle. Carlisle Cullen. I prayed that I had gone mad, that this was all a dream. When I opened my eyes again I would be surrounded by padded walls and holding a stuffed animal bunny. Like Helen and Andrea in the picture.

The book was still there when I opened my eyes, journal opened to the page I was reading off. My desire to remain naïve was being fought against by the substantial albeit psychotic evidence in my hands. I knew the truth from the point that man, Laurent, almost attacked Bella before being chased off by giant-ass wolves that I was pretty sure was my friend who I hadn't spoken to in weeks. This just solidified it.

Strained laughter echoed off the wooden structure of the unfinished attic. My laughter. I stood and began to pace as I cracked, wringing my hands and lacing my fingers into my hair. I gripped tightly at my locks and leaned my forehead against a beam. Stay grounded. I had to stay grounded.

"This isn't real," I whispered to the wood. "This can't be real. No."

But it was.

Why else would it be here?

I had to keep reading. I opened one eye and glared back at the trunk. No matter how badly I didn't want to know anything else, I had to. I had to know what was going on. My feet carried me back to kneel by the journal, skimming through the information at lightning speed. There had to be something in here explaining what was happening to me, something to explain why I didn't know about any of this. Did my Mom never know? The trunk was supposed to go to her, but she never took it.

'August, 1940

Many of our husbands have gone to help fight the war, leaving us alone. Carlisle is taking his family elsewhere. He was kind to tell us, as vampire nomads may begin to come through again. He assures us we will be safe, as the Quileute Tribe is nearby. They still don't know of our existence, as we don't know what they would see us as, nor does the rest of Carlisle's family know of our secret meetings, aside from his wife. Nevertheless, we stand alone now more than ever.

Beverly'

The tribe. They – god help me – the witch coven knew about the tribe. Memories of the giant wolves emerging from the woods to chase off that vampire with the dreadlocks replayed in my head. If the Quileute's really were giant wolves designed to kill vampires, then they were the good guys. At least, when it came to that. Would they have hunted these witches if they knew?

I kept on skimming through, what followed, were mostly notes about meetings between the remaining coven members. There were discussions about particular herb shortages, or what medicine was given to a random townsperson who came to them for help. At some point the handwriting shifted, and it was Andrea's name at the bottom of each note, first stating she had taken over from her mother. Beverly.

'Leonard Baker came by for an elixir of ginger root and garlic for his pregnant wife'

'A local runaway cow was found eating Helen and Geoffrey's crop of wolfsbane. Wolfsbane will no longer be allowed to grow outside and must be contained in a safe space where animals, humans, and children cannot access easily. The cow died, but luckily no questions were asked.'

'Tonight's full moon had a red ring. Something dreadful is coming.'

'Less of our kind are being born with magic in their blood. The pattern holds true for the other covens I have reached out to. There is fear spreading, and it is suppressing our birth right. I can feel my baby in my belly has the gift. I know she will. Helen wishes I wouldn't be happy about it.'

Andrea was pregnant. I was getting closer to where the pictures left me hanging.

'My beautiful Amy came into the world today. She is so full of magic. She is my everything.'

'The winds are carrying in a terrible storm. This month's coven meeting will be canceled due to the incoming snow.'

A change in handwriting made my stomach drop with a feeling of dread. It now matched the writing from the albums. It was Gran's writing.

'I dropped by the White's home to bring them dinner, knowing they were tired with the new baby. I found Andrea, bloodied on the floor of the nursery while clinging to the crib that the baby cried in. My friend was alive, but barely. She told me the furnace had gone out in the storm, and Thomas went to chop firewood when a vampire attacked him. Andrea found him as he was being fed on. She managed to kill the vampire and burn it, but not without sustaining fatal injuries. Andrea, my coven sister. I will care for Amy as if she is my own.'

And just like that, she was gone. In the matter of an hour I had gained a biological grandmother only to have her ripped from me in a brutal and violent way. Tears for the woman I never met brimmed my eyes in a threatening way. Mom had never talked about her adoption. It wasn't taboo, she was just always passive about the whole thing. Never once did I push her, but now all I wanted to know was if she knew all of this. Andrea said her baby was filled with magic, but why did I never see anything abnormal?

'Charlie was born today. I can breathe. He doesn't have it.'

Uncle Charlie didn't 'have it'. Was that the magic? Of course Charlie wasn't a – whatever they were. He was the most normal person I knew. I could only guess that meant he didn't know about any of this.

And after that, the notes stopped. There was nothing left, like the story had been cut short right in the middle of the good part. I frantically flipped through the remaining pages. This couldn't have been it. A loose letter fell from the pages, faded to a faint yellow at the edges. My hand gripped the letter so quickly that the page wrinkled. I unfolded the aged floral-cornered stationary and began to read, grasping to the hope that what looked like the last shred of evidence would provide me with the answers I needed.

Was my mother one of these witches, and did it end with her? I mean... no. It didn't. It couldn't have. I was...

'Mom,

I'm so sorry I left you the way I did, and I'm even more sorry that I haven't been home since. The last time we spoke, you revealed secrets that had been kept for too long. You had always told me that my birth family was timid when it came to the craft, but you lied. You mislead me. When you told me about my birth-mother, things finally made sense. Mom, I forgive you for trying to protect me. I miss you. But I won't go back to pretending I'm something that I'm not. Rick and his family showed me what it means to embrace this gift, and I need you to accept me for that. I need you to accept Rick.

We're getting married, Mom. He proposed to me yesterday and I said yes. We are flying out to see you, Dad, and Charlie, and to tell you in person. Please, Mom. Please be happy for us. This is the life I want, and I won't live in fear.

Love, Amy'

My hand fell, dropping the letter back into the trunk. These weren't answers. They were more questions, questions about a life of lies and misdirection. All this time and I never knew, but why? This wasn't just a Swan family secret, it was an Owen's family secret, too. Dad new something, Mom new something… Something had to have changed. Mom said she didn't want to hide it, yet I was in the dark about all of it.

Olivia. Olivia was the only one who could give me answers now, which made my blood boil. She had used those herbs on me. What did they do? They way I had felt afterward… blissfully unaware of anything too stressful…

And Charlie. He wouldn't know anything but maybe, just maybe, he could fill in the gaps of everything else. He could tell me what the rest of the world believed to be the truth…

And I still didn't know my own truth, or why it had been hidden from me.

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Authors Note: Did ya'll really think I would leave you on that cliffhanger for a whole week? Nah. Sorry about that, too. It was just the best stopping point! This chapter was a huge information dump, and I hope it all made sense while answering some burning origin questions. Hope you enjoyed!