I don't know much about my family.

For some families, there isn't really that much to know. For others, there is a wealth of information that few care about. I should have a wealth of knowledge. I certainly care about it. But instead, all I have are a bunch of unanswered questions.

When did my family get their magic? Who was the first to become a witch? The first to become a Septe? What is my family's affinity? What's mine, for that matter? If we're so well known, then why does no one know how my father died? Why did my mother not want me to learn to control the magic coursing through my veins? And why did she choose banishment over me?

I do know some things, of course.

Everyone knows how Sarah Averill sailed to America from England. No know knows much before her life in America. She was a powerful witch, and quickly married the most powerful man she could find in Salem—John Wildes. Maybe it was her health. Maybe it was her love of bright colors. Whatever it was, she was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft when the Trials began. No one could lead that happy of a life in a Puritan society.

Sarah was arrested, imprisoned, and brought to trial. The Salem Witch Trials were completely bogus; most of those arrested were just normal people that the accusers didn't like for one reason or another. But what the fine citizens of Salem didn't realize was that they had actually managed to catch themselves a real witch.

Sarah was sentenced to hang, but was much too powerful for that to do any damage to her. She faked her death, glamoured herself, and continued living in Salem with John Wildes as if nothing had happened.

And thus, my family remained in the Salem—the witchcraft capitol of the United States—for the next 300 or so years. They got more powerful; they grew more prominent. My father, Cadoc Wildes, married my mother. But shortly after I was born, everything changed.

My father was murdered. No one knew how or who did it. But Dad's sisters had a huge falling out with the Council of Magic for their refusal to investigate. They went into self imposed exile in protest, and their loss in the community was hugely felt.

That's when the community turned to my mother and me to help fill the hole that they had created. There were no other Septes in Salem. Neither Mom nor I were Septes, but we had the potential to be. It was in both of our bloodlines. But that attention led to the Council discovering more than they bargained for.

Apparently the man my mom had been dating since I was 12 wasn't a witch. So the Council gave her a choice: never see him again or leave. She left.

And that takes us back to now.

I rounded the corner of the drive that lead to a clearing with a large, grey house situated in the center. It was in the Victorian style, like many of the old houses in the Pacific Northwest. It gave off an extremely eerie vibe. In retrospect, I suppose that's what they were going for. They should have just hung up a sign outside that said no trespassing. Still, it made me feel comforted. It was familiar, when nothing else around me was.

I got out of the cab with my three pieces of luggage, paid him, and waited for him to leave. It wasn't raining, but it was cloudy. I waited. I knew better than to try to approach the house.

The front door opened, and two middle aged women emerged. They were eccentric to say the least. It was all so stereotypical.

Aunt Blair and Aunt Isolde were identical twins. They were tall and slender—true classic beauties. They reminded me of movie starlets from the 1940s with their perfectly waved, black hair held back with combs and impeccably tailored expensive clothes. They had the Wildes' oval face, fair skin, and wide, dark eyes.

I wasn't nearly as put together as them. My mom was more free spirited and usually left me to my own devices. I'd developed a style of mostly jeans and sweaters in neutral colors.

"You're here then," Isolde stated, devoid of expressions.

I gave a small nod. Isolde and Blair dressed exactly alike almost always. I could always tell who was who based off my sixth sense.

I felt the wind shift and knew they had let down the barriers that held back the supernatural. I wasn't powerful enough to do it myself, especially as my aunts were fully trained. I was not, to say the least. I continued up to the porch, my bags following along by themselves behind me.

The house was a stereotypical old Victorian. It was large and sort of rundown looking on the outside with its white paint peeling and looking dull compared to the black door and shutters. The inside was just as old but much less run down. I honestly expected the outside to be some sort of glamour to creep the humans out in case one ever made it that far out of town.

The inside was richly decorated with deep, warm colors. The entire place seemed a bit dark and dreary, but it was comforting. There was no overhead lighting. It was all wall sconces or candles. The fireplace in the parlor was lit, and that was where my aunts led me. I settled into the black velvet armchair, tucking my feet under me. They sat on the leather sofa to my right, backs straight. If I didn't know them, it would be frightening, but that's just how they were. They'd been disconnected from humans for so long, I wasn't sure they'd know how to behave in front of them. I made a mental note to never need a parent teacher conference.

"We're glad you came to stay with us, Emme," Blair began.

"The circumstances leave something to be desired, but we think your being here will be good for you," Isolde finished.

They shared a look.

I narrowed my eyes at them. "I know that look. What are you keeping from me?"

Isolde took a steadying breath. "You know you have great power, Emerine. You're a Wildes; it's in your blood. But there is so much you don't know, yet. At this point in your life, you're supposed to at least be a Thridde—if not higher. We know your mother had your best interests at heart. Of course we knew, or we wouldn't have left you with her. But we didn't realize she wanted to leave you so blind. This isn't going to be easy for you. Your magic has been growing since you were born, and there has been no outlet for it to escape. You can expect outbursts of magic until you can properly learn to control it, which can be dangerous for you and everyone around you."

I knew this of course. The magic under my skin had been itching to escape for as long as I can remember. My mother never wanted me to use it. I had assumed it was because the power reminded me of Dad. I never wanted to upset her, so I never tried to harness it.

But the night she left me, I had exploded. I was upset, and I couldn't hold in my power. I ended up setting the entire house on fire. After I realized what I'd done, I tried to stop it. I couldn't. Not even the council could stop it, and I lost everything—including my mother.

Blair shot me a soft look. "Don't worry Emme. We're going to teach you. You're meant to be here. Do you understand? Everything has happened for a reason. You're exactly where you need to be."

They would think that. They probably Saw it. I couldn't help but doubt them, but not learning wasn't an option. "Just tell me what I need to do."

They smiled in relief.

"We'll start with the basics. You know that each day of the week correlates with an Affinity of Witchcraft. Each day, we will focus on the correlating Affinity. You can have the night to yourself, but tomorrow after school we will begin with Casting." Isolde was all business. She probably had a lesson plan already drawn out.

Blair was more of the supportive type. "One more thing before bed, Emme." She walked over to a coffee table on the other side of the room and picked up a large, black book with black swirls all over the cover. There was no title, but it looked ancient.

"This is the Wildes Grimoire." Isolde told me, still seated.

Blair handed the book to me. I immediately felt a rush just by holding it. I wanted to immediately open it and begin reading, but she gently took it back. "There will be plenty of time for that. If we give this to you now, you'll never go to sleep."

She was right.

My bags had already made it to my room. I had stayed with my aunts a few times before, so I knew the how things worked here and where my room was.

My room was large and quite simple compared to the rest of the house. I had a large, four poster bed pushed up against the left wall. It was decorated with a light grey, velvet comforter and crisp white sheets. I had a mostly dark grey afghan rug at the end of the bed that covered most of the hardwood floor. Across the room were a closet and a wooden desk. My room was accented with natural wooden touches and greenery. The walls were painted a deep, navy blue. It was earthy and airy, unlike the rest of the house which felt mostly like fire.

I put away the few clothes that I had and laid out some for tomorrow. I chose some plain, dark wash skinny jeans and a thick, cream colored sweater. I changed into pajamas and fell into a dreamless sleep.


Forks High School was pretty easy to find. It didn't look like a regular school, but it was one of what seemed like three things in town. The school was a group of buildings off the side of the highway. I pulled into the parking lot next to the small building marked 'office.'

My mother had always homeschooled me, so I had never been to public school before. Despite this, the only thing I was nervous about was using my powers in front of the humans. The last thing I needed—or wanted—was unwanted attention.

Opening the door to office, I was greeted with a blast of warm air. I pushed my hood back and turned my attention to the middle aged woman behind the desk. The placard on her desk declared her to be Mrs. Cope. She stopped clacking at her keyboard, and looked up at me.

"Hi, I'm the new student… Emerine Wildes? I was told to stop by first thing today." I could tell by the look on her face that she already knew who I was. I supposed I would get used to that look throughout the day.

"Oh! Of course!" Mrs. Cope shuffled through some papers on her desk before handing me a stack of them. "Here is your locker information, class schedule, and a map of the school… the paper on top needs to be signed by all of your teachers. Then, bring it back here at the end of the day. Do you have any questions for me?"

I shook my head no, offered my thanks, and headed quickly back into the cold.

Considering there were only a handful of parking spots in front of the office, I assumed I had to move my car into the student lot. I left the house earlier than I probably would on a normal day specifically so I could have plenty of time to find where I needed to be.

I found the student lot pretty easily. It was the parking lot with all the students milling about, chatting and laughing before classes began. I pulled into a spot towards the back. Most of the cars here were older models, if not slightly beaten up with age. Mine stood out like a sore thumb. It was technically my aunts' car, but they let me borrow it. The glossy, black Infiniti SUV was more their style than mine. I was thankful regardless—it was a long walk from the house to town.

There was one other car in the parking lot that looked as nice as mine. It was a shiny, silver Volvo parked up towards the front. I didn't know or care much about cars, but even I could tell it was expensive.

I pulled my hood up, threw my bag over my shoulder, took a deep breath, and made my way into the school.

My first class of the day was English with a Mr. Mason. I managed to find his room, but walked in right as the bell rang. Everyone else was seated. Mr. Mason was a tall, balding man but looked nice enough. At least, that's what I thought until he opened his mouth.

"Cutting it close today, are we?"

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I would assume it would be common practice to cut the new kid a little slack, but apparently not. I wouldn't make that mistake again. "Sorry." I handed the man the slip.

Mr. Mason signed it and handed it back to me. "You can take the empty seat in the back."

With one last wary glance at Mr. Mason, I turned and walked to the back of the class to take my seat. Mr. Mason resumed his lecture on the Bronte sisters. Evidently we would be learning English literature for the second semester. I had been nervous about being behind in my studies, but I had already read most of the classics as that was Mother's favorite subject. Still, I took out my notebook and made an effort to take notes.

They ended up being a fruitless endeavor, however. I couldn't concentrate due to the stares of my classmates. Even though I was in the very back of the classroom, they still sneaked looks at me. I was a shiny new toy; to the average teenager in a small town, I was definitely more interesting than a dead English authoress. Can't say that I blamed them.

Eventually the bell rang. Before I could even shut my notebook, a boy that had been sitting in front of me turned around to face me. He was tall and lanky with a boyish face. His hair was longer and almost fell in front of his eyes. He pushed his bangs out of his face and held out his hand.

"Hey there. I'm Eric—Eric Yorkie. You must be Emerine Wildes."

I stared at his hand and took a deep breath before placing mine in his. So far, so good. I had been known to shock people if I touched them. I was usually fine if I knew I was going to make contact with someone, but if I didn't get to brace myself… it never ended normally.

"That's me. Call me Emme, though." I packed up my notebook, wondering what else he wanted.

He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket. "You are such big news. I'm talking the headline. Everyone wants to know everything about you. Feature article, baby!"

As he continued excitedly, my eyes got wider. I was supposed to be flying under the radar, not being featured—even if it was just for the school paper.

I chuckled nervously, trying to maintain my friendly demeanor. I wanted to try to make friends here. I wanted a normal social life that I was never allowed to have. I knew it wouldn't be completely normal with the whole magic thing, but I at least wanted to do well in school and make a couple of friends. But if anyone tried to push too much into me or my history, I wouldn't hesitate to defend my secrets. Humans could never know that witches existed.

"Thanks, Eric, but you shouldn't bother, really. I'm not interesting at all." I noticed most of the class had left by this point. I pulled my bag on my shoulder and began to walk towards the door. "Better get to class."

He looked a bit crestfallen but put the notebook back in his pocket. "What's your next class? I can take you if you want."

I looked at him wearily. He was almost too eager, but at this point I would be close to being late again. "Sure. It's Government."

He didn't lead me astray. I managed to make it to that class on time, though I cut it close again for my third period. Math had always been my least favorite subject, so I had already been dreading Trig.

When I got to the class, I handed my slip to the teacher, Mr. Varner.

He took it and signed it. As he held it out to me, he said the very words that I had been dreading to hear all day. "Go ahead and introduce yourself to the class."

My temper flared up. It was obvious how uncomfortable I was, and he still asked me to draw attention to myself anyways. I took a deep breath, noticing how the lights surged slightly with my discomfort.

"Hi, I'm Emme Wildes. I moved here from Massachusetts." I glanced at Mr. Varner to see if that was enough.

He raised his brows indicating he expected more.

I sighed and decided to throw in the two most boring facts about me. "I'm here living with my aunts, and my favorite color is purple." I looked back to Mr. Varner expectantly.

"You can go ahead and take a seat next to Miss Stanley."

A girl about halfway back waved excitedly at me. She had extremely curly brunette hair and couldn't be more than five feet tall. She looked over the moon about having me as a tablemate.

I took a seat and pulled out my notebook. I hadn't even opened it before she started whispering to me excitedly.

"I'm Jessica Stanley! It's so nice to see a new face around here. It doesn't happen often. The last time was like 5ish years ago or something so it's been a while. You said you were from Massachusetts, right? Boston? You don't have the accent though."

I was momentarily taken aback that the small girl could get that much out quietly while still remaining so enthusiastic. Was everyone in Forks like this? "I don't have the accent, no. My parents didn't have one. I'm not from Boston, anyways. I'm from Salem."

Jessica's eyebrows raised. "Oo, Salem. Spooky. We did the Witch Trials last year in US History. Dark stuff. You know all about that already though, I'm sure."

She was talking again before I could even nod.

"Well, what are the rest of your classes for the day? Maybe we'll have something else together. There aren't that many people in our class so there should be lots of familiar faces. I mean, there aren't that many people in our school to be honest. Or the town. I'm sure you get the picture. You should totally sit with me and my friends at lunch! I'm sure you'd love them!"

I quickly agreed before Mr. Varner yelled at Jessica to be quiet. He was fairly strict, and I didn't want to get on his bad side. I diligently took notes before realizing I already knew what he was lecturing on. My equations quickly turned into doodles, and before I knew it the bell rang again.

By the time the bell rang after Spanish, I was starving. Jessica had been with me in that class as well and practically dragged me to the cafeteria. We grabbed our food and mad our way to one of the large circular tables.

"Guys, this is Emme. Emme, this is Lauren, Angela, Eric, and Mike."

Eric was the first to speak up. "Yeah, Emme and I go way back," he said with a wink.

Mike—the blonde, boy that reminded me vaguely of a golden retriever—rolled his eyes. "Back to three hours ago, maybe."

Angela, a tall, thin girl with dark hair and oval framed glasses spoke up next. "Do you mind if I get your photo for the feature?" she asked, pulling out a camera.

I was about to say something before Eric cut me off. Flying under the radar would be easier than I thought if I never had to talk to anybody.

"The feature is dead, Angela. She said no."

Angela looked a little crestfallen. So far, she had seemed the most genuine of everyone I had met; I felt a little guilty.

"Sorry… it's nothing personal. I'm just not that interesting. I don't exactly care for the spotlight, anyways." I shot the perky blonde girl, Lauren, a look as she scoffed.

"Too late for that. You'll be in the spotlight, New Girl, until the next one shows up."

Angela looked annoyed by Lauren's snarkiness, but Jessica didn't seem to notice. "Yeah, we were talking earlier about how it's been a while since anyone new showed up. The Cullens were the last ones."

Immediately, the mood changed. Mike rolled his eyes, and Lauren sat up just a bit more attentively. Clearly these Cullens were important—or at the very least interesting. I glanced to Angela, silently asking for an explanation. She glanced to her left, and I followed her gaze.

At a table on the other side of the cafeteria sat five people—three boys and two girls. They were all devastatingly beautiful. Most witches were attractive due to glamours or even residual magic that altered our genes, but this was on an entirely different level. It almost hurt to look at their faces, which would have seemed more at home on a magazine cover or in artwork.

"Who are they?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Jessica was only too willing to give me the information I sought. "The Cullens. They moved here a couple years ago with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen. They're all adopted. The big, burly brunette is Emmett. The blonde goddess next to him is Rosalie Hale. Alice is the pixie like girl across from her. And the other blonde is Jasper Hale—he's Rosalie's twin. The last one is Edward."

My eyes fell over all of them. They all shared the same pale white skin and shadows under their eyes, but apart from that none of them looked alike. They were sitting at the same table, but not talking to each other. They weren't even looking at each other. They weren't eating, and they seemed to be the only students in the cafeteria that weren't staring at me. I felt something inside me as I stared at them. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but as I looked at the family of siblings, I knew what my aunts said was true. I was exactly where I needed to be. I also felt like something was about to happen. I didn't put much thought into it. It was a similar feeling to what I felt around Mother's boyfriend, Ash, and nothing ever happened with him. The air felt different, though, and I couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

I noticed Jessica was still speaking and tore my eyes away from the Cullens.

"They're all together. Like together, together. Emmett and Rosalie, then Jasper and Alice. It's weird right? I know they're adopted, but they, like, live together."

"Edward's not with anyone though, but don't even bother." Lauren chimed in. "He doesn't date."

I started to laugh, immediately assuming that she had asked him out and gotten turned down. I looked back at the Cullen table, only to meet a pair of topaz eyes. Edward Cullen was looking at me.

And suddenly my word went fuzzy. I heard a ringing in my ears. It was quiet at first, but grew louder and sharper until suddenly my head exploded with voices—hundreds of voices talking over each other. It was excruciating. I couldn't hear. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. The only thing I saw was topaz. The edges of my vision began to darken as I finally managed to cover my ears with my hands and rip my eyes away from Edwards.

"Emme! Are you alright?"

"What's going on?"

"Help her!"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up at Angela next to me.

The voices were fading away. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry." Everyone was staring at me skeptically. I had no explanation for myself, let alone for them, but I had to come up with something. "I get acute headaches a lot. They don't normally last long, though. Seriously I'm fine."

Jessica nodded. "I totally get it. My mom gets those too. I hope I didn't inherit it."

The conversation resumed around me without further questions. Slowly, I stole a glance back at the Cullen table.

Edward's bronze hair glowed under the fluorescent lighting, and my eyes found him immediately. He was talking to his siblings. He seemed stricken, and they looked worried. I had a feeling it was about what just happened, but surely they didn't know that I started hearing hundreds of voices. That was something normal (kind of anyways) for a witch. It was absolutely not normal for a human. They were probably just talking about how weird I had just acted. I turned my attention back to my table.

I hadn't been listening to the conversation, but Lauren was going on about someone named Tyler. I tried to listen to what she was saying, but I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened.

"Edward is looking at you," Jessica whispered to me.

I knew this already. I could sense his eyes on me. "The perks of being a new girl, I guess."

Jessica playfully elbowed me in the side. "Come on, Emme! He never gives anyone outside of his family any sort of attention unless he has to. Maybe you've peaked his interest." She seemed excited, but I could hear the tinge of jealousy in her voice.

He had certainly peaked mine, but probably not for the reasons she thought. And I definitely wasn't going to tell her that. "Didn't you say he doesn't date?"

Jessica raised her brows, clearly not expecting that response. "I guess. Probably for the best," she shrugged.

And something inside me told me she was probably right.