Title: The Creswell Chronicles

Author: Meissa6

Summary: What if Bella didn't exist? What if the "new girl" in town was April Creswell, a demiromantic/asexual girl with a love for modern witchcraft and a strange connection with the seven resident vampires?

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will ever, own the Twilight series, or any of its characters and plots.


Life had never been easy for me, but there were billions of people who had it worse than I did.

Sure, my mother was emotionally-impaired, and my father was never around, but at least, at the end of the day, I could say that I was (somewhat) loved.

I had a roof over my head, and food in my belly, and my wallet was never empty except for that one time when I spent way too much money on Black Friday. I had a decent group of friends and made fairly good grades.

I was average in every sense of the word, and that was fine.

The only thing that made me sort of stand-out was my absolute love for crystals, charms, and such things. I truly believed that the clear calcite I carried in my pocket protected me from the common cold every year, and I lit a candle every night to keep away bad dreams.

My mother encouraged my 'magical' outlet, despite not quite understanding it. She didn't believe in magic the way I did.

Her interests lied more in technology, so when she was offered a promotion in her programming career, she automatically took it.

I was hurt, to be fair, when she revealed the news that we'd be moving across country, to a small town in the middle of Washington state, but she merely brushed off my concerns, showing once again that she was better with computers than with people.

"It'll be fun." She said flatly, barely looking up from her laptop.

Her plate had long since been pushed aside, the take-out food barely touched.

"We've lived in this town for all of your life; don't you want a new adventure?"

Despite her inability to emotionally connect to me, she knew me like one would know the inside of their childhood home. I had always longed for a life of excitement and mystery – the stack of fiction books at my bedside table revealed as much.

"But I like our routine." I whined regardless, throwing on a pout despite knowing she'd never be swayed.

When my mother made up her mind about something, it was easier to lift a truck with one hand that it was convincing her to go a different route.

"I have friends here." I pointed out, and she sighed, glancing up at me.

"You're quirky. You'll make new friends. Now, go upstairs and start deciding what you're taking with us."

She waved me away, and I stomped from the room, switching from my 'teenager' façade to my more adventurous self halfway up the stairs.

As much as I loathed to admit it, my mother was right. Our lives had gotten quite boring in this city. I felt like I'd memorized every rock in the city park and knew every homeless person downtown by name.

Besides, as I flipped tarot cards later that night, I kept getting the same card – Eight of Cups. If the cups symbolized my current life, I was walking away from it towards a new, exciting future.

There was an infinite number of possibilities that could await me in Washington state. Maybe I'd meet someone like me – a lover of everything witchy. Or maybe I'd meet my complete opposite, and we'd be drawn to each other like magnets. Or, or, or…

I could barely contain my excitement the next few days as I said my goodbyes to my lifelong friends. They promised to write, but I doubted they would.

The big city was like that. If you didn't see someone every day, you'd eventually be swept up and forget all about them. It had happened to Sam Winsor last year, when she left to a rural town in the middle of Minnesota. Or was it Michigan?

Either way, I nodded and smiled along with my friends, promising to keep in touch.

I packed up my room nicely, deciding to take everything but the larger pieces of furniture which my mother said we'd replace. She rented a small U-Haul that weekend, and off we went, leaving Phoenix, Arizona and everything it offered behind.

My mother stayed on the phone for most of the trip, leaving me to stare out the window curiously as we drove through small towns and big cities alike.

As we drove further north, I found that the air was getting cooler, and yet, the dressing of the people we drove past remained the same. I kept checking the temperature on the dashboard as it dropped from the eighties to the seventies, the sixties, the fifties, and so on.

By the time we reached Washington, the temperature was in the low fifties, and yet, as we drove through the small town that would soon be my home, everyone was wearing t-shirts and shorts whilst I shivered in my hoodie and jeans.

"Well?" My mother said, hanging up her phone when we finally stopped in front of a very lovely house on a large lot.

The nearest neighbors were halfway down the street, and trees separated them from us. The lot backed up on a huge forest, which was probably filled with all sorts of dangerous animals. The house itself was bigger than our old one, with huge windows that let in a lot of natural light.

I even saw a skylight over one of the rooms and vowed to make that room my bedroom.

"It is four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two of which are off two of the bedrooms. I figured I could use one of the spare bedrooms for my office, and the other one for a guest room. There's also a basement that I thought you could turn into a hangout space for you and your future friends." My mother said, looking at the house with a proud look.

I beamed, getting out of the truck.

"Can we go look?" I asked, stretching my arms over my head.

After twenty-six hours stuck in the car, it was no surprise when I heard a few satisfying pops. My mother sighed as she looked at her phone.

"I guess so. The movers aren't supposed to be here for another hour."

I squealed in excitement, running towards the house. My mother continued in a slower pace, ignoring my huffs of impatience.

When she finally got the front door open, I hurried inside, barely looking into the kitchen, dining, living, and the two downstairs bedrooms before I hurried upstairs. My mother followed me, the little clicks of her phone's keyboard revealing her apathy towards my reactions.

The second floor had two bedrooms and one bathroom.

"Can I have the room with the skylight?" I asked brightly, realizing that that was the room with the bathroom connected to it.

"Yeah, sure." My mother said distractedly, not even looking up when I cheered, pumping the air in excitement.

I began to plan out my room as she walked downstairs, answering a call.

My bed would obviously go under the skylight, and I could put my dresser between the door to the bathroom and the door to the closet. My bookshelf could go against the wall with the hallway door… and on, and on, I went.

I was so caught up in my planning that I only noticed the movers were there when one of them knocked on my door.

"Excuse me, miss? Just tell us where to put everything." He said, and I jumped up.

"Okay!" I said brightly and started directing them where to place everything I'd brought.

My mother surprised me with a new bedroom set, which is why she needed the movers in the first place, and by the time I crawled into bed that night, my room was mostly set up how I wanted it.

I looked around, smiling at my flickering candle I'd placed on my windowsill. I had two windows in my room, one facing towards the forest behind the house, and the other looking towards the neighbor's house.

I left the candle on the latter, hoping to signal to the neighbors that someone was staying here now. Hopefully they had someone my age living there. I'd always wanted to communicate through mirrors with someone next door like neighbors did in the movies.

Of course, those neighbors often ended up in a relationship, and I certainly didn't want that. Well, I wasn't disgusted by the idea, but I didn't exactly want one either. I was perfectly content being friends without any benefits.

I closed my eyes, a smile still on my face.

My dreams that night consisted of flashing mirrors, flickering candles, and strange, glowing eyes that constantly shifted between bright red, gold, and pitch black.


A/N: Thanks for reading!