I'm going to say it now, for the rest of the story: I don't own anything
I'm going to say it now, for the rest of the story: I don't own anything. Now I'm not gonna say it again.
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Chapter 1
I've always stayed a step away from everyone, never quite feeling like I fit in. I haven't been able to like right into the family like Alice, never been able to feel like I've been here forever. I think the reason why is slipped into the pages of my past. Here's my story, the story of Jasper Whitlock Hale.
1849-Houston, Texas
The Houston sun outside was burning everything and everyone without remorse. The heavy clothes that we were forced into every day weren't helping in the quest to cool down, making everyone all the more irritable. There was only a week before my sixth birthday, and so mother was constantly running around, making arrangements for a "grand ol' party" as she liked to put it.
My nanny was probably the most irritated person of all. She was a plump woman, and old. I couldn't tell quite how old, I just knew she was very old. She was dressed in old, outdated clothes, from maybe 20 or 30 years ago. They were heavier and stiffer than our clothes, making me almost feel sorry for her.
So naturally, when she caught me playing in the grass, she was more than a little mad at me. This is when I discovered how…easy it was for me to change a persons mood. I managed to talk her down, until she was perfectly calm. It wasn't until later that evening that I realized that no one, not even my mother, had been able to calm her down before when she was in such an "irritable" mood.
1857-Houston, Texas
Ever since that day before my 6th birthday, I had been learning how to calm people down, or how to excite them by merely talking to them. Father said it was natural charisma. I had been able to get away with nearly anything, always charming the person mad at me, and then talking my way out of it. Not that I got in trouble all that often.
Father was prone to occasional fits of anger, which he tends to take out on mother. I was usually able to talk father down from his rage, something others were unable to do.
Despite his temper, father and I were very close. We spent a lot of time talking about what he wanted for my future. He said that he heard from his "connections" inside the government that a civil war was brewing. Father said that he wanted me to join the army if this really happened, to fight for our slaves, for they were what we risked loosing. Father said once they took away our slaves, that they would get up the courage to do other things, like give women a vote.
Father also wanted me to marry a good southern woman, a pretty, rich one. He said that I should start looking now, before all the good ones are taken, though somehow I believe that this came more from mother than from him.
1861-Houston, Texas
Father's connections were right. Civil war had broken out. The south, or us, had formed the "Confederate States of America." We were fighting for either our slaves, or independence.
Father was old by now, grizzled and grumpy, but every time we would walk by a recruitment poster, I could practically feel the want, the…lust coming from him. And so every time we walked by one of them, I would put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and speed up by an almost imperceptible amount.
My 17th birthday was the day father started to get sick. It started with just a harmless cough.
"Father, are you okay?" I asked. He nodded, but then his bluff was called when he was thrown into another fit of hacking coughs. We were sitting at a table with mother and all of their closest neighbors, and their daughters. Mother was trying, oh so subtly, to get me to know the girls, and trying to pick out the perfect one.
I quickly walked over to father's chair and helped him up. "If you'd excuse us. Ladies, gentlemen." I nodded my head towards them, then quickly helped father out of the room.
His condition quickly deteriorated from that point. We had thought it might be a simple cold, but he kept getting sicker and sicker, never better. The doctor wasn't able to tell us what was wrong.
We kept father in bed for 3 weeks, constantly tending to him. 3 weeks and a day from my birthday was the day he died, at 6:32 a.m. That also happened to be the day that I marched to the recruiter's office….
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So here it is. This is just a brief chapter of Jasper's childhood. There really wasn't much given by Stephenie to work on for this chapter. I promise the next one will be longer. This was just a brief history, to work up to his time in the military, and also to introduce his…charisma.
What did you guys think? Did I do good, did I do bad? Is there anything I should change? I know that Jasper isn't as quiet and laid back as he should be, but that happens from later events in the story. Review please and tell me what you thought.
Citi