Chapter 7 – The Original story
It actually was.
I drove the almost two hours drive thanks to my not-exactly-new truck and made a stop at a pastry shop for enough chocolate cakes to put Godzilla to a sugar coma.
I drank a blood bag, to calm my mounting nerves right before taking the turn for the Rez. However I didn't need to worry.
Charlie and Billy spent most of the evening talking about the case of the dead P.I. (much to my shudder), Billy was pushing Charlie to blame it on the Cullens, since the P.I. was hired by a woman in Chicago to track down Carlisle for some reason, and had pretty much zero blood in him. Jake was playing videogames with a few of his friends. I tagged along for a while but began to feel restless at the sight of three giant local boys.
Boys my ass. They were HUGE!
They didn't seem to smell anything strange on me even if the largest of them all gave me the stink eye. I gave him my most angelic smile - even if they reeked off a strange woodsy scent and hightailed it out of there the moment dinner was over.
I had never been a reckless kind of gal.
Driving home with Charlie in the cruiser we left the truck for jake to see if he can fix it, I spent the rest of the evening on the phone with mom. She had always been my best friend but ever since I moved in with Charlie we began to drift apart. Refusing to move with her to Jacksonville after the James thing didn't help either so now I was at a loss of how to fix it. Fix us.
However the scrapbook had been a great way to start the fixing process. She asked me about everyone in the pictures, Billy and Charlie fishing side by side peacefully, mike on top of Jake in the twister game, random shots taken by Angela at school, the Cullens, and one of me in all vampire mode I had taken on a whim. Strangely enough she loved that one and wanted to see the full Halloween costume!
I managed not to roll my eyes at Renee's exuberance but I couldn't help breaking into a fit of giggles as I was storing the blood bags in the fridge at the basement.
Charlie set up shop in the living room to watch a rerun of the game as Billy kept talking during it earlier so I bid him goodnight and headed to my room.
Changing to a pair of deep red sleep shorts and a light yellow tank top I began practicing with the song list Jim had given me earlier today.
I was halfway done with 'Kiss me' by the Cardigans when a soft tap on my window stopped me. I looked up to see Freida sitting on the windowsill smiling. I motioned her in and closed the IPod.
"Hi, come on in"
"Hello, were you busy?"
"Not really. Just going over a couple songs for practice tomorrow. How are you Freida?"
"I'm good. a little bit shaken up though"
"Would you like to talk about it? If not, I'm perfectly ok with sitting in silence reading our respective books"
I said softly not wanting to overstep my boundaries. she raised her misty blue eyes to me
"no, I think it will be good for me to tell someone but you'll have to keep it a secret"
"I'm great with secrets but don't you rather tell Lexi? You just met me"
"Lexi was there and I think you're the right person to talk to"
I nodded, we sat on my bed and I took a pillow in my lap. Freida mimicked me and began talking
"I was born in the late 900 in a wealthy family in Scandinavia. You could call them Vikings if you wish but they were simple people. My father owned business and land and my mother was a witch. When I was two years old the black plague hit most of Scandinavia. A lot of people died and I was one of them."
"Died?"
"yes, died. My parents took my twin brother and fled to the New World not knowing that the witches of my mother's coven had kept me alive"
"By New World, you mean America?"
"Yes. Twenty years later my mother created vampires and for some reason I changed as well. I killed so many people until I understood what had been done to me. The witch coven that raised me decided I was an abomination of nature and tried to kill me on numerous times. So mimicking my parents I fled to the New World"
"That's horrible! Did you find them?"
I was now completely engrossed in her story. She shook her head sadly
"It was easy to track them down as there was only one port they could have used but when I finally reached it the village had been burnt to a crisp. Only one family remained there and they were more than happy to tell me tales of my family"
"Tales?"
"Tales"
she nodded
"They told me how my parents and brother arrived one day and were welcomed by the local people. They had five more children and one day the youngest got killed by werewolves"
"Werewolves"
I repeated dumfounded. Was it stupid of me to think the only werewolves are in la push?
"Yes the entire village was populated by werewolves so my family had to hide during the full moon. The youngest brother snuck out and got killed by one of them"
"Is that why your mother created vampires?"
"Yes. According to that family my father begged the local witch to do it but she couldn't so my mother, driven by revenge she did"
"not to sound horrible but since America hadn't been discovered yet how had would it be to track down the only light skinned people around the village?"
She threw her head back laughing at my tentative tone
"Harder than you imagine. Neither of my parents was faithful. My mother had two sons and my father had a daughter"
she said sadly.
"I guess TV hadn't been discovered yet either"
I deadpanned. She pulled a rolled up parchment from somewhere and handed it to me. gently I unrolled it and saw a charcoal drawing of eight people.
"Your family?"
"yes. My parents are in the back and my siblings are in the front. I found it in the remains of the house. I spent centuries trying to find them but failed. It wasn't until I decided to return to the village, now a quaint little town, hoping they'd get homesick on our 1000th birthday and come back"
"Did they?"
She shook her head.
"No. instead I found Lexi like I told you and the rest is history"
"I'm sorry Freida. Maybe they will at a later point"
I tried to offer some comfort. She shrugged one shoulder and began twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
"Did you ever make any vampires of your own?"
She shook head
"No, I spent a lot of time with other vampires but I really wanted to find my family. now I met Lexi and its like I have a younger, annoying sister"
She snorted. I couldn't help but laugh along, Lexi does feel a bit immature at times but she's also dependable.
