Chapter One

Green. That was the first word that came to as I stared out the car window. Tall pine trees flew by as my mom blared some of her writing mojo music as she liked to call it.

"You know honey, it rains 121 inches on average per year here, isn't that wonderful? I really think this place will help me find the magic I need to finish my book." My mom was practically gushing with excitement, but I just hummed under my breath in response. I had learned to not get attached. After all we'd been through this before, well approximately twenty times before.

"Honey, aren't you excited to meet new friends?" I sighed quietly to myself and tucked myself closer to the side door of my mom's old Volkswagen Bug. The window was cool from the cold air outside and it helped with soothing the headache I could feel forming. "Honey?" I could feel my mom's gaze on me so I detached my skull from the car window and rolled my head to face her. Strands of black hair that escaped from her braid hung loosely along her face, her bright green eyes were wide with excitement. She wore no makeup, but she was still breathtakingly beautiful. Her olive skin made her green eyes pop and I got the gleam of the little emerald green stud in her nose. We had been living in New Orleans at the time she had gotten it. She claimed she felt a spiritual connection to the city, so she wanted something to remember it by and when we happened to walk by and tattoo and piercing parlor not even a second after she had said it, she claimed it was fate. I restrained myself from telling her that there were tattoo parlors on nearly every corner. She wanted to get matching nose studs, but I convinced her I'd get matching tattoos with her when I turned 18. Smirking at the memory I turned my head back to the window. "Yeah mom, I'm excited as always." I held back the bitterness I was feeling in my voice and tried to fake the happiness I knew she wanted me to feel.

I love traveling seeing new places I've never been before. I got to not only learn about history and culture of different places but experience it for myself, but we never stuck in one place for too long. We were practically nomads. I used to make friends, have boyfriends and when we left, I would try and keep in touch, but eventually it got too hard. People stopped calling, no more gifts were sent in the mail for holidays, and birthdays and those relationships just faded. After I realized mom never wanted to stay in one place, I stopped making friends. Instead I invested my time in books and whatever new skill I was trying to accomplish that month.

I quietly listened as my mom spewed about the town we'd be moving into. The plus side to this place was there was a lot of hiking I could use when mom would inevitably get too invested in her writing. "Oh Tess, they even have a stable, I know you've been wanting to pick up riding again so I went ahead and scheduled a lesson for you next weekend. I figured you'd like a little get away after your first week of school." I sat up and flung my eyes over to my mother, she was smiling but had her eyes locked onto the road ahead of her yet she was still practically bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Mom, that's actually amazing, thank you." I had been riding horses since I was five and tried to make it a goal of mine to find a barn where ever we went. Some of the places we went it just wasn't plausible so when we did find a place I could ride I was always ecstatic. Riding was one of the few things I could get completely lost in and nothing else mattered.

"I just have a really good feeling about this place Tess. Something is telling me this is going to be the best place yet!" I practically snorted in response, "Mom you've said that about every place we've been to." And she had, it was practically her catchphrase by this point.

"Tess I'm telling you this is different." I rolled my eyes and returned my eyes back to green view before me. I listened to the GPS blast instructions. We drove for another fifteen minutes before my mom turned off the highway. "So I have to admit something, I have some surprises." I groaned quietly and thunked my head against the class of the window. "Mom you know I hate surprises! Why can't you just tell me now?" I crossed my arms in irritation, we had been over my hatred of surprises several times but her spur of the moment tendencies always won out. I always ended up losing that battle.

"Then it wouldn't be a surprise silly! Now look you're going to love them both. Once we get to the house-"

"The what?"

"Oopsies, there goes one surprise." My mom let out a tinkling laugh. "You'll love it sweetie, you'll see!" I stared at her dumbfounded, we had been driving along a residential looking road, but never would I have thought she got a house. "We are just renting of course, and I got it for pretty cheap. The owner did say its old but we're used to that, aren't we?"

"Yeah-uh, right, but a house mom? Aren't apartments usually more of our thing?"

"Forks doesn't really run that way, oh I can't wait for you to see it! I think you're going to love it." My mom let out a little happy screech. "This is our street!" I cranked my neck to get a view of fading green street sign "Maple Drive" appeared in chipped white letters. My mom pulled to the end of the block where a tiny cottage was practically smooshed in the tree line. It had once been dark blue, but the paint had faded so much so you could practically see the natural wood color underneath. Two windows sat on either side of the door and unearth there had once been a little garden, now it was just an overgrown batch of weeds.

Maybe it was the fact that this was the first house that we've lived in in years, but I loved it. It was definitely run down but it was charming in its own way. "Mom it's great!" I turned to my mom smiling at the building in front of us. "I'm glad you like it, it'll be perfect for us while we're here."

While we're here. There it was, my mom's inability to stay in one place for too long. I felt my love for the house already begin to diminish. I couldn't get attached because this wasn't permanent, and I couldn't risk getting my heart broken over and over again. "Yeah, right while we're here of course." If my mom noticed my change in tone, she certainly didn't say anything. Instead she unbuckled her seat belt with a click and exited the car. Following her lead I stepped out of the Bug, which my mom affectionately called Pattie, and stood up with satisfying cracks from my legs and back. My mom smoothed out her long green sweater and turned to face me with a dazzling smile.

"Close your eyes." I gave her a look and she returned one of her own. "Tess please, come on." With a sigh I did as she said, not a moment later I felt her warm hand enclose around mine and cold metal dropped into my open hand. "Surprise!" My eyes flew open and stared incredulously at the keys in my hand. There was a colorful leather strap worn down with the years of use that acted as the keychain and the keys I knew that belonged to Pattie. "Pattie is all yours! Happy Birthday!"

"Mom my birthday isn't for another five months." She scoffed and stepped forward to place a hand on my cheek and the other on the back of my head. We were about the same height, around 5' 7", me being only marginally taller than her. "Tess I know that but you've had your license for a while now and you deserve to have your own car. You work hard and get good grades and never give me any problems. I know all this moving is hard on you and I thought you deserved something special." She gestured at the yellow Bug in the driveway, "I know Pattie isn't brand new but she's always done us well. I just wanted to give you a chance to really explore the area, and you can't really do that on a mountain bike, now can you?"

"But what are you going to drive?"

"I bought an old Ford pickup, oh you'll lover her! I named her Betty and she's the cutest light blue color, the nice man I bought her from is going to drop her off for me! Isn't that sweet?" She moved her hand from my cheek to instead play with ends of my ponytail. "I want you to be happy Tess." Her eyes were watering up with unshed tears.

"Oh mom, I am! Thank you." I grasped her tightly in my arms and choked on my own tears.

"Alright well enough of that, we don't want our new neighbors thinking we're any weirder than we already are.

We headed back towards Pattie and started to unload her. Mom informed me that the cottage was already furnished with the basics and we rarely traveled with bunch of stuff. Since we moved a lot, we quickly learned the less we had, the easier it'd be when we'd have to unpack.

We transported all the boxes into the family room. It was open with a small black couch propped in front of an old fireplace. The kitchen opened up to the family room. There was a small fridge and same basic appliances. An old wooden table was pushed to the side with two chairs. The only bathroom in the house was attached to the living room. Upstairs was my room, a small room in the back corner of the house, my mom's room, which overlooked the front of the house, and a small spare room which would serve as my mom's office.

We spent the next couple of hours cleaning the house, removing any excess dust and trying to make the dark little cottage our own. I cranked open all the windows to relieve the house of its dusty smell and soon the cool air and the smell of the woods was taking over. After I finished cleaning the kitchen, I put away what little dishes we owned, literally two of everything, and a few heavily used pans. I dreaded the day one of us accidentally broke something. I sighed at the empty looking cabinets and moved onto fixing up my own room. I could already hear my mom moving around in her office shuffling around her crystals and candles to make it just the perfect environment for her writing. My mom was very spiritual and believed in the ability of crystals to aid her in all sorts of matters of life. I didn't bother arguing with her, I just made her carry the boxes with all the useless heavy rocks.

I had already cleaned my room earlier and left the large window with a built-in seat attached wide open to air out the room. The room was now cold and I moved to the back to shut the window. Kneeling on the bench I stopped to take into account the heavily forested view and the pretty vines and moss worked their way around the trees. I could get used to this view.

After another hour my room was set up, my books stored in the storage space under the window bench. My laptop sat on the small desk wedged into the corner, along with some notebooks, pens, and pencils for school. I backpack was shoved under the desk. My bed was neatly made with white sheets and an orange comforter my mom insisted that I buy. Three pillows were stacked on top of my comforter and at the end of my bed laid the hand stitched blanket given to me by one of my old friends. The relationship had long since ended but the blanket was warm and reminded me off good times. I had hung the few items of clothing that I had in my closet and placed my shoes underneath them. My leather-bound book full of sketches laid on my endtable with my sketching pencils laying next to it. I had carefully arranged picture frames filled with photographs of all of our travels all over the room. The camera that had taken those photos was neatly stashed under the bed next to the empty moving boxes.

"This looks nice, everything came together well." I jumped at the sound of my mom's voice. "Thanks, everything seemed to find its own place here." And it had, I didn't struggle for a second on where to put anything, in fact it was like I already knew where it belonged like I had been living here for years. "Well that's good. I put everything away in the bathroom and I'm all set to grab some dinner."

Every time we moved somewhere new, no matter how tired we were, it was our tradition to go out and eat. It was our way of getting to know the new place.

"Yeah me to, let me just brush my hair real quick." I grabbed my phone off the end table and hopped down the flight of stairs to head to the bathroom. It was cute and spacious enough that my mom and I would both be able to move around in it if we ever had to be in there at the same time. The toilet and shower were both white marble and a glass door closed off the shower. I opened the cabinet under the sink and found the hair brush my mom and I both shared. After spending a few minutes brushing out my long black hair I peered into the mirror to make sure I didn't look like a complete disaster.

Everyone said I was basically a clone of my mother. We had the same heart shaped face, olive skin, green eyes, and long black hair. I had a small smattering of brown freckles across the bridge of my nose and just under my eyes that my mom told me I got from my dad. She never really talked about him much. He had died when I was a baby in some freak car accident that had left my mom devastated. They were both eighteen when they had me, apparently I was a mistake that they couldn't be more happy about. My mom always told me they were madly in love; soul mates born from the same star destined to reuinte. An old crumpled up picture of him was stowed in the front cover of my leatherbound notebook, my mom had given it to me on my twelfth birthday.

My dad's name had been James and he had beautiful russet brown hair and golden freckles that made him look young and glowing. I could see why my mom was drawn to him, he was like a shimmering light.

Shrugging in the mirror at my tired eyes, I plucked the black hoodie I was wearing to straighten it on my body. Shutting the light and closing the bathroom door behind me I grabbed Pattie's keys from the counter where I left them and turned to face my waiting mother who was lounging on the couch. "I'm ready."

"Excellent," She beamed at me and stood up brushing the nonexistent dust of her jeans, "I hear there's this charming little restaurant in town." She held a notebook with a pen sticking out the top tucked under her arm, something she never left the house without. She was a best selling fiction writer and was determined to jot down anything that could aid her with her books.

"I'll drive." Fifteen minutes later we arrived at a wooden building with large windows, affectionately named "The Lodge". The big windows showcased the large crowd of people on the inside sitting along the booths.

"Looks like everyone had the same idea." My mom stuck her tongue out at me and slung her arm over my shoulder. "Come on my girl, I'm starving." We walked in with a tinkling of bells heralding our arrival. The hostess, a girl no older than me, didn't look up from her nails. "How many?" She uttered in a bored tone.

"Two please, do you happen have any window seats? My daughter and I are new to town and want to get a good view of the place." It was like my mom said she saw Bigfoot walking down main street because every head in the restaurant snapped to look at us, the hostess nearly toppled over from excitement.

"I'm Cara," She pushed back the blonde hair that was falling out of her messy bun and shot me a curious look, "will you be starting at Forks High on Monday?" Cara picked up two menus and gestured for us to follow her.

"Yup, I'm a junior." She brought us to a big booth that was way to big for just the two of us but it was at the front of the restaurant where my mom got her big window to look out of and everyone else got to have an eye full of us.

"No way, me too!" She shot me a big smile, "I'd be happy to show you around school, here I'll give you my number." She swooped my phone of the table before I could even say anything and quickly typed in her number. "There ya go. Your server will be right with you."

"Well she certainly seemed nice, look at you already making friends." I rolled my eyes and stared at the stuffed deer head on the wall. "You know how it goes mom, she's being nice because she's curious. I'm new meat." Before my mom could answer two cups of water were propped on the table.

An older woman with greying hair smiled down at us, "I'm Lucille, I hear you ladies are new. If you need anything, I'd be happy to help you out whether it'd be here at the Lodge or something around town."

"Why thank you Lucille, I'm Amelia and this is my daughter Tess, we really appreciate the hospitality." My mom shot the woman her best million-watt smile.

"Well I'll give you ladies some more time to look over the menu." I opened the menu and flipped it open until I found the burger section.

"Burger?"

"Yup, gotta stick with tradition."

After finishing our meals under the scrutiny of the entire restaurant my mom and I returned to the house said our good nights and went to bed. I always found it hard to fall asleep right away. Sleeping in new places always put me on edge, especially since this cottage had loud creaking sounds that put me on edge.

Slowly I brought my orange comforter to my nose inhaling the scent of lavender detergent. For some indescribable reason something big felt like it was coming and my body knew it. Grabbing my iPod from my side table I flipped it to the instrumental music my mother insisted I listened to and shoved my earphones in. After another half an hour staring at my ceiling I finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

xXx

I woke up the sounds of my mother singing loudly and very off key. My iPod was still blasting instrumental music but the ear phones were far from in my ears. Turning off the music I returned the iPod back to its place on the side table. I pushed back my blankets went to my closet and grabbed some clothes to work out in. Once I had a pair of running leggings on, an old grey shirt, and sneakers I snatched my iPod, and used the hair tie that was always on my wrist to tie up my hair. I jogged down the stairs to find the source of the horrid screeching posing as singing.

"Mom it is way to early for you to be singing this badly." She was cooking eggs judging by the smell spreading through the house.

"Excuse me it is 8:30 am, you usually get up way earlier than that missy. Do not come after my beautiful singing just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I could hear you tossing and turning all night."

Sighing I raised one eyebrow at her, "New place, new noises I have to get used to. You know how it is, don't pretend like you don't do the same thing."

"Never. I got a call from your school, they said to meet the receptionist in the office before school starts. She'll give your schedule, a map, and your locker combo. You have to get all your teachers to sign off on a document you'll get and you'll have to bring it back to the receptionist after school." She moved her attention back to her eggs and dumped them on her plate, switching off the stove and dumping the pan into the sink.

"Sounds easy enough, thanks."

"Are you excited? Nervous?" She lifted a fork full of eggs to her lips blowing on it gently. "I'm used to the whole new girl vibe by now mom. I'll be fine."

"Ah my little girl is growing up." She dropped the plate to the counter and gave me kiss on the cheek. "Enjoy your run, be safe and don't forget you phone. Come back soon because I only get one more day with my baby until she goes back to school." She chewed on her lip gently. "Maybe we should've moved earlier so we could've seen the sights together, gotten you used to the town before school started."

"Really mom, this isn't my first time being the new girl I'll be fine." I kissed her on the cheek, put in my earphones, and blasted Breaking Benjamin.

I ended running about three miles before returning home. The run helped me get a basic lay out of the surrounding neighborhood and honestly running in the cold, clean air of Forks felt really good. I returned home to find my mom locked in her office, she was off in another world entirely and I probably wouldn't see her until dinner. I showered, threw on some sweats and made eggs. Once I was done, I climbed back up to my room and grabbed my well-loved Lord of the Rings book that contained all three book in one out from under its spot under the bench. I grabbed my pillow from my bed and the hand-stitched blanket and tucked myself on the bench.

I spent the rest of my night reading of the adventures of Frodo and the Fellowship until I fell asleep with my head against the window. My mom never came out of her office and we both missed dinner.

"I really mean it this time." I watched her flit her eyes to her GPS. "This is our exit, we're almost at our new homeTop of Form