It was raining. Again.
My car was in the shop so I had no choice but to walk. I shouldn't even have bothered coming to school, my books were already soaked to the bone. All I could do now was to just turn around and go home.
My mum's first words when she gave birth to me, as she held me in her arms were "you're bad luck, child." Considering those were also her last words, it's safe to say she was correct in her assumption. The gossip spread through the small town like wildfire. I killed my mother at birth. My father turned to drinking to cope with me.
All the kids started calling me Jinx as a joke. It wasn't a joke to me, and after several punches and kicks I doled out, they didn't quite find it funny again. I was suspended then expelled from my school there and when Dad lost his job, we decided to make the move back to his mum's, my grandma's house.
My grandma was a very strange woman who lived in a dreary, rainy town called Gibson. She loved my father, always called him her "baby." Who calls a 45 year old baby? She had no tolerance for me however. When my dad wasn't listening, she'd whisper the words cursed child under her breath. She was very superstitious and had a huge head of white hair. I called her witch behind her back.
So no, we weren't exactly a poster picture for a perfect family but I loved my dad. He always had peppermints for me in his pocket, and he still called me his little girl even though I was seventeen. He always told me that it wasn't my fault mum died and defended me against any nasty rumors the residents in the other town had to say about me.
But now we were in a different place, and this time people didn't know my past. Even though my grandma was a huge pain in my ass, I was glad for the second chance at life. Today was my first day at school, but because of this horrid rain there was no way I could go.
"What are you doing back so early?" Grandma asked when I came in through the kitchen door.
Her house was like a tiny cottage and she had these weird things which I suspected were dead birds hanging over every door. She definitely was a witch, or probably was one in her past life. She was even stirring something in a pot like a cauldron.
"I didn't go." I answered back.
"You're skipping school now?" She said, pointing the wooden spoon in my face. "I told your father that you weren't serious in school. I told him the best thing would be to send you to boarding school. Nobody ever listens to me."
"It's raining, grandma." Even that word tasted vule in my mouth. She wasn't my grandma, at least she didn't act like it. Grandma's were supposed to kind and plump and always pinching your cheeks. This one was hard and she was so skinny, you could see her cheekbones as clear as day. And she definitely wasn't pinching my cheeks. More like smacking my hand with a wooden spoon at every turn.
"You have so many excuses." She tutted. "Quite like that tramp mother of yours. You really are cut from the same cloth."
"Poppet!" My dad's boisterous voice shut her up as he came in. He looked at me and frowned. "Why are you wet?"
"It's raining, dad." I pointed outside. I was still dripping on the welcome mat and I was starting to shiver. "I ran back home because the rain was getting heavier by the minute. Can you call and tell them I was sick?"
Dad nodded but Grandma rushed in to say. "No need to lie for the girl, Callum. Tomorrow she'll deal with it." Which basically meant she didn't care if I'd get into trouble on my first day. "Callum, could you help me get my glasses. I can't see a bloody thing. Amara, go upstairs and change. You're dripping all over my good mat." She sighed dramatically. "I'm going to have to squeeze it out. I might not do a great job though, these old hands are not quite what they once were."
"Amara can help you do that, can't you poppet?" Dad chirped in. I wanted to scream in frustration. When dad looked my way, the witch gave an evil smirk.
"Of course." I gritted out.
"And that little hamper of clothes in the hallway, if you don't mind." The witch purred like she wasn't just insulting my dead mother a few minutes ago.
She did very well to pretend like she wasn't a witch and Dad never suspected a thing. I walked off leaving them in the middle of their conversation and spotted the so called "little hamper". It wasn't little at all, more like a hamper that was reaching my shoulder and filled to the brim. Just great.
I changed into a hoodie and sweats and set about to doing the laundry. Grandma didn't have a washing machine so I had to do it with my bare hands. I went through even though I didn't want to simply because the sooner I got this done, the sooner she would get tired of tormenting me and leave me alone.
I was finally done when I looked outside and realized it was already getting dark. It was still raining, this was the kind of town where it was always raining, and I was already starving like a beast. I walked into the kitchen/ dining area and grandma and dad were sitting at the table, laughing at something.
"Poppet!" My dad said when he spotted me. "Come sit. You've been working so hard. Mum, get her a plate."
The witch looked like she'd rather slice me up with the plate than do that, but she brought a plate nevertheless and served my food in it. I sat down at the table and Dad immediately reached for my hand. "Poppet, I was just telling grandma about the time you told there were werewolves under your bed and you slept in the hallway for weeks."
They laughed again like it was hiralous. Which is kind of was. But thinking back on it now, why did Dad allow me to sleep in the hallway in the first place?
"I'm sorry for taking you away from your friends, Poppet. I hope you find some new ones here." He squeezed my hand before letting it go.
"If she eventually goes to school." The witch muttered under her breath. "Did you even have any friends, Amara?" She said out loud. She always had a scowl on her face whenever she said my name because it was also my mum's name. She hated me, all right. But she despised my mum even more.
"Of course she did." Dad said. "My Amara was very popular, always calling to say she was going over to her friend's place."
Ok, maybe the witch was right about one thing. I didn't have friends and I was sneaking out to go meet a boy. What? I was a hormonal teenager, bite me. He cheated on me eventually, so it actually came back to bite me. Grandma narrowed her eyes at me like she could read my mind across the dinner table.
"You know you look just like her?" My dad's eyes glazed over and I had a horrible feeling he was about to start crying. I loved my dad, but I didn't want to see that. He reached out to touch my hair.
"Callum, you need to start taking better care of your daughter." She almost shivered at the word daughter. "Her wild hair is always all over the place. It's unruly." Of course, she'd try to tame the one thing I and my mother had alike.
I never knew my mother but my dad used to tell me stories about her and show me pictures. We looked nothing alike, except I had her curly hair and brown eyes. She was tall and slim and I wasn't.
"Mother." Dad sighed.
"I'm just saying, Callum. Amara wasn't the best role model and I'm asking you to step up now so your daughter won't end up just like her."
"Just like her how?" I snarled back. I was done with grandma's snide remarks and rude words. I didn't like my mother, not after all the stories I'd heard but she didn't have to always snipe at her memory.
"Don't talk back to me, young lady." Her eyes narrowed.
"I said, like her how?" I shouted.
"Amara." My dad warned but I was past warning.
"A tramp!" Grandma screamed. "A demon. She stole my baby from me and produced you! A devil spawn! She was always a witch, smiling around and opening her legs up for whoever so much as looked at her and now her devil blood runs through your veins."
I stared, shell shocked at her venomous words. Her hate ran deeper than just me, she hated my mother for marrying my dad and she was never going to let me forget it. I stood, and my chair fell back against the wooden floor. I was about to tell her just what I thought of her when I noticed Dad's red face and stilted breath.
"Dad!" I dropped to my knees at his side just as he collapsed, bringing me and the chair down with him. "He's having a heart attack! Grandma, call nine-one-one!"
Grandma had started sobbing and she ran for the old telephone in the other room.
"Dad, please don't leave me. Please." I whispered, stroking his hair away from his face. "Please!" He was taking shallower breaths and he lifted his hand to my hair. I was crying and sobbing as he patted my hair then his hand fell down.
I felt like my entire world had collapsed. I couldn't feel his pulse again and I cried into his chest that once was beating strong, now silent and hollow. He was dead. My father was dead.
"Callum!" I don't even notice when Grandma had come into the room and now she was trying to push me away from him. "Let go of him, you demon! You want to take my baby away from me too?!"
She slapped me and my restraint broke. My father was dead, I didn't have to be polite to her again. I pushed her away from me, so hard that she fell back and looked at me with terror in her eyes. "You killed him."
"No, you killed him." I spat at her. "He died because of you. And I'm glad he's gone so he can escape you finally."
I ran out of the house just as the sirens started. I was angry and I don't even remember when I started screaming and crying but I felt like I was never going to stop. I don't remember when I reached the forest and the lightning turned dark blue.
The forest got dark and cold and I stumbled and fell on the ground. The lightning struck where I was, dangerously close to my head and I felt the world go black.
Then I heard a howl.