Banshee Girl in Forks
She used to live in Virginia, but at the age of 10, the fae blood inside her was awoken with her bleed.
Her veins in her body turned a white silver. She woke up screaming, thinking she was on fire but in too much pain to move. She was asleep for almost a week straight.
In that time, her mother and grandmother began packing up their small mountainside home. When she woke up, almost her entire room was packed and she didn’t know why.
Communication was always free and easy, sometimes even unspoken in their household. So she waited for a sign, any explanation of what had changed so suddenly and drastically.
Sitting beside her bed, they told the story of their ancestors. Centuries ago her bloodline was part of the fae people. They were a particular kind of fae with a specific job and purpose. As humans began to rise and the church demonized anything that was considered unknown, the fae united with humans creating changlings of sorts.
The fae bloodline was strong and lasting, continuing on in some people even in present day to perform the duties of their ancestors as the universe needed. This particular family line hadn’t had such an awakening in at least four generations, they’d thought it had died out. Until her.
Through the next ten years or so, she could expect drastic changes, some of which no one could prepare for. And sometimes it’s not safe to be around others when those changes happen. A small town in the southern Bible Belt wasn’t safe, people talk and grow suspicious very quickly. It’s better for them to make up their own stories than to stay and add fuel to the fire.
So to protect her, they were going somewhere they don’t question supernatural things. Somewhere people like them can help in plain sight and no one is the wiser. A place like Forks, Washington.
The grandmother had to stay. She’d lived in that house over sixty years and wouldn’t part with it to be sold to someone else. It was a heart wrenching goodbye. The girl who’d never spent a day without her grandmother and mother together now had to leave.
It wasn’t until she looked down at her hands from holding her crying face did she notice the marks. They almost looked like scars, white lines along her hands and forearms where blue or green veins would normally be.
When she gazed at herself in the mirror for the first time, she finally saw the intricate pattern of knots and swirls along her spine, venturing out like a tree covered in snow. It was beautiful and mysterious, but needed to be hidden always.
Forks became her home from then on and essentially she was a normal kid. She learned about the local flora and fauna, helping her mother in the kitchen with new recipes and mixtures. She went to school and made distant friends with people who sort of thought she was a bit weird but not too much. It was quirky at that point.
She started seeing, feeling, and hearing dead people wherever she went. They’d find her, seemingly drawn in by her silvery scars and ask for help. The first one she saw, she thought it was a customer from the herbal shop her mom ran who came looking for something special at their home.
She called to her mom but her mom couldn’t see him. He spoke in a broken voice like there was static in the way of his words, but she knew he needed help. Her instincts took over before her mind could catch up. She opened the veil for him to enter the afterlife and he moved on peacefully.
Her mother stood in quiet awe of her daughter’s ability and didn’t question it except to ask if she was alright. Being barely 12, she nodded and went back to harvesting the lemon balm. And that became her life.
High school rolled around without much fuss. She’d earned a slightly quirky but cool reputation. A writer for the school newspaper and occasional replacement photographer. The cloudy, rainy, and cold weather kept her arms almost always covered.
The day the Cullens started school, she almost choked on a laugh. Their auras and even appearances were so not human, she considered they might’ve been more direct fae ancestors. I mean Alice could certainly play that card.
They all became a sort of oddity for her. A mystery she was quietly determined to crack. She’d never spoken to them or anything, but kept a weary eye out. Something about them set her on edge.
It took two years before she finally figured it out and wanted to flip a table because it seemed so obvious. Six months after that, she sort of guess on each of their abilities.
Edward randomly smiling or looking angry or bored, glancing his head automatically to hear something that wasn’t there.
Alice had the aura of a seer once she got past all the dead stuff. And Jasper, empath recognizes empath.
An interesting flaw in her fae genes seemed to be a complete immunity to their powers but also a fun dodge pattern so they wouldn’t notice anything was missing anyway.
She was feeling pretty proud of herself at figuring it all out. A bit smug and important before someone’s spirit came and smacked her to reality, hard.
Her grandmother. She could tell she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want her own granddaughter to have to use her gifts this way or find out. Had there been a moment delay, her mother would’ve been able to excuse her from school so she could grieve and work in peace.
But there her grandmother was, in the middle of the cafeteria and the banshee had to work quickly and quietly to help move her on onto the afterlife. On autopilot, she opened the veil but her grandmother wouldn’t leave.
She kept trying to say things. Broken words filled with static but expressing so much emotion it was overwhelming. Calmly, banshee picked up her stuff and went outside into the pouring rain, not minding the weird looks some people gave her.
And she sobbed. Ugly, loud, chest heaving sobs half from her and her mother and grandmother. All their emotions colliding in her small 16 year old heart. It was the only day she’d ever hated her gifts and wished they’d never existed.
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