comfort zone ➳ the vampire diaries

chapter thirteen

picture - ruby ✨

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I rolled over, rays of sunlight creeping through my window and hitting my face.

I opened my eyes slowly, looking at my alarm clock to see what time it was. 8:17 AM.

"Rise and shine!" Damon said, catching me by surprise. I didn't know that he actually stayed.

"Hey," I said sleepily, sitting up.

"Told you I'd stay," He said, somehow reading my thoughts. I knew he couldn't actually read my thoughts though - not a vampire possibility.

I heard footsteps approaching my door and Damon was gone in a flash, my door opening.

"I made pancakes," My mom said, then holding up the photo album.

---

"It started with Amara Petrova," Mom said as I poured syrup over my pancakes.

"Amara fell in love with Qetsiyah's fiancé, Silas. Qetsiyah and Silas were both very powerful witches in the first century, while Amara was just a handmaiden for her."

"Silas manipulated Qetsiyah into making an immortality elixir, making her believe that they were going to drink it on their wedding night, but he and Amara drank it, so they could be together forever,"

I continued to pay close attention.

"When Qetsiyah found out what they had done... she wasn't happy."

"How do you know all of this?" I asked.

"Grace Hawthorn," Mom flipped to the beginning of the photo album, a very old drawing of a girl with the date "1692" in the corner. "She lived in Salem during the Witch trials, and even though she was a witch she was never convicted,"

"We have witches in our family?"

"Many Petrova women are witches," She said matter of factly.

"Am I?"

"I am,"

I raised an eyebrow. My mom is a witch?

She started to flip pages, showing me a picture dated 1942.

"That's your great grandmother - Ruby Jean St. Clair - Hawthorn,"

"Is that Damon?" I asked, pointing to the unmistakable face two people over from her in the group photograph.

"She was a witch," My mom said, avoiding answering my question with the obvious answer.

"I see our resemblance," I said, looking hard at the woman that I never knew. She had similar facial features of mine, but some parts of her looked like Elena.. or Katherine.

From: Stefan
Emergency at Elena's. Come asap

"Uh, I have to go.." I spoke hesitantly, taking one last bite of my pancakes before standing.

"Be careful out there," She warned. I didn't even bother going upstairs to change out of my sweatpants and tank top that I had tossed on before coming downstairs, putting shoes on and heading straight out of the house towards Elena's.

When I arrived, nearly the whole gang was there.

"What is it?"

"We might really need to go with Damon's plan," Stefan said, Damon having a triumphant look on his face.

"Why?" I asked, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.

"My Aunt Jenna invited him in," Elena sighed. She was standing by Stefan very close, like he was a shield of some sort.