The Rites And Bewitchments Of Bella Swan

All The Good Stuff Happens Under The Moonlight

I honestly don't know why the hell I'm here. It's so cold out here. I'm standing here, with this...thing. This amethyst stick basically. Really? A magick wand? God I need sleep. Remind me why we're out here again?

Hi, I'm Bella Swan, and this the story of how I found myself in Forks, Washington.

So, like, today is my birthday. I'm seventeen. My loving, weird ass mother comes into my bedroom this morning, singing "Happy Birthday" at some ungodly hour, like 7 AM or whatever, and gives me this sort of antique box. It's about a foot long, narrow and looks like some craftsman really put in some work to hold a necklace or something.

"What is it," I ask my mom.

"It was your great-grandmother's. Open it!" mom smiled proudly, and clapped her hands together. So I did. I was expecting, like, a necklace obviously or some kind of locket or whatever was the fashion back in my great-grandmother's day. Jewelry was really impressive in her time. You know that rock the old lady wore in the movie "Titanic?" Great-grandma had impressive stuff like that. Something that the average teenaged girl absolutely positively cannot wear in modern society -- outside of it being clunky, it made you a target of theft like instantly. It would be pretty, heck it might've had pure silver or gold as part of it, but practically would not factor into it.

So I opened it. I did NOT expect a...what is this? Mom quickly sat down next to me on the bed and removed the strange item from the box, and setting the old box aside gently, and held it aloft.

"Okay, so, before I tell you, I need to say your great-grandma was a bit, shall we say eccentric in her beliefs."

"Okay I'm still confused mom."

"Well, she came from another time, another place, with certain beliefs. In magick. With a "k" apparently. This, apparently, is...or was her magick wand."

I laughed. I shouldn't have. Thankfully, my mom understood.

"Yeah, I did the same thing when I first heard the story. So, great-grandma carried this with her everywhere she traveled, supposedly." I took the 'magick wand' and held it in my hands, half-expecting a Harry Potter moment, and just as I truly expected, nothing happened. It was like a polished gem, just somehow elongated to be nearly a full ten inches long, tapered, with a fashioned handle to make it easier to hold.

"What is it made of?"

"Amethyst, apparently. A crystal of some kind. Great-grandma believed in some kind of crystal magick, I'm told. She was, like, the hippie of her days, I guess."

"Cool" was all I could say. Well, it was. It was a cool...good luck charm, I guess? The tapered amethyst was also cool to the touch, so it was a great response to a confusing gift that I just absolutely did not understand.

"Thanks, mom. It's great."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's...different."

"Okay, so I'll level with you – this wasn't my idea. It was hers."

"Hers, who?"

"Your great-grandma. She left a letter to go along with it." Mom then handed me an old, very well preserved letter, in a thick envelope that was sealed with, get this, an actual candle-wax seal. Of course that envelope had been sorted inside a few layers of other, slightly more modern envelopes, and it took four total of various ages to get to the original envelope. In a perfectly crafted, incredibly styled cursive elegant form of penmanship was one word. It read simply 'Bella'"

"Okay sweetie, time to get up. Breakfast is ready and we are going out shopping. You are going to be pampered like the blossoming goddess you are, okay? Oh, and here's a card from your dad."