Toil and Trouble

Chapter One - Teresa

Does anyone ever get the feeling that they were being watched? If you do then it's most likely because you are. Probably by upset spirits or by the supernatural... but it could even be your strange neighbour in the wife beater. Unfortunately for me, I know exactly who it is constantly watching over my shoulder, mostly because she makes it very apparent. My dearest friend Luna who refuses to believe that, hiding in a tree for hours just so she can watch me draw, is stalking in a sense. I don't mind it at times but at others... let's just say I'm drawing things she shouldn't be seeing.

Most of the time though my sketches are just that, sketches. Though sometimes my magic acts up and I start sketching prophecies for anyone I've met. I once drew Luna falling off her bike seconds before it happened. My sketches are also of a strange boy with deep blue eyes... eyes I know I should know. But I never recognize them, not even when I realized that they should have silver flecks around the iris.

"You know that's the third pair of eyes you've drawn in the past hour?"

"JESUS BLOODY CHRIST LUNA!" I shout, my eyes instantly moving up to my friend, her right hand holding on to one of the thicker branches of the apple tree in my front yard. I clenched my jaw, slamming my sketchbook closed, crossing my arms. I tried my hardest to ignore her cheery peals of laughter before I eventually snapped, throwing my shoe at her, smirking when I heard her hit the ground.

"Ow?" I raised a brow when a pair of luminescent olive eyes were staring at me, tilting my head, before wincing when Luna laid across my lap. Luna was tiny in the sense of that my grandmother is constantly feeding her in the attempt to make her less supermodel and more homely. She normally had this long silver-blonde hair that blocked her eyes, but she had cut it off at the beginning of summer into a short pixie cut, that strangely worked with her oval shaped face. Everything on Luna was pale and slim except her face; her lips were thin, her eyes were wide and framed by silver lashes, her nose slender and straight. She was beautiful... and she knew it.

"Damn straight ow... Do you realize what my mum would have done if she had seen you in the tree?" I playfully shove my dearest friend, ruffling her hair, before sighing contently. She laughs before she shrugs her slim shoulders, her nose wrinkling up, before giggling.

"I can smell your mom burning sage and lavender... did your dad come for a visit?" She whispers slowly, her eyes studying my notebook once more. The nosy little woman was correct; my father had come for his monthly visit right on time, but it didn't stop my mother from locking all of the doors to try and keep him out. She always had her reasoning for it... but I think it was just her way of hiding the fact that my father was practicing the dark arts and planning on using it against the mortals.

"Yeah... he smelt like sulfur... I think he managed to summon whatever he's been trying for... like 5 years. Mum had an entire barn when she caught the smell, I thought she was going to kill him right then and there." I laugh weakly, biting my lip, glancing at Luna.

"I'm sorry for that babes..." She hugs me quickly before she looks up when she heard some familiar shouting from down the road, sighing before she studies me. "That's Ms. Agnes... I've gotta run. But wait until you see the five new guys at the foster house. Holy hell are they cute." She winks at me before running off, closing my gate behind her, the magical vines slowly wrapping around it once more.

"Goodbye Luna..." I whisper, standing up and walking back into the house, ignoring my mother and grandma as they dance around with their bundles of sage and lavender, removing the negative energy left over by my father. I walk up the stairs slowly, opening my door, laying down in my bed. I turn my music on loudly to drown out the chanting downstairs, closing my eyes, returning to my drawings.