Peppermint

Chapter 1: The Beginning

~Chynna~

January 30

It was raining when my family and I made it to our new house in the small mountain town called Silverton, the town that we'd now call home.

It had been particularly warm when we left our old place in the city that morning, a mere three and a half hours ago. Despite being midwinter, the temperature had been almost sixty degrees, with a big blazing sun in the cloudless sky. And it had remained that way up until about thirty minutes before we arrived in Silverton. When the mountains came into view, the rain did as well.

Our new home was a two-story structure placed at the middle of Clearwater Drive, a small neighborhood with gorgeous views of the Appalachian Mountains in the distance. The road itself started off as a slightly curvy path that snaked through the surrounding lush green valleys before ascending to a hill, at the crest of which our house was perched.

It was painted a light-bluish shade of lavender, large windows covered with burgundy shutters set into the front. Though most of the leaves had been coaxed off their branches by the icy winter, tall, hovering trees dotted the large front yard, some being evergreens whose leafy foliage shook and swayed in the storm winds.

Worlds away from the cramped apartment we'd lived in before, there was something very warm and cozy about the house, a vibe that made me excited for the newness that was to come, the memories we'd soon create in this house.

There was just one thing standing in the way of my anticipation, one little thing putting a damper on my mood...

The rainstorm.

After Mom parked the car in the driveway, the three of us just sat there for a minute, staring out the raindrop-streaked windows at the gray, wet world with dread.

I pulled out my earbuds and sighed, imagining the process of unloading a moving truck in the pouring rain-carrying our things in, going back and forth between the wet and the dry. "Great day for moving."

Tokyo pouted next to me. "Mom, we're gonna get soaked. And all our stuff will too."

"It'll be fine," Mom said, but the heavy sigh that followed her words let me know my sister and I weren't the only ones annoyed by the weather.

A few seconds later, the rumble of approaching vehicles let us know Dad and the movers had arrived. Driving his white Ford truck, Dad pulled up beside our car and rolled down his window, motioning for Mom to roll hers down as well.

"It's gonna be a pain in the butt," he told her, yelling over the loudly pounding raindrops. "But we're just gonna have to do it. Let's try to move fast so everything doesn't get too wet, okay?"

Stowing my phone and earbuds in the pocket of my backpack, I zipped up my jacket and pulled the hood up over my head, knowing the lightweight material wouldn't make any difference against the downpour, but somehow feeling braver with it on. I could hear the moving truck behind us, the sound of the engine slowly fading to silence as it was cut off.

My sister turned to look at me, an unhappy smile on her face that seemed to say let's get this torture over with. I nodded, my hand on the door handle.

"Ready sis?" she asked.

I sighed. "Ready."

It took almost the whole day for the four of us to get everything inside the house. We'd tried to move quickly to avoid getting soaked, but that was useless, and the rain actually ended up slowing us down more. We had to take more caution to not let the important stuff get wet, or to not slip on the slick ground.