The Demon's Daughter

Chapter One - Antique

Chapter One – Antique

Mom was talking beside me, trying to lift my somber mood with stories about her clumsy childhood. I ignored her; staring out our car window to the bright city around us, with newly made stores and vibrant signs. The people, dressed in pristine clothing, didn't notice us as they spoke to each other with fixed smiles and trained laughs. Seeing their perfectly buttoned shirts and gleaming shoes, I couldn't help but feel under dressed in my plain sweater and scruffy shoes.

Dogwood was the type of town one would see celebrities living in; on its worse days, the cars would lose some sparkle, but other than that, the citizens were stuck with shining windows and carefully washed seats. Grandma liked to talk about how the city used to look when she was a little girl – she said that the buildings used to be charming houses surrounded by gorgeous dogwood trees. She had left to go to college, and by the time she'd felt nostalgic, her green fields and flowery trees had been paved over and torn down.

Besides the short vacations to Grandma's house, I'd spent most of my life in Dogwood. It was only last year that I thought I'd never come back to the colorful city that I used to call home; last year, when Mom packed a few bags of our belongings and dragged me over to Grandma's house as though she were being chased.

Mom glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Isn't it good to be back, Diana?”

Because of the silver strands lining with her blonde hair, Mom looked very old for her age, so when she began showing her worry, she resembled Grandma a lot more than she should have. I turned back to the window, ignoring the deepening frown on her forehead and the ever-thinning lips. Mom could give me her “sad eyes” for as long as she wanted, but my forgiveness would not be easily gained. She'd uprooted me from the place I grew up in without an explanation, only to move us back a year later, as though everything would go back to normal.

“That depends on how long we're staying,” I said. I didn't use that tone with her often, but when I did, I instantly regretted it. Family was an important thing when you barely had any.

“I can't make any promises,” Mom said guiltily.

“Can you at least,” I said, “give me a warning before you decide that we need to leave?”

“I'm sorry for that,” she insisted. “It wasn't planned – at all. I was just as surprised as you were. I know you're frustrated at not being able to say goodbye to your friends, but I'm sure they'll understand.”

Friend. I only had one.

It was hard to believe that I used to call the city around me “home.” The place bled vanity; the people were gawking openly at every reflection of themselves they could catch, not noticing that a family who had only left a year before just returned. I was so used to Grandma's endless fields yet close neighbors that the distance between everyone's minds startled me, and I couldn't see a reason why I'd fallen in love with Dogwood in the first place.

Mom slowed the car when we reached the downtown. It was probably the most populated area of the city, with people pushing by each other, trying to get to the next store so that their fists could carry even more bags. Most of the stores were as modern as the rest of the city, showing off their most prized products through the windows, but there was one store that instantly caught my attention. It was small and squished in between two red brick buildings, with a large, dim sign hanging above the wooden doors that read: ANTIQUES.

Creative, I thought.

Mom reached into the back seat and grabbed the pecan pie she had insisted on getting at a small bakery just out of town.