Banished World

Chapter 1: The Beginning.

I played with my long brown hair as the rain tapped and pitter-pattered against the windows of the taxi. Or as they call it here in the states, a taxicab. I can already tell that this is going to be a stark difference from what I was used to in the UK. Just by the strong New-York twang in the taxi drivers accent. I was in a state of panic when Dan, which I learnt when he started chatting my ear off, started driving on the opposite slide of the road. But apparently that is normal here.

I guess you could say normal isn't a word I hear often. With being a witch and all. Magic runs through my veins, pumps my heart for me to breathe and feeds my brain with creativity. I live off magic. My brother always asked me what it felt like to be a witch. My answer was always: free. I had the power to do what I wanted when I wanted, up until it got harder to hide. When I was younger, I couldn't control my magic and it started to control me, I lost the influence over my power. Then it became a burden. That led to us becoming isolated, the friends I once had fading away into the past, reduced to a distant memory. That's when my answer changed to a curse, magic was a self inflicted curse. Since then I've learned how to control my powers:

To stay isolated and alone.

And NEVER let someone close. 

And life would have stayed that way, had it not all changed. As I said, before, I had never really had friends. I wasn't that popular back at my old school, I kept to myself. I stayed out of other people's way and most of the time they stayed out of mine. This also meant no boyfriends; my brother says I'm an innocent. I've never even been kissed.

My thoughts were interrupted as the taxi slowed to a stop outside a standard looking home. Not too big but not too small. I get out of the taxi and thank Dan, the taxi driver, giving him a small tip. He speeds off down the street. I pick up my bags and walk towards the front door, just from the outside the house looks homely. Something I sense I'll never feel again.

It feels weird everything's changed so quickly. I went from an ordinary teenager doing her A levels, as ordinary as a witch can be, to moving out to America to live with her uncle, well half-uncle. Two weeks. That's all it has taken for everything to change. My parents were here two weeks ago. Now they aren't. My life went from happy to terrible so quickly. Moving to a new country to live with distant family members that have never really seemed to pay attention to my existence before.

I knock once. No reply. I ring the bell. No reply. I'm about to knock it again when a very pregnant woman opens the door, my aunt.

"Hi, Juliet. Come on in. Daniel will be home soon." My aunt says as she ushers me in.

" Hi...um thanks Amy, for having me," I say as I enter the house.

"How was your flight, not too much trouble I hope?" She asks in a calm voice. As she strokes her large belly.

"It was alright, long," I answer looking around.

I've never been here before. Four years ago, after my uncle moved here for work, he met Amy. A Texas-born and bred redhead who was a waitress once all those years ago finishing up a psychology degree. A big difference from my uncle who's an accountant. We settle into an awkward silence, when the jingle of my uncles keys are heard from the door as it opens. I hear my uncle's Liverpool accent bellow from down the hall.

" I'm home," he yells.

"We're in the kitchen," his wife replies.

"Oh, hi Juliet," he says as he kisses his wife's cheek, then coming up to give me an uneasy hug.

After the newness of my arrival had calmed, I went up to my temporary bedroom. The guest room. It had beige walls, a wooden bed in the middle of the wall, a chest of drawers, a walk-in wardrobe and an en-suite. Standard. Ordinary. Maybe if I think it enough, I will be too. It had a seaside theme with little sailing boats dotted about, a pale blue and white quilt as well as pictures of the seaside up on the wall. Serene.