What Now?

Chapter 1

It's been 2 years since Hope lost both of her parents. She has never gotten past their deaths, but she never really mourned them either. As far as she is concerned, losing them is the hardest thing she has ever dealt with.

For about 6 weeks now, Hope has been researching the spells from a grimoire she found at the secondhand bookstore in town. It's the most complicated book of spells she has ever seen, and that's saying a lot considering she owns the Original Witch's grimoire. It has taken around a week for Hope to translate and decode each spell. Usually that would only take her a couple hours, but not only are these spells very complicated, each one gets darker and darker.

This particular spell that Hope is working on is one she found while skimming through the pages of the grimoire this afternoon. The pages are thicker than usual paper and are almost a tan color from being worn and old. The markings on the page are what caught her attention. Something about them looked so interesting to her. Also, she saw the title resembled the Latin words for "revived from the dead". If this is something, she could use to revive dead things she could definitely use it in her herb studies. Of course, the first thought she had was of her parents. Hope knows bringing her parents back from the dead is not possible as she has tried several times and the fact that there is no "Other Side" anymore makes it a more difficult task.

Hope has only made it as far as the ingredients for her spell. She knows she can find all these things around school; she just needs a little more power. Okay, maybe a lot more power. How could she get more power just to try her new spell?

Hope was sitting in the boarding house common room writing down any ideas she had because if anyone saw this list they would be so confused and not understand what she is attempting to do. Hope was biting the metal part of her pencil underneath the eraser while she was in deep thought. Caroline Forbes-Salvatore, the school's head mistress walked over and sat next to Hope.

"I've seen that look before. It can be one of three things. One, you're writing about a boy. Two, you're researching a spell or three, trigonometry." Caroline joked with an oddly serious face.

Hope closed her notebook and sat back on the couch. She looked Caroline in her eyes and realized she had missed her. Caroline was very beautiful. She had blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders that was always perfectly curled. Her skin was pale and flawless. She had big beautiful blue eyes and her makeup was consistently impeccable. As far as Hope could remember Caroline always dressed in business formal, but it worked for her.

"It was a spell, but now that you mention it it's also a boy... and trig." Hope and Caroline laughed.

"I get that. Your father used to tease me about being bad at math, and once while we were trying to figure out a spell." Caroline laughed and realized she probably shouldn't have said that to Hope.

"Please don't feel bad about talking about him. I like that there are stories about him that aren't so tragic or evil... or both." Hope said quickly.

Caroline looked into the girl's eyes feeling bad for her.

She grabbed Hope's hand with both of hers' and quietly said "Your father was one of the most interesting and kind-hearted people I know. Even if someone walks up to you and tells you all the bad things he did, you need to remember that's not who he was when he died. He loved you more than life itself. You were his world."

Both of them just stared at each other with tears in their eyes and smiled in the silence.

Suddenly from behind them they heard "Mom?"

Caroline and Hope turned around to see Caroline's two twin daughters standing there with shocked faces. Caroline had been out traveling the world searching for a way to stop the twins from merging on their 22nd birthday, like the other twins from the Gemini coven before them. It was safe to assume the twins had no idea their mother was back.