Evelyn's Dragon

Chapter 1 New Home

Evelyn walked into the threshold of their new cottage in the woods lugging two huge suitcases. Her cheeks were red from the chill of early spring and she was huffing from unpacking the car by herself. Her sister Alyssa, who was supposed to be helping, had already gone in to "claim the best room" as she had put it.

Evelyn O'Henry and her family were just moving into their new home in the middle of nowhere Canada. Her father's work had always taken them to different places around the country for as long as she could remember. This was the 3rd move they had made in the past 5 years.

While they last lived in a much more populated city, they were now moving right outside of a town of just a few thousand people. Evelyn was already a little worried about the move because this was the year she was entering high school and that meant trying to make new friends and not be the outcast she was during middle school.

She put the bags down as she surveyed the front room of the 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom cottage.

The whole bottom floor was one huge room with the kitchen directly to her left leading into the family room. Her mother, Sarah O'Henry, was leaning over the fireplace to light the fire as it was still pretty cold in the big room and they had just turned the heating on.

Past the living room was a set of large windows that led out into the patio and faced the woods. The cottage didn't seem as scary in the middle of the day as it would have in the middle of the night facing the surrounding forest of tall evergreens.

Evelyn walked farther into the house to look out into the backyard. To the right, she saw her parent's bedroom that had a small walk-in closet and its own bathroom. It also had a cozy quilted blanket lying on top of the queen-sized bed already.

"Evelyn, why don't you go bring your stuff up to your room?" her mother said getting up from poking the fire. Her mother had beautiful short dark hair, a little past shoulder length. She wore an old t-shirt and jeans as this was her off day from work. She had just gotten a job as an assistant at a dentist's office in town where she would need to get used to wearing scrubs every day. Evelyn and her mother didn't have much in common in the looks department except for their facial features. Both mother and daughter had soft, young-looking faces, whose cheeks were always rosy. Evelyn had gotten her long wavy, dark blonde mane from her father, while her sister Alyssa had gotten her mom's hair and her dad's facial features.

She went back to grab the bags and trudge upstairs to her new bedroom. Huffing and puffing till she made it to her room on the right that looked out into the forest and back garden below. Her room was smallish with a full bed and a small desk facing the window. there was a small dresser on the other side of the bed where she left her bags to unpack.

"Did you bring my stuff up?" Evelyn turned around to face her sister at the door frame.

Evelyn had recently started comparing herself to her 16-year-old sister as Evelyn was just 14. She noticed that her own chest was still flat, but her sisters had grown a sizable amount in the last few years. Alyssa's facial features had started to become a little more firm as opposed to Evelyn's very childlike softness. Her sister was starting to look more womanly overall and got a lot more attention from boys, which she very much enjoyed. While Evelyn and her sister had never been very close and she did tend to compare herself to her sister's looks and figure, Evelyn also resented the fact that she herself was so quiet around others while her sister was so much louder and outgoing. Alyssa never had a problem making friends the many times they had moved to different schools and had never been afraid to share her opinion when she felt it was needed, which was almost always.

"No. Go get it yourself," Evelyn said back to her curtly and softly and turned around to unpack her things into the dresser.

"Screw you! Ugh!" Alyssa put her hands up annoyed and marched down the stairs to get her things.

"Be nice to each other!" they could hear their mom yell from downstairs.

...

After a few hours of fully unpacking, the family was all sitting together eating spaghetti. James O'Henry, their father, had come home from work a little earlier to be able to spend some more time in their first hours in the new house.

For the first hour, they were all having a good time settling in until Alyssa had started an argument about moving again.

"I just don't want to move again! I want a normal high school life with actual friends and a boyfriend!" Alyssa had been mentioning this for the last few months as she never wanted to move here in the first place. Evelyn had started to feel a little bit of what she was feeling as she was now entering high school and had to make all new friends.

"Alyssa, I promised you this was the last time until your at least in college." their father said back exhausted from his long day of work and now having to deal more with his beloved strong-minded daughters whining.

"Sweetie don't worry you are going to have the best time here!" Mrs. O'Henry said to Alyssa with a smile and gently put her arm on her shoulder trying to comfort her. She understood that her daughters were getting older and needed a little more stability. She and James had decided a few weeks ago together that they would not move again for a while.

After dinner and a little more complaining, the family cleaned up the table and washed the dishes. Evelyn's parents sat on the couch and started watching a movie which they had asked the girls to join in on but Alyssa had already had run upstairs and slammed the door to her room and Evelyn wanted some quiet time to do a little journaling.

Ever since Evelyn could hold a pencil in her hand, she had always wanted to be a writer. She had been writing small stories and journaling since she could remember. Writing brought her so much happiness and comfort that she did it in almost all her spare time. Always coming up with new things to write about and telling her journal about her day.

Her habit of always being busy with a pen or pencil in her hand hadn't really helped all through middle school. All the other kids just knew her as the quiet girl who was Alyssa's little sister. What made it worse was that Alyssa didn't understand one bit why her sister would rather write in her journal then spend time with her friends giggling about the popular boys in their class. She had been called out more than once by Alyssa in front of all her friends for her "weird" behavior.

Evelyn couldn't help it, she felt like she couldn't survive without jotting down some thoughts every day. She wanted to eventually grow up and be a big novelist that people could look up to.

Evelyn sat down at her desk in her room and opened her worn leather-bound journal. From her desk, she was able to look out into the forest, which now was starting to feel a little ominous. She felt somewhat worried, now that she was fully moved in and didn't have any distractions, about starting school the next day. She would be going to her first day of high school and still at the same school as Alyssa.

Evelyn spent a few hours peacefully writing before having to turn off the light and try to sleep.