- They were servants of the darkness and for the longest time, Harlow Alden was reasonably content with being peculiar... Though that was until the day she met the boy who made her feel less peculiar...
The Alden family was atypical, gifted with po...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Rain hammered violently beyond the large, slender windows and Harlow Alden watched it from where she lounged across one of the chaises in the study. A week into their new life in Forks and the weather continued to parallel her misery, as of late, no developments encouraged even a small smile to her pale lips. Scratching away at one of the desks upon a piece of paper, Hazel Alden spared her daughter nothing but a single glance as she proceeded to write whatever it is she was so invested in. Harlow was unfazed by her mother's passiveness- they were the same in that aspect, their unwavering silence. It was oddly calming.
Hazel Alden spent almost every single day of her life within one of the studies of the houses; she worked as a doctor during the times she wasn't here. Oddly, doctoring was her calling, despite her appalling bedside manner. Hazel knew almost every single thing about the anatomy, it was the thing that came naturally to her and maybe that had to do with her power which was, by definition, rather biology oriented. Hazel was a walking talking voodoo doll and any injury she inflicted upon herself, could be transferred to anyone she wished. Though, she had grown rather inventive with her power, considering her own healing was superb. Just like her children- Hazel Alden was odd.
"What are my beautiful ladies doing in here?" Maverick teased as he stuck his head around the corner of the doorframe, turning his nose up at the darkness of the study as he marched rather purposely to drag back the drapes. "You should be outside singing in the rain, Harry," he smirked and she scoffed in response. "Your brothers are looking for you."
"Clearly, they aren't looking very hard," Hazel murmured, her glasses covered eyes never moving from the page in front of her. Harlow was disappointed to admit that she didn't have much of a relationship with her mother- least not in comparison to that of her father. When the children were younger, they had been raised by their aunt Maeve, a florist who usually arranged bouquets from home. Rick was a history teacher and Hazel, of course, worked at the hospital. Though, when the parents returned home from a long day at work- Rick would spend each waking moment entertaining his gaggle of children while his wife vanished to do lord only knows what. Harlow had never felt the desire to ask, she'd merely accepted.
Seeing the imploring blue eyes of her father, Harlow grumbled incoherently and adhered to his dismissal, slouching across the room and out the door, careful to shut it behind her. Who knew what those two got up to behind closed doors- she certainly didn't want to know. They were as in love now as they had been when they'd met, aged fifteen- Maverick and Hazel were polar opposites but they made it work.
It was no trouble at all to locate her siblings considering her own gift was projecting Harriet into the property. Her gift was strong and wide though only wide enough for Harriet to remain corporal on the property or within a certain radius. Still, they were connected and Harlow found them quickly, if not for the anchor she'd have hunted them down on noise alone. They were filling one-quarter of the house with quite a racket-- carefully far away from their mother who'd scold them into the rain for their lack of manners.
"Stop throwing that!" Asher growled in agitation, clearly rattled to bring him to that state as he had the natural disposition of their father-- calm and happy.
"I'm bored!" Arlo declared and there was a repeated thumping sound of something hitting the hardwood floor as well as a creaking of someone jumping on the old couch. Harlow pushed the polished door open and scoffed. The family room had been long since hijacked by the siblings, since the very first day when they'd grown bored of unpacking. Hector was avidly reading a book, so used to external sounds in his mind that they did not distract him from his current task.
Arlo was throwing a ball against the wall, making that irritating thumping while Asher glared at him, sprawled across one of the velvet couches, tapping away on his phone and Harlow quickly decided that she did not want to know what was occupying his mind so fully on the device that had turned Arlo's usually irritating personality troublesome. Harriet, a ghostly presence that they were all far too used to, was jumping up and down on the other couch. She had lived just as long as Harlow and Hector but somehow, through capturing in a youthful body, she retained much of her childish tendencies.
And perhaps, just slightly, she was attempting to cause as much racket as physically possible to make up for being dead.
Harlow could not say that she precisely blamed her.
"There you are, we've been looking for you," Archer declared without bothering to take his eyes off of his device for even a moment and Harlow had no doubt that he was in the midst of messaging and flirting with dozens of boys and girls alike from their previous town. Out of their ragtag sibling group-- Archer was the one who had never had a problem making friends, no matter where they settled. The others rarely bothered so much.
"Your rendition of looking is horrifying. Heaven forbid I'm ever truly lost," she returned, bitter as ever as she slouched to sit at the end of the couch Asher occupied, pushing his feet off aggressively with her skeletal hand and sinking into the ornate upholstery. Leaning her head back, her eyelids flashed shut slightly dryly. There were certain things that no amount of magic could change about her current state and she felt an ache rush drily in her veins like she was severely dehydrated. The chemicals they had pumped into her poisoned her every single day though her body was not well attuned enough to realise that it was not blood and so, it constantly reproduced it to the point where her doctor mother had to give her regular blood transfusions and pump the chemicals from her. Needle pricks had led to the scarring along her forearms.
It made her drained, impossibly sick. She was poison to herself... And she was dead, no matter what anybody said. She was dead and she had been for a long while now, even if she was trapped in her current state of decay.
"School tomorrow," Asher hummed, throwing his phone beside him and watching it bounce against the cushion, his entire body slouched but his feet now on the ground. He just stared at her for a moment and she had no doubt that it was written across every single sunken and skeletal inch of her that a small dreary school was the last place she wished to be, it surpassed even the grave. "We will make a good impression... And this will be our very best town yet," he told himself that every time for he was eternally hopeful that he'd foster friendships.
Harlow did not answer him and she doubted he was expecting her to, instead, she froze in motion-- it hurt so much less to not move at all and so she allowed the poison to gush silently, undisturbed as her mind twisted backwards through the veil and she was pummelled from every direction with the sound of harrowed voices of the dead seeking release. Still, even hearing their anguish, their horrors-- Harlow Alden felt at home with the dead in a way that she no longer could with the living.
