Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

8. From Rags To Witches

Stefan Salvatore was a vampire. And according to him, Gloria was a witch. 24 hours earlier, Riley had nothing to do with the supernatural world. Now, it seemed she was more involved than she knew.

"Mom?" she called the second she got into the house. "Mom?!"

"Kitchen," her mother replied, sounding distracted. When Riley walked into the room, Ciara was typing on her phone, barely looking up.

"Is dad home?" she asked, glancing around.

"No, he's working," her mom said, eyes still on her phone. "There was a situation at a cemetery, a drug deal gone bad."

Riley nodded, glad that her father wouldn't hear the conversation – she didn't know how much he knew, if anything.

"We need to talk."

Her daughter's tone of voice forced Ciara to immediately put her phone down.

"What's up?"

Riley sat down at the table, across from her.

"I need you to tell me about great-grandma Gloria," she demanded. "And I don't want to hear about her bar, or her singing."

Ciara frowned. "Honey, you know as much about her as I do. I only met the woman a handful of times, you know that."

"Don't make me say it mom, I'm gonna sound like a crazy person," Riley said, taking a particular interest in the wooden design of the kitchen table. She didn't want to be the first one to say it, but it looked like she had no choice.

"What are you talking about?"

She sighed, watching her mother's face for tell-tale signs of lies or secrets.

"Was... was she..." she trailed off, not sure how to phrase her question. "A witch?"

She expected her mother to laugh. To brush her off and say 'whatever gave you that idea?'. In a way, this is what she wanted. To prove Stefan wrong.

Instead, Ciara sighed and put her head in her hands.

"Uh... mom?" Riley asked anxiously, gently prodding her mother with one finger.

"How did you find out?" she whispered.

"Who cares?!" Riley exploded all of a sudden. "How could you not tell me? I thought we don't keep secrets from each other?! What about the pinky promises and the 'three of us against the world' stuff? Was that all bullshit?!"

"Watch your mouth!" her mother reprimanded, before her voice softened. "Riley... how was I supposed to tell you this? My mother rejected the 'witch' thing. She rejected her powers, and as a result, I didn't get any. And neither did you. We're not witches, it's not our business. I never thought I'd have to tell you."

"So you were never going to?" Riley asked, hurt. "There's this whole side of our family that we never got to explore."

"Witches, and all the stuff that goes with that... they're fairytales and bedtime stories."

"It's real!" Riley responded.

Ciara sighed, putting her head in her hands once again. She never thought she'd have to have this conversation with her daughter. But at the same time, as soon as she heard about the volume of animal attacks in this town, she knew it was a possibility. Ciara had grown up knowing a lot about the supernatural world; her grandmother Gloria told her anything she wanted to know, until Ciara's parents stopped them having any contact. And it had shaken her to her core. She lived her teenage life looking behind her at every turn, wondering when a vampire would find her and drink her blood, or a witch would use her for mind games. She never wanted Riley to have to worry about that.