To all you first time readers: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t simply read this prologue and then not continue, the story is written with more conversing dialogue!! This is a PROLOGUE and therefore is short with bits of explanatory information. It isn’t the first chapter at all, simply something that is needed for the story. It is very important that this is read, but this is not a chapter about what the story is like!! PLEASE read on to the next chapter before deciding that you don’t want to read. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! ^-^

The Catalyst

The Prologue

“Jade, do you remember the story I told you as a little girl?” My grandmother gently held my hand between her own, her soft aching whisper carried on the heavy smelling air of the room she had been in the last few weeks of her gradually worsening illness.

I nodded slowly and placed my other free hand over our entwined ones. Her hazy gray blue eyes still held the youthful glimmer I always used to see when she looked at me as a girl. A small grin pulled at her delicately aged face and then she nodded as well, disrupting her pure white hair which flowed like water all around her face and head.

“Jade sweetie, can you hand me the box over on the vanity.” I rotated my waist toward the small vanity beside the bed. The container was about the same size as a ring box with a strange greenish metal or stone lining the edges and forming in the center of the cover to create a strange design. It appeared to be a hand.

I placed the package in her open palm and watched as she stroked the unique design on the top. Tears flooded her eyes and her breath shook slightly as she ran a finger across her cheeks.

“Are you alright?” I quickly lurched forward to make sure everything was normal.

“I’m fine sweetie, fine.” She eased herself up against her pillows along the headboard while still cradling the box in her hand as though it were the most precious thing in the world. “Jade, remember how in the story the girl ended up in a magical world and met the man of her dreams?”

“Yes,” I quirked my brow in confusion.

“The story is actually very different.”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean different? Why does it matter?”

“You see sweetie, the story is true but not exactly how I told it.”

I shook my head angrily. “But—”

“Jade.” Her quiet voice interrupted my question, “I feel that it may be time to tell you the real story, but I warn you it’s not what you may think. You probably won’t even believe me, but please wait until I finish telling you. ”

I nodded somewhat reluctantly and repositioned myself as she took a deep breath in order to begin speaking.

“Back in the 1600’s, around 52 years after the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth rock and the Pilgrims had settled into their lives somewhat, I was born. It was the 21st of June 1672 that I was born as the second daughter of a prominent family among our colony. I grew up like all children did in that time, however I felt different toward some things. What our families would consider evil things. Around my 18th birthday I decided to come out with my true interests, which caught the attention of a small group of three woman and two men in town. It turned out they were what our village dubbed as witches, though I didn’t see in them the qualities our reverend described. I worked with them for about a year and stupidly tried to tell my parents who I really was.

“They disowned me; called me a devil worshipper. I spent two weeks of that horror from them and later the whole of our town. Not long afterward it had been decided that I and two of my spell casting friends were condemned to be burned at the stake. Just so you know this was close to the time when the famed Salem Witch Trials occurred. Two of my friends were kidnapped but again escaped, and as far I as I know they lived safely for the rest of their lives.

“Anyway, the night before our death, our other friends arrived to rescue us from the prison which confined us. Thanks to their excelled skill they managed to burn a hole in the wall so that my friends and I were able to slip out into the woods unseen. We were on the run for three days when I finally couldn’t stand the guilt that welled up inside me. I missed my two younger brothers terribly. They always played with me, and called for me and not my mother when they were scared or sick. So I left my company and went back to my cottage home.

“It was about one in the morning when I arrived, so I crept into a window and headed to my brothers bedroom. They were asleep together in their one bed; I could see their sandy colored hair rustled on top of the pillows. I gently tapped them awake and neither were too surprised to see me, they were always rather mischievous and not easily scared little boys.”

Grandmother smiled sadly at the thought.

“The boys both sat up and glared coldly at me. I had thought they would find me more exciting due to their rebellious nature, but I could tell by the sinister look in their eyes that they were very angry. I softly spoke their names and in return they spat at me and turned their faces away, calling me a devil worshipper. I was stunned. Of everyone, I thought they would still love me, as young and stubborn as they were. But they shunned me definitely, in every way. My family and friends had refused to acknowledge me, threw me away like garbage.

“I walked away like a dazed ghost, sweeping easily down the staircase and through the hall and eventually I stopped in the kitchen, with the moon’s bluish halo encircling my body. I felt completely worthless, a broken shell that had been slowly ripped to pieces by every person I had ever known. The feelings that had before plagued my mind now came flooding back to me. Horrid, evil things, but I found I didn’t care I didn’t feel much of anything the longer I stood in the light of gentle darkness. I slowly searched the drawers of the small kitchen until I clutched a smooth wooden handle; I pulled out a clean steel blade which my fingers excitedly held. I knew my people’s ideas in regards to killing oneself and honestly a part of me wanted to spite them. My life was over no matter what I chose to do in the end and without the love of my brothers I just saw no life to be lived; why not curse their precious ideals? I quickly ran the blade through my skin and severed the veins. In a strange mix of tingling, dizzy numbness and throbbing pain I sat down and soon fell to my side feeling as though I were on fire inside, all the while attempting to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I remembered that just before I was gone a faint red glow danced in front of my blurry eyes. The next thing I recall was bright sun, it was like a sudden jerk from a second of unexpectedly tripping into sleep.”

I watched as grandmother took a long, deep breath and sighed a few times.

“Grandmother?” I placed my hand on her shoulder.

“Hmm, oh I’m fine. Just tired, sweetie.” She nodded and patted my hand calmly.

She cleared her throat. “Now, I stayed in this land for a while and found it to be quite pleasant, though I never did hear of a name for it. Anyway, I was able to practice my witchcraft and study many more different types of magic and even things I had never heard of before. About two or three years into my time there, I met him. The Skeleton Man is what many referred to him as; others simply called him the Immortal. I soon began to work with him, he opened doors into dreamlike wonders my old friends and I could have never imagined and soon I was able to create an elixir which, in a way, could make a person immortal. In reality it merely prolonged life depending on the amounts of certain ingredients added to each portion.” Grandmother winked wryly at me, knowing full well that I would try to recreate the potion if she named the contents. “After many years together we found that we had fallen in love. We were very happy for a long while, then one evening I discovered some exciting news, and so I left to tell a friend as quickly as possible.

“I was running through the woods I had originally appeared in when I first arrived after my attempted suicide, and suddenly the soft sounds of my feet on the moss and grass changed, the air was heavy and thick with moisture, and the scenery was quite different. The forest was no longer there, instead buildings came up all around and a rain drenched cobblestone road lay beneath my running feet. I later discovered that I had landed in 1798, on a city road somewhere in Massachusetts. A lengthy while afterward, I was able to do some accurate research and found it to have been around my home town of Plymouth now called Plymouth County, Massachusetts.

“In any case, a little over nine months later on February 23rd, 1799, I had twin boys whom I named Crispyn and Gabriel. I remember both boys had black hair and shared each other’s eye colors, one grey blue like mine and the other violet like my mothers. They were good, strong boys, and I loved them more than anything; however on their 21th birthday they made a joint decision to leave and explore the world. Crispyn was always very stubborn and adventurous, and Gabriel never left his brother’s side so he gave up his artistic talents to go with Crispyn. It broke my heart the day they left, and when my boys never returned I felt as though I died a little inside.”

She made no expression like I thought she might, but simply looked at her hands calmly.

Signing she grinned and began speaking again. “I spent decades waiting, but I knew deep down that they weren’t coming back to me, so I left our home and decided to travel as well. Sometimes I went places as a mere tourist and other times I traveled on my own, usually only when I was low on cash.” She giggled girlishly. “Oh, then when I had the appearance of a twenty five year old I met your biological grandfather, my first husband. I loved him very much and we lived quite comfortably; during that time I had my first three children with him, your eldest two uncles and your mother.

“However after a sudden illness he died unexpectedly and the doctors never found a reason for it. I had a hard time after that and through the years inadvertently developed a close relationship with a co-worker and close friend of mine, that would be the grandfather you know, Kalen, we were just as happy as I had been with my first husband and had many more children. Then of course, as you know, he died the year before last.” She sighed again, nearly out of breath from her long story. “Now, that was the short version. Maybe some other time I’ll tell you the long one.” Her smile stretched across her face in a mischievous way and her eyes glittered happily.

“That’s the short version? …wow that was so long.” I shook my head as thoughts finished slipping from my mouth.

“Dear, you’re speaking out loud again.” My grandmother tapped her hand against my arm.

“Hmm?” I looked up at her, “Oh, sorry.”

“Now back to this little box of mine.” She stroked the small container with a smile. “This is my friend. I have had this with me everywhere I went, but when I remarried Kalen I promised myself that I would say goodbye and never wear it again.” She gently popped open the top revealing a stunning thin shaft of a clear diamond. “I want to die, Jade. I want to be with the men I love once again.”

A light, sad smile barely tugged at her lips and she turned her tearful gaze on me. “Here.” My grandmother placed the small box in my unsuspecting hands.

“Uhh, why are you giving me this?” I must have looked like an idiot starring at the box and my grandmother at the same time; it felt as though my face were turned in two opposing directions.

“It’s your birthday gift, my last to you, and also the most precious thing you’ll ever own.”Her grey blue eye twinkled at me. “Now sweetie why don’t you go read your books.” She yet again tapped my arm lightly as she lowered her eyelids to sleep.

I kept the box palmed as I walked out of the room, my face still held a slight hint of stupefied awe at what was going on.

Later that evening, my grandmother went to meet her true loves.