I don’t understand my family. My grandmother, Glore, dominates my mother and I. She hates life and is unwilling to concede to our wishes for our own freedom. Glore rarely spoke; she rarely smiled; she rarely did much but read customers’ fortunes and make potions. She is a tall, stately and severe looking. Her face is long and thin with black hair that fell to her shoulders without a trace of grey. Glore looks younger than her real age. Actually, I am unsure what her age is, she won’t tell me her birth year.

My mother, Maddie, is different. She is day to grandmother’s night. Mother smiles and is happy. However, sometimes she is melancholy. That happens when I ask questions about my father. I didn’t know much about him except that mother misses him. Like my grandmother, my mother is tall, thin, with black hair and a dark olive complexion. Her high cheekbones stood out giving her an exotic look.

We live in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and own a potion and divination store. Our store is successful because we now lived in the Age of Lore. Historians decided that ‘Age of Lore’ an appropriate name for Elves and other mystic people and beasts return to all the lands. I was born the year they began appearing around the globe. Grandmother knows the old myths and the various ways to keep them away from your home and how to protect from them. She will not explain how she has this knowledge. She doesn’t explain much, she makes demands and orders my mother and I around.

You see my grandmother dictates our actions and my mother doesn’t do a thing to fight back. I am 19-years old and not allowed to decide for myself. I try to leave and my grandmother seems to know when I am about to try. I find her waiting for me outside our home and I have to go back inside. She always wins... life sucks.

Looking back on my life I cannot find a time that she didn’t dominate our lives. How I dressed, my friends, posture, table manners and proper speech. I spent summers at prep schools for the rich and this confused me. We never spent money. Our one vehicle is a crap van, and its better days are long past. That never bothered her, our actions and manners in public did.

If she wouldn’t spend money on a vehicle, she did on nice clothing. I wear upscale conservative clothing, light makeup and my hair is immaculate at all times. If I act out at anytime, she punishes me. Usually a slap across my face. I learned fast to do as she commands. But, in the back of my head, I assumed at 18 I would escape her and her rules. The new Age of Lore doesn’t scare me. I grew up learning how to keep the mystic races away with cold iron, simple potions and spells anyone can handle. It is time to break away from my grandmother.

I and my mother know little of our family. Grandmother beat those questions out of me as a child. I know that there are secrets that grandmother will not tell. She has slipped in a rage only two times that I can remember. Something about my mother and grandmother forced into some action and that my great-grandmother had something to do with it. The shit is vague and pisses me off. I am 19 years old and I can make my own decisions!

When it comes to the Age of Lore, the different states within the US handles it differently. In Arkansas, the rednecks and snake charmers hunt the creatures of lore. I understand that it is very dangerous but the hatred for the creatures and the magic scared the locals into hunting them. Luckily, the creatures don’t come into towns; they stay out in the countryside. People stay in towns and never go out at night, unless armed.

As I work on ways to escape my life and grandmother, she up and changes our lives forever. Today, at the family mystic-herbal store, my grandmother announces that the three of us are moving to Cave Junction, Oregon. Why are we moving? Why across the country? This announcement is totally out of left field. And as usual, we aren’t allowed to question her decisions.

Grandmother gave us one hour to pack and now, standing in the room I had lived in for 19 years, I didn't know what to take. One bag is all I may bring. My top priority is tech. I load my laptop, phone and their charges into the large duffle. Now what else? Clothes, a couple pairs of shoes and bathroom stuff. That still left me with a room full of memories. Trophies, pictures, my favorite stuffed animals... what do I try to stuff into my bag? Grabbing a picture of my mother and I in front of the family store, I add that to the top of the duffle and zip it shut.

Picking up my bag, I go to load it into the van when grandmother stops me, "Did you pack your laptop and phone?"

I nodded my head yes, and she says, "Give 'em up. You aren't taking any tech with you. No internet, no cell service, nothing."

"Grandmother! This is ridiculous... I can't live without my stuff. How can I talk to my friends? How can I see what is happening? You can't do this to me!" I plead and demand.

Looking at my mother she shakes her head 'no', "Gwen, do what your grandmother tells you."

"Mother, you never stand up for me. Why does grandmother make all the decisions? This is stupid."

I feel a slap across the check and my grandmother's face looks fierce and angry, "Give it to me now."

I can't believe what she just did. I gave her my phone and laptop.

Walking over to the garbage can on the street corner for pickup the next day, she dumps them. "Now get in the van."

Dejected and with tears running down my face I got into the van.

The 1997 Chevy Uplander sucks. Dings lined the bottom where the van has hit sidewalks and curbs. It rides so low that the muffler hit every bump in the road. My grandmother wouldn’t upgrade to a newer vehicle and my mother never argues.

Our trip lasts 32 hours. Grandmother rarely stops. She packed our food and drinks, insisting we take turns driving and sleeping. That made the three of us tired and cranky. I spend most of the trip trying to imagine any reason under the sun for the move.

Is my grandmother in trouble? Did something happen to our store? Something illegal? Are we out of money and grandmother is taking us somewhere else to start again? It confuses me, but that is about the only emotion I can feel. I never understand how I feel removed from the life surrounding me.

When we finally arrived at Cave Junction, the sun is setting but we didn’t stop. My grandmother drives through the small town and out into the wooded hillside. No, not a hillside, it's a huge forest. I read a sign, Entering Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Eventually, she turns the old van onto a dirt and gravel forestry road, and I become very nervous. Where are we going? The sun is setting; we are tired, and I can’t understand why we are out in the woods.

“Grandmother…”

Glore snaps, “Be quiet child, we are almost there. You will get all the information you can handle then. Now shut it.”

Damn it, I thought and sighed, looking out the window and into the dwindling light. I worry about the Fae and mystic creatures. This is their kind of territory, and they love to play tricks. I reminded myself that I wasn’t in Arkansas, where the country folk hunted the Fae actively. That kept their numbers down to a minimum.

My grandmother turns onto a rarely used lane. Grass grows down the middle of the pea gravel and dirt road, while the trees crowd in from the sides, scratching and scraping the van as we drive. Suddenly, the road ends at a line of small pine trees. Putting the van into park, grandmother eases out after grabbing a pouch from the glove compartment. Walking up to the trees she opens the pouch and taking a pinch of ‘something’, she tosses it towards the trees. With a shimmer, the trees disappeared and the road continues. However, this road isn’t the same. In the fading last light, I can make out stones. It is a stone road and it looks old... as in ancient.

Stomping back to the van, grandmother puts it in drive and guns it onto the new roadway. In the growing twilight, I see gardens, huts and large buildings that could be shops or homes. It's quaint looking. The roofs look thatched; many homes are round and made of earth and wood. All have shuttered windows. It makes me think of peasant villages from movies I have watched in the past.

Grandmother drives past a cave mouth and stops in front of a small castle.

“Holy crap, grandmother, that's a castle. Right?” I couldn’t stop my words. Who gets to drive up to a castle? A small castle but, still, it’s a castle.

Stepping out of the van, my grandmother glances back at me with a look of resignation. “Gwen, I have no power here. You and your mother are on your own. Do as they tell you and make your own decisions.”

Wide-eyed, I look at my mother and ask, “Mother, what does that mean? What do you mean on my own? Mom? I don’t understand.”

My mother has tears in her eyes, “You will learn the rest soon, as will I.” My mother pulled me into her chest for support. “I am in the dark, as you are.”

The double doors of the castle swing open. Two young women are moving the doors, but it’s the woman walking out that catches my attention. She is tall and thin and has long blue-black hair with shots of pure white running through it. She is tall and has a presence I didn’t know how to describe. It didn’t take me long to recognize the old woman. I saw reports about her on TV. This is the head of the witches inside the United States; she also has some sort of authority over magic wielding humans. I remember her name is Damiana.