Branching Out

          Here I am.  They never thought I would end up here, but I showed them.  I did it.  My family doubted I'd make anything of myself, because my brain works differently from most people's, but here. I. Freaking. Am.  Miles from either of the homes I've known, in Twinbrook of all places, with my own house.  I, Dove Parodi, am on my way to proving everyone wrong.

          I come from a family with a magical past, though you may not believe that.  I don't care if you believe it or not, because it's true and I'm going to tell you it the way it is.  If you think I'm a liar then you can just get out of my journal, it's not like I'm making you read this.  Unless you're my future husband, in which case it's very likely I'm making you read this to understand what's happened to me.  Too bad I didn't start this earlier in my life, then I wouldn't have to recap this.  But I didn't, so here goes nothing - this is going to be somewhat short, because, though I had a loving family, I was kind of an outcast, being the first of the family to be "mentally unstable."

          My mother's name is Dahlia Parodi, and my father's is Marcelo Knowles-Parodi.  Yes, he's the one that changed his name, and that's how it's always been with the women in my family - I think we've got a matriarchy going on, because now my sister is in charge.. I'm digressing.  Both of my parents were born vampires - hold up, don't stop just reading because I used the v word.  I'm not making this up because vampires are popular.  It's the truth.  Vampires exist and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it except stay in denial.

          I think it was the vampirism that originally attracted my Mom to my Dad, and that he had a twin of the opposite gender like her.  They had so much in common, and they were kind of a disgustingly picture perfect couple from childhood.  It's actually not because Dad had a choice in the matter - he tried denying Mom several times, but that's where the magic of my family comes in.

          My great grandmother, Sean Parodi, had a spell cast on her, by a woman named Estiu Calent, when she was still a teenager.  Her and six generations of Parodis after would get whatever they desired.  Specifically, one of every six generations after her would get the full extent of her power, and the rest of the "spares" would get a very diluted form of the power.  No matter the parent's own preferences, that one child was the one that would continue the family name and would inherit everything.  My grandmother, Lyric, was the first heiress, and my own mother was the heiress for her generation.  Usually, us children aren't supposed to learn about the power unless we're the heir or heiress, because it will make the spares jealous.

          Mom and my oldest/second oldest (long story) sister, Rosella, weren't careful when they talked about her being the next heiress on the trip to China we took when I was a child.  They just talked about it out in the open, and I happened to hear it as I passed by.  It was really confusing at first.  What were they talking about?  This.. heiress, wishing power thing.  I may have snuck away to my parents' hotel room and searched their things and found this diary book thing, full of entries from my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother..

 

          I had a long conversation with Canary, Eider and my triplet that never fully formed and so wasn't born, about how unfair it was that night before I went to bed.  She was my best friend, even if I couldn't see her, and she could always manage to cheer me up.  Not this time, however.

          "It's just not fair, Canary!  I, I mean.. why is Rosella so perfect?!  She gets everything!  Mommy and Daddy even like her better than me!  They like everyone better than me, why doesn't anyone love me, Canary?"

          "Oh, come on Dove.  I love you.  Eider loves you.  It's not like you not being the heiress is the end of the world, is it?  It just means that you're more independent than Rosie, and she needs more of a helping hand than you do!"

          "BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T WANT TO GET EVERYTHING I WANT!"  I screamed at her, and at that, Eider peered around the wall dividing our rooms sleepily.  I could see the silent question in his eyes, and I sighed.  "I'm okay, brudder, go back to sleep."  He nodded, and disappeared again.

          "I know, I know, I would love for you to get everything you want, too.  But it's not like you can't get the things you want, you just have to work harder for it,"  Canary replied to me, and I sighed, scratching the side of my head.  I knew she had a point.  We talked on the subject until she fell asleep, and I was tired enough that I crawled into bed after she went silent and passed out from exhaustion, myself.  

          I found myself dwelling on the whole wish power thing for the next.. who knows how long.  It was the most popular topic of conversation between Canary and I.  I felt inferior because I hadn't gotten the power, and it seriously pissed me off.  I've always had a rather short-fuse, but thankfully most of the time I forget easily what made me angry in the first place.  Sometimes I don't though, usually when Canary reminds me why I'm angry because she's angry too.  But I'm digressing again.

          I have three sisters (unless you count Canary) and three brothers.  See what I mean?  I really am the outcast, because I'm the odd one out.  Sure, I'm a girl so I would naturally be inserted into the category with my sisters, but they're all quite a bit older than me.  The one that's technically the oldest is Amy, because she was a teenager when my other sisters were children.  But see, what happened with her was that my parents tried out my uncle Zachariah's time machine in adult ways, and they remembered nothing from it until two days later, when Amy popped out.  Rosella was the oldest - by a few minutes - before she showed up, so they don't really have a good relationship, what with Amy stealing Rosie's thunder.  But Rosie got her back by being the heiress, I guess.  Amy also knows about the wish power, but she's the only other spare that knows.  I think.

          Wren is Rosella's twin sister, though she is more like Amy than she is like Rosella.  In appearance and personality, since Rosie is the most annoyingly self-centered, girly-girl celebrity-obsessed thing I know.  Er, sorry.  Girl.  Not thing.  Sure, she's ambitious for things other than stardom, but whatever, she tried getting all the attention at my twin brother Eider's graduation by wearing a super skimpy, tight, revealing dress.  I bet you're wondering why I said it was just my twin's graduation, huh?  I bet right now you're judging me, guessing that I was too dumb to graduate.  No.  You would be very wrong.  Like all my siblings (except Rosella and Wren) and my mother, I am a genius.

          To give you an idea on how much my family loves me, I was their first kid to get sent away to boarding school.  The School of Peace and Love - can you tell they hated my temper?  That's like anger management mixed with school.  I graduated within a year, though, because everything was too easy, and they sent me home with a degree.  My teen years got really boring because I had nothing to do, like, ever.  I'm not the best with people, so I didn't go out much.

          Looking at us, you'd have though my brother was the anti-social nerdy one.  Well, he was the nerdy one - still is - but he's amazingly social and girl crazy.  When we were teenagers he kept asking different girls if they were interested in him, but usually then they'd go and get themselves a boyfriend.  I wanted to hurt them for hurting my brother, even if he and I weren't the closest, but he always told me no.  He's hotter now than he was when he was a teenager, and better with women.  All I know is he's not a virgin anymore - I think he uses his vampiric charm on unsuspecting women.

          Speaking of that, I'm the only one of my family that decided being a vampire wasn't for me, but I'll get to that in a little bit.

          My second brother is Finch, and he is a little punk.  I mean that in style and in attitude.  He steals just because it's fun, and, well.. like his big sister Dove before him, he likes to play bunches of pranks on his family.  We are probably the most alike, and that's probably why we never got along the best.  The only time I've ever seen him soft is when it comes to our youngest brother, and Sea Mist Tourmaline, the girl he fell for on his first day of high school.  Oh, and when he was a kid he took ballet, I guess that's a soft side.  I don't know how he's doing now, if he's arrested or what not, I haven't heard from him in a few years.  But even he was more appreciated than I was, since he was Rosella's favorite sibling.

          Then finally, there's Jay Parodi, my baby brother.  He's older than this now, obviously, since I was a teenager in this picture, and still a vampire, but this was my favorite age for him.  I love my baby brother best, because he accepts me and every part of me, even Canary.  Though he doesn't know about Canary, I don't give her name to anyone, because she asked me not to.  To Jay, I'm not crazy or unstable or weird, I'm just his big sister.  I refused to put him down much when he was little, but, of course, he was the spoiled child and everyone kind of fawned over him when he was little.  Then, when he became a child, Dad sent him off to boarding school like he did with me.  I guess it's because he didn't want my brother to end up like I did.

            Another thing that makes me feel like an outcast besides my personality and the way my family treats me because of it, is my hair.  The green and red is perfectly natural.  Completely, totally, one hundred percent born with it.  The only other members of my family that have it are my grandma Faith Swan, and a couple of my aunts.  I look half berry, and I have no idea if I am or not, I just know that the Swan branch of my family have a lot of strange hair colors and eye colors.

          Canary says that she would have been born with my grandma Elvira's hair color, a deep, deep dark red that none of my mother's siblings got and none of us grandkids got.  I wish more than anything that my sister was alive.  She believes in me.

          The day I turned eighteen was the best day of my life.  Not in the sense that the things that happened that day were the best, but because I was old enough to do whatever I wanted to.  Sure, I didn't have a power that enabled me to gain my every whim - or at least, I only had a diluted version - but I still had set my mind to something and I was determined to achieve it.

          From the day I was diagnosed as insane, I've been thought down on, pitied, and everyone was sure I would have to stay home with my parents for the rest of my life, and I would never make anything of myself.  Everyone would deny it, but with my brain the way it is, I could read minds more easily than most vampires.  Normally, we have to concentrate on a specific person, focus in on them, and their thoughts will begin to come in fuzzily.  And it doesn't come in until you're usually eighteen or nineteen.  I could do it from the time I was in my early teens, and all I ever had to do was think about the person whose mind I wanted to read and decide that I wanted to know what they were thinking.  I think it's because Canary decided to become a part of me, and I gained whatever she would have, so it doubled my own abilities.

          What was I saying?  ... oh yes, thank you, Canary.  I knew that several members of my family thought this, because I'd heard it straight from the horses'.. er, brains.  They just knew from the way I was after I graduated, laying around at home by myself, that I didn't know how to function like a proper human being.  Vampire.  Whatever.  They never thought it in that exact wording, but that was their basic meaning.  I was too insane to live my own life.

          If a blind person can live by his or herself, why couldn't I?  Being insane is just like any other disability, it was just in the mind, not on the body.  It's not like I was twitching and drooling, and couldn't walk or use the toilet properly.  I just had my unborn triplet in my mind and a few other.. quirks.

          With their opinions on me, and after dwelling on the fact that I was going to be pushed by the wayside like so many spares before me, I made up my mind.  I was going to prove to my parents and my siblings that I could take care of myself like anyone can, possibly better.  So as soon as I turned eighteen, I attended my brother's graduation, and then packed up my things.  My family tried to convince me otherwise, but they couldn't do it.  I was moving as far away as I wanted, and if I didn't make it, well they could lock me away in an insane asylum.

          That brings me back to 'here I am'.  I found a small farm house being sold in Twinbrook, a small hick town only a few hours away from Riverview.  I would have just moved back to Bridgeport, but I kind of had always been into gardening, and you can't have much of a garden in the big city.  My parents helped me buy the house, and they insisted I just stay home or take one of my siblings with me, but I vehemently refused.  I was not going to lean on anyone else for this.  I was going to make it by myself.

          I'm further than my parents ever expected me to get.  They expected me to have the taxi driver turn around half way here and take me back home.  No.  They don't know their insane daughter very well, do they?  I'm determined to prove myself, and if I have to do that by never seeing their faces again, so be it.