rainfall | ashton irwin au | completed

prologue

Mostly hidden by a thick layer of rain and fog, Heatherly was the most miserable grey town in the world. Everybody who lived here hated it, and everybody who didn't live here had never heard of it before in their life. In a way, it was cut off from the rest of the world. Modern day had no room for Heatherly's vast forests or misty lakes. Nobody wanted to see nature anymore, and so nobody paid attention to the quaint town. The few shops we had were small, and knowing almost everybody in the town was inevitable.

It was because of this that I liked to keep to myself. I isolated myself, constantly hidden behind my own hair, as if it was a dark curtain shielding me away from the real world. I liked being on my own. I liked exploring deep into the forest, finding little waterfalls or lakes that nobody else knew about. I liked the rain; the way it smelled earthy and fresh. I liked the small shops, especially the bookshop. I was the only person in this town that liked Heatherly, because it was full of places where I didn't need to be around others. It was exactly what I needed.

Unfortunately for me, it was impossible to avoid everyone. Almost a year ago, a few people from school who would usually have no relevance to each other began to meet up. In fact, they were inseparable. Nobody understood it, but nobody questioned it either. I barely even noticed it was happening until one of them, Leah, had invited me to join them at lunch. I politely declined, but she told me it was important, so I rolled my eyes and joined them.

It was then that they told me what they were, and what I was. We had powers, we could do things others couldn't; we could use our mind to control things, objects and such. Most people would label us as witches, but we never really named ourselves. We were just a group of people with 'unique abilities,' or at least that's what Anna said. She was the leader, and nobody ever questioned what she said. Of course, I questioned it at first, but when you are told that you have powers, some kind of trigger goes off inside of you and you realise it is true; I could do things that I never used to be able to do. I had fun with it too; I would stand in the forest for hours, suspending fallen, dead leaves in thin air, watching as gravity no longer affected what was in front of me.

There were seven of us all together; Leah, Anna, Grace, Michael, Calum, Luke, and I. Naturally, I didn't participate in the meetings they held near Ivory Lake, a small lake that could be found off a trail in the woods. I only sat at lunch with them when necessary, and didn't particularly care about most of what they talked about.

Allowing objects to float before me was one good thing about having 'unique abilities.' The other was that we each had individual powers based on our personality. This meant that I could control whether it rained or not, and if I tried hard enough, I could create a storm, though that took a lot of energy. I still haven't figured out why rain was connected to my personality; maybe my love for nature contributed to it. Some people hadn't found their individual powers yet. However, Leah was telepathic, which meant that if she tried, she could read anybody's mind. Grace had the power of seduction; she could literally have any boy she wanted. Anna was able to create forcefields to shield herself and others around her from anything, though in a town this boring she barely came in handy. Michael could control electricity in the palm of his hand and send it shooting through the air. The rest hadn't found their power yet.

I got used to the whole thing pretty quickly and soon went back to my normal, moody self. It became routine to meet every Wednesday after school beside Ivory Lake to talk about whether we had found anything that could tell us more about ourselves; whether our parents or grandparents had said anything or if any of our ancestors had any diaries. Of course, we never really found much so our meetings only lasted for half an hour or so and mostly consisted of Anna blabbering on about something, Michael and Leah sticking their tongue down each other's throat and Grace trying to flirt with Luke. Calum was like an angrier version of me; he constantly wore a frown and never missed an opportunity to argue with one of us. I pretty much stared off into space, nodding when necessary and rolling my eyes at the people around me. In TV shows, being a coven looks cool, but in reality it's just as boring as being normal and I didn't bond with any of them.

That was until he came. His arrival changed everything.