Prologue: Torn Away (part 1)

Torn Away (Part 2)

Claire Carpenter stared at the words she'd just written and let out a sad sigh. The letter was a guide for her youngest daughter, Amy, and a warning against the dangers she would face in the future.

Claire herself had faced these very dangers however she'd being lucky that her mother, Kirsten, was there to guide her after she'd discovered that she wasn't entirely human.

 And she and her brothers, James and Sean and her sisters, Stephanie and Jessica, also had support on learning how to control there powers of levitation, teleportation, invisibility and telekinesis and how to spot a Reaper , the phantoms that thrived on killing her kind and the Tizarros, the angel and human hybrids, who were the allies and distant cousins to the Frattons.

Reapers were the most dangerous beings that had ever existed and over the past thousand years they'd somehow developed the power to infect Frattons any types of cancer which was toxic to them. Claire however was determined to keep fighting until she breathed her last breath, her hearted beated a final time and her brain retained one more once of information before it shut down for good and allowed a Reaper to drag her dead body into the darkness.

A violent shudder cascaded over Claire's snowy white skin like a waterfall of ice cold water as the thought of her death crawled into her mind. 

 With another mournful sigh, she gently torn the page off the pad she'd written it on and carefully folded it in half and slipped it into the envelope that was sitting on the mahogany pew that she was seated on.

Then as an after thought, Claire reached for the diamond cross that she wore around her neck on a fine silver chain and unclipped it and placed it inside the envelope. This cross had being passed on to her from her mother, who received it from her mother and so on and in 16 years from then it would be Amy's.

But the strange thing about this cross that it was not normal because all of the links in the shining chain and the diamonds that were encrusted into it was enchanted with an ancient and very powerful magic that was designed to repel Reapers and protect the wearer.

As she placed Amy's letter to one side she slid her hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small, royal blue velvet covered box  and opened it. Inside were three silver rings identical to the one she'd just put into the envelope she'd just sealed.

All four of these rings had been passe on from generation to generation and it had come into Claire's possession when she'd 12, 13 years ago. In fact Claire had a whole jewellery full of rings, pendants, bracelets, bangles, amulets and brooches from the middle Ages to the Victorian period to the present day that belonged to her female anncestors who all sported the same silver and diamond ring.

Claire reached for one of the rings and placed it into the envelope that had 'Kelly' written on it and slipped it inside with a letter she'd written to her oldest child who was currently living with Claire's younger sister, Jessica, in America.

She placed the second ring into Katina's envelope closed it as well however when she got to Olivia's envelope she reached into her coin pocket and pulled out a fourth ring. This one was silver like the other and had small diamonds encrusted into it as well however it had sapphires in between the diamonds.

This was Claire's late great grandmother's engagement ring and it was tradition in the Carter family to pass on an engagement ring to the third born if they were a girl. Apparently it was some strange custom started up by Claire's ancestor, Anne Carter, in the Salem Witch Trials as something called "the balance of the family" which even today Claire didn't understand. But according to the leather bound diary that she'd recieved after her great grandmother, Gwen's death, everyone generation of her family from the Tudor period to the Edwardian era all performed strange rituals which in their eyes were ways to ward off Reaper attacks completely.

 However in 1944, when Gwen was still alive the rituals suddenly stopped and the reason for this was always left a mystery to everyone and in the forth coming years the Carter's, the Callen's (Claire's father's side of the family) and the Calloway's (family friend's of the Carter and Callen families) constantly speculated what had halted the rituals and if Gwen was the reason they had come to a stop.

But after Gwen's death, 4 years ago in March 1990, the theories and the rumours  died down and eventually were forgotten about. Claire and her aunt, Jasmine, however still remembered the all the fuss over the broken family traditions after Gwen sent Claire, an old leather journal that was centuries old and held all the records of Frattons, dooplegangers and speculations from old family members from years gone by.

Claire smiled faintly as a memory from 4 years ago suddenly surfaced in her mind. It was back it was April 9th, exactly one month after Gwen's death, when she was 21 and pregnant with Olivia. She'd being sitting in Uralla's Catholic Church where she'd married Jordan back in 1984 with the priest, Father Victor Beltings.

Victor Beltings was one of Claire's closest friends and on of her biggest supports after her parent's divorce and after she'd gotten kicked out of home by her father, Damien.

He'd also helped when she thought that she'd being raped by her abusive ex-boyfriend, Kirk Masters and when she was pregnant with Kelly, he'd even married her and Jordan in the church they were sitting in 10 years ago.

"I'm guessing Gwen's ring will go to this child if it is a girl?" Victor had asked, nodding towards Claire's swollen stomach while exaiming the sapphire and diamond ring.

"I might as well start the traditions up again" Claire replied with a laugh. It was obivious she felt a great sadness over the passing of Gwen and all the nasty rumours about her stopping the traditions when Claire and her aunt, Jasmine, clearly had a feeling she wasn't to blame at all.

Victor laughed in reply and then sighed. "It's sad that Gwen has passed but I guess it's up to you, Stephanie, Jessica and James to keep the Carter, Callen and Carpenter line going".

"Yeah" Claire replied.

A feeling of pure sadness twisted her swollen stomach into a tangle of knots and a sour taste of bile rose into her throat. She and her siblings were constantly under pressure wether they were saving the lives of the people around them or continuing the family line to ensure the future of Frattons in their family in case the Reapers took over and exposed the supernatural world to the blissfully oblivious full blooded humans.

The Fratton council were defienetly firm and stubborn but Claire sensed they were paranoid and were sometimes a little of bearing and didn't even care about the feelings of the Frattons in question.

Nor they did realise that they were being heartless or that they were so concerned with keeping their race alive that the Frattons were actually planning a state of anarchy against the council to prevent it from pushing them even further over the edge.

Unfortunately, the Fratton council had become so with survival that they'd forgotten about their own feelings and thoughts and good will that they could've been bitten by a Reaper and still be blinded by their own stupidity.

Claire shook her head in frustration and glanced back at Victor and gnawed on the inside of her cheek.

"I can't begin to imagine the pressure you are all under" Victor said, his expression full of sympathy. "The council must stop this craziness before our entire race is either transformed into death phantoms or the anarchy they're causing becomes worse".

"Thanks" Claire replied, feeling a rush of gratitude towards her friend, "It's about time someone spoke up against the idiots and set them straight".

Back in the present Claire smiled faintly at the thought of the conversation she and Victor had shared in the very same church. It wasn't until 4 years into the present that the Council finally started listening and dropped their obsession of keeping the bloodlines going and focused on the things that actually mattered.