Prologue

For just a moment, can you keep your mind open? This tale is one of love, loss, magic, adventure and self discovery. The stories I will tell you may seem too farfetched to be true, but I assure you they are. I know, because I lived them. I am Samantha Stone.

I was 19 years old, past my first year of college, and was trying to figure out who I was. I had never been on a date. No one really noticed me in high school. I was quiet and didn't like to make eye contact with people for very long. I also was coming to terms with the fact that I may have liked women. I wasn't very sure, it was all so confusing.

Oh yeah... and I was a witch. That's right, a witch. No I didn't have green skin and I didn't worship the devil. I hadn't always known what I was. I only found out when I was 17, shortly after my best friend, Elizabeth Valentine, found out she was one too.

My powers came from my mother's side. She was a witch too, but swore off her practice when she had a vision of her familiar dying and was unable to prevent it. Once she had me, her abilities to see spirits and see the future in her dreams left her. I am sure she was grateful for that. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to keep me from it. I wish I had known what I was. I grew up thinking I was a freak for seeing spirits and having strange things happen around me. I know she was only trying to protect me from a dangerous world.

Elizabeth, or Liz for short, found out after meeting another witch who gifted her magical relics and ancient books of spells and rituals. Her powers came from her father's side, whom she had never met. Her mother's side of the family were devout Christians completely against any pagan faiths such as ours, so it is no wonder she never was told.

Once we both learned what we were, we became witch sisters and were the only two members of our new coven. We made it our goal to learn magic and practiced often. It was a slow process, since magic takes time, energy, and skill.

I was excited to continue my journey down this magical path. I had close friends, a supportive mother and sister, a coven of my own, a volunteer job at a zoo and was getting ready for my second year of college. Everything seemed to be going great, but what I didn't know was that fate was going to bring a world of obstacles that I wasn't prepared for...