Lying on the ground she could feel it. Normally when she tried to feel the connection anywhere else she would feel a slight hum of comfort that would disappear as quickly as it came. Yet here lying on the forest floor she felt it, it was almost as if someone had just threw an electric blanket on her. She felt warmth spread through her body from her head to her toes followed then by the happy hum that took over. At that moment Dani knew this was the place.
Ever since Dani and Gabriel were children they had been a little bit… different. Dani was a snide smart girl who was witty, loving, and to be honest a natural born defender. Gabriel on the other hand was very serious; although still loving as a brother may be to his sister he was much shielded and was also naturally made to destroy anything that was a threat to him or Dani. Nobody blamed either of them for the way they perceived themselves. Most people knew the story of Dani and Gabriel Hale. A long time ago Dani and Gabriel lost their parents when they were only infants. Most people often gave them a break, because they felt sorry for the poor children found in the woods.
Long ago when Dani and Gabriel had just been born their Aunt Lidia got an urgent call; her sister and her husband had been in a horrific car accident that had totaled the car and that the couple was likely not to survive. Lidia engrossed with sadness then thought of the twins her sister Jenifer had had only two days before. The children born at home were there now alone locked in their home just outside the edge of a large forest. Dani though about the night that her parents had passed, she should not have remembered what happened, but she did. Like something had lifted her and her brother up and placed her in the dark . It was cold and unwelcoming. Luckily Lidia knew exactly where her father and mother would have left them if anything were to go wrong. Sure enough lying on the forest floor as she was today .16 years ago her Aunt Lidia found her and Gabriel as crying infants on the ground. No one knew how they got out there, why they were there, and how Lidia found them so quickly but her aunt swept them up and raised them on her own. Later Dani would not even have the closure of seeing her parents after the crash had ended their parents bodies had never been recovered.
“This was the place” she thought, all the years of looking, searching for this. This one special place in the forest was the place where her mother and father had left them all those years ago. Now, even if she couldn’t remember their faces, she could feel them. Their presence was here and so was their spirit. You see Gabriel and Dani were very different from most teens their age. They were twins of witch parents. Their magik was the only thing they had that tied them to their parents and now lying here, covered by the overcast of the green trees with the light streaming through , she felt it. She had found them at last, and soon Gabriel and Dani would find out what really happened the night their parents had disappeared.

1.
Danielle Marie Hale
“Dani. Dani? DANI!”, a loud shout and a violent shake sent Dani flailing back into the real world. The real world entailed a very rugged Gabriel standing over her shaking her back and forth. “Dani, get up its twenty minutes till we have to leave.”

“Ughhhhh”, I thought I made my point clear enough. Gabriel snorted and stalked off downstairs to join my Aunt Lidy in breakfast.
Feeling the cold of the morning frost outside she could already start to feel the hatred of the cold wood floor that she knew was underneath her. I’m definitely not looking forward to leaving this bed. Throwing the covers off her body, she let the cold air gnaw at her skin. Then after practically have a seizure from shivering she threw on a bath robe and some slippers and headed straight for the shower. In the short time it took to get from her bed to the bathroom she had already felt her toes turn to ice nuggets.
After doing a quick operation on her face to make her look human again and running a brush through hair, she grabbed her back pack from her desk and trotted down the stairs, being sure to jump over the last one for good luck. “Good morning everyone!”, She tried to be as loud and obnoxious as she could in the morning just so Gabriel would have to give in to the temptation of conversation with her. This, seeing how he had looked up from this morning’s newspaper and sighed it seemed to have worked.
“Good morning sleeping beauty, glad you finally did the transition from the dragon you were twenty minutes ago. You really should start learning how to accept waking up in the morning.” He looked at her smiled, then walked over to kiss her forehead. “Come on it’s time to go to school.”
Although Dani and Gabe were the same age he had been the one to take care of them when Aunt Lidia wasn’t around, acting like a father figure for Dani and giving her discipline and love whenever he felt suited for her.
Dani smiled and then playfully pushed him away. “You don’t know that the dragon has completely left yet.” She gave him a fierce mock glare that only made him laugh at her attempt to be mad at him.
Dani grabbed a bagel and some orange juice from the fridge and followed her brother to their new Lexus their aunt had gotten them for their sixteenth birthday. Originally the plan was that they would both get their own vehicles in case one wanted to go somewhere the other one didn’t, but seeing how rare it was they were apart it seemed unlikely and a waste of their Aunts money, so they agreed on the silver Lexus they had now.
“Do you think they will all stare at us?”, she couldn’t help but wondering. Every other school they had been too had all stared the moment the twins walked through the door. Not saying that Dani could blame them, Gabe and Dani did look exactly alike. Gabe usually had a five o’clock shadow, but other than that they were identical. Both of them had unnaturally green eyes and coffee brown hair, Gabe was six foot when Dani was only 5.9” but they had the same olive skin and their mother’s soft expressions. All together to often people had told them how innocent they looked. Pshh.
A look went across Gabriel’s face. She thought it might have been a mix of being thought with a mix of dislike, “I don’t know Dani. We are different to other people. That’s the only reason why they stare, just remember they aren’t judging, just observing.”
As much as Gabe tried to hide his emotions she felt it in her heart that he hated their judge mental eyes on them just as much as she did. He could tell her that they didn’t judge them all he wanted but he couldn’t hide that from her. She always knew they would be the freak where ever they went.