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Author’s Note: Hi! Thanks for reading. I just wanted to let you know that this book will also be uploaded onto Wattpad (@Lynn_Kelly), Quotev (@LynnKelly), and FictionPad (@Lynn_Kelly), so if you also read from those sites, this book may come up there as well.

- Lynn Kelly

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CHAPTER ONE:

Who is Kassandra Mason, you ask? She's someone who's seen things that we're told as children could not possibly exist. Every day she asks herself: Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn't I just have a normal life? Would everything have been different if I had just stayed in New Jersey? There are so many thoughts within her head, but one thing remains clear: the life of Kassandra Mason was changed forever the moment she arrived in Grimsby, Ohio...


"Oh, Kassandra. Come on. It won't be that bad," Kassandra's mother, Tiffany, says as they drive down the last portion of the highway before they reach Ohio.

"Of course it will be! I'm transferring to a new school mid-way through the year," Kassandra grumpily crosses her arms over her chest, annoyed that her mother could possibly think that this new high school would be any better than the last. "What kind of town is called Grimsby, anyway?"

Her mother sighs and then responds, "I know you're nervous about school, but could you just try to adapt to it? We wouldn't be moving if it wasn't necessary."

"Yeah, I know," Kassandra dismisses her mother's words. Not wanting to continue the conversation, she shoves her headphones into her ears and starts doing the one thing that never fails to cheer her up when she's feeling down: listening to her favorite band, Take Me To Neverland. She looks out the window for the rest of the ride and lets the music wash away her unwanted thoughts. Getting lost in the lyrics of the song, she doesn't even realize that they have arrived at their destination until her mother waves her hand in front of her face.

She unplugs her headphones and looks up at the house in front of her. She could now see where the town gets the name "Grimsby" from. All of the houses lining the street looked like something straight out of a gothic-era novel. Not that Kassandra minded--she had a strange fascination with the supernatural and the unknown, for which she was often the subject of bullying in her previous school.

When she opens the door to the passenger side of the car, the sound of a piano playing a beautiful melody fills her ears. She looked around the neighborhood until she spotted the source. Across the street from where she stood, there was a blonde boy about her age playing the piano in a garage. She smiled and stood there for a moment, taking in the view.

"Kassandra, stop starting at that boy and help me unpack the U-Haul," Tiffany says, breaking Kassandra's gaze away from the boy.

"I was NOT staring at him. I was just listening" Kassandra rolls her eyes at her mother and slams her door shut. The sudden noise caused the blonde boy to stop playing abruptly and look over at the mother-daughter duo. Nervous that he was being listened to, a blush rises up to his cheeks--a darker shade of red than most people blush. He calms himself down and then proceeds to close the distance between them.

"Hello," he says with a small, nervous wave. From across the street, he wasn't able to see how beautiful Kassandra was, but now that he's right next to her, he's having trouble looking away. He rambles on, "You must be our new neighbors--the Masons, right? Would you like help with bringing things inside? I would have asked to help immediately, but I didn't hear you pull up."

"Sure, we'd love an extra set of hands," Tiffany said, then proceeds with the introductions, "I'm Tiffany and this is my daughter, Kassandra."

"Luke," he shakes her hand, "Luke Hemmings." When he turns to shake hands with Kassandra, Kassandra had to take a second to admire him. He was certainly not unattractive, with those sky-blue eyes and tousled blonde hair, but she couldn't see it going anywhere. Tiffany heads inside with the first box from the U-Haul.

"You play beautifully," Kassandra says, nodding her head towards the direction of his garage.

"Thanks, I don't really play for people often." He looks down at the ground and shuffles his feet anxiously, blushing yet again.

"Well, you definitely should. You're very talented."

The smile on Luke's face could not have been any bigger if he tried. It was a smile that could have brightened up anybody's day. In fact, it brightened up Kassandra's day--not that she'd tell him that.




A few hours later

"I still can't believe you're also a fan of Take Me To Neverland! They're pretty much unheard of around here," Luke exclaims. Kassandra and Luke are sitting on Kassandra's bed, getting to know each other.

"Yeah, same with where I'm from! Everyone just listened to the top forty hits and shunned other songs," Kassandra said while shuddering at the thought of listening to forty songs that sound exactly the same on repeat all day.

"I hate that! There's so many artists that have good, genuine songs and those are unknown to the majority of the world," Luke passionately threw his arms up in the air as he spoke in exasperation. Then, he flopped back on the bed, so that he was laying down with his long legs nearly hanging off the edge of Kassandra's bed.

"It really is saddening," Kassandra agreed.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Kassandra being incredibly nervous of what to say in a situation like this. She never was able to make friends in New Jersey and she was nervous to say the wrong things to Luke. She thought that since it didn't take much for the people in her last school to dislike her, it must be the same thing for Luke.

"Uhm--do you mind if I turn on some music?" Kassandra asks, trying to break the awkward silence that she thinks she caused by only being able to think of boring things to say.

"Not at all--I think you know by now that I love music," Luke's grin was contagious and Kassandra found it difficult not to smile when Luke was smiling. As Kassandra got up from the bed and to the desk in the corner of her room, Luke muttered something from his place on her bed, "IwishIcouldturnyouon..."

"What was that?" Kassandra asked, turning her head to look back over her shoulder at him. She heard him say something, but didn't hear exactly what he said.

Luke's face turned bright red--similar to how it was a few hours prior when they had first met--but he just shrugged off what he said, "Never mind, it wasn't important. So, since I'm still getting to know you, I forgot to ask you the most important question: what's your favorite color?"

"My favorite color is probably...red? Yeah, I'd say it's red," Kassandra decided. Then sat back down in her place next to Luke on the bed. "What's yours?"

"I like blue a lot." Wanting to learn everything about her, Luke's eyes roamed her room as he thought of more questions to ask her. They land on the bookshelf where a wide variety of books were sitting. "What's your favorite book?"

"The Harry Potter series is my favorite and my favorite is The Goblet of Fire, even though it's probably not the conventional favorite one. What do you like to read?"

"If you want my honest answer, you might judge me for it," Luke's said, his voice sounding weary and that classic blush appeared back on his face.

"I would never judge anybody for anything--unless they're hurting other people, of course," Kassandra replied and made sure that Luke knew that she had meant what she had just said to him.

"Ok...then, in all honestly, my favorite book series is Twilight."

"Twilight?" Kassandra questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Ugh, I knew I shouldn't have said anything." As he spoke, he looked up at the ceiling and turned his gaze away from Kassandra.

"Hey, Luke." she spoke back up a few moments later. He only hummed in response. "I didn't mean to sound judgmental. I'm sorry about that. Twilight is cool, if that's what you like. I just didn't think that's what you'd be interested in."

"It's ok," Luke's smile was back on his face. He turned back to look at Kassandra, finally. "I didn't want to be interested in Twilight at first, but this town has some strange fascination with vampires. I ended up reading it eventually and actually loved it."

"What kind of a strange fascination?"

"Like there's an annual convention in this town where people dress up as well-known vampires and parade around town."

"A vampire convention?" Kassandra pondered the idea over. "Does that mean you believe in vampires?"

"God, no!" Luke shook his head, "I think it's all just a way that the elderly in the town liked to play pranks on children back in the day."

"Yeah, that's probably what it is," Kassandra agreed, nodding her head.

Luke's phone rang, signaling that he had an incoming call. He rolled his eyes before answering it with a "Yes, mother."

Through the phone, Kassandra could hear Luke's mother on the other end talking very loudly, "Do you have any idea what time it is right now? You had me worried sick! You need to head home right now!"

Kassandra picked up her own phone to look at the time. Her eyes widened in shock when she read that it was 3:00am. She didn't know whether to be more surprised that she felt so comfortable with Luke that the time had passed by so quickly or the fact that her mother never came into her room to ask Luke to leave.

"I'm sorry. I'm at our new neighbor's house across the street and I lost track of time. I'll be home in five," Luke said his goodbyes to his mother on the phone and then hung up on her.

Now turning his attention back on his newfound friend, "I'm sorry for staying so late Kass. I totally didn't realize what time it was until she called me."

"It's fine. I had fun." Then something registered in her brain, "Did you just call me Kass?"

"I had fun, too, and yes. Do you not like that?" Luke's apologetic face quickly switched to one of worry, thinking that he had made her upset.

"Uhm, no. I--I like it. It's just that only my father's called me that."

"Oh, right. Your father, when do I get to meet him?"

"You won't," Kassandra looked down at her hands and fidgeted with her fingers.

"Oh, sorry--I shouldn't have assumed that we would be hanging out again without asking you first," Luke said, thinking that he was pushing her into a friendship.

"No--No, it's not that," she responds, lifting her head to look up at Luke again with tear-filled eyes. "My father passed away two months ago while he was on a business trip. His hotel building had a fire and he was still inside it when it burned down."

Luke was unsure of what to say or if he should even say anything. Instead, he opened up his arms and insisted on hugging Kassandra in a comforting manner. After a minute of allowing Luke to comfort her, she pulled out of the hug.

"Thanks for that, but you should probably be getting home now. It's late and your mom was already worried about you."

Luke agreed that it was getting late and the two walked back down the stairs of the house and Kassandra walked him to the front door. When she looked outside, she saw that there was someone standing outside a few houses to the left of Luke's. They were staring directly at her.

"Uhm, Luke. It's not normal for people to be out and about at this time, right?" Kassandra asks, nodding her head to where the person once stood. Luke turned to look in that direction, but saw no one.

"There's no one outside, Kassandra," he lets out a light chuckle.

"What? No, there was definitely someone three houses down from you. Right--" she turned to point at where they used to be, but they weren't there when she looked either. "there. I guess I imagined it then," she shrugged it off and watched as Luke continued on his walk back to his house across the street.

They exchanged small waves when he got back inside and he closed the door, mentally preparing himself for an argument with his mother. Kassandra took one more look at where the person was standing. They still weren't there.

"You're just tired, Kassandra. No one was ever standing there," she whispers to herself before turning on her heels back inside her own house. She closed and locked the door behind herself. She heads back up the stairs to her new bedroom and falls asleep not one minute after her head hits the pillow.