Chapter 1. A New Beginning

Chapter 1. A New Beginning

"Why here, anyway?  It's the back end of nowhere!" Erlina exclaimed as they drove through town.

"That's why," Bob said, his clipped tone the only sign of his irritation.

"No one knows us here," his wife Lynn quietly said.  She'd been unnaturally quiet ever since they got the news that they'd lost everything due to some bad investment decisions...mostly on her part.  Their financial advisor, who was a cousin of the Landgraabs,  had assured them that the high-risk investments he recommended would pay off big, and she hadn't questioned his judgement.  Of course, he wasn't exactly wrong.  They "investments" had paid off big, after all, just not for the De la Sangre family.  The advisor, on the other hand, was probably living the good life in Lunar Lakes or somewhere else with no extradition laws.

They'd sold the house and pretty much everything in it to raise as much money as possible.  Most of that went to lawyers to defend the family from the other people who assumed that the De la Sangres must be in on the swindle.  Thankfully they were exonerated, but their money and social standing were gone.  Lynn had fallen into a deep depression, so Bob decided that moving somewhere that no one knew them, at least until the scandal died down, was a good idea.  Also, Appaloosa Plains had a much lower cost of living than Sunset Valley.  Of all their descendants, only their great-granddaughter Erlina decided to come along.  The rest of them had their jobs and would recover easily enough.  Erlina was at loose ends, though, and thought the idea of starting over was a grand adventure.  She was just happy that her best friend and childhood sweetheart Elias agreed to come with her.  Everyone knows long distance relationships don't work!

The last of their funds went to purchasing a fairly large lot outside the town.  They could have gotten something more livable in town, but that would have meant being near people, which Lynn definitely did not want.  They were paying cash for everything, of course, as their credit rating was a wreck....and the cash did not run to beds.  So their first night in Appaloosa Plains was spent in tents.

"Snow.  Of course," Bob was heard to mutter right before he fell asleep.

Time passed, as it was wont to do.  Bob was happy to find a small community of witches in Appaloosa Plains.  They even had an alchemy shoppe, which was masquerading as an "herbal medicine and natural foods" store.  Bob ended up doing a fairly brisk business in invigorating elixirs and flasks of sleep, for some unknown reason.  They never sold for a lot of money, but it did add up.

Good thing, too.  The family was used to having a lot more personal space, and sometimes tensions flared.  And when people have handy magic wands, it can be awfully tempting to use magic to take your irritation out on someone.

Luckily a little cure elixir fixed him right up, although Bob never did figure out whether it was his wife or his great-granddaughter that did the deed.  Elias flatly refused to talk about it, and both witches denied that they would ever do such a thing.  Although Lynn's blithe assertion that, "well, I'm sure he probably deserved it," combined with the fact that Elias started generally going out of his way not to antagonize Lynn, made Bob suspicious.  He was a bit encouraged if it was his wife.  She'd been depressed since their reversal of fortune.  Perhaps her spirits were picking up.