I figured, after my rather abrupt debut, I should offer some background on my relationships with Ella and Erica as well as some reasons why I decided to begin contributing to this blog.

I moved into this building a year before Ella and Erica. I was attracted to the historical features, the price, and the unpredictable schedules of the other tenants. No one here would notice that I rarely left my apartment during the day and work mostly nights. They would assume I was a nurse when I left the building in scrubs. And I could feel in the energy of the building that I might one day have a supernatural companion if someone moved there for the same reasons.

Ella is the one who found me out. That should not be a surprise. She is a wise and experienced witch. And she is the one who introduced me to Erica. I think she saw an us a common inability to accept a fate we had not chosen for ourselves. She saw a potential for friendship, and she was right.

Despite the vast difference in our ages, I have almost 200 years on Erica, my personality seems to have locked in at the age I was transformed. I also hail from New England, although it has been so long since I’ve been back. And I, too, have found I truly enjoy my life, or non-life, in the Midwest.

I’m ashamed to admit that Erica and Ella were my first friends in more than 70 years. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to be my full self around other people. Because of that newfound confidence, I was able to make another terrible friendship that nearly destroyed me. I do not blame either Erica or Ella. Without them, I doubt I would have survived.

And that is the story I want to tell. That first wave of shock and grief and despair has passed over me. I have emerged changed but not weakened, and I can finally relay what happened.

-Jane