My grandparents were not at all what I was expecting.

My grandmother was tall and in a way, regal, with light brown hair and green eyes. Her hair was pulled into a tight, neat bun streaked with grey and she was wearing a dress that seemed to have come from a runway. My grandfather looked more like a war-beaten general than the accountant he was supposed to be. With one look, you could see the resemblance of my mother in him. They had had the same grey eyes that she had passed on to me. I grit my teeth as the thought of Mum drew tears to my eyes. Now was not the time to make a bad first impression.

Despite my first thoughts, they turned out to be very kind and welcoming people. My grandmother, who insisted that I call her Alice, filled me in on everything that I would need to know for my first day of school. In two days, I would be beginning at Oak Ridge High School. It would be a bit hard to fit in, Alice warned me, as most students all knew each other from elementary.

When we had gone over all the details and I had unpacked my suitcase, she suggested that I go to the backyard and take a look at her garden. Not wanting to be in her skin anymore, I readily agreed.

The backyard was more like a jungle than an actual garden. There were a few flowers I could recognize, like tulips and lilies, but the rest seemed to be exotic. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I spotted a Venus Flytrap among the flowerbeds. When Mum had said quirky, I had expected an atrocious taste in fashion or something of the kind, but not this!

But all my thoughts were driven out of my head when I spotted a gigantic tree at the corner of the yard. With a frown, I hurried over to it. As I approached, I realized that the tree was even bigger than it had seemed before. I turned around, looking back at the house. It had disappeared from view. My eyebrows shot up. There was no way a backyard could be so big, I thought. I turned back and stared at the tree again. I had never seen a tree so gigantic. It was more than two times wider than an average human and four or five times taller. As I leaned forward, I noticed strange symbols carved in the trunk.

The symbols formed a long oval, started from the very bottom of the trunk to a meter above my head. Looking more closely, I realized that there were eight runes that repeated.

I slid my finger over each symbol. Without thinking, I began to whisper "Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Time, Sun, Moon, Space...". The symbols began to glow as if a light was emanating from deep within the tree. Started, I jumped back, and the glow disappeared. "Ok", I thought. "Something really weird is going on here and I intend to find out what." After looking at the symbols to try to memorize them, I turn back and sprinted towards the house.