A Genie’s Beginning

Ebbinetta “Ebby” Morrow has never fit in. Raised inside a strict commune where obedience meant survival, she thought freedom would feel different. Instead, her aunt Meadow drags her to Coley Cove—a qu

Chapter One: 

“Thank goodness, this trip was taking forever.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. Abel caught my eyes in the rearview mirror, smirking like I’d just admitted to blasphemy. Meadow didn’t laugh. She gripped the wheel harder.

That morning hadn’t been a clean escape.

Grandpa blocked the porch like a stone wall, Bible under his arm, voice sharp enough to cut skin. He kept saying bloodline like it was holy, not rotten. Meadow didn’t flinch.

“She’s mine,” she told him, calm but lethal. “I’m her legal guardian. Abel’s finished school. He can help me. And Coley Cove is safer for her than this compound ever was.”

“You’ll damn her,” he spat.

“You already tried,” she said. Then she grabbed my bags, slid her hand into mine, and we walked away.

Now, hours later, the fight still rattled in my chest.

“Was that relief I heard, or sarcasm?” Meadow asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Both.” I leaned my forehead to the glass. Michigan trees blurred by, all green veins and gold light.

We’d driven two days straight from California. Tents, campfires, fake marshmallow smiles. A goodbye tour to childhood, they called it. All I saw was Cozy on the porch, curls frizzed, arms folded. The happiest person I knew, suddenly hollow. I kept waiting for her to wave. She didn’t.

“We left Cozy,” I whispered. “I left her.”

Abel’s voice softened. “Her parents are still there. There wasn’t a choice.”

Meadow adjusted the mirror until our eyes locked. “Was it… okay? Living there? If I dragged you away from what felt like home�"”

“It wasn’t home,” I said fast. “It was surveillance. Obedience. Arranged pairings.” The word marriage stuck in my throat like poison.

Her lips tightened, then she nodded. “Then I did the right thing.”

“You did,” I said. But I still thought of Cozy, left behind in the gray.

Silence sank in again. Abel finally broke it. “I miss the cinnamon soap, though. That was elite.”

I snorted. Meadow almost smiled. The air loosened.

A flicker caught the corner of my eye. Above the clouds, something bronze shimmered, then vanished. A ripple of wind swept the car.

“Vega’s close,” Meadow murmured, like it explained everything.

“Wyvern GPS Ebs.” Abel added.

I frowned. “How do you even know?”

“We’re soul-tied. Our thoughts are one.” She eased the wheel onto a narrow side road that hadn’t been there a heartbeat ago.

Hand-painted letters appeared on a crooked sign ahead:

WELCOME TO COLEY COVE
Population: 8,000+++
Admission: Only your soul ☠

Abel barked a laugh. “Guess we’re bankrupt.”

The town unfolded like a daydream�"pastel houses, lantern strings twinkling against broad daylight, shop names leaning into whimsy. Please Don’t Pet the Books. The Enchanted Elbow. As we passed, something in my chest flinched. A pull. Like the air bent in that direction. I glanced back at the storefront, making a mental note of the name of the store.

Then I saw it. A crooked sign with a blackbird perched above it: Salvage & Spells.

My pulse stuttered. “That one. Something in there’s calling me.”

Meadow didn’t even glance. “You’re not ready to answer.”

So that was where my artifact lived.

My thoughts came full circle. My grandfather’s panicked expression when my aunt and brother showed up a week ago. Meadow’s insistence that I live with her in this nowhere town. The never-ending camping and talking about me growing up. It was all for this.  

Meadow brightened her voice like she could change the air by force. “We found your artifact. You cannot touch until you know- You can finally start your life and be free.”

“Finding my artifact is just another prison.” The words came out before I could catch them. I winced. 

“I am sorry,” Meadow repeated for the 100th time.

“It is okay,” I told her. I kept the rest in my chest. She had been locked away. Abel had been free. He could have done more. That thought sat like a hot coal in the pit of my stomach.

“You start school in a few weeks.” She continued to say with excitement.

Abel for the assist, “You’ll finally make friends with people you are not related to.” 

The car rolled to a stop in front of a proud, teal Victorian wrapped in vines. It looked like it had a thousand creaky floorboards.

Abel hopped out, bowed with fake ceremony. “Your room awaits, princess.”

Inside, rugs layered like patchwork, furniture stolen from time. It whispered You can breathe here.

Before I took a step, she pulled me in, arms tight, face pressed to my hair. She breathed in like she had been starving for it. I went stiff, then soft. A memory came back quickly, her doing this at bedtime when I was small.

“I thought about you every second of every day,” she whispered. Her voice broke. “I am so sorry.”

I squeezed her. “It is okay. I had Cozy. She made it bearable.”

A kiss on the top of my head. She let me go.

I claimed the turret. Inside, the room was round, tall, and completely blank. It was going to be impossible to decorate�"but I kind of loved that. Curved windows let in slices of golden light, pooling on the faded hardwood. The walls were a soft ghost of rose under the afternoon sun, but everything else was… beige. My curtains. The sheet. Even the area rug. All beige.

  I opened the closet and laughed out loud. Meadow had stocked it with clothes. All practical. All beige. That made no sense. How did she know that I’d pick this room?

  “I went from gray in the compound to beige in Coley Cove,” I muttered. “Guess that’s a color upgrade.”

My mind buzzed with plans. I wanted floating shelves for crystals and books. A ceiling mobile of pressed flowers and glass beads. A mural across one curve of the wall. Blues and burnt sienna, maybe a phoenix bursting out of smoke. Velvet curtains and a beanbag, and a plant that always looked on the verge of dying. My own chaos. My own rules.

“Dude,” Abel whispered.

I followed his gaze out the window. A girl my age stood in her room across the gap, pulling off her shirt. Confident, casual, matching bra and panties.

Abel didn’t look away.

“Seriously?” I hissed.

“I was observing.”

“Observing what, creep?”

The girl turned mid-change, caught me staring instead. Her brows furrowed. She yanked the curtains shut.

“Perfect.” I groaned. “Day one, and I am the neighborhood creep.”

Abel laughed under his breath, but I collapsed onto the vanilla-scented bed, pillow muffling my scream.

 I flopped on the bed, groaning into a pillow that smelled like vanilla. Under the embarrassment, a rhythm beat in my chest.  A pull. Like something hungry with its eyes on me.

  

Reviews

[Eliezer]

My favorite thing about this was your descriptions. You paint the settings in vivid detail.
"Town unfolded like a daydream", and "The walls were a soft ghost of rose under the afternoon sun" stuck out to me in a good way. I also thought including the fact that the pillow was vanilla scented was nice touch.

The dialogue is very dynamic which I also liked. You make good use of dialogue tags to keep the characters animated as they talk. Almost cinematic.

It seems like you have a good deal of world building in mind. Definitely not a bad thing, but I'd be careful with how much is included in the first chapter. The introduction should be mainly getting us familiar with the main character as a person and their motives, in my opinion.

I think you should also reconsider how you handle the opening. We start with the car ride, then flash back to the compound, then go back to the car ride again. Having something like this at the very beginning can be a bit disorienting for a new reader.

Overall, I like the way you paint the environments, and you seem to be getting a good feel for dialogue as well. I would try to make the first chapter more focused on a specific scene to ease the reader into your world and characters better.