"Get in here Miss Lovell Woods!"

With a slight sigh, I hopped up from the couch in the basement games room and headed towards the kitchen on the opposite side of this floor. The scent of just baked bread filled the wide space and our cook/ cleaner/ just awesome nanny Verity had some of it on a plate in the centre island for me.

"Eat, before the boys get it all"

"Do I have to?"

"I have coleslaw and ham, fresh this morning Miss"

"Sold" I replied with a grin. Verity knew the whole families favourites without ever directly asking any of us. And she was not the one with the photographic memory, something my two older brothers envied me from time to time. While I was no Kim Peek, I have a pretty good memory for someone with no physical or mental impediments.

With that, I sat down and polished off the food, half to satisfy Verity and half for myself, flicking through a cookbook that was out. Memorising cookbooks was boring and I regretted not bringing my "Guide to Intermediate level Russian" with me. I had sixteen languages under my belt, my favourite thing to memorise as there were always new words, new expressions individual to each language. But bringing dictionaries the width of my midsection to college had drawn stares in the past so that was bedtime reading.

Finally after insisting I had one of her cinnamon and raisin muffins, I managed to escape, yelling back to her I heard Rydian calling for me. He was technically my oldest brother being that I was adopted from the age of four. The woman I called and thought of as "mom" was my actual mother's best friend from college. My mother had put her as my godmother though I doubt she ever foresaw me needing one. But when she found out she had pancreatic cancer along with cancer in her spinal cord and hip, she knew she would be gone. She had been a savant, giving her the ability to gift or terrorise people with dreams that could actually influence their decisions if needs be. So had my father, her soulfinder. But she was the strength in the relationship and soon after her death, my father figured it was best I go and live with Olivia Woods, my adoptive mother. He was grief stricken. I still had every line of his grief memorised, pain unimaginable even at twenty one years old.

We still spoke and met up every few months. But I knew little of his life. Once or twice, we went on holiday but my most vivid memories of those were his disconcerting glances in my direction. I knew I looked like Her. Thick curly blonde hair, a narrow frame, high cheekbones and the same way of smiling. The only thing I inherited from him was his height, putting me at 5ft 11 by the age of fifteen. I was just about 6ft now. Because of this, I had long ago decided I never wanted to meet my soulfinder.

So anyway our relationship was strained. But I loved him and I knew he loved me. Yes, we do love each other I thought doubtfully as I climbed the antique stairs to the main floor. I swear, the longer I stayed here, the more I wanted to be an antique interior designer. The warm, woodsy feeling of this three storey country manor made it feel like it had been my home forever. Wood paneled walls shone and the floors had thick rugs strewn on them nearly everywhere. Tulips from the nearby fields were in various vases around the house that even as adults, neither I nor my brothers were allowed to touch. The front door was actually on the second storey, the main floor, above what we called the basement, which only got its name because the front doors were a level up, reached by beautiful stone stairs.

After a mere year and a half, the house was home to everyone, including myself, despite spending a lot of time in campus accommodation the past year with school. With my photographic memory, acing all my exams had been easy and getting into a great college simple. It was nearly embarrassing sitting there finished with an hour or more to spare in some exams. So I rechecked everything and drew the corrector the best doodles they would probably see. Or well, best dinosaur doodles (I had been reading an archaeology book the night before the first exam. I also wanted something that would snatch up at least ten minutes so dinosaurs it was). So I picked an English literature and history program, figuring the heavy workload might test this practically inhuman memory. Nope. Sad thing was, it was not even my savant ability.

On finishing my dash upstairs I figured I might as well head to Tulip's house a little early. She was my best friend when I moved first to Amsterdam, living just two miles away. In the vast expanses of countryside, I considered this pretty close. It was six miles to the nearest shop which was the only reason I had bothered learn to drive. In our previous city home in the capital of England, nearly everything was within walking distance. And with a bus stop no more than a few minutes away, I was in no rush to even get a licence until the news came that a move to Amsterdam was in our future.

To be honest, none of us minded the move. Rydian, the oldest at 26, had finished university in England and having studied several different languages, he could live anywhere. Clarke decided to finish college in Scotland and joined us out here to do post graduate studies. Everyone in the family had at least three languages as our parents decided to have us be taught the most useful business languages from a young age. That was how they noticed my photographic memory and ease at learning. Which meant going to a prestigious boarding school at 12 on a full scholarship in Cheltenham where I met my first savant friend by sheer accident. More on that in a minute.

But Tulip also happened to be savant, having the ability to discover illnesses that could be years from manifesting. She could essentially know the current and future health of a body, spotting illnesses such as cancer's, Alzheimer's and arthritis that no machine could detect yet. The two of us met in college, her studying medicine, when I spilled a smoothie onto her shoes. Today was a get together with friends before we submitted where we wanted to study abroad until Christmas. I grabbed my shoulder bag with the sheets and locations to be submitted in it, yanked on my sandals that were by the front door and headed out into the early July sunshine. I headed down to the garage, wheeled my bike out and before long I was passing fields of tulips, roses, cherry blossom trees and sunflowers. In some fields, tents accommodated the out of season flowers while others decorated the landscape beautifully. The joys of living near a flower exporter and producer.

Tulip was stretched out sunning herself in her vast front lawns when I got to her place. I saw her open one eye lazily on my approach and groaned.

"Go away Willow or I shall set my mutt on you"

"Your "mutt" is fast asleep over there. Great guard dog you got."

"Aaarrgh" she moaned as she shoved herself off the deck chair, stumbling blearily as she tried to pull on her vest top and shorts over her bikini. "You were meant to come in like a frigging half hour! I thought I had time to sleep off the mysteries of whatever the hell we got up to last night."

"Ah Tools. I could just not wait to get the glowing reception I always receive on entering your lovely company" I replied cheerfully. She glared at me and picked up the bag by her deck chair. Ah Tulip. I knew no one else who changed their name just to spite their parents in a fit of adolescent annoyance. Strangely, no one, not even her parents, could think of her as Hannah any more. I only ever knew her as Tulip so Tulip it was.

She stretched and yawned. "Going to get my bike. Will be with ya in a sec. K?"

"Potassium" I called after her sweetly. She should have realized by now that every time she used text language around me she would be assaulted with what "K" actually freaking stood for. The joys of being friends with me!

After she dragged her bike out, looking at me like I murdered a puppy, we set off on the main road at the end of her drive. We both sweat through the settling heat in silence until we reached a wheat field on the right. I pulled in, hopping neatly off my bike and undid the weathered chain that kept the old wood gate closed to this field.

"Meet you down there loser" Tulip called over her shoulder as she sped through the opened gate. I swore. Hastily I dragged my bike in, re-chained the gate and sped after her. Even though she was carrying wine in her bag, which I instructed her to bring, she flew through the tractor flattened wheat with no care. It was an age old tradition. Whoever got down there last had to buy the wine for next time, at the choice of the winner. After I made her spend a small fortune on three bottles of wine for today, I knew that I would be buying vintage if I did not beat her ass down there.

The sun nearly blinded me as I flew after her, spitting bits of wheat out as I was whacked in the face by my lack of talent in steering half straight. The field was about the length of a football pitch and as we came nearer to our destination, the field began to slope down towards a small river. Here was a clearing, half surrounded by trees, bushes and other plants. Tulip had stumbled upon it a few years ago and had let only those she liked down to her ready-made paradise.

"I….. Am….. Winning" Tulip coughed out, wheezing in between each word. I felt myself grin. I was not even out of breath and still hot on her tail.

"I BEAT BOTH YOUR ASSES!" yelled a voice. Someone else whooped and they both laughed. Cam and Lucian were both down by the river already it seemed.

"I win!" Tulip squealed as she hit the dirt line dug in just before the field sloped down nearly vertically. I swore, much to my "friends" enjoyment. Tossing down my bike as I stopped, I skidded down to the river after her. I skidded too quick however and Lucian half caught me before I stumbled head first into the table and foldout chairs put out.

"I want white wine next time" Cam said from his seat, opening one eye to have a look. "Payment for all my mighty work."

"It took you an afternoon two years ago to slap that table together with your older brother" Sherry called out. Moments later, she slipped down and joined us, tossing her bag of food into Cams lap. He barely caught it and the force flung him back, out of his foldout chair. His dumbfounded expression as he clutched the bag set us off.

"For the love of….. Do not throw him the wine Tools" Lucian said, clutching me to his chest as we both half died of laughter. Blinking through my tears, I only could see Sherry keeled over in the dirt, her mop of dyed red hair shaking as she laughed.

"Ooooh, you brought crisp sandwiches!" Cam said, delight on his impish face, his messy blonde hair falling into his face as he rooted through the bag.

"Let me put that out" I coughed, Tulips giggles nearly setting me off again. "Sit down and let me put out the stuff. Tonight we have work to do!"

Hi, author person here!

In this chapter I tried to set up the story so it is a tad longer than future chapters. It starts in the summer after Diamond and Traces winter wedding.

I will be changing one or two tiny things just to fit the story (I mean tiny! Teeny weeny. Swear). I will be referring to Seeking Crystal and a fair few of the Benedict clan will be making appearances!

Please, please, pretty please review! Good or bad (I will not growl). This is my first fanfic so I want to improve!(Favourite or follow if you like it too. They motivate me to update! Like rreeaalllyyy quickly. Ok shutting up now).