#sagefoster

Character: Sage Foster Species: Witch Age: 28 Gender: Female Pronouns: She/her Occupation: Owner of Odds and Dead Ends By: Caroline

Biography

7 years old.

She knew it wasn’t allowed but she didn’t care. Whatever silly seasons her parents gave her for avoiding Trixie Wilkinson at all costs meant nothing. Trixie was 9 years old and quite possible the coolest person Sage Foster had ever met in her entire life. Sometimes her annoying little brother tagged along and ruined their fun but she often put up with it just because Trixie was still there. The trio spent hours out behind the abandoned mill down on the outskirts of town, jumping from platform to platform, spooking each other from behind doors, and causing typical childish mischief. With one difference: this was inter-species play. The Wilkinson children were werewolves and she was a witch. This friendship was forbidden by her coven and yet, here she was. Sage didn’t know, though, during their final moments of play, that it would be the last time she saw the Wilkinson children outside of school for a very long time. 

When she arrived home, her father was waiting on the porch for her. She smiled her most convincing smile and walked up. “Hi, dad!”

He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Why were you with the Wilkinson kids again? You know you’re not supposed to play with them.”

Sage just blinked, trying to come up with a lie but she wasn’t fast enough. “Don’t tell me you weren’t. I did a locator spell.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust and groaned. “Dad! They’re nice!”

“I don’t care if they’re nice, Sage. They’re wolves! Witches and wolves do not spend time together. End of story. You tell Bea and Trevor you’re —”

Muttering, she looked at the ground, “their names are Trixie and Mason.”

“Excuse me? I don’t care what their names are!”

“But—”

“NO. BUTS. Inside. Tomorrow, you tell The Wilkinsons you are DONE playing together. Understood?”

Defeated, “understood,” she walked up the front porch stairs and into the house.

10 years old.

Sage Foster was on her bed, sobbing. And not just 10-year-old sobbing, but truly, really, with reason sobbing. Her mother, the only witch in her life that treated her with a modicum of respect, was gone. And not gone, took a drive and moved to another state gone, but gone in the never coming back because of a spell gone wrong sort of way. Even at 8 years old, she was expected to have some basic magic skills under her belt — levitation spells for small objects, elemental control — but she didn’t. Her mother always nurtured her, telling her that it would come with time, practice, and focus. Despite her best efforts, the most she could do with a feather was make it wiggle around on her pillow. Her coven-mates were levitating cats at this point. 

Her father had always been the harshest on her lack of skills. He was a senior advisor within the coven and she was an embarrassment. Not only had he said those words to her face but he’d said them behind her back, well, screamed them really. Loud enough for her to hear from 2 floors away. Just because her bedroom was shoved into the attic did not mean she was deaf, especially when he was yelling as loud as he did.

In the middle of a crying lull, her bedroom door creaked open and a large fluffy black cat poked his head in, mewing softly. Sage reached out and grabbed at the air but the cat knew. He bolted forward, jumped onto the bed with ease and allowed Sage to pull him in tightly. “Monster, mommy’s died…” The cat, Monster, nuzzled Sage gently and mewed again, louder this time. And Sage broke down, yet again.

16 years old.

While it had been years since she’d spent time with the Wilkinson’s, she still saw them everyday at school. At first, staying away from them had been a game; she’d dip into empty classrooms or the bathroom to avoid Trixie in the hallways. All she had to do was look at Mason the wrong way and he’d bug eyed turn around immediately. 

Today, though, it was one of those days that nostalgia hit hard. Trixie was at her locker, laughing with another wolf from her pack and Sage couldn’t stop staring at her. Eventually, it was too much and Trixie marched over, slamming her foot into the ground. “What do you want, Foster?”

“What makes you think I want anything from you?”

“You’re staring at me like you have something to say.”

“I have nothing to say to a flea ridden mongrel.”

That drew a snarl from Trixie as she stepped at Sage. Suddenly, a hand was on Trixie’s shoulder, pulling her back. “Hey…Trix…” Sage looked up and Mason was there, refusing to make eye contract with her.

“Let. Go.” Trixie was clearly upset that Mason had stepped in.

“We need to go. People are starting to stare. That was an impressive show but easy…” Trixie jerked her shoulder away from Mason, snarled again and bared her teeth, fangs glinting in the unforgiving hallway lights. Trixie turned sharply on her heels and b-lined for the exit to the parking lot.

Mason eventually relented, soft eyes landing on Sage. Smiling, Sage just shrugged. Mason shook his head and took off after his sister.

17 years old.

In just one calendar year, Mason Wilkinson had changed, significantly. While he had once been scrawny and kind of pathetic, he’d come into his own this past year. And Sage had certainly noticed. He was more confident, too, unabashedly making a point to intervene in her daily life whenever possible, if only to be an obnoxious pest. 

Today was no different. 

Leaning against her locker after first period, eating an apple in the most absurd way possible, Mason was there. Sage immediately frowned. “Awe, why the long face, Princess? I thought you’d be excited to see me. ”

“Move, mutt.”

“Ouch.” He kept a straight face, even if it stung a little. She hoped it did.

“Move.” She was smiling now, unable to stop the corners of her lips from turn upward.

“Ask nicely.”

“Move or I’ll spell you to the floor.” She wasn’t kidding, except, she’d never successfully cast that before. Or any spell, really.

“I’d like to see you try.” And there it was. The new smile. The one that made her stomach tumble. And God did she hate it. 

18 years old.

Three weeks. Three weeks was a long time to be late. She’d been two weeks late before; hell, she’d been 16 days late before. But 21 days? A full 3 weeks late on her period. And a few times during the last 6 weeks with Mason she’d been stupid, reckless, and fuck, so damn stupid. She buried her face in her knees, curled into herself on her bed. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She slammed her head against her knees. 

She needed to know for sure though, right? She needed a pregnancy test from the store. But she didn’t have a car and she couldn’t ask her dad to drive her. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Fumbling with her phone she dialed Mason and slowly explained the situation to what she thought might have been a dead line. After getting him to say that he would come pick her up, she stayed curled up in her bed. Mason knew the drill; he parked a block away, facing her house, called her when he got there and she’d start walking. All to avoid her father seeing them together. While he could still do a locator spell on her, the last time she had told her father she was seeing either of the Wilkinson children was when she was 7 years old. Mason wasn’t even on his radar anymore, at least, not right now. 

While she knew it took him over 15 minutes to get to her house from the trailer park, she had gone downstairs after only 5 minutes and good thing, too. Mason came flying down her driveway, gravel flying. She was so nervous though, that she didn’t even have the energy to yell at him for breaking their damn rules. 

Utter silence the entire way, but that was how she wanted it. Tears slid down her face and Mason reached for her hand. She immediately recoiled and pushed herself as close to the door as she could without opening it. Everything made her tremble: the thought of being pregnant at 18 years old, the thought of having to tell her father that she was pregnant at 18 years old, the thought of the look on Mason’s face when she told him she was pregnant at 18 years old. Spiraling wasn’t even an adequate word for what she was doing right now.

The car jamming into a motionless state was enough to shake her from her compulsive thought process; she threw the door open and nearly ran inside the store. She knew where the tests were: right next to the tampons she should have already finished using this month. But there were so many. Her heart was pumping 10,000 miles an hour as she looked at 2 shelves worth of pregnancy tests. She was going to vomit. 

Without thinking, she grabbed a pink box from the shelves of tests and went to the front, a hand absentmindedly on her stomach. After paying with cash she’d taken from her babysitting money, she asked for the bathroom. The older woman behind the counter offered an empathetic smile as she pointed to the back of the store. Sage simply nodded, flushed with embarrassment, before she turned and rushed off.

The directions weren’t complicated but there were diagrams and other warnings and percentages all over the document in her hands. She squatted over the toilet and tried her best to aim onto the little white stick. After successfully covering the test strip, and her entire hand, in urine, she waited. 180 seconds wasn’t a long time but right now, it felt like the clock was frozen. Did the second hand on her watch just…stop? No, she was losing it. Her watch was fine.

Before she’d even hit the 60 second mark, a large pink plus sign was evident across the readout window. Her heart dropped into her stomach and she immediately turned and puked into the toilet. Granted, not much came up; she hadn’t eaten in almost 3 days. She dragged her hand across her mouth and tried to breathe.

Now she had to put on a show. She couldn’t tell Mason. She couldn’t tell her father. This baby could not happen. This baby was a product of everything her father had warned her against for years — babies with the blood of more than one supernatural creature were destined to be a problem as far as her coven was concerned. Especially when half of this baby was Wilkinson; her father had been against their friendship from day one so a baby? That was absolutely out of the question. No, this ended now. 

She put herself back together in the foggy bathroom mirror, wiping the mascara from her cheeks and pulling her hair back into a high ponytail. She exhaled and nodded, “you’ve got this.” 

She walked outside, saw the concern plastered across Mason’s face, and that solidified her choice. She wasn’t some brittle girl who needed to be taken care of or saved. She was strong, independent, and plenty capable of handling this herself. She forced a smile and laughed, “looks like we’re lucky; someone’s smilin’ down…pass me my coat?” She gritted her teeth as she reached out.

“So…you’re not…?”

Sage laughed and shook her head. “All clear.”

Mason exhaled heavily and a smile cracked across his face; that fucking smile. That smile did this to her, to them. “Damn, Sage, that scared the shit outta me.”

He was scared? HE was scared? Her face dropped and she nodded. “Jacket?” Mason passed her the jacket through the window. “See ya around…” Sage turned on her heels and started walking. 

“Y-yeah…alright. I’ll hit you up later?” She didn’t nod; she didn’t turn back around; she didn’t acknowledge him. The tears fell freely, but silently. Tomorrow. Or next week. She’d handle this later. For right now, she just wanted to get out of the bubble that Mason Wilkinson slowly pulled her into over and over again with that smile, his willingness to do whatever she asked him to…fuck… It was a bubble she willingly wandered into time and time again but she was through with it — she had to be. 

Personality