Most people would have hated their parents forever if they were forced into having the name Abilene for the rest of their lives. Strangely enough, that was simply not the case for Abby. She had what she considered a normal life for Blue Earth - a loving family of a mom, a dad and an older brother. Though her father was rarely around because of his 'truck driving', that didn't mean she thought he didn't love her. In fact, she was a generally all around happy little child that did what she was told, did the dishes, and always finished her homework on time with minimal fuss. So what if her parents had a safe room that they would have 'fire drill' practices in case of 'an emergency'. And so what if she once found a stash of different licenses all with different names, but all with her dad's picture? Wasn't everyone's family like that? She just assumed he needed it for his truck driving.
And then things started to set into place for Abilene. Naturally curious, she decided to pry into a few things and ask the awkward questions her parents didn't want her to ask. Where does Dad go on his truck? Why do we have so many shotguns? Why don't other kids have what is essentially a panic room in their house? By the time she was in junior high, she'd been taught the basics of the farm and even how to be a decent shot to keep the coyotes away from the chickens, plus sometimes it just gets boring out in the middle of nowhere and what else is there to do?
At the start of junior high, Abi realized that her father wasn't a truck driver and their family wasn't normal. She'd been 'borrowing' books and files from her parents to read for years. To her they were just stories, This was only confirmed by her brother when he flat out brought it up at the dinner table. He was the more rebellious sort and wanted to join his father out on The Hunt. While he used all the appropriate code words, Abi surprised them all when she asked if that meant he wanted to go get the demons. While her parents whupped Trey for bringing it up in front of her and still tried to keep Bo's demon hunting as a private subject, she knew the truth.
The occult, the gothic, the dark stuff fascinated Abilene. She tried dying her hair black once, but it just looked terrible on her. Tess freaked out and demanded she dye it back. Really, Abi wasn't dark or brooding. She just wanted to be, because she thought it would be cooler. It was about this time that she started to fall in with a crowd that fit her idea of who she wanted to be - gothic, liked the Cure, practiced 'witchcraft'. The friends she fell in with wouldn't know real magic if a fireball came right at them, but they thought they did. They practiced the stuff that was in The Craft and wrote out angsty poems and listened to emo music (before it was emo). And Abilene ate it up. She practiced all the rituals, ran up to her room screaming that no one understood her while her parents just rolled their eyes and ignored her tantrums. Because, when it came right down to it, Abi wasn't goth. She wasn't dark and she wasn't emo. They knew that if they gave her some time and space, she'd eventually come through.
They were partially right. Somewhere along the line, she stumbled upon something better than dying her hair black and brooding in her room - she found an actual practitioner of magic. She somehow stumbled upon him in the library. He was interesting, older, and knew a lot about the occult. Immediately, she was smitten and followed him around in an attempt to get him to teach her what he knew. He was an out of towner and only came out to Blue Earth every couple of days in order to get some supplies from the Reservation. Eventually, she wore him down enough that he would tell her a few stories. With all her research and her genuine eagerness, she won him over enough that he started to show her a few basics that just about anyone should be able to do. And then, he was surprised by her natural propensity for magic.
High school found a very changed Abilene. No longer did she brood or angst. While she still was in contact with her gothy friends, she had moved on from that. Her friendship with Patrick (as the wizard was called) had truly blossomed into a mentorship. By the end of her senior year, she was working on spells that were more complicated than just the regular basics. She had a real talent for it, especially the ritualistic magic required concentration. Though it took more time, she was better at it than manipulating magic on the fly. Unbeknownst to Abilene, her natural ability with magic came from her father's side of the family. While they were not exactly an ancient magic bloodline, they had more than enough practitioners in the family - always through the female line.
It was also during high school that she found her second love - music. She joined the choir and auditioned for the school musical and found that she was a good singer. With some training and practice, she was actually a very good singer. After graduation, Abilene knew her mother wanted her to stay in town, but that was just not something that she wanted. She loved her family, but she wanted more than the small town life. She wanted to go to Vegas to be a singer, to have a glamourous life and be discovered. She found a roommate through one of Patrick's contacts and moved out to the big city, happy to have someone of the same magical inclination to share a space with. Of course, things never really worked out the way she planned.
Things did not exactly go as Abilene had planned in Vegas. Being discovered and becoming a famous singer was a lot harder than she originally planned. She found herself singing in dive clubs, or in the chorus as a showgirl. The last straw was when she had to paint herself green for some sort of floor show. That stuff stained for a week and she looked like an alien on her off days. Plus, the woman that she was staying with started to get into the darker stuff of magic. It was like she had become addicted to it and didn't know when to stop, how to use it properly, or where to draw the line. It scared her.
While she wanted to move out, she didn't have the money to do so. With no where else to go, she went to the police. They, basically, told her to get lost. It wasn't entirely their fault. She couldn't exactly tell them that she was worried that her roommate was practicing black magic and she was worried. Instead, she could only give general vague worried statements. Those cops changed the direction of her life.
With nowhere else to turn and nothing else to do, Abilene started to look into her roommate herself. It was awkward going at first. While naturally curious and observant, that didn't mean she knew the first thing about investigating. So, she did what she always did. She researched. She took out books from the library, she practiced, she snooped. To say that her roommate wasn't suspicious about Abi's sudden interest in her goings-on would be generous. However, Abilene managed to pass things off enough that she gathered enough information that she was able to know what to do. Alerting Patrick to the danger that her roommate posed, he managed to call in the right favors to chase her off. %r%rAfter that, Abilene didn't bother with auditions or casting calls. Instead, she trained and applied for a PI license. She passed the test and started to advertise. In a place like Las Vegas, people were always losing things or wanting people tailed. It wasn't as glamourous as the movies said, but it honestly interested Abilene. She wasn't actually making any more money than she was as a showgirl, but at least she didn't have to paint herself green. Just having got her license, she honestly still bumbles things. While eager and willing, that doesn't mean she has all the skills to truly finish cases. But, if she just works at them hard enough, she'll get there eventually.