You can always tell when someone is being marked by the Storytellers.
It starts with the obvious story set up. The girl gets a stepmother. They get some item (such as a red cloak) from someone that matches with a story. Three daughters are born into a family.
These are all considered to be signs of being chosen. But there's still a possibility of escape then.
It's certain when the tattoo – the one of the open book – appears somewhere on their person. That is when you know they are doomed to be trapped in whatever story the Storytellers have chosen for them.
But, of course, it wasn't always this way.
Once Upon a Time – because everything in Astora starts with those damned words – there was a group of tiny kingdoms which were wicked in their ways. They battled with each other over land. Mistakes were made, and wicked faeries and witches ran rampant with all punishments they could create.
It became such that the kingdoms were barely hanging on to their power. They were threatened on all sides by other countries. Things were looking grim. But then the Storytellers rose.
No one knows where they came from, but there have been whisperings of the lessons which their stories taught people. Three men – the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson – rose to power in the dark times. No one is entirely certain where their powers come from, or how they did it, but they united the kingdoms, and began the process of forcing people into stories.
Not everyone gets put into the Fairy Tales. Just enough and it happens often enough that we remember the lessons they teach and why they're there; to maintain order. It seems all well and good until you or someone close to you is struck by it.
My sister and I, we consider ourselves lucky. We got a stepmother. Who could blame my father? He loved the woman dearly and my sister and I love her as well.
But we also knew that no matter how nice she was, there was always a chance that the Storytellers' power would change her for the worst. Every night we would lay awake – fearing the famed conversation about how they could no longer feed us. It doesn't matter if there actually is a famine in the land – they find a way to make the father too poor to feed anyone or something else. And it doesn't matter whether or not your names actually are "Hansel and Gretel", as long as the situation matches the story to some extent.
It was once we both grew to our teenage years that we stopped worrying about it. Lydia got married – a nice fellow named Hans the Woodcutter, who had a mark from the Little Red Riding Hood tale. She was older than I was by a few years – I was only sixteen at the time, and happy to see my twenty-year old sister married. Me? Well, as the boy in the family I've always gotten to help my father with the family business.
For years, my family has delivered wood to the city. Goodness knows there is always plenty of wood around – there is an abundance of forests in Astora, which is why we trade a great deal of items made out of wood. Furniture comes to mind, regardless of what people might say about our chairs having the tendency to be a little faulty.
What happened to that Goldilocks girl has nothing to do with the really talented furniture makers.
We'd get up early in the morning to collect our wood. Once it was all loaded into the cart our mule, Oliver, would pull us into the town. We'd always have a good conversation with Oliver; he's a very witty mule. Nice singing voice too.
It's true; some animals can talk. No one is entirely certain how, or why, but they do. It's also not uncommon to find people who can talk to those animals who cannot articulate themselves. Another one of the quirky things you find.
Once there, I'd help father deliver the wood to each house. We supply both firewood and craft wood. Recently, father gained a great deal of fame for supplying the wood which aided the local toy maker to create a living puppet, who recently became a real boy. If you haven't guessed already, both that boy and the toy maker are marked.
Our very last stop was always the second largest house in the city, and I was always the most anxious for that house.
The arrival was always like clockwork; Oliver would let out a cry and she would come running from the house, a wide smile on her face. As always, she cried out, "Christian! And, of course, Mr. Yule." She always greeted me first, and abashedly greeted my father second.
I grinned. "Ms. Blanche," I replied. My father demanded that I greet her formally, even if it seemed to drive her insane. She shook her head and the honey colored hair, which was pulled back into a pony tail, bobbed side to side. It was somewhat fascinating in the light.
"Call me Esme, you fool," she scolded lightly. I hopped off the cart, and went to the back to grab the wood. I was always the one to help her carry it in. Her father was constantly off on business, and I wasn't about to let her carry anything inside, even if I knew that she was indeed strong enough to handle it.
She walked along side, and once we were out of my father's view, all the formalities were dropped. "So I heard Lydia got married!" she said, bouncing in excitement. I beamed and nodded once. "So?" I looked at her.
"So?" I replied. She feigned annoyance, even if the smile remained firmly plastered on her face.
"So what happened, you moron?" She exclaimed and tousled my brown hair. Laughing lightly, I pulled away from her.
"She got married to Hans, as you know, Esme." She looked off dreamily as I said this, and shook my head mentally. All the girls had fawned over Hans, who wouldn't? Admittedly, the guy was good looking.
"Lydia is so lucky. Her dress, what did it look like?" Esme pounced yet again.
"I dunno. Like a wedding dress, I guess."
She rolled her eyes in frustration. "You're such a boy," she responded curtly.
"It was white," I said, somewhat jokingly. I ducked as she swung for me, laughing as she kept attempting to get whack me soundly. I dodged her all the way up to the living room, where we were met by her mother.
The woman looked like her daughter – or her daughter looked like her. They had the same milk-white skin, the same eyes, the same hair… it was somewhat eerie. There was barely proof that her father had anything to do with Esme's creation. Unlike my family; you could tell we were all related – naturally excepting my stepmother – with one glance.
But today the woman moved at a slow pace, and her face was haggard and worn. She looked downright exhausted. I noted that she was also too skinny for her own good.
Quickly, Esme and I became serious. It was all well and good to play when the adults weren't around, but otherwise we were bound by society's will. However her mother barely noticed us, and slunk on to the next room.
Hastily, I placed the wood in the wood box, and exited the room. Just to be sure, I waited until we were in the kitchen to ask my question. "What's going on with her, Esme? I've never seen your mother so…" I searched for the word.
"Sick." I heard the tremor and glanced up. "She's been really ill lately. Like, so sick that seeing her out of bed is an improvement." I knew there was a 'but' coming. I could hear in her voice. "But the past few nights… well, I was listening to my father talk to the doctor..." Her voice choked. "They say… she's not going to get better. That it's just going to get worse until…" She didn't want to go any further, but I knew Esme well enough to know that she was holding back the tears.
As a child she had always been a 'cry baby' and at the time I had made fun of her for it. Perhaps that was why when she punched me I had been so shocked. Ever since then, I'd respected her. And I also knew that she hated to cry in public because of the fuss people used to make when so much as a tear escaped her eyes.
I just hugged her. It felt like the right thing to do. I had been eight when my mother had died, and it remains one of the most painful things that had ever happened to me.
We stood there until my father called me away.
Three days later, we arrived and Esme didn't come out to meet us. A maid came instead, and I was lead to the wood box in silence. I didn't see Esme anywhere that day, but I could guess what had happened.