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Chapter 1: Gwen's Story
Gwendolyn Kayleigh Laularose hated her name. No one in her whole school had a name as horrendous as hers. It was a frilly, fantasy name, not at all sensible. 16 year old Gwen liked being reasonable. She thought of herself as a plain, logical, motherly girl. She was very beautiful with long, glossy, chestnut brown hair, a pale complexion with blood red lips, and her voice was so amazing that boys would do anything just to hear her talk – never the less, make her laugh. It was the type of laugh that sounds like tiny silver bells sweeping you into the sky and makes you feel like you are flying. The best part of her was her eyes. Strange but still beautiful, they were intriguing! Greenish – blue in color, they were almost turquoise. But if you made her angry, you wished the earth would swallow you up so you could disappear. The 16 year old girl could make you feel like you were a helpless insect, having no power except to beg at her feet for mercy. Her eyes became daggers that penetrated your very soul and sea green ice snapped in her eyes. Each word would fly like an arrow to your heart and were as cold as icicles.
Unfortunately they were poor. Elana Ruth Laularose had been happily married to the man of her dreams. They struggled to stay alive, but they had each other and that was what mattered. She had a 3 year old daughter when something terrible happened. They had finally earned enough to buy a house; small but cozy. Everything they had struggled years for, was finally paying off. All 3 of them had moved in to the house of their dreams in a frenzy of excitement. In the first week, the queen of the house had a little boy, William David. They had only been in the house a month when tragedy struck the castle of hard work, time, patience, and love. A raging fire burnt the little house to the ground, taking with it all their possessions, but the worst was to come. Firemen got Elana and Gwen safely outside but they did not have time to save the father or the newborn son.
It was a bad memory and Gwen tried not to think of it. Sometimes she had terrible nightmares about it. She could see her father's face contorted in pain, burning, burning, burning. But the fire never stopped – he just kept burning. Then she would see her baby brother's face. He was breathing in the smoke and was choking to death. He made terrible strangled cries and she would wake screaming and crying for what was lost.
Perhaps it was this memory that made her so bitter. She used to want a luxurious life with everything a girl could have. But no, she grew up sensibly learning how to save money and not wish for things she couldn't have.
When she was 5 her mother remarried and had a baby with her new father. The step father was anything but nice. When they dated Mr. Ashton seemed very nice and Elana fell for him. Then they were married and he showed his true colors. He drank, smoked, and was abusive. They did have a daughter, Rachel Daisy Ashton. Elana divorced him and kept Rachel.
11 year old Rachel was also pretty but differently than Gwen. Rachel had gold blond waves that she kept medium length. She had blue eyes, a lilting voice with a merry laugh, and pale pink in her cheeks. She was very forgiving and merciful. She had a wonderful imagination which is how the sisters got started on this adventure. Gwen wished she had a name like her little sister's. Rachel Daisy Ashton was not at all a terrible name, it was simply plain but Rachel thought it was awful. She would have much rather have had a fairy name like Gwen's than just plain boring Rachel. She insisted on being called Daisy; she thought her middle name was much prettier than her real name.
Before Rachel had grown up, Gwen had grown sensible and bitter. Losing half her family in the fire, having a terrible man as her new father, being poor, and mostly the girls at school who were always teasing her all had a big impact on her life. At school she was hated for being beautiful but teased because she was poor. She was never up with the fashion, normally wearing hand me down clothes from pitying neighbors or clothing drives. She didn't have a cell phone, I-pod, MP3 player, or any of that stuff that she regarded as wishful vanities - not a necessity. The worst of all was having a mom who seemingly didn't care about her. Because Gwendolyn hated her name, she kept demanding to her mom to call her by her nickname, Gwen. Her mother would always say yes with a sigh and sit down on a chair and cry about how terrible of a mother she was. But the next day she was Gwendolyn again; her tired mother always forgot. Having Rachel there with her had softened Gwen's bitterness but personally Gwen thought she would always be a sensible woman. But it was not to be so.
Their mother worked 3 jobs and was hardly ever home, so Gwen was very close to Rachel. Rachel came to think of Gwen as a mother who she could pour out her tales of woe and be comforted, or a nurse that would bandage her skinned knee, or a friend just to play with. Rachel's room had a little room in the closet and Rachel loved to take Gwen in and tell her all the stories she made up of talking animals, knights, witches, princesses, mermaids, fairies, and dragons. Neither of them even guessed what would happen because of it. If Rachel had said that one day they would be in a fairytale world, Gwen would have laughed. But they weren't expecting what came next!