Chapter 1

Careful What You Wish For

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"Watch where you're driving!" Sophie shouted angrily at the driver who apparently had no awareness of people other than himself. Sophie, who was standing close to the curb, had just been doused in grimy water by someone asshole too caught up in his own affairs to even notice pedestrians. Now, thanks to his stupidity, she was soaking wet. Thats just my luck, she thought irritably, The one time I actually remember to bring an umbrella to school and I get covered in water. She sighed and gripped more tightly on her umbrella as the vehemence of the already pouring rain increased. At this point she just wanted to prevent her heavy make up from raccooning under her eyes.

The crosswalk light turned green and she hurried across the street. Usually she would walk home as slowly as possible, but at that particular moment, all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed.

She scurried through the sidewalk, pushing people out of her way as she scrambled towards her house, not that her appearance wasn't enough to scare people away. Her heavy black make up, bright purple hair, and imposing black, studded outfit she donned was what some may find intimidating.

Her hip was throbbing from an injury she had sustained a couple nights before by the time she entered the lobby of her apartment. She half walked half hobbled her way into the ladies' bathroom to check her make up. As she had feared, her eye make up made her look like she had two black eyes. As she wiped away the running make up, she noticed that her foundation had worn off. Frowning, she immediately applied more. Satisfied with her work, she put her makeup back into her bag and trudged up the stairs to her apartment.

When she finally made it to her front door she took a deep breath and prayed her parents weren't home. After a moment, she unlocked the door and headed inside. Fortune was not smiling upon Sophie for the first thing she saw when she walked in was her father smoking cigars in the living room. Disappointed, Sophie stripped her wet leather jacket and placed it in the closet beside the front door, pretending to ignore the presence of her father. She quickly headed for the stairs, hoping to make a get by unnoticed.

"Sophie, get your ass over here."

It appeared that she could not catch a break today. She walked back towards her father, dread heavy in her stomach. "Yes?" She looked at his half finished cigar and began to panic. As inconspicuously as possible, she searched the room with her eyes. Ashtray, Ashtray, God, where's the fucking Ashtray?

"Give me your arm."

No no no no no! She hesitated, like a deer in headlights, when her father grabbed her arm and pulled up the sleeve to her black sweater, revealing her pale forearm that was marred with several small, circular burns. He added another by extinguishing his cigar in her arm.

Sophie thought it was funny, in a morbid, twisted sort of way, how an event that probably only lasted several seconds can feel significantly longer. Sophie was certain that from the perspective of an outsider, her father's actions probably only lasted ten seconds tops, but to her it felt like hours. The pain was excruciating. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted it to stop. However, she didn't let any of this register on her face. She inhaled quickly and hissed softly, but other than that she did not show any of the pain she was feeling.

When it was finally over, her father tossed the cigar behind him. He went to the staircase and called up to Fanny, her stepmother. "FANNY?! What's taking you so long? The party starts in ten minutes!" Sophie stared at the angry welt blossoming on her forearm and with every ounce of self-control prevented the stinging feeling behind her eyes from developing into tears. She would not give him that satisfaction. She vaguely was aware of her stepmother coming down the stairs. Sophie did not notice the cigarette hanging from the corner of Fanny's mouth.

"Where the hell is the ashtray?" Fanny spent all of two seconds searching for it before giving up and pulling up Sophie's other sleeve, who was still in shock, and snubbing out her cigarette on Sophie's other forearm. Fanny and Sophie's father whenever they couldn't find the ashtray and "needed" to snuff out their cigars or cigarettes used Sophie's arms, but they each only used a specific arm, which in Sophie's opinion was even more, for lack of a better term, fucked up.

Preventing the shriek that was forcing it's way up her throat was hard, but she managed to accomplish it. She let out a slow exhale in relief when Fanny threw out the used cigarette and pulled on Sophie's father's arm. "Honey, let's go." The two left without acknowledging Sophie's existence and shut the door loudly behind them.

"Bye," Sophie whispered to the closed door. She stared at her scarred arms and the new injuries that pulsated painfully for a couple moments before going into autopilot. It was the usual routine: up the stairs, into her bedroom, into the adjoining bathroom, turn the sink on, run burns under cool water until the sharp pain becomes a dull throb, clean with anti-biotics, and wrap up arms like a birthday present with bandages. Simple and efficient.

It was this almost mechanized process that allowed Sophie to remain numb when she needed to be.

Sophie looked at the clock on the wall. It was seven o'clock. She had a couple assignments to do, but had literally zero interest in doing any of it. I'm a motherfucking straight A student, I'll be fine skipping out once, she rationalized. Suddenly feeling like going outside, she left her room and made her way to the balcony. She only ventured onto it when her parents were not home because she sincerely wondered if in a fit of rage they would throw her over the side.

She slowly inhaled the crisp, cool air. It had long since stopped raining, but there was still a bit of moisture lingering in the air. A swift breeze blew by and tussled her hair. Though the city traffic was quite audible from her small balcony, there was still an odd sort of peacefulness to her surroundings.

"Hello there."

Sophie's moment of tranquility was broken. Irritated, she turned toward the intruder and was surprised to find someone she did not recognize at all. A woman with striking looks stood before her. Warily, she responded, "Hi…"

"I'm your new neighbor. I just moved in earlier today." This was evident by the boxes lining her balcony. The woman's name – presumably it was her name – was scrawled on most of them. "It's nice to meet you." The stranger reached an arm from her balcony over to Sophie, offering a handshake.

"It's nice to meet you too, Lily." Sophie replied as she shook her new neighbors hand. She looked a little startled that Sophie magically knew her name, so Sophie clarified, "Your name is written on the box." Lily made an 'O' shape with her lips and pulled out a cigarette after shaking Sophie's hand.

"Want one?"

"No thanks." Sophie never smoked.

Lily shrugged and accidentally blew small smoke circles into Sophie's face, "Whoops, sorry about that." Sophie coughed a couple of times before saying it was okay. Lily stared out into the city, occasionally taking a long drag of her cigarette. "I hate how you can never see the stars in places like New York City. It's depressing."

Sophie who had just been trying to find an excuse to go inside found herself agreeing with her strange new neighbor instead, "Yeah, but I guess you get used to it after awhile."

Lily released a final puff of smoke before snuffing out her cigarette on the metal railing of her balcony, "I have to go finish unpacking, but it was nice talking to you."

"Same here," Sophie said as Lily escaped back into her apartment. Sophie surveyed the night sky for a moment longer just as a shooting star streaked across the sky. She paused as she thought of a wish before saying to no one in particular, "I wish I was somewhere – anywhere – else."

Suddenly exhausted, Sophie went back into her apartment and climbed the stairs back to her room. She collapsed face first into her bed, boots still on, and rolled over to her side to look at the picture of her mother, Lettie, and Martha sitting on her nightstand. It was times like these that she really missed them. It had been many years since she had last saw them, and realizing this only made Sophie more depressed.

Seeking to improve her mood, Sophie pulled her laptop from underneath her bed (it being one of her many secrets she kept from her parents) and turned it on. After it finished powering up, she clicked the DVD icon in the corner. The theme music to Howl's Moving Castle began to play as the main menu for that movie popped open. She clicked play and sat back as her favorite movie began.

Howl's Moving Castle was a movie Sophie watched constantly mainly because it always was able to cheer her up. She loved everything about it, from the music score, to the witty dialogue, to the vibrant animation. While she acknowledged that the plot was slightly flawed, she still loved it.

Sophie yawned softly, starting to feel tired. As Sophie and Howl walked through the sky together, she drowsily realized she should have wished that she could go to the world of Howl's Moving Castle. Things would be much simpler if she lived in a world where magic existed and she could just set her enemies aflame if she wanted to. I wish I could live somewhere like that, Sophie thought to herself as her eyes began to droop closed. I wonder if you can change a wish you make on a shooting star… And with that, Sophie fell asleep, the movie still playing on her laptop.

Sophie woke up, freezing cold. She reached for her blankets, realizing they must have slipped off, but could not find them. She shivered. I must have fallen on the floor while I was sleeping. She blinked her eyes open and discovered that she most definitely was not in her bedroom. "Well this is weird," She said out loud, consciously doing her best to not freak out.

She stood up and examined her surroundings. She appeared to be in some sort of alleyway, but it was like none she had ever seen. The ground was made of cobblestone and the walls were yellowish and sans graffiti, unlike any alleyway she had ever seen in New York.

A slip of paper caught the corner of her eye. Hoping for some answers, Sophie read the flyer:

THE KINGDOM IS AT WAR!

Sophie was confused. What in the world were they talking about? Last time she checked, the United States was a Republic not a kingdom. As she continued reading the flyer, she realized that it was a war notice for some country called Ingary.

Where am I… She thought to herself, And what the hell is an Ingary?