A sudden realisation

'Shush Elphaba,' demanded Frex, not even taking his eyes off little Nessa as he cuddled the little baby.

Nessa smiled and gurgled and Elphaba felt something deep within her ache and twist. At least her mother Melena, for all her faults, still talked to her when she had been alive.

Bored, Elphaba wandered off. She couldn't go outside, no matter how sunny the weather, for fear of the neighbours calling her names and chasing her away with sticks. Nanny was in the servants' quarters, squinting into an old Lurlinistic text.
Despite how pretty and well-kept the mansion looked from the outside, the rest of her house had been abandoned. Cobwebs gathered on very broken chandelier whilst soiled yellow sheets were draped around most of the furniture.
Elphaba had more or less explored every part of the one splendid mansion by the time she was six. However, as she ascended onto another floor, she suddenly stopped. A shaft of sunlight shone through the dirty windows, settling onto an old wooden door.

Elphaba blinked; that room was one of the very few she had never entered before. She did not know why—Frex had never forbidden her to enter and after turning the knob, the door easily sprung open.

The dust settled, revealing an ordinary small library. The books were musty and mouldy from disuse, the text faint and faded. She opened the one closest to her and squinted in the gloom. Most Wicked Spells and Enchantments'
A thrill of trepidation ran through her. Did Frex even know this existed

Witchcraft.

Elphaba reflexively rubbed her left arm, where the bruises still stung.

'Don't use your sinful magic, you… witch!'

Elphaba shuddered with the memory of her father squeezing and shaking her after one of her… outbursts. The last one had happened on the day of her mother's funeral, when she caught her aunties snickering as the priest droned on about what a loyal wife her mother was. Whatever her mother's faults, Elphaba felt that Melena deserved to be respected. She smirked at the memory of her aunts shrieking in pain as the hems of their robes caught on fire.

Most Potente Magicke'

'A Witch's Familiar'

'Weather Magic 101'

A wide grin stretched over her mouth, revealing her sharp canine teeth. Elphaba suddenly understood why Frex and the others were so afraid of her; she was the master hunter and they were her prey.