Author's note
I have other chapters rough drafted, along with homework due. As soon as that nonsense is over I can contribute more wonderful literature to the mighty library that is Fanfiction.
We didn't start the fire- Billy Joel
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Down the cobble-stoned streets the blue-haired girl ran. It was her natural color, matching exactly with her traffic-stopping blue eyes. She was watched running down by her neighbors; everyone knew the nice little girl. Everyone looked out for her because she had a naughty habit of poofing into nooks and crannies with the simplest reasons such as 'I've never seen this cabinet before.'
Following the path she found her way home. Her house was a shady three-story cottage in the middle of two cloudscrapers. The front yard had peculiar followers she grew with her father on his days off. the outside smelled like stone, potion-fuel and princess magic; the inside of the home smelled like a salty beach, cinnamon sprinkled cookies and pirate-like mischief.
As she stood in the doorway, Remy yelled, "Mom! Mom! Mom!"
A woman dressed in all black rushed down the stairs. "Remy? What happened?"
"I had a really great day at school!" The little girl told her mom, whom she thought looked like a pretty, upside black flower.
Remy's mother rolled her eyes and smiled. "What made today so great?"
"I did well on my coloring test! And I got to pet a new unicorn today! And I saw Serenity turn a mouse into a walking spinner and-" Remy's excitement had her hopping off the ground. With one more enthusiastic hop she found herself floating in the air.
"Princess Remarkable Charming," her mother said as she pulled Remy into her arms. "I love hearing that every day for the last five years keeps getting better but your screaming made my worry flurry go up."
"It did?" Remy asked, her eyes expanding with concern.
"Yes, I ran out on a new customer because I was so worried."
"So did I call out Auntie Cerise?" Remy asked, hoping to see her auntie but also scared of doing something wrong.
"I don't hear her coming but I have nothing to serve if she did come through that door. We have to plan such things with our cotton soft indoor voices. Do you understand?" Remy's mother asked.
"I think so. Yes, I do." Remy decided she would test out when were appropriate times a few more times before she knew for certain.
"Thank you." Remy's mother said, placing a purple kiss on her forehead.
Remy giggled. "What are you gonna do with the new customer?"
"I don't know yet. I'll tell you in twenty minutes, what can you do in that much time?" Remy's mother challenged.
The child's eyes lit up before she used her magic to poof out of her mother's arms. Hearing her child land in her room to start her homework eased the Witch's mind. She bottled up her fuzzy mom feelings and put on her business face.
In the Witch's office the walls were four different shades of purple. The ceiling and floor were the same shade of magenta. In it sat a table with two chairs, on one of the chairs sat a woman with strawberry-blonde curls. She considered leaving but was terrified if she did what would she lose? She saw the Witch re-enter the room, she put panic aside for the moment.
"Forgive the interruption, Ms.O'Hair." The Witch said.
"You have a daughter?" Ms.O'Hair asked. "I didn't think you would after they…."
"After they banished me to live on Never Neverland and be confined never leave it?" The Witch finished the sentence as she sat down on the seat across.
Ms.O'Hair felt impolite to have brought it up. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't even-"
"It's alright, I'll tell you there was a time I didn't want children at all. They happen anyway and with the portal connecting my home on Neverland to Ever After I'm happy to see my daughter go to a normal class and city surrounded by people who love her." The Witch stated the facts to her customer without irony or an inflection of emotion.
"That's amazing but isn't it hard when you can't be there for her?"
The Witch's purple eyes shined for a second before she flatly said, "I'm always there for her. Pushing aside my life, may I ask what you came here for?"
"I, I found your house my accident."
"Which means you want a wish granted."
"I don't think that's it. I've outgrown my fairy-godmother."
"I'm not a fairy godmother; I'm someone capable of granting a wish you have inside. It's a dream your heart made and if I can grant it, I will."
"Really?" Ms.O'Hair knew the Witch was kind while they were girls at school but was happily shocked the kindness lasted so long.
"For an even price." The Witch told her.
So this isn't charity, Ms.O'Hair thought then said, "I suppose that's fair. I can ask for anything I want?"
"I suggest you pick something you know you need." The Witch stated, her violet eyes grazed the woman as if she was a flower in a garden.
Ms.O'Hair scratched the top of her head before saying, "If I asked you to change the past, what would that cost?"
"Years off your life."
"Oh Fairy Song, that's steep."
The Witch didn't flutter an eyelash. "So is that request; doable but dangerous."
"I see. umm…can I ask for a spell to make my hair stop growing super fast?" Ms.O'Hair asked, nervously twisting a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Yes, in exchange I ask for a cow." The Witch pronounced carefully.
"A cow? Wait, are you scamming me?"
The Witch's patience withered with the dumb question. "What kind of bad criminal would admit to that? I am not a criminal; I am a woman with lots of talent and knowledge I choose to use to help people. Come back tomorrow with a cow if you want your hair to grow at average rate."
"And if I never come back?" Ms.O'Hair challenged.
"Then it was nice seeing you again. Give your sister my best." The Witch said, sensing bitterness in Ms.O'Hair's stomach. Rapunzel's daughter left the Witch's home.
The Witch walked out of her office to see the wall clock in the hall. She knew her husband would be home in an hour. She asked her cook, , to whip something together. He told her his idea for a meal; she agreed and then went to her back porch. Her back yard was the Neverland jungle. There were two rainbows in the sky, same as every day, even when Ever After is at twilight. The Witch sat down on her porch lounge chair; she clicked her fingers and a large spell book formed into her lap.
The Witch was looking for the potion to grant Ms.O'Hair's wish while listening to the rumbles of Lost Boys fighting with Native Neverlanidians. She sensed her daughter running from her room to finally tell her mother about her new Greatest Day Yet.
By the time Remy was done remembering and asking her mom questions about magic, she was asleep in her mother's black sleeves. The Witch stroked her child's hair, promising in her mind to shelter her daughter's childhood happiness for as long as she could.
The glass doors opened and the Witch saw her husband returned home.
"Hey. How long as she been…?" The Hexical Engineer asked in a whisper.
"Only nineteen minutes, let's try to make this last." The Witch told him, soft as ash.
Her bespectacled husband put up two thumbs, he then stared at their child's siren little face.
"Anything new in the lab?" The Witch asked in whisper.
"Not really, numbers and formulas, nothing to break ground yet."
"Yet." The Witch told him.
"Yet. Who was your customer today?" The Charming computer-whiz asked as his glasses' view were hooked on the book under his wife's chair.
"The O'Hair twin that didn't become Rapunzel."
"Oh? What did she want?"
"She wanted to rewrite the past and take the place of her sister." The Witch saw her husband's brow rise. "She asked for a haircut. We can expect a cow tomorrow."
"I like. I could go for a steak right now. One drizzled in hedge-hog barbeque sauce." The Prince said, remembering the one pleasant night he had dinner at the Prim Magicster's Wonderland grill party.
"Oh, those were good. Maybe that mixed with peppermints and wasabi."
The Prince found the mix to be a funny idea. "Someone's in a fusion mood. Any other combo ideas?"
"I don't know, Dex, anything tasty and everything good for me?"
"Why worry about what's 'good for you'?" The Prince hoped she wasn't growing self-conscious; he had noticed she was a little fuller in some areas. She was even more beautiful in such ways but he wasn't certain how to bring up her changes.
The Witch put a hand on her stomach. She rubbed it affectionately and kept her daughter's head on her chest. The child stayed contently napping as her father stared at his two favorite people in the kingdom.
He was genius at technology; fixing and building contraptions that bettered fairy tales' lives. The Prince was, however, a bit slow at everything else. His wife gave up on giving him clues, she gestured for him to bend down to her face. He bent down and let her whisper the secret in his ear. The Prince gasped, looked back at her smiling assurance and then to his daughter. He gently took the small damsel in his arms, she didn't wake; she dreamed a dragon was taking her to his cave for a game of Eat the Knights.
Remy liked her dream; her father liked seeing her grin in her sleep as he put her on the couch with the plushiest pillows. The Prince left her there and returned to his wife.
"Are you sure?" He asked, gapping his mouth like an open wishing-fish.
His wish-granting wife nodded again, her hand still on her stomach. The Prince put his hand over hers, his other hand behind her head.
"It feels different than with Remy." The Prince said, starting at the beginning of his next chapter.
"I know." The Witch said, soaking in his face and the sixty different emotions flying in his eyes.
He stroked her hand, imagining how small the creature inside was. Barely a person but the possibilities were limitless. "Now we don't have to share our daughter. We'll both have a cuddlebug."
The Witch loved when he was optimistic. "Remy will have to learn to share."
"She does wonderlandfully with friends and strangers. She'll love it. I love it." He said as he walked around the chair to look at the situation from a new angle.
"I love it, too." The Witch said as she felt his tie against her back.
The Prince put his lips to his Witchy Wife's ear. "I love you, Raven."
"Even if I told you Hook was the father?" The Witch told her Princely Partner.
"That wasn't funny the first time and it's not funny now."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Witch said while laughing and trying to sit up. Her husband looked apprehensive of her moving, his blue eyes asked her to stay where she was.
"Rest, please. Please take it easy. You have to be careful, and safe and- " The happy couple heard cannons go off in the distance. "We should go inside. Inside is nice and safe and has the servant….we need more servants. You need not to move. You need to stay warm and comfortable and surrounded by guards and moats and knights and-"
"Sweetie, we'll both be fine. I mean, I went to the Sky and Earth Witches' riot while I was carrying Remy and we both came home." The Witch reminded him.
"Let me pretend I have the power to stop you this time, please?"
"Okay. I'll just stay home this time." The Witch spoke full of irony, sparing her husband bitterness. He respected her integrity and spoke nothing of their travel limitation. He was over-joyed there was a spellbinding extension to their love, snuggled under their palms.
The Witch's heart grew huge to contain her family; her husband, her children and her ever-excitable sister-in-law.
"Roomie! Don't you dare hide from us!" Apple Charmingly White yelled in the Witch's home.
The mistress of the home walked down the stairs with the speed of cold porridge dripping. She greeted Apple and the children-guests. From behind her, Remy ran up happy to see her cousins.
"Cousin Alluring, cousin Adaptable, Diamond Hearts! Hi!" The happy young witch squealed.
Alluring curtsied and playfully stuck her tongue out for just a second. Diamond Hearts whispered 'off with your hat' while her hands fiddled with her long red ringlets. Remy knew she was scared to smile because when she did it burned people's eyes with cuteness.
"I'm going by Addy now, little cousin." The six-year-old Prince told Remy. She was unaffected by how he spoke to her, he winked at her affectionately.
Alluring pouted. "Mama, may we go to cousin Remarkable's room?"
"Sure you can." Remy said. "Can't they, Aunty Appy?"
"Yes they may." Apple gave her niece a mind-splittingly lovely smile.
Remy thought her aunt was very pretty. Alluring though her mother was too dense to waste her time with. The silver-haired princess walked past her aunt Witch and to her cousin's room.
"Adopted children are towers of issues." Addy said as he gestured for Remy and Diamond to walk before him. Dimaond solemly listened to Remy's chatter.
"Stay charming, Addy dearest." Apple told her son. "He'll make quite the hero when he grows up."
"Since when do you play nanny for Lizzie Hearts?" The Witch asked, curious to see the princess of Wonderland.
"I'm just doing a favor for a fellow queen and mother. There isn't much different than when I extend a hand to assist Remy in places her mother cannot go." Apple said, not to be cruel but to simply state facts.
"Thank you again, Apple." The Witch said, "I don't deserve you."
"Oh sure you do, you prettily plump pudding you!" The Fairest Queen stated as she rubbed the small belly of the Witch. "Do you plan to have another girl?"
"Dr. Bo Peep said it was too soon to say. I'll be happy with either if they're as cheerful as Remy turned out." The Witch said, walking her former-roommate to her library for tea.
"Tea in a library? That's absolutely a fableous idea."
"Kids don't say that anymore, Apple." The Witch snapped her fingers and watched the purple teapot steam in mid air. Matching cups followed with saucers and creams.
The Witch's company consisted of her family, visiting friends and customers. She stayed in tuned to the Fairy Tale world through reading News on the MirrorNet, broadcasts on television and having her pet crow fly around to keep tabs on world she couldn't enter.
"Well they should. I've tried pushing better words onto Alluring but she rebuffs me every time. It worries me how much of a rebel she's showing to be."
"It's a phase. No one stays a Rebel for life." The Witch said, a cup floated into her fingers. She twirled her index finger, creating honey and soy sauce in the mix of chamomile.
"Daring and I love her to the smallest pea in the mattresses but she doesn't seem happy." Apple confided to her old friend. "I've wished, well considered…"
"I don't give family discounts, Apple."
"I wouldn't dare ask…I just don't know how to make her like me." Apple admitted, her brow crinkling in the most delicate way possible.
"I was won over by how you held your ground on the difficult issues of the kingdom. You're a stubborn piece of goblin steal, Alluring will learn to admire that." The Witch told her blonde friend.
"So you've finally forgiven me for banishing you to Neverland?" Apple asked with a shakey voice of hope.
The Witch took a long sip of her tea.
"I never held a grudge about it." The Witch admitted. Her face became distracted; Apple considered there was something she wasn't hearing.
She watched the Witch put a hand to her belly. The childlike woman squealed like a delighted pig.
"You're getting an itty bitty nudge aren't you?"
"I'm never mysterious around you, am I?" The Witch said as Apple's blonde bun was pushed into her nose. Apple put her arms around her friend's belly.
"Come on, little one, say hello to your Auntie Apple with a good shove in the face." The Charmingly White queen spoke to the Witch's ribcage. "I will never not hug you, little dwarf of mine."
The Witch wondered if the secret romance with Briar Beauty made Apple so at ease on her knees. Apple could simply been perfect at anything, The Witch considered. The two women then smelled smoke. They then heard running down the stairs and Addy yelling, "We didn't do it! The fire was always burning!"
We didn't start the fire, it was always turning since the world's been burning.
Raven Queen opened her eyes to see her dorm room. She looked at her stomach; it was flat and empty except of the previous night's dinner. The young witch was still a Rebel teenager sharing her room with Apple White (And Briar Beauty was there again in Ms. White's bed).
She heard her iCoffin screech, not unlike her namesake's bird kin. Raven picked it up to see Blondie had sent pictures of their class trip to Icecream Mountain. She saw herself with her Rebel and Royal friends; she found an adorably dorky picture of her boyfriend with frost on his glasses. The purple-haired girl went through pictures of her friends and was glad to see herself in a different place than where she sat.
Better than content with her place in time, Raven lay back to examine her dream.
She decided there were parts of it she did like, but on the whole the wickedly blessed girl promised herself she would do better than only what laid in her dream. If a dream is a wish made by my heart, my heart needs to dream bigger than just being The Witch Raven thought before falling back to sleep.