Boscha had started to cry.
Not that it was new: that little girl had a habit of throwing terrible tantrums when she was not satisfied, whether she was with her parents or with her friend, Amity Blight.
"What's going on here?" had thundered Odalia Blight, entering her youngest daughter's room.
"Uaaaaaah! Amity won't let me play with her doll!" whimpered the three-eyed girl, trying to attract the complicity of Amity's mother.
"Amity, what is this story?" she asked her in fact, putting her hands clenched into fists on her hips.
The little girl, five years old, hugged the beautiful doll with long blue hair tightly.
"Turchina is my doll and Willow's, I don't allow anyone else to touch her!"
Odalia snorted loudly, putting a hand on her face.
"Didn't I tell you not to play with Willow anymore?"
"Why, Mom? I love her!"
Now the tears were also rising to the throat of the girl with beautiful hazel hair.
"I don't care. You have to hang out with rich, noble people like us and the Nymus. Willow is not enough for you."
How long had her mother been repeating those words she didn't understand? Willow was her best friend, while Boscha managed to hang around her for five minutes before annoying her. So why continuing to be close to her?
"Did you hear, Amy? You have to give me the doll!"
Strengthened by Odalia's support, the little girl with burgundy hair had approached her friend and had started pulling Turchina's hair, who endured that stress for a while before letting her head fall to the ground, on the nice rainbow glitter carpet Amity received for her fourth birthday.
The little girl, noticing this, let out a heartbreaking cry and with a shock spell made Boscha fly against her closet, who complained of a pain in her shoulder and started sobbing even stronger.
Amity was sorry for that emotional momentum, but she didn't have time to apologize, because her mother brutally slapped her, leaving both her cheeks red, after which she knelt next to Boscha, to comfort and promise her some Healing Potion.
When Odalia left the room, Boscha teased Amity:
"You are in trouble."
She was amused, but Amity didn't care. She no longer wanted that little girl in her house.
A disaster happened: Boscha told her parents what the young Blight had done, and they cut ties with the whole family, thus making those two pushy magicians lose points in reputation.
Needless to say, their anger was overwhelming and they confined their daughter to her room for a whole month.
Not only that: only the dishes she liked the least were cooked to her, and she was forced to study in advance while waiting for the magical elementary school.
Amity held firm and in front of her parents she acted like a stuck-up, but when she was alone she cried like a fountain.
After the umpteenth cry, an insane thought for a girl her age made its way in her mind: her wasn't a loving family, where parents took care of their children and where siblings worried about each other. Edric and Emira were seven years old and regarded her as a see-through crystal, or worse, as the black sheep of the family.
She was under the covers, sobbing, with a quite crudely adjusted Turchina clenched to her chest, when Odalia entered her room.
She caressed her hair and the girl was annoyed by that, it all sounded fake now.
"Amity, don't be like that."
"I want to see Willow."
"We have already talked about it. She's not good for you."
It was too much, even for a three feet and fifty tall girl.
She snapped, sitting up in bed and making her mother jump.
"You are no good for me! I don't want a mom like you, or a dad like mine! I don't want siblings like Edric and Emira and I don't want Boscha as a friend!"
New tears poured from the plagued face of that young sorceress, forced to bear the uncomfortable ambitions of the Blights.
Odalia stood up, hurt.
She had been virtually disowned by her daughter, and like her, her entire family.
She left the room, closing the door.
Amity continued to despair for a few more minutes, then, as if inspired, got out of bed and went to the window: the Moon shone pale and reddish in the sky, but it was a comfort to the child.
Seeing it so big and round made her feel less alone, less sad.
Her rosy lips parted and a mangled desire made its way into the pungent winter evening.
"I'm not happy here. My parents don't love me. I wish I had two parents like Willow's dads."
The door of the room opened again.
This time, it was Alador who appeared in the doorway.
"Amity, the way you addressed your mother is absolutely inappropriate. Now go apologize to her."
The little girl was never able to answer her father, because after a indefinite time, which could have been a few seconds or whole centuries, she found herself in an environment completely different from the one that surrounded her.
There were high hills lined with trees all around, and several apple trees.
A light fence marked off what appeared to be an animal enclosure.
Amity looked up and in the darkness saw the imposing figure of a building with a small tower above where a squeaky metal apple turned, driven by the wind.
"But where did I go?!" she thought, alarmed.