The next day, Ophelia stood in front of the door for a long time. She fumbled nervously with the lace of her pristine white dress, hesitant about disturbing her sister. Finally, she plucked up the courage and knocked. A faint "Come in," responded and she opened the door to enter her sister's room. Despite the morning sun peeping through the tiny window, the room looked gloomy, there were numerous headless dolls sitting on the headboard of the bed, a skeleton hanging on its ankle by a noose behind the door, and a countless number of potions of different colors on the bureau.
Ophelia saw her sister Morticia sitting by the windowsill, reading a thick, old book. Her features were almost the same as Ophelia's that sometimes it perplex the both of them. One of the few differences between them is that Morticia has a raven hair while Ophelia is blonde. Morticia's clothing was usually a black tight dress and would never be seen wearing cheerful colored clothes.
Morticia looked up from her reading to study Ophelia's face.
"You look terrible, Ophelia," she said before returning to her reading.
"Your terrible or my terrible?"Ophelia asked.
"Your terrible, of course. That does not suit my terrible," Morticia replied without looking up from her book.
Ophelia sighed and sat on the foot of Morticia's bed. Morticia looked up from her reading and sat next to her older sister.
"Is there something wrong, Ophelia?"she asked. "The flowers on your head are falling."
"Today is my betrothal, remember?"she replied sadly, trying to return the fallen flowers back to her head.
"Oh, I completely forgot about that," she said. "Is there really nothing you can do to convince Mother to cancel your betrothal?"
"I wish, but Mother is… annoyingly insistent of this marriage!" she stood up and paced the room. "I do not want to be married to someone whom I barely know. I do not even know if I want to get married at all."
"Perhaps the man you are betrothed to is a charm," Morticia suggested.
"Perhaps not, then what now?" countered Ophelia. She ungracefully flopped back down next to her sister.
"What will you do then?" Morticia asked gently.
"I cannot let Mother down, not with all her expectations," she replied to which Morticia rolled her eyes at. "You are quite lucky Mother is not expecting much from you, Morticia."
"She does not even care about my existence."
"That is not true."
"Yes it is."
"No, it is not."
"Yes it is."
"Then why would she have you betrothed to a distant cousin?"
"Pardon?" she asked bewilderingly.
"You are to be wed with Cousin Baltimore," Ophelia said.
"Cousin Baltimore?!" she repeated incredulously. Her eyes widened in surprise.
"I believe it will be after my unfortunate marriage."
"But why?" Morticia almost whined.
"Tradition, she said when I asked her."
"But that is hardly reasonable," insisted Morticia. "I thought it was supposed to be the eldest daughter only."
"Welcome to my world," Ophelia grudgingly said.
Morticia sighed. "At least you get to get married first."
Ophelia scowled. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Bail out," her sister simply said.
"You know I can't, Morticia," she said. She stood up and paced the room.
"Of course, you can, Ophelia," Morticia replied. She watched her sister pace her room. Sighing, she walked in front of Ophelia and stopped her from taking another step. "Pacing the whole room will not give you any solution to your problem. You can bail out on this arranged marriage, but you won't."
Silence filled the room.
"Perhaps I just have to pretend I am ecstatic about this," Ophelia spoke up.
"Suit yourself, I won't," Morticia replied stoically. She paused to look at Ophelia's pained features. "I'm sorry, Ophelia. I cannot seem to help you."
"It's fine," Ophelia replied dejectedly before leaving Morticia alone in her room.