Chapter 2 It's Never Been Fair

Angelica ran and ran until she was out of breath. Her lungs and legs were on fire, and her feet were blistered thanks to the poor choice of shoes for running. Yet none of that mattered.

Part of her had expected something like this to happen tonight. After all, Jezebelle had always gotten everything she wanted....but Angelica didn't. This had been the story of Angelica's life, though she was the only one who seemed to know it. And even though their mother said she loved the two twins equally, Angelica always felt like she was in Jezebelle's shadow, craving warmth and attention.

So when she'd waited in the glowing orange moonlight for a mark that would never appear, it wasn't heartbreak she felt as the minutes ticked by. No, it was just the dawning realization that another disappointing expectation had come to pass. She was used to feeling this way.

It was actually the sympathy in Gramma's and mother's eyes that had pushed her over the edge.

'Oh,' she thought bitterly, 'NOW you care?'

They'd never looked beneath her surface before now, never looked past the "sunny disposition" she always projected to give them the impression that everything was fine. Yet now, in front of the coven, they wanted to appear like they cared about her?

Angelica sat on a fallen log, her panting breaths creating clouds in the dark night air. She'd yelled at her mother. But...it had felt good to get that truth off her chest. She hated being called her "little sun."

Witches didn't care as much about the sun as they cared about the moon. At least not the witches she grew up around, anyway. So, she'd always felt like an outsider whenever her mother called her that. It probably wasn't intentional...honestly, it was probably just a cutesy-wutesy way to tell baby twins apart, but in a way that made it worse. How...original.

It didn't matter that her hair was golden blonde or that her eyes were a golden hazel-she literally looked like a little, yellow piece of sunshine-she felt like her mother had somehow jinxed her existence.

Jezebelle, on the other hand, was made for the night. She was perfect. She looked like the perfect witch. She had a perfect, dreamy boyfriend who had loved her for years, just as long as she'd loved him. She was intelligent, musically gifted, beautiful, and she looked like a carbon copy of their mother.

Angelica knew she looked like their dad, who had passed away when she was a child....but he had been an ordinary man. There hadn't been anything special about him, so resembling him didn't mean much to her.

"Why does Belle get everything?" she asked the night sky. "Why isn't anything ever fair?"

"Fair?" asked a creaky voice from behind a tree. Angelica jumped. "Fairness is an illusion, my dear girl."

An old woman came out from behind the tree. A witch-an ancient witch.

"Who...are you?" Angelica whispered. "I've never seen you before."

"If you find out, do let me know, dear," she cackled. "I can't seem to remember my name, though I'm sure it will come to me eventually. But I do know that your future was stolen from you tonight."

"Stolen? What do you mean by stolen? You mean I was supposed to get a witchmark?"

The old witch's eyes were like two shiny jet pebbles, glinting in the moonglow. She nodded.

Angelica gasped. "Really?" She placed a hand over her thundering heart. Could this finally be the moment she's been waiting for, the moment where she'd catch up to Jezebelle?

"Aye. Now come along with me, my dear, and I'll help you get that mark you deserve. It must be done before the moon sets."

Angelica did not hesitate as she followed the old witch deeper into the forest, into an ancient cave decorated with bones dangling from the ceiling.

Bones of all shapes and sizes...Angelica did not look up.