Stepping outside is like entering another world. It seems unnaturally dark, the trees vague black shapes against the night sky. The moon had disappeared, taking any comforting light it offered with it. The wind is a constant scream, tearing against my nightgown, twisting and tangling it around my legs.

I stumble, eyes straining in the darkness, squinting as bits of debris race through the air, pricking at my skin. The gusts are freezing, biting through my thin gown, stealing the air from my lungs. My chest constricts.

I am terrified and I can feel that fear tearing me apart. The urge to flee overwhelms me as the unnatural darkness presses against me from all sides.

Turn around, every instinct in me screams. Turn around.

My feet are prepared to take me back into the house, to turn back to where Willow waits for me. But I hear a faint voice on the wind.

I jolt. I'm not sure how long I've been standing here for, frozen a few feet from the doorway, but the panic pushed all thoughts of my father from my mind. No, not panic. I'm not such a coward, that the sight of the darkness would drive me to forget about Father. I know I'm not. Something is off out here.

Something is playing with my mind.

I can feel it now, a heavy sort of pressure in the air, squeezing against my head. I lick my lips, and they taste of metallic blood.

The darkness suddenly feels much more hungry. Much more... alive. Willow's words are echoing in my ears and I can feel the presence she was talking about, something out here with me. But that also means that it is out here with Father.

"Father!" I shout, taking a few steps further. The wind seems filled with whispers now, mocking and taunting me. I shake my head, not sure what is real and what is my mind playing tricks on me. I feel sweat slip down the back on my neck, dripping down my spine.

I hear the voice again, nothing more than an indecipherable groan but I know it's him. The sound draws me further away from the house, towards the line of black trees. The wind seems to shift, pushing against my back with more force. Urging me on.

"Closer... closer," it seems to whisper.

Just before the tree line, a dark shape is folded on the ground. My heart skitters a frantic beat against my ribs as I strain to make out what it is.

"Father?" I whisper, certain that if I take one step closer, it will reveal itself as my father, gazing blankly at the night sky.  An image of my mother's body flashes before my eyes.

No. I won't consider it. Until I see for sure, I won't think of him as anything other than alive. I gather what little courage I have left and take another step forward.

But my breath freezes in my throat as the shape unfurls, spreading up from the ground, like an ink stain on paper. It isn't just dark, it is darkness itself. It's the shadowy spaces in the night where monsters dwell. It is the evil lurking in the hearts of men that drives them to do unspeakable things.

I stare into the inky depths, the edges writhing like snakes, convulsing in the air around it, reaching towards me. A deep primal part of me screams to run, recognizing a predator bringing a swift promise of death. But I am rooted to the ground, a scream trapped in my lungs as the tendrils grow closer.

"Don't move", the wind whispers. "It will be over soon."

They are only inches away, when out of nowhere, a warm hand closes around mine. My body is instantly filled with a bolt warmth from head to toe and a bubble of light expands around me, sudden and blinding. The pressure disappears from my head. It chases away the shadows, banishing them back to the thing at their core. It's vaguely human shaped, though taller, more slender, and the edges are blurred, almost hard to look at.

Willow looks up from where she holds my hand, light seeming to pulse faintly from her. All traces of her earlier fear are gone, a calm confidence radiating from her. Though she's only fifteen, in this moment, she looks timeless, ageless. This Willow is still just as alien as the previous one. Not my Willow.

"Don't be afraid."

It is the command of a queen, one who shines brighter than a star and blazes a trail through the darkness.

I can do nothing but watch.

She closes her eyes and the bubble of light around us seems to pulse. The golden rays spread forth, eating away at the edges of the shadow shape.

"I've been looking for you. Your magic tastes of sunshine and innocence, little girl. Just like I imagined it would." The voice slides over my skin, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. It sounds like the slither of a snake through the grass, the rasp of a blade unsheathing. "But I can still taste the foul taint underneath. What sort of naughty things have you been up to?"

It laughs and I catch the glint of teeth, the edges pointed like blades.

She doesn't respond, but her hand tightens around mine. The next pulse of light is brighter, bringing tears to my eyes, and a hiss escapes the creature.

"Bitch," it snarls. "I will drain every last drop of magic from your bones." The darkness swells up in a wave, coiling in on itself before lunging towards us.

It punches through the barrier of light with a sound like the tinkling of breaking glass. A foul wave smelling of decay and rot sweeps over me, bile rising in my throat. I see a tendril on darkness lash forward to wrap around Willow's arm.

She screams. A blast of heat and light rush forth and for a second, the world freezes, everything illuminated in a flash. I have to close my eyes against the light and I hear something that might be a scream or the howl of the wind. The world tilts and I'm falling, and then there is nothing.

________________

I open my eyes to the gentle peachy orange of sunrise creeping across the sky, birds chirping in the trees. My body feels stiff, groaning in protest as l struggle to sit up. Father lies next to me, a smear of blood on his forehead, chest rising and falling gently. There is no sign of Willow.

The area around the house looks as if everything had been blow backwards by a huge force. Trees are bent almost to the ground, bowing away from the house, branches and leaves all blown back to the tree line.

And our house, our poor house, is in ruins. From what I can see, the windows have been blown out and chunks of the roof are missing, splintered wood everywhere, shards of glass glinting in the sun. My throat goes tight as I see what is left of the house that Father had built for Mother years ago.

I put my head in my hands, struggling to remember what happened last night. The monster made of night and death and fear. And my sister- if that was even her. I shudder, remembering the lack of fear on her face, the utter control she had over her power. Seeing her like that was like looking at a stranger. How could that thing have been looking for her, had even known she existed? And what had that monster meant when it said it could taste the taint in her magic? Had Willow been using her powers without letting me know? But more importantly, what kind of things would she have had to be doing to taint her? My head spins as I struggle to understand what I had seen.

A tentative touch on my shoulder makes me spin around, my heart leaping into my throat. But it is just Willow, crouched down next to me.

"Thank the gods," I breath, pulling her to me. Her body radiates cold and I can feel shivers trembling up and down her body.

"Are you hurt?" I demand, pulling away to examine her. She is paler than usual, her pasty skin making the pink, teardrop shaped birthmark under her left eye stand out more than usual. But despite being pale and freezing, she looks unharmed.

"I'm okay... Talia, I'm fine, I promise." She pulls away, pointedly ignoring my incredulous look."Help me get Father inside."

I watch in disbelief as she turns away, focusing on Father. She is acting like nothing had happened, intentionally avoiding looking me in the eye.  But looking at Father's prone form, I can't bring myself to push her for answers while he just lies there. Later then; later I'll demand answers.

After a few minutes of struggling and a near drop or two, we manage to get Father in the house and settled in a chair next to the fireplace. It feels pointless with the windows destroyed but I need to keep my hands busy so I get a fire started, the gentle blaze chasing away the chill that lingers.

Willow settles down next to me, kicking shards of glass out of the way. I wait for her to start talking but as the silence stretches out, I can't hold back.

"So I'm trying really hard not to lose my temper right now but I really need you to start giving me some answers." I pause, expecting her to jump in but she just stares into the fire, tugging nervously at the sleeve of her nightgown.

"Gods above Willow!" I explode. "I was attacked by something evil last night and I'm pretty sure it would have gladly killed me if you hadn't shown up! Father and I almost died because something came here for you!"

She finally opens her mouth but I cut her off angrily.

"Don't you dare deny it; I heard what it said and I'm not an idiot . Since I nearly died, the least you can do is give me some sort of an explanation. You're going to tell me what that thing was, why it was here, and how you made it vanish without killing us all. And what he meant about your magic being tainted."

I can feel my eye twitching and a vein throbbing in my head. I'm shoving down the guilt that surges up after I yell at her, but it's still there. I refuse to apologize though. I risk myself every single day that I hide her and protect her, clean up her messes and make excuses. If anyone ever found out, they'd kill her for witchcraft and probably me and Father too, just for good measure.

I do it though, and will continue doing it until I can't anymore because she's my sister and I love her. But gods, that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to get mad as hell at her. And I'm pretty sure last night qualifies as something that I'm allowed to get angry about. Or at the very least, terrified out of my mind.

I'm taking it out on her, I realize, the guilt pushing against my wall of determination a little more. The fear, the helplessness. It's eating away at me, making me snap at her. It's not like she knew this would happen.

Willow is quiet for long enough that I think she isn't going to speak. But when she finally looks at me, I can see that she doesn't have any answers for me. Helplessness flooded her face, tears welling up in her blue eyes.

"I don't know. I don't know any of it. Something in me just... took over. It was like something inside me knew what to do and did it. I felt like I was watching through someone else's eyes. I... I don't know if it was even me."

She whispers that last part and my heart aches.

I can't pretend to understand what she is going through, can't imagine how it feels to have something inside of you that you can't control. Since she was young, it was apparent that there was something special about Willow. Mother always said that she was a gift from the gods, but she was careful to teach us to keep it hidden. When it's heavily emphasized by the priests and devout that only the gods can have powers and magic, people finding out that Willow had a gift could potentially cause all sorts of problems. Like being burned alive.

So we were careful to never speak of it in public, and Mother taught me to always keep a close eye on Willow. While she taught me to be Willow's guardian and protector, she tried her best to teach Willow self control.

She had infinite patience when it came to Willow, spending long hours with her, something I envied Willow for as a child, and even more now with Mother gone.

Mother had been a beautiful, quiet woman, often wandering through the forest around us for flowers, or sitting by the window with a book in hand. Her presence was warm and calming, like sitting in the sun on a clear day.

Or so everyone tells me.

It's hard for me to remember Mother. I can tell you what she was like, what I'm supposed to say when people ask, but specific things, like the color of hair in the sun or her scent, they've vanished. I can barely remember what she looks like. Trying to think about it is like wading through fog in my mind. It's like grasping at flickering sparks coming off of a fire before they fade into the night sky. Occasionally I manage to catch one, just a sharp flash of a memory, followed by a sting of pain.

But the one thing that I know is that since Mother died, Willow and I have been lost and struggling. It is like her death opened up some part of Willow and she doesn't know how to close it. She struggles constantly with blocking the flow of magic and the things that come with it. Her sleep is fleeting and filled with dreams that make her toss and turn, calling out into the night. She is constantly distracted during the day, listening to the voices only she can hear. Her magic manifests itself in random bursts, making taking her to town and being around people immensely stressful and risky. What little control she'd seemed to have is slipping.

I knew things were bad, but I had no idea they were this bad. Having something else in her completely take over is something that I can't even remotely begin to know how to handle.

"It's okay," I whisper, pulling her into my arms as she sniffles. I smooth back her silky hair, trying to keep my hand from shaking. "We'll figure this out, just like we figure everything out. It's okay. We're okay."

I wonder if saying it enough times will make it true.