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"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it." - Lloyd Alexander
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The golden glow of the afternoon sun peeked through the clouded glass of the attic window. Tree branches tapped on the edge of the brick house as the wind swayed them where they stood.

Silvia extended her free hand down towards the floor, silently offering to help the twins up from where they had stumbled out of the mirror.

Carolyn warily stood up, refusing her grandmother's aid, and spun around to face the mirror. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her wide eyes examining the dormant glass that had been a whirlpool of colors just moments before.

"Thank God you're okay!" Silvia's concerned tone broke the twins' rambling thoughts.

Aura stood up, brushing the dust off her now wrinkled dress.

Their grandmother held out her arms to the twins, stepping forward to pull them into an embrace. As the sisters refused her affections once again, Silvia looked to Bailey, her eyes growing wide. She was quick to understand, letting her arms fall to her sides.

"I know you must have a lot of questions," Silvia spoke, this time sounding more solemn than worrisome. The twins' gaze fell to their grandmother's right hand, which held a thin, pearlescent white wand.

"That's an understatement." Aura's curious eyes flashed between her grandmother and the wand.

"I'll start," Carolyn said, turning to face Silvia. "What the hell is your problem?"

Silvia frowned. "Carolyn—" she began to scold but was abruptly cut off.

"—No. You hid an entire world from us our whole lives! Why?"

"I know that you're angry with me," her grandmother started once again. "I only ever wanted to keep you safe."

"Is that what my parents wanted for me too? Our lives lived without ever knowing them?" Carolyn could feel her face heating up with rage as her hands balled into fists.

Silvia was saddened by the hurt in her granddaughter's voice. "Please, Carolyn."

Carolyn tried to muster up a response but instead went numb, staring blankly at the attic around her.

Aura softened at the sight of her grandmother's pleading eyes. She wiped the tears from her own eyes and cleared her throat.

"Tell me what happened to them," Aura demanded, turning back to face Silvia, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

Silvia stood in silence before muttering a soft, "I don't know."

"When you were born, Fabula was even more dangerous than it is now," Bailey said, stepping closer to the twins.

"Your parents, Felicity and Anthony, knew it wouldn't be a safe place to raise children. They feared you two wouldn't live if you stayed," Silvia explained grimly.

"So why didn't you tell us all of this sooner?" Carolyn asked, her voice emotionless.

"I took you here to give you a better life. I wanted you to have a normal childhood where you could run freely, make friends, find love..." their grandmother trailed off, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I was planning on telling you about Fabula after you graduated so that you could have a peaceful upbringing before your lives changed forever."

"What made us safer with you than with them?" Aura spoke up in a skeptical tone, her misty blue eyes glancing back at her grandmother's hand.

"My brother and I were born into magic, we studied it our entire lives. I became known throughout Fabula for my willingness to help any and everybody who needed it. The people I helped called me their saving grace, their 'Fairy Godmother,'" Silvia spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully to avoid overwhelming them more.

The twins remained silent as their minds raced, their eyes fixated on the wand.

"So," Carolyn was the first to speak, unsure how to continue. "What does that make us?" she waved her hand between her and Silvia, "Are we even related?"

Silvia looked at the sisters with gentle eyes. "I have raised you on my own since you were babies. It doesn't matter if we're blood, you will always be my granddaughters."

Silence fell over them again, each of them afraid to proceed.

Carolyn cleared her throat, crossing her arms over her chest. "So what exactly was so bad that it got the 'Fairy Godmother' running to a different planet?"

Silvia's lips set in a hard line. "Long ago, a magical gateway named The Portal was created to give the pure-souled a life of adventure and a 'happily ever after.' Heroes would enter, fight against a villain, and earn a happy ending. After each tale ended, the heroes were given their own kingdom in Fabula."

"What about the Villains?" Aura asked warily, a part of her not wanting to hear the answer.

"They were banished to what we call 'the Dark Forest' and their harmful powers were stripped from them so that they never harm another soul again." Silvia paused, her heartbeat thumping harder as memories flooded her mind.

"Not to sound violent, but why didn't the Heroes just kill the Villains after the Stories? You know, cut out the root of evil?" Carolyn asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Because they were real people but were corrupted. They weren't created out of the blue in the Portal. They hurt people inside the Stories, but those people were alive and well when the Stories ended. The Villains had evil in their hearts that needed to be punished, but they don't deserve to die."

She took a shaky breath, placing a hand on her chest. "But one day, when you were babies, they were freed by a sorceress. They were able to roam free and take over Fabula. The Villains pulled the Heroes back into their Stories, creating new endings where they won."

Carolyn's forehead creased as she looked at Silvia inquisitively. "So those are the stories we know on Earth?"

Silvia nodded curtly. "Somehow the change transferred over, I believe by the magic following us to this world when you were babies. Since then, the Villains have been in control, and the people of Fabula have been suffering as a result."

Aura's eyes slowly drifted to the piles of aged books, focusing on the two treasuries of fairytales stacked on top of one another. Images of the dark beauty they had seen in Orrinshire flashed before her eyes, how her gaze hauntingly penetrated their souls.

Her blue eyes met Bailey's. "That woman we saw...she did all this, didn't she?"

Bailey nodded in confirmation. "Her name is Onyx."

The raven-haired woman's face echoed through the twins' minds once more, the sound of her name sending a chill down their spines.

Aura cleared her dry throat. "I think I'm gonna go take a shower to, um, think about all this," she waved her hand in a circle, gesturing to nothing in particular, "through."

"Aura, please." Silvia reached for her granddaughter's hand, but Aura passed by her without a second thought.

"I'll let you two...re-introduce yourselves, I guess," Carolyn said, gesturing with her finger between her grandmother and Bailey. "Just in case Bailey left you in the dark, too." She walked out coldly, following after her sister.

Carolyn swiftly descended the attic stairs and reached their bathroom door. She knocked softly, the sound of their shower curtain being pulled closed along the metal rod reaching her ears.

"Come in."

A sharp, bitter pain struck Carolyn's chest at the sound of her sister's demure murmur. She slowly pushed open the door, her fingers gently brushing the chipped white paint as it creaked.

The hot water was raining down on the shower tile, piping out steam that had already fogged up the mirror. The medieval dress Aura had worn on their journey was in a heap on the cold, grey floor, dirt staining the fabric.

Aura's soft cries could be heard from behind the azure blue curtain as Carolyn locked the door.

She sat down outside of the tub, pulling her knees to her chest.

"Are you okay?" Carolyn asked, though she already knew the answer.

"How am I supposed to react to that?" The lump in Aura's throat caused her voice to shake. "How do I trust anything they say?"

"I don't know, Aura..." Carolyn trailed off, her mind wandering back to Sherwood Forest. "But I'm still here."

Their thoughts were overwhelmed by Fabula for the rest of the night. They washed the dirt and muck from their aching bodies, but they couldn't wash away the stain left behind by the magic they had experienced.

As morning came, Carolyn reached for her phone to turn off its blaring alarm, already wide awake. She could only manage a few restless hours of sleep and had spent the rest of the early morning rustling through items they had retrieved from the attic.

Aura slowly came to, sitting up in her bed groggily. She had been luckier with sleep than her sister. "Why is the alarm going off? It's Sunday."

Carolyn let out a deep breath as she slid the paintings from the attic back under her bed.

"We were in Fabula for an entire day," she said, handing her sister a cup of piping hot cocoa that she had made in her restless morning fog. "Back just in time for school."

Aura groaned, gratefully accepting the mug. She smiled as the warm liquid woke up her senses. "On the bright side, it can't be as bad as getting arrested in an unfamiliar forest."

Carolyn had already gotten dressed and was applying a layer of dark purple mascara, making the green in her eyes pop. "If only I believed in bright sides anymore."

The twins chose to ride the bus to school that day, no longer trusting so much as a car ride from Bailey. They begrudgingly shuffled onto the crowded bus, scrambling to the last empty seat at the back. As the bus rolled down the road, they watched the rain that had begun to lightly fall outside of the window.

Their shoes squeaked on the linoleum floors of the school. Aura was sure to be quick at her locker, wanting to postpone their next encounter with Bailey for as long as she could manage.

Eli approached Carolyn as her sister gave her a hug and walked to her first class. His smile made Carolyn's mood soften, but it wasn't distracting enough to keep her mind off of Fabula.

"Hey," he spoke through a grin. Eli leaned down and kissed her, but it ended all too soon for his liking. "You good?"

Carolyn shook her head, trying to push away the thoughts clouding up her brain. "Yeah, sorry. Long weekend."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No, not today."

As the pair walked down the dense hallway, Eli kept glancing down at Carolyn's stoic face as she chewed on her bottom lip.

"Are you sure?"

Carolyn was quick to brush off his offer once again. "Really, it's okay." She only muttered a small goodbye before walking through the next doorway into her class.

The rest of the school day went by in a distracted haze, the sisters more focused on the thunderstorm brewing outside than their work. The brain fog remained at the forefront of their minds throughout rehearsal, thickening whenever either made eye contact with familiar deceptive greys from across the auditorium.

When they were dismissed for the day, Carolyn leapt off the stage toward her bag in one of the green-upholstered seats.

She jumped out of her skin when a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist. Flashes of soldiers on horses raced across her eyes. The echo of rusty chains reverberated in her mind as the faint sting of a blade lit her neck ablaze. Whipping around with her hand raised in a fist, her heart rate slowed when she was met with Eli's widened chestnut eyes. She lowered her arm when her gaze drifted to the bag of wrapped chocolate and a singular rose in his hands.

"Sorry...I'm a little tense."

Eli chuckled. "You don't say." He handed her the gifts before shoving his hands in the pockets of his letterman jacket. "I thought you could use something sweet to brighten your day, even if it's only a little bit."

Carolyn sighed, flashing him a small smile. "Thank you." She pecked him on the lips, but her mind couldn't help but travel back to the potion shop off Orrinshire's square as she uttered those two simple words to someone else.

Her eyes caught sight of Jake and Aura chatting across the auditorium, a smirk appearing on her face.

"I'm fine, really," Jake mumbled as he shoved his script into his backpack.

"Trust me, I can tell when someone's not okay," Aura said softly, sitting down on the seat next to his bag. "You haven't smiled or cracked a joke all day."

Jake sighed, plopping himself next to her. He rubbed his tired eyes and hung his head. "My dad is just working a lot to make ends meet so he's putting all of his other responsibilities onto me. He's just expecting me to be okay with it because I'm a 'tough guy' and thinks that I can handle it."

"Well, have you tried talking to your dad about it?"

"Believe me, I've tried. But he thinks that as long as he's happy, then everyone else will be, too."

As Aura racked her mind for any consolations she could give as her phone vibrated. She jumped from the seat when her eyes landed on the time.

"Crap, I gotta catch the bus. Can we talk about this later?"

Jake threaded his fingers through his hair as he stood up as well. "Yeah, sure. Let me give you my number."

Aura offered her phone, a crimson blush creeping onto her cheeks.

After tapping away at the screen, Jake handed the phone back before slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "I'll talk to you soon, then."

Aura nodded silently before walking with her sister to the dingy yellow bus that waited by the sidewalk, its engine roaring.

As the week dragged on, the twins found it increasingly difficult to focus on school. Bailey continued to try winning them over, but to no avail.

Carolyn pulled loose sheets of paper from her locker, attempting to organize the clutter. Groups of chattering people passed by her as she stuffed a book into her backpack. With the locker door closed, she could see Eli standing down the hall, his back to her. She stepped to the side to meet him where he stood as students scurried into classrooms. Carolyn stopped in her tracks when she saw Casey's thin frame in front of Eli. A grimace reached her face at the sound of Casey's honeyed laugh.

She couldn't make out their words, but their joyful conversing and her playful taps on his shoulder were enough to make her blood boil.

As the warning bell rang, Casey gave a small wave before limping down the hallway in her thick medical boot.

Eli turned and smiled when he saw Carolyn down the hall. He casually strolled over to her, his grin quickly fading at the sight of her scowl.

"What the hell?" Carolyn skipped the pleasantries, far too eager to hear his explanation for what she had just seen.

"Is everything okay...?" Eli hesitantly asked, reaching for her hand.

Carolyn jerked her arm away. "No. Everything is not okay. You know how much of a bitch Casey has been to me, and especially Aura, yet you're all laughs and giggles with her like she has a fucking halo over her head!"

Eli rolled his eyes, amused at her displeasure.

"What?" she demanded.

"I was just helping to set her up with a buddy of mine. She's really into this guy on my team, so I gave her some pointers," Eli explained, the words rolling off his tongue and cooling his girlfriend's rage.

"That's all," Carolyn started in a dejected tone, her eyes still filled with distrust. "Honest?"

"Honest."

Carolyn huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've gotta get to class or I'm gonna be late."

Eli flashed a charming smile, tugging at her heartstrings. "I'll see you later?"

Carolyn rolled her eyes, unable to keep a small grin off her face. He kissed her quickly before she sped down the hall to class.

Hello lovelies!
Silvia sure had a lot of skeletons in her closet...er, attic, am I right? I honestly don't think I could ever live in a world where fairytales don't have happy endings, but at least my grandmother would be The Fairy Godmother! That's a fair trade-off, right?

So for the question of the day, we gotta ask: do you think Carolyn overreacted when she saw Eli and Casey together? We wanna hear your thoughts!

Until next chapter!
♡ Melody & Rebekah ♡

ALSO THANK YOU FOR 7.3K YOU ARE AMAZING!