PROLOGUE

Memories of 1989

Mother and Father had gone out for the evening. They loved going out on that night, Halloween, so my brother and I were left in the care of Grandma Del.

It was supposed to be a bedtime story… at least, that was what my grandmother had led me to believe, although looking back upon it now, it was really anything but something to get a willful child to relax and drift off into dreamland. I hated going to sleep when it got dark. Something out in the shadows, away from any sort of illumination, called to me. I could hear it. However, my family is a strange one, so who knows? Maybe it was supposed to be exactly as she claimed. Those Above and Below only knew the truth about what passed for sanity in my home growing up.

It probably did not help that she was extremely intoxicated. Even at such a young age, I recognized the smell of cheap liquor. I had sadly been exposed to such early in life. It was not something one forgets when your very life might depend upon recognizing the signs.

So, there I was, all tucked in, clutching my favorite doll: Mary. It might have seemed a strange sight to those not aware of how things worked in this house, but Mary was headless now, as were all of my dolls currently. My brother had built a miniature guillotine and had been methodically going through my collection of dolls since he had already beheaded the entirety of his Star Wars collection of action figures. I was not opposed to Mary being headless. I still had the head. My brother could separate them, but they were mine. I did not want to think about why he wanted my dolls' heads. It was safely tucked away under my pillow.

Grandma Del often stared at me as if she was waiting for something. I never really knew what it could be she expected. I was not even ten yet, but there was a look in her eye. She had the same look while relaying that night's fable.

The story she told that night was one I had never heard before. Nor since. Months after the telling, I had asked my mother about the story, but she had never heard of it. All requests to my grandmother, my father's mother, for the bedtime tale again were rebuffed. She claimed I dreamt the whole thing up, a child's fancy, but Mary remembered the story. I had secreted that poor doll's head away to listen, as well, and she had. It was just the two of us.

Father patted me on my head when I complained to him about the story. Mother being no help. I had hoped he remembered her telling it to him as a boy. I recall his eyes full of life and joy at the asking, but he had shaken his head that he had never heard such a story. He had pulled at my pigtails and said that his mother was as kooky as they came. La strange, he had giggled. Father told me to write it down; that maybe I could recreate it enough that it would be a story for the future generations of the Family.

Over the years, I have written the story repeatedly. I refused to look at the pages written previously, instead trying to force myself to remember every detail possible as if writing it for the first time. I have seventeen attempts at the story. For over ten years, I have done everything I can to put proof to the strange and terrifying bedtime story told to me that Halloween night.

I graduate Ilvermorny's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry tomorrow, Class of 1998. Top student this year. Well, top student ever recorded since the institute's founding, so top student for every year, I guess. The witch prodigy they have been calling me. They expect great things from me. Great and terrible, as my Magical History teacher likes to say. My scores are all anyone talks about currently. In fact, there is a party being held in my honor. I think it started a couple of hours ago.

As you can obviously discern, I am not attending.

I have decided to look through all of the copies of Grandma Del's story that I have written over the years. I want to see how much from each story matches. What works? What does not? I decided that tonight, as a graduation present to myself, I was going to recreate that long ago bedtime story.

Like all good bedtime stories, this tale began with 'Once upon a time', though the more I think about it, she said something more like 'once, in a time no longer.'

…ooo000OOO * OOO000ooo…

Once, in a time no longer here, a boy was born. This story is about that boy, but to understand him, you had to know and understand his mother first. And his daughter last. Him somewhere in the middle.

The boy's mother was a witch. Yes, a witch of such grace and beauty and power that all that knew her loved her and the various wizarding princes of the lands sought after her, attempting to win her hand in marriage. Balls and parties were held, allowing for each princely wizard from the surrounding magical kingdoms to present their gifts and offers, and the witch was happy.

Happiness is fleeting, however. The gods sent a messenger, an oracle, that said that she could have her pick of princes to be her husband, and the land would rejoice for their time together, but she was not to bear a son, for a male child would bring death and destruction to the lands. She and her wizarding prince would be the last rulers of their kingdom. At hearing the cursed tidings, most princes fled, knowing that having no heir would doom their own magical kingdoms, which was a future that they refused. The witch wept, for that even with all of her power and beauty, none would have her.

One day, however, a handsome but lowly prince of a tiny mundane kingdom came, calling upon the witch, begging her to be his forever. She looked upon his handsomeness and was pleased, so she accepted, and all was good. Their non-magical kingdom prospered, and the kingdom was happy. Eventually, however, the witch wanted to present her husband with an heir. Her husband, the handsome prince, begged her to reconsider. He said that he was content to rule with her by his side, and to one day allow his kingdom to be swallowed by their neighbors, but the witch persisted with her plan.

She defied the gods and became pregnant with a son.

The gods, seeing their divine will so defied, cursed the witch. Their lands that had been so prosperous withered and died. The people grew sick from hunger and disease, dying. War broke out along the neighboring kingdoms, causing much strife and horror as entire villages fell to the spear and sword. Blood ran thick into the dry soil.

Seeing that this did not break the witch, they caused her handsome prince to grow cold to her. Where once they could rely upon each other, he now cast her aside. His love fell to hate, and he cast her and their unborn child out into the street. How could he love a witch? She must have bespelled him to make him ever love her… and the abomination growing within her belly was a monster, not conceived out of love. Hos seed stolen away.

The witch sought to return home, to seek refuge with those that had never turned her away, but in her time with the handsome prince, the gods had turned the townspeople against her wizarding family. Her home was destroyed, her relatives imprisoned or dead. The very earth salted as warning to any that would offer aid to their former princess.

The witch was alone.

The gods, in their terrible jealousy and anger at the witch, decided that her final torment would be the loss of that child, which she and the handsome prince had conceived in love. The very folly that led to their anger and spite would be destroyed, murdered, and all that dared defy the gods in the future would hear of the witch's punishment and remember to not turn away from those greater. It was done, but the witch was powerful. The witch was good. The witch's love would not be defied.

In squalor, dirty and homeless, attended by mid-witches of dubious nature, the witch gave birth to a stillborn son. There was no newborn cry, but the witch would not give in so easily. The gods' final act of vengeance, but she chose to give over her entire being, all of it, her magic and her life and her destiny to her son, to prove the lie of their greatness. The boy who lived.

Fate changed that day as the powerful witch died and a powerful wizard was given life.

The boy would not know… not for many, many years, of the sacrifices his mother suffered to give him life. He would grow up a pauper to the lowborn, never realizing the heritage that was his for the rightful taking… but so does the hero of every good story come from humble beginnings until the day that he can rightfully ascent to take his place upon the throne. The boy grew. His power as a wizard recognized eventually, though his heritage remained unknown. He attended their schools and learned their ways, and while so much greater than all of the others, the boy was still considered an outcast. An outsider. Until one day, he chanced upon the knowledge of his family. Of the powerful witch, that was his mother. Of the mundane prince, that was his father. And the boy began making his plans.

Over time, he grew to such renown. That boy became a man that led others to victory after victory; all in defiance to gods that he cared nothing for and that he hoped to one day bring low. Nothing would prevent that boy turned man from his own chosen destiny.

The gods are crafty, though. Through the work of oracles, they found a way to twist the man's fate, typing it to one that they so cruelly gave a destiny to another. For all that the witch gave to unto her son out of love, the gods forced into another child, another boy, by way of twisted magic. Not love, but fate and destiny.

That man, once the boy so loved by the witch, would eventually be betrayed. The gods sought every mean available under the divine godliness to prevent his rise. The boy that became a man would lose everything, even to never having the chance to tell his own child, a daughter conceived out of love, about the powerful witch that was her heritage. He would die so close to succeeding, his only comfort that his progeny would live on… and maybe one day she could make a difference in the world.

A daughter. His child that you had to know to understand that boy who lived because of his mother's sacrifice. She would be a powerful witch, much as her father, who was great like his mother. It was up to this last witch to counter what the gods had decreed… and she did, though her trying was successful only in that she failed spectacularly.

Three generations of trying to defy the gods. Such an undertaking. How can anyone ever hope to pit his or her mere mortal existence upon those of divinity? Angels and demons and things that no one can truly comprehend except within those moments of true madness, how does anyone hope to challenge those titans of old? Sometimes the greatest gifts come from the most unlikely of origins. The gods' own champion bore a child… a son that she could manipulate, that offered her the means of saving the boy turned man that had lost, that had failed his mother's promise. She would use the blood of her father's killer to undo everything that had come before. Time itself would bend to her will, and the gods' arrogance would be their very undoing.

Her plan was flawless in all ways that a child could hope to thwart the gods' plan. In other words, it failed so badly that things were even worse than before she had made the attempt, but chance is only another word for luck, and she was due.

The idea of making changes at the time the change is needed is utter foolishness. You don't say that the door needs closing right as someone opens the door. No, you go back earlier and lock the door. Put up signs that say do not enter. You board the door over. Preventing it from ever opening. That is how you succeed at your task. The daughter of the man who was once the boy, the child of that powerful witch, learned this lesson at the end and made the choice to change things forever.

She went decades back…

And the world was changed forever.

Not just because of what she chose to do, the changes she sought to make so that her father could succeed, but because the gods' own tools upon the Earth powered the very instrument used to create these changes. How fitting that the gods' own divinity would be their undoing?

…ooo000OOO * OOO000ooo…

I closed the book. Even after carefully editing and manipulating the various versions into a single, cohesive story… something still was not right, but I think that it is mostly because during the telling, I asked questions. She never really answered while telling her tale, but it gave the story a more organic flow in the telling. She gave more information than was her original intent, I believe.

I stretched out onto my bed and tried to remember that night. There really is no explainable reason for why I am staying home tonight going over a story that my grandmother told me six Halloweens ago, but that is what I am doing. Something about the story always struck me as important.

"Did she do it?" I asked my grandmother that night.

"Do what?"

I blew out my breath in exasperation. "Defy the gods? Win? Save her father?"

Grandma Del sat back in the chair she was using, my mother's chair when she watched over me. It felt wrong that my grandmother was sitting in my mother's chair. "She did. And she didn't."

"What does that mean?" I groused.

"The story isn't done yet, little one." She whispered as if sharing secret. Her breath smelled like the bottle Aunt Hester never shared from. "But I'm very hopeful."

"Why?"

"Why?" Grandma Del repeated. "Because you are here in this bed, my precious. How can the gods claim victory when you are here and not there?"

"I don't understand. What do I have to do with the story?" I complained, kicking my foot in frustration.

"Why, all the best stories have a damsel in distress."

"I'm not a damsel. I'm the evil witch. I'm gonna turn into a dragon and eat the damsels."

"You don't want some hero to come and give you a kiss? Saving you from the evil witch?

"I'll kill the hero, too." I promised.

She smiled at me. Grandma Del never smiled. Not even when drunk, but she was smiling then. And at me. "Are you? Well, then I guess we don't need to worry about how the rest of the story turns out, are we? I'll leave it in your capable hands."

My grandmother had gotten up after saying that. She refused any further requests for answers, saying that it was well past time I was asleep and turned all the lights out. I was forced to spend the entire night plagued by questions that would never be answered. All pleas and offers of bribes for more of the story were rebuffed, claims of it all being a dream her only answer.

But I knew it was more than that.

I knew it.