There once lived a powerful family whose power was built on wealth and dark magic that only the women possessed. Sacrifices were made along their journey to become one of the most powerful families in a faraway land. One of these sacrifices led to the loss of their matriarch leaving behind her four daughters. Still, this didn’t quench the family’s thirst for power.

One of the daughters, Molly, was different from her sisters; unlike her sisters, she was not interested in the family business of acquiring companies that had fallen on their luck and wanted to be part of the real world and not so hidden away and forced to follow the life plan decided by the family.

So when it came to universities, she decided on one that wasn’t well over a century old but rather one in a city filled with tall buildings, lights and people from all walks of life. This enraged her father and disgusted her sisters but after a summer of fighting that filled a home the size of a palace with so much tension that it felt like a small cottage, her father gave in, and her sisters held on to their future, “I told you so”. But that didn’t matter because from the first day she arrived at the vibrant campus she was sure she had made the right decision. No one knew who she was and she was free to be herself.

Then came the freshers fair and like all events of this nature our Molly found Love with a boy named Kit, at least that was what she thought. From that day on Molly and Kit were inseparable. They shared notes, shots, cheap chicken and chips and most importantly that particular moment you can never get back but it was a choice she felt ready for because she had found love. There was just one problem. Kit kept pressuring her to meet her family, something she was not prepared to do as she was determined to make this place, a place without the weight of her family name. The pressure was quite unusual for a 21-year-old boy with nothing to his name an ambition that could consume everything in its sight. This worried her because, she was unsure his intentions were pure but she decided to ignore as she believed it was part of a paranoia she refused to let take over. So she promised him “At graduation, you will meet my family.”

Graduation came, and Molly was shocked to see Kit gradually change. From that day on he began spending time with her father, and like magic before her eyes, Kit had morphed into a copy of her father. He was not the same young man she fell in love with and what they had, went farther off the lanes of love. She went to her sisters for help to learn the way of their mother; dark magic a practice, she had sworn never to be involved in even though it called her everyday sounding sweet but feeling more like a centipede moving through her flesh.

One spell, they said, let’s see what he is up to, it might be another woman, what if it’s another woman. One spell, Molly hesitated, but she needed to see what he was up to, it was like an uncontrollable itch she needed to reach. So she cast a spell that allowed her to see the deepest part of Kit’s heart and soul and as she suspected but didn’t want to accept, it had a hint of darkness, but the most shocking revelation was she was only a tenant in a heart that belonged to another woman.  Filled with emotions yet to be understood, she ran to Kit’s home and was shocked to see the woman from her vision in his apartment with Kit’s child forming within her.

The sight enraged her and deafened her to Kit’s explanations that it was a mistake, that had happened one time. That the child was not planned, that he had known the woman for fifteen years and could not abandon the mother of his child and that she should understand. Molly heard none of it, and as her blood boiled, her lips uttered her first curse.

“So none of it was real, you had her all this time

Is it because of her beauty

I feel like you have ripped out my heart

I hope your child is just as beautiful

And when she turns 15, she loses herself to an unreal place

I hope she enjoys hurting you

Just as much as you hurt me.”

Molly was done with Kit but her father, a man never to lose sight of great business acumen, was not, so Kit stayed working with her father building his fortune. Molly unable to bear this decision and lack of loyalty from the two men she loved the most left once again to a foreign land to heal herself and learn to control the dark magic within her that she had unleashed.

Time passed, and Kit made his fortune and married his true love, and they had a child, and on her 15th birthday, she sat by the TV  mesmerised by an image of a sleeping mirror, never to move again. Kit and his wife tried everything, from shouting her name to changing the channel, to turning the TV off. But the image never left, and their daughter never moved. The more they tried to get their daughter’s attention,  stranger things began to happen around them.

If they, removed the plug, they stopped breathing. If they tried hitting it, bruises would appear on their body. This went on for days while their daughter disappeared before their eyes as she refused to eat or sleep. A drip had to be put in place for her to have sustenance.

Years spent with Molly’s family had taught Kit that the existence of magic was not a ridiculous notion to entertain especially in a situation like this, and so,  he called on Molly’s sisters to help, but they couldn’t help, as only the one who uttered the curse could stop it.

So Kit went to Molly who in a faraway land had a better grasp of her powers but struggled with using them for good. Kit begged on his knees, and Molly’s guilt and love for what they once had pushed her to help even though the darkness now living within whispered that he deserved it.

“Take this potion to your daughter. If she drinks this, she will wake. It has to be given by someone she loves and who loves her. But if your daughter would rather stay in her dreams and hurt people, there is nothing I can do.”

So Kit hurried home with the potion, and as he gave his daughter the potion, he saw her blink, then he noticed blood dripping from the TV. He looked for his wife and found her on the floor with her rib poking out and a bat in her hand but with no blood gushing from her. Surprised he stepped backwards, knocking over the TV, he felt all his bones break while blood poured from the TV onto the floor.  After hours of pain just before he took his last breath, he looked up briefly to see the sleeping mirror in his daughter’s eyes.

 

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