How is it you? (Henry Mills)

Part 1 Chapter 2

Will and Lydia did indeed have a child. They did everything to keep their daughter healthy, and smiling. It was their greatest fear that she grow to be a sort of evil.

They named her Annalynn. She had her mothers green eyes and nose, with her fathers hair and lips. The combination made her simply beautiful. She is a sweet and kind girl, but always did things independently. She stands out from the rest of the girls in her village, not just because of her beauty, but because she didn't act like them. Anna loved climbing trees and being adventurous. Everyday is a search for something new. By the age of five she decided she wanted to hunt with bow and arrows. Her parents of course said yes to make her happy, but they could not find somebody to teach her. So Anna taught herself. It took years but she mastered it within time.

But all the other girls didn't like her for her differences. They wished to marry a handsome prince, while Anna wished to marry a man that cared for her and didn't care about wealth. The other girls wanted dresses, while Anna wanted hunting clothes. The girls sat and had tea parties, while Anna ran and climbed trees. They had dolls, she had targets.

Always the out cast. So that's why at age ten all the girls started picking on her. Anna never let it get to her, she didn't care what they thought. It was herself she always strived to please.

Come her 13th birthday, she felt her greatest. It was a week after the birthday when she experience the first sign of her rare gift.

"You'll never learn to be a proper girl. You won't even wear a skirt." One girl, Lacy, scoffs at Anna as she walks by.

"You live your life how you what to live it, I'll live mine the way I want to. How I live does not at all affect the way you live."

"Nobody will ever love you when you talk, dress, and act like that."

She takes a good hard look at Lacy but just before Anna is about to say another word she's suddenly overpowered by a feeling. Her eyes blank out and she's seeing a whole other place. She sees Lacy sitting next to a bed, holing a woman's hand. And a man in the corner of the room drinking whiskey from a bottle. She feels emotions such as grief, sadness and fear.

Then she's back to seeing reality. Shocked by what came over her she steps back a little. Lacy is surprised also.

"I feel bad for you." Anna murmurs. "It must be hard to be loosing a mother and know that you will be left with your drunk father."

"H-how did you know that? Nobody knows that!"

"I-I don't know." Anna steps back more, scared of herself. How did she do that? How could she do something like that? "I don't know." She steps back more before striding back home as fast as she can. She runs past her father who is chopping firewood, and past her mother who is cooking lunch. She slams the door to her bedroom and locks it. Sitting and shaking on her bed, she replays the events of what just happened over and over again.

"Sweetheart?" Her mother's voice echoes in her ears. She ignores the other calls and simply tells her mother to go away.

Is such a thing even possible? Is such a thing even human?
Not only did she see Lacy's past but she felt the emotions that went with it. All she did was look at the girl.

Once Anna shakes the intense and overwhelming feeling she goes to the dinner table and sits down where her parents are waiting.

"Anna dear, what happened?" Her mother takes her hand and give her daughter a concerned look.

"I-I don't know. The girls were picking on me me again and then I just...I just looked into one of the girls pasts."

"What do you mean?" Her father questions.

"I mean...I saw Lacy's past."

"You looked into the past?"

"Oh my, Will we were overthinking things for thirteen years. Her gift isn't even bad." Lydia sighs with relief and places a hand on her chest.

"What gift!?"Anna looks at them with the same scared look she had not long ago.

"Darling, take a seat." Her father points to the chair across from them. She hesitates but then does as told.

"Lydia, this is all your fault, why don't you start by telling her."

"Fine." Lydia grumbles and turns to Anna. "Before you were born I found out that I couldn't have children."

"So I'm adopted?"

"No, no, no, you are completely mine. I just made a deal with a very dark and powerful man. We dare not speak the name, but around these parts he's called the dark one. When I asked him if he could help me he offered up me a deal. The deal was that he would give me something that would make me pregnant but the price was that the child would have a gift."

"So your saying the dark one gave me a magic power." Anna says bluntly.

"Your mother took the risk of not knowing weather you'd be evil or not."

"Well then your all bloody lucky I'm not then!" Anna gets up and storms off to her bedroom. Anna paces for the next few hours to gather an idea on what to do and how to handle the new found power. The only thing is, is that she doesn't know how to use it or 'turn it on'. The name of the dark one isn't known to her but she's sure she can ask around and find him. So that's what she's going to do. Anna gets her bow and arrow and sneaks out her bedroom window. She's going to find the dark one, and make him take the power away.