𝘗𝘌𝘙𝘏𝘈𝘗𝘚 ━━ 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙀𝙧𝙖

━ CHAPTER EIGHT

Seven years ago:

Tula woke up with a start and sat up. She took a few deep breaths before pulling the covers off of her purple coloured pajamas.

She squinted at the darkness in her room and was able to make out her twin sisters sleeping figure opposite her.

"Pearl?" She whispered, her sister grunted in response before going back to sleep.

Pearl earing (non plural)

The eight year old girl crept out of her bedroom and snuck across the hall. She passed her younger brother, Milo's, room to her older sisters Ambers room.

Amber necklace. Milo.

"Amy? Are you up?"

The eldest Marcel child poked her head out of the door. "Toodles? What are you doing? Was it another dream?"

Ever since Tula could remember she had been having these strange dreams. Of owls and strange creatures.

"Yeah, are you going out to meet Ashton?"

Is Ashton to blame????

Ashton was Ambers boyfriend. He was a funny, movie loving guy who's dad was a bit prejudiced. Amber and Tula's dad was a bit cold to the boy simply because he was Ambers first boyfriend. More than often, the three youngest Marcel siblings caught Amber sneaking out to meet him.

"Maybe." Amber answered vaguely. "Why don't you go wake mum?"

Amber and Tula's mother was a delightful woman called Scarlett Marcel. All of her children were carbon copies of her with dirty blonde hair and honey coloured eyes. She and their father, Dexter, were childhood sweethearts and were currently expecting their fifth child.

Scarlett top. Dexter.

"She's scary when she's sleepy." Tula whispered, "Don't you remember the other day when Milo broke her lamp?"

Amber shrugged. "Milo is five. She's teaching him right from wrong."

Tula huffed at Ambers attitude. "Fine.. fine. I'm gonna go downstairs."

"Don't set anything on fire!" Amber called after her quietly in a teasing tone.

Tula giggled and rolled her eyes.

Like she'd ever do that.

She crept down the stairs of her familys cottage, jumping over a particularly creaky step and stepping over a step that had the carpet missing- curtsey of her mother when Amber came home one next morning after going to a concert with her friends and vomiting. No matter what Scarlett tried, she could not get the stain out.

Tula sat in front of the dying fire and pulled her fathers paper waste basket from his office. She threw in a few scrunched up pieces of paper with her fathers unruly scrawl on them into the fire place.

He loved to write, her father. He came up with a new story to tell every night when tucking the girls in. Pearl in particular liked listening to his stories, she wanted to be a famous author when she grew up, and write crime novels like the ones her mother read.

Tula sighed to herself in boredom and contemplated whether or not to wake her brother Milo up and ask to borrow one of his toys.

Suddenly- one of the logs fell out from the fire place and rolled onto the carpet. Tula jumped up and sent the plastic bin knocking over.

Panic swept over the eight year old and she grabbed a blanket from the couch and threw it over the log.

Hopefully that would stop the fire from spreading while she grabbed some water.

Of course, it didn't work like that. So when Tula come running back in the room as fast as her little legs could carry her, in her hand an over spilling glass of water, the living room was already full flame.

Survival instincts took over as the smoke made it's way up and her nose and she began to gag. She ran out of the house through the front door and fell to her knees coughing, her hands hitting the stones that were hidden beneath a thin layer of snow.

When she finally turned back around- her home was on fire.

Screams coming from inside made Tula's eyes widen in fear. She scrambled to feet, shaking, she ran back into the house and tried to climb back up the burning stairs.

The sound of a beam crashing upstairs distracted her. Her foot slipped on the carpet-less step and she fell down, trapping her foot in the bannister.

She heard more screaming, her brother begging for help, her father trying to bash open the door against the beam as he yelled for his wife to wake up.

Black spotted Tulas vision as she hyperventilated. Hands unlodged her foot and quickly carried her outside. She squirmed in the mystery persons hold.

"No- no, AMBER! PEARL! DAD- PUT ME DOWN!" She screeched, when her feet touched the ground she tried to run back in only to be pulled back by her collar.

"Toodles," She heard a voice murmur her nickname and she instantly recognised it.

"Ashton? Ashton- we have to help them!"

He shook his head silently, his apple bobbing as tears streamed down his cheeks.

"We can't. The fire station are already on there way, we'll only end up dead ourselves." Ashton explained quietly.

A sob escaped the little girl, "This is all my fault!" She wailed. "T-this is all my fault- I didn't mean to- I didn't know-"

"No," He sushed, pulling her into his arms as a sob of his own passed his lips.

"It's mine. I should've been faster."

Is Ashton to blame????

No. Of course he wasn't. It was Tula's fault.

Why hadn't she just woke her mother?

Now she was an orphan.

Amber Marcel. Pearl Marcel. Milo Marcel. Dexter Marcel. Scarlett Marcel. The unborn baby- none of them survived.

Tula was sent to live with her mothers father. An old, senile man.

Who hated magic.