To See the World

In the Fall family, mothers curse their offspring who will grow up to curse their own children. No Fall can see the flower of their namesake, or they loose their magic...forever.

Of course, it was no problem for those that share names with rather rare or exotic flowers. But for Wisteria Fall and her sister, Iris, things were a bit more complicated, especially since other witches tended to plant wisterias and irises in little pots that sit right on their windowsills.

"Bad luck," Alyssum Fall always said. "But you, the next Fall generation, have to carry on our family legacy. You have to see the world."

And the Fall family had legacy indeed. They were the best witches of the Woods of Fog, potionmakers, spellcasters, natural-born leaders. They had to see the world in a different light, see the world how no other witch could. But Daffodil Fall never saw the world, there were simply too many daffodils used in potions and spells and mana enhancers for her to leave the Fall Division without a blindfold. And even then, who knows, the blindfold might fall off or something.

What Wisteria never really understood was why. Why, pray tell, would any mother willingly curse their own child? It made no sense, and Wisteria never saw anything to indicate that other families were doing it too. Sure, the Shadows named all of their witches after snakes, but Cobra Shadow had always loved cobras, and it was the same with all the other members of the Shadow family. The Falls stood out, black against the white of the rest of magickind. Even the fairies agreed, and fairies were the ones who will tell you the sky's purple just to disagree with you.

But as Wisteria's twelfth birthday struck, the age when children became full-fledged witches, it became evident that she had been asking the wrong question all along. It was not a why, but a how. How was this curse made? How did it get to the Falls? How, how, how?