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Gothel stood there, just looking at them. Really looking at them for the first time since they had come back. Sometimes we create images of the people we love and hate in our minds, and those images override what we see with our eyes, even when they are right in front of us. Even if we’ve imagined them to be monsters, to see them as they truly are with our eyes and our hearts is sometimes shocking. Gothel was seeing the odd sisters differently, more clearly. She was seeing them for who they were on that day, not as the young girls she carried in her memories. Or the villains she had made them to be while they were away. She was seeing who they were in that moment, and she found they were much changed. Even though they were not old and withered, time had marred them in other ways. Time had changed their spirit. There was something sinister about them. Something wicked she hadn’t seen in them when they were younger. And if she had seen that wickedness back then, it had been only a spark. A potential for evil, but not evil itself. Now that evil was blazing like a fire within them.
It was almost as if they weren’t the sisters she had known when they were all young together. And they weren’t entirely. Something was wrong. Something was different, perhaps missing. She couldn’t quite place it.
“Gothel, please stop this nonsense!” said Lucinda.
“Oh please! I know why you’re here! For the flower! Now tell me the truth, did you take it?” asked Gothel.
“Yes! We took it!” screamed Martha. “We’re sorry! We had to! It’s not what you think, Gothel! It really isn’t!”
“We made sure you used it before we took it, though, didn’t we, Gothel? Now calm down and I’ll bring you some cake!” said Ruby, ripping at the lace on her dress and scattering it on the black-and-white checkered kitchen tiles.
“How could you do this to me? All of this has been lies from the start, hasn’t it? You never cared about me or my sisters!” Gothel’s face was full of rage; she was like a wild beast ready to rip out the odd sisters’ throats.
“No! If you would just listen to us, you’d understand! We shared with a friend the spell we used to get Circe back. She is like a daughter to us, and something wen
t horribly wrong. She isn’t the fairy-witch she used to be, and it’s our fault! We need the flower to help her heal!” said Martha, backing away from Gothel in fear.
“More lies!” screamed Gothel.
“No! We love you! We do! We were going to just borrow the flower to try to help Maleficent, and then we were going to bring it back. I promise!” said Ruby, reaching into a nearby cabinet. “Look! We put it in a special pot so it wouldn’t wither. And we enchanted the soil. We won’t hurt the flower, we promise!” Ruby showed Gothel the flower. “Look! We took every precaution. We know how much the flower means to you. We would never do anything to hurt it or you!”
“Why didn’t you just ask me for the flower? Why try to steal it?” asked Gothel.
Ruby and Martha were pacing around the room, fretting and ripping at their dresses and tearing the feathers out of their hair. “We don’t know! We don’t know! Oh, Gothel, we are so sorry!”
“Sisters, be quiet!” yelled Lucinda. “Look at you! You look dreadful! Stop that at once! I won’t have you begging this sorry excuse for a witch for forgiveness!”
“Why do you really need the flower? Please tell me!” said Gothel, crying.
“Please, Gothel, stop your crying at once! We’re telling you the truth. We need it for our friend,” said Lucinda, who looked extremely vexed at being surrounded by hysterical women.
“But what about me? I’m your friend! You say I’m like a sister, yet my actual sisters have been dead for hundreds of years and you’ve done nothing to help me bring them back! They’re lying in the cellar with what’s left of my family’s legacy as I molder away in this prison of a house! I feel like Jacob must have felt while waiting for my mother to summon him. That’s what I do, wait for you to come and swoop in and tell me everything will be okay, and it never is!”
“Gothel, you could have pored over your mother’s books and found a way to wield her magic! All the answers are in those books you have stashed away in your library. If you really wanted to save your sisters, you would have found a way! You could have learned the spells, and you could have found a witch to teach you. But you never did. It’s your fault, not ours!” said Lucinda.
“You were supposed to be those witches! You don’t think I’ve heard the stories about you? Things you did while I slept! You think you can hide who you’ve become from me? It wasn’t hard to put all the gossip together! Triplet witches. Terrorizing little girls! Your treachery is legendary! And now you’re telling me you’ve made a mistake with the Dragon Witch? The Dragon Witch who destroyed the entire Fairylands? Who are you really?”
Lucinda’s rage was starting to mount. “We are your sisters! We love you! Now stop this nonsense!” But Gothel was still in hysterics. She wanted answers. She was determined to find that the odd sisters had betrayed her in some way.
“Tell me how Circe died! Tell me what happened to her! In one letter, you say she was lost. In another she died. Now you say you have her back! Tell me the truth!” Gothel’s face was splotchy and red, and her eyes were swollen from crying.
“Gothel, I will tell you, but you have to calm down and really listen to me. She was killed when Maleficent destroyed the Fairylands.” It looked as if it hurt Lucinda to say it aloud, like the words ripped at her heart.
Gothel’s eyes widened. “The same Maleficent you’re trying to help now? She killed your sister and you’re trying to help her? By Hades you’re either lying to me or you’re more foolish than I thought! Either way, you couldn’t possibly care for me if you’re willing to betray me for the witch that killed your sister.”
“It wasn’t her fault! She doesn’t even know she did it! We’ve never told her. It would kill Maleficent if she knew!” screamed Ruby.
“We love her, Gothel! She was just a girl when it happened. She’s like a daughter to us!” said Martha.
“What happened to the Dragon Witch? What went so terribly wrong?” asked Gothel, genuinely curious.
“She gave too much of herself away to create a daughter, and now she is left with nothing. Nothing but the worst parts of herself. And it’s our fault! We didn’t take things into account. We didn’t factor that there were three of us to make Circe and only one of her to make Aurora. We’re hoping the flower can heal her, make her whole again.”
“And you shared this spell with her because you wanted to help, is that correct?” asked Gothel, becoming more hurt and disgusted with every answer she received.
“Yes, we did. But it went horribly wrong. She is more alone than ever,” said Lucinda.
“You are vile witches who destroy everything you touch. You’ve used me, killed my sisters, destroyed my lands, and now you’ve ruined the Dragon Witch’s life as well!” spat Gothel.
