I can't remember much of my early early childhood. The part before I was seven. They slip away like mist on a sunny day. All I can recall are blurry pairs of wings, a pointed horn, white shapes, an elf's face. But they're going. Going far into another land. And all I can dredge up are the memories of after I was seven.

It was mostly made up of struggling on the brink of death. There was no help. No assistance. We had to find food ourselves with no knowledge. There was a forest, though. We got most of our food from there. Sometimes, in the summer, things could actually go OK, unless our quarry tried to run away or if the plants withered. Me and Hataki and Desna would have gone digging for roots. Or playing with what few friends we had. We were too weird, the other children used to say. With our multicoloured eyes and half-pointed ears. It was like we were half-magicreature, they said. This would normally have been followed by speculations on what our parents were. One Puritan boy , Holp, came up with the theory that they were mutated zombies.

I used to hate Holp with a passion so fierce that it ate me up. It was unbearable to hear him slander my parents and I couldn't do anything because they weren't even around. He was the one who led the other kids into thinking we were weirdos. He was the one who taunted out parents' absence. He was the one who started the rumour of us appearing from nowhere.

One fateful winter, 4 years ago, when I was nine, was one of the worst times of our lives. We had literally next to nothing to eat. Really. There was only lichens and snow. Forever and afterwards in my life, I call that winter 'The Bitter Cold'. And it was bitter in more than one way.

I had been trying to beg on the shadows without the Puritans seeing (begging was, and is, considered an eyesore), and Holp had just come out of the house opposite mine on Charge Road. He looked as smug as a Puritan can be. Suddenly, all my humiliation drew together into a defiance. I threw away my begging bowl and strode out into the thickly tumbling snow and the spiteful wind, trying to look as arrogant as possible. Which, considering my hollow cheeks, frostbitten fingers and tattered clothes, was near impossible.

"We-ell," he smirked, an early  version of Dresden and Tornu. "How's the mini-zombie coming along today? You look in the peak of health." His voice was mockingly sarcastic.

"If I'm in the peak of health, then you're not," I shot back.

The smile disappeared like it had never been there, to be replaced by a face that seemed as though he was sucking on a doubly sour lemon.

"You're worthless," he hissed, teeth bared in hatred. I had never and will never know the cause of his vindictive anger towards me. "Just because you're a magical doesn't make you Queen of the world. Exactly like those darned sisters of yours. Your parents were the same. Nothing and worthless!"

Riled, my body stiffened and my eyes shot green sparks as his insult to my parents bounced around my head. Another one. It was time for revenge.

"Go to hell!" I snarled. "Who are you to criticise my parents like that? Who are you to spread rumours about my family?" I could feel my Elemental magic veering crazily out of control, causing snowflakes to whirl around us like white hawks. "You're pathetic. Why do you hate me so much, of all the magicals at school? I've never done anything to you, so GET AWAY FROM HERE before I do, you bastard!" 

He gave a sardonic laugh. "Why?" he asked. "You want to know why? Well, think this." He began advancing towards me, and I dropped into a natural, defensive fighting stance. The snow crunched under his feet like shards of broken glass. "The magicals are never going to win!" he suddenly screeched. "Puritans will always win in the end, so don't go thinking you can change that!"

"What do you mean!" I shouted. "I don't!" Then my anger transformed into incredulity. "That's the reason why you hate me? Because you think I might resist?"

"It's more than that." His eyes began to grow unrestrained, as though he had wanted to say this for months. "It's that your darling parents will never come back! And I feel sorry for you. 'Cause you'll be going to that horrid community home!"

"Shut up!" I screamed. I no longer cared if other Puritans heard me. I would have let them come. This was none of their business. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" You have no right to say all that! And I hate you!"

Every ounce of loneliness, abuse, horror and struggling burst out of me, via my magic, like a nuclear bomb. A slice of white lightning cleaved through the sky like an angry snake while thunder rumbled and pelted the ground. The lightning streaked towards Holp.

And hit him in the chest.

For what seemed like an eternity, we were standing, frozen with shock and cold, as hailstones fell like hard nails. Then he began falling, falling down onto the carpet of snow.

The sudden storm passed as quickly as a fleeting cloud as Dracondese—Puritan police—came marching in ordered lines towards us, driven by the extremity of it all.

"Wake up," I muttered dully as they drew ever closer. Holp's grey eyes were fixed and glassy. There were no wounds anywhere.

That was not normal lightning.

Then, with his final gasping breath, Holp croaked out, "I'd rather be dead than be stuck behind walls..."

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" yelled one of the Dracondese. "Submit!"

"My name is Ersline Faverlow, sir." I slowly raised my hands, cringing at the bitterness of the title 'sir'.

"What happened to him?"

"Struck by lightning, sir."

"Bah. I doubt it." He held a conference with his mates, and it was clear from their evil smiles that whatever they were talking about was as nasty as death. Maybe it was death.

"Right," he finally said, looking at me like I was a bug that needed to be squished, "we've got your sentence right here." 

He held up his handheld-communicator—the hand-com—to his face.

"Ersline Faverlow, age nine, resident of 24B Charge Road, is to be imprisoned for eight months every two years until further said," he read. "That's all. One sentence." He stepped through the snowdrift and leered in my face. His breath stank like old alcohol and I felt the vomit curdle in my throat. "You've been charged with murder, girlie. You know what that means?"

"It means killing someone else intentionally. But this is manslaughter, killing people unintentionally. And I need a trial."

"A trial?" he asked like it was the craziest thing in the world. "Debris don't deserve chances." Jerking his head towards me, he said to his mates, "Guys, take her away."

"But-but-but," I stammered. "But my sisters, they'll—"

"Survive," he finished. "No ifs or buts. You're going and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can do , at least." He licked his lips hungrily. Hungry for blood.

The cell was dank, bare and dreary. My sisters, Hataki and Desna, would they have been wondering about me?

The snow fell in glazed sheets outside my single, unopenable window.

For the next eight months, life was a waking nightmare. I worried myself sick over Hataki and Desna. At night I dreamt of them, emaciated and skeletal, digging their own graves with gravestones that read, "Never to be found". Time passed so slowly and painfully that on some days I would even consider suicide, but gradually, Winter gave way to Spring, and Spring stepped aside for Summer. I don't want to tell what I went through in prison, but it was ending.

And when I was released on bail in August, Autumn was beginning to shine. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could live.

I arrived at 24B Charge Road to the sounds of laughter. Laughter. Slowing in my step, my heart palpitated like a mad butterfly. Could they really be that happy...

Cautiously, I pushed open the door.

There was an elfairy there, with ruby-red eyes and turquoise wings that shimmered like the sea. Hataki and Desna were looking gigglier than I had ever seen them, and all three were looking at a Puritan magazine.

"Guys..." The words caught in my throat.

"Ersline!" Desna squealed, leaping up and flinging herself onto me in a tight bear hug. She actually looked...alive, with an estatic shine in her eyes. "Ersline...meet Tulip. We found her in the forest when we were hunting for mushrooms." She smiled broadly. "Isn't that a miracle?"

"It is," I said, relief washing over me like a wave at finding them whole and well, with help. "It is a miracle."

All this flashed through my head as I stood in my shower. Holp's final words echoed through my brain:

"I'd rather be dead than be stuck behind walls..."

What did it mean, and why did he say it?

Some people may wonder why I relieved this moment when I'm at risk of being Snatched. To be honest, I don't know myself.

I towel dry, dress in the drab garb of the magifolk—rough grey cotton—and headed for Mass Hall.