Gothel woke up in an endless sea of yellow wildflowers with the odd sisters looking down on her with their giant bulging bug eyes and goofy birdlike expressions. She hadn’t noticed when they were talking earlier, but they somehow still managed to look young after all those years. Sure, they looked older than when they were girls together, but they looked so much younger than they actually were. She wondered if anyone would have guessed all of them were hundreds of years old.

“You’re looking quite young again yourself,” said Lucinda, reading Gothel’s mind and offering her hand to help Gothel to her feet.

“Our time in the dead woods together as girls feels like a lifetime ago,” said Martha.

“Many lifetimes, actually,” said Ruby.

“It feels like yesterday to me,” said Gothel.

“And yet since you’ve moved into this house, time seems to move slowly for you,” said Lucinda.

“Come on, let’s go into our house. It’s closer. You passed out after you drank your mother’s blood,” said Martha.

“What house?” Gothel looked around, trying to find the house. The last time the odd sisters had visited, they spoke of the mysterious house, but she had been too exhausted to remark that she didn’t know what they were talking about. This time it just seemed ridiculous, like everything else. Lost sisters. Dragon-fairy witches. Invisible houses. She was at her wit’s end with the sisters.

“Calm yourself, Gothel! Really, now. Such uncharitable thoughts,” said Ruby.

“Our house is right there,” said Lucinda, pointing at it as if Gothel were clearly out of her mind.

“I don’t see a house, Lucinda. You are always talking about a house, but I’ve never seen it.”

The odd sisters had worried looks on their faces.

“What? What is it?”

“We’re not sure,” said Lucinda. “Come with us.”

They took Gothel by the hand and led her to their house, which was only a few feet away.

From her pocket Lucinda took a pouch that contained a powder the color of sapphires. “Here, put your hand out.” Lucinda poured a bit of powder onto Gothel’s hand. “Now blow, in that direction.”

When Gothel blew the powder into the air, the house started to materialize before her eyes. She couldn’t help gasping at having the front door right before her nose. “Can anyone else see this house?”

The odd sisters laughed. “No, just us, and any other witches that may happen by. But I think Jacob chose this place for its lack of magical beings. I don’t think we have to worry about any unwanted visitors knocking on our door.”

Gothel seemed to be taking something in. “So I’m not magical, am I?” she said as they walked into the odd sisters’ house. To the right was the living room, with a large fireplace flanked by two enormous black onyx ravens, and to the left was a cozy sunlit kitchen with a black-and-white checkered floor and a large round window.

The odd sisters gave her a sad look. “You still have the power of the rapunzel flower,” said Lucinda. They could see the endless wildflower field from the window. “Jacob chose a good hiding place for it here. I doubt anyone would find it even if they came looking for it.”

“Anyone can use the power of the rapunzel flower! I’m not a witch! I’m not magical!”

“Maybe the blood just needs time to take effect,” said Ruby.

“Yes, Gothel, try not to worry! You’re a witch in your heart!” said Martha.

“But I’m not! I’m not a witch! I’m not even queen of my lands! I have no lands. I have no sisters! I have nothing!”

“You have us!” said Lucinda. She turned to Ruby and asked, “Will you make us some tea, dear? Gothel is very upset.”

“Yes! Of course!” said Ruby, rushing to the stove to put on the kettle and knocking a cake tin that was sitting on the counter onto the floor, making a terrible clamor. “Don’t worry! The cake is fine!”

“Oh good! I was really looking forward to having some cake!” said Martha.

Gothel shot them the evil eye. “Never mind the cake!” she snapped.

“Well, it really is very good cake. It’s our friend’s special walnut cake. She baked it for us!” said Martha.

Lucinda gave her sisters a look. “Stop talking about the cake, you’re driving Gothel mad with all this cake talk!” Then she took Gothel’s hand in hers and said, “Don’t you worry, Gothel! We consider you a sister. You know we do! It’s not your fault you were denied your inheritance. It’s not your fault your ancestors didn’t pass down their powers and knowledge.”

“Do you really think of me as a sister?” asked Gothel.

“We do!” said Martha, looking at her sisters for reassurance. “Don’t we, Ruby?”

“Yes! Of course we do!” said Ruby as she was nervously fumbling for a cup for Gothel’s tea.

“Do you think there is some kind of spell you could do? Something that would really make us sisters? Something that would let me share your powers?” asked Gothel. She could only imagine how she looked to the sisters. Sad and pathetic. Pleading. She hated herself for even asking them.

The sisters looked at each other nervously. “Oh, Gothel, I wish we could, but I’m afraid it’s impossible,” they all said together.

“I see!” she said, getting up from her seat and going to leave.

“No, really, Gothel! We just did a very powerful spell to bring our sister back! If we give too much of ourselves away, then we won’t have—”

“Wait? Where did you get that spell?” asked Gothel.

“What do you mean?” asked Lucinda, trying to sound innocent, though thoroughly unconvincing.

“You know exactly what I mean! You got it from one of my mother’s books, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it’s a variation of one of your mother’s spells. I think you might find it very interesting, Gothel. If you would sit down and calm yourself, I will tell you about it. It concerns you, actually. I found it when we were looking for something to help your sisters when we were in the dead woods. Your mother—”

“I can’t believe this! I may not be magical, but I’m not stupid! You didn’t go to the dead woods to help me! You wanted my mother’s magic!”

“Gothel, please calm down! I’m getting the tea! Every conversation is better over tea!” said Ruby, still fumbling in the cupboards for the teacups.

“And cake, don’t forget the cake!” called Martha.

“Yes, cake! Let’s slice the cake,” said Ruby, clapping her hands, clearly very excited about the cake.

“Sisters, please! Stop with the cake!” said Lucinda. Then, patting Gothel’s hand, she said, “Gothel, listen to me. We told you we wanted access to your mother’s books. We never kept that from you. What is this all about?”

“Did you even give me my mother’s blood?” Gothel’s entire face changed. She seemed more like a woman who should be the queen of the dead than the odd sisters had ever expected. A queen without her lands.

“What?” asked Lucinda, taking her hand off Gothel’s like it hurt her to touch it.

“You heard me! Was that actually my mother’s blood you gave me? Jacob warned me you would destroy the dead woods! He told me you would take everything from me!”

“Of course that was your mother’s blood!” said Ruby, becoming hurt and angry.

But Gothel wasn’t listening. “What really happened to the rest of my mother’s blood? Did you take it? What am I thinking? Of course you did! How else would you have the power to bring your sister back?”

“Gothel, that is enough! After everything we have done for you! This is how you treat us?” said Lucinda.

Ruby rushed over to Gothel, her hands trembling. “Gothel, here, take this.” Ruby handed her a cup of tea. “You really need to calm down. You’re starting to upset Lucinda! And look at Martha, she’s ripping her dress!”

“I’m not ripping my dress! You were just ripping yours!” said Martha, her eyes wild.

Gothel saw there was dirt caked under Ruby’s nails when she handed Gothel her tea. “Ruby! What’s that?” She tried to snatch Ruby’s hand, but Ruby pulled it away too quickly.

“What’s what?” asked Ruby, quickly putting her hands inside the pockets of her skirt.

“On your hands! What’s that on your hands?” Gothel demanded.

“Oh! I don’t know.” She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. “What’s wrong with you, Gothel? You’re acting deranged!” Ruby said, backing away from Gothel. “I think it’s time we cut the cake!”

“Take your hands out of your pockets right now! I want to see them!” said Gothel, raising her voice and advancing on Ruby, causing her to back away again and knock into the kitchen counter.

“No!” screamed Ruby. “I won’t! Stay away from me, Gothel!” Ruby started to panic. “Lucinda, Lucinda, calm her down! Get her away from me!” Ruby ran to the big round window and covered her ears. “Get her away from me! Get her away from me!” She said it again and again, but Gothel didn’t let Ruby’s fit distract her.

“Let me see your hands!” Gothel insisted.

Ruby nervously looked from Gothel to Lucinda to Martha. “Gothel, calm down right now or Lucinda will put you to sleep, I’m warning you!”

“Show me your hands!” screamed Gothel. Her face was contorted with rage, frightening Martha, who was laughing nervously and trying her best to make light of the situation. Lucinda just stared at Gothel with a mixture of horror, resentment, and heartbreak on her face.

“Stop it, Gothel! You’re ruining everything! How are we supposed to have cake and tea with you acting so hysterical?” asked Martha.

Lucinda smiled. “Go ahead, Ruby, show her,” she said in a very serious matter-of-fact tone, causing all the women in the room to stop their theatrics and turn their attention to her. “Don’t be nervous, dear. Gothel can’t hurt you,” she said reassuringly. “After all, Gothel isn’t even a witch.”

Ruby and Martha gasped—and Gothel looked as if she had been smacked in the face. She was hurt by hearing Lucinda say that aloud. She had known it was true. She had known it in her heart, but to hear Lucinda say it like that, with so much malice, made it seem real for the first time.

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 went 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.

“We want to make it right. Please, let us use the flower,” begged Ruby.

“No! I need it! I’m going to find a way to heal my sisters! You’re right! I’m tired of sitting around waiting for you to help me. I need to help myself!”

“Yes! When we come back, we will help you find a way to save your sisters. We promise, just as soon as we’ve helped Maleficent!”

“Fine, bring me with you! It’s my flower and if you’re going to use it, I want to be there to make sure it’s protected.”

The sisters looked at each other, stupefied. “That’s not possible. You don’t have any powers. It would be dangerous for you,” said Lucinda, clearly tired of the conversation.

“Then do the spell that makes me your real sister, and we will use the flower to heal the Dragon Witch. And then we will heal my sisters together.” Gothel was desperate. She knew the odd sisters were powerful witches and there really wasn’t anything she could do to keep them from taking the flower.

“If you knew how magic worked, Gothel, you’d understand we can’t do that. Not all at once, at any rate. There must be time between powerful spells.”

Gothel looked down at the floor. She saw little bits of red cloth from Ruby’s skirt scattered on the tiles, and she thought of blood. And then she remembered: she had no choice. She couldn’t let the witches take the flower from her. It was her only source of magic, her only chance to save her sisters. She said the words and wished with all her being they would help and guide her.

“Then I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

“What are you doing, Gothel?” said Martha, worried by hearing her say an incantation.

But Lucinda laughed. “Oh, look, Sisters. Gothel thinks she’s doing a spell!”

Martha and Ruby joined in Lucinda’s laughter, and it grew so loud the teacups started to rattle on their shelf, and the cake tin was vibrating on the counter, threatening to fall on the floor again.

“I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

“Gothel, this is just silly! Stop embarrassing yourself!” said Lucinda.

The odd sisters’ house started to shake so violently it knocked their teacups and knickknacks off the shelves.

“Sisters! Stop your laughing!” But Lucinda realized it wasn’t their laughing that was causing their house to shake. It was Gothel’s spell. The house was shaking so powerfully the windows were bursting out of their frames and the odd sisters had to hold on to each other to keep from falling.

“Gothel! What are you doing? Stop this!”

“I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

Gothel screamed the incantation, her face transforming into something sinister. The odd sisters had never seen her like that before. She looked like an entirely different person. Focused. Confident. Queen of the dead. And utterly terrifying. It was as if she was channeling her mother.

Gothel flicked her hand, causing the flowerpot to fly out of Ruby’s hand and into hers with such a powerful force the pot cracked in it on impact.

“Gothel!”

“I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due.”

Gothel pushed the hair away from her face the way her mother always had when she was about to do powerful magic. She gathered all her hate and pain and felt it surging through her body. She could actually feel it; it was like a white-hot ball in her stomach that was growing so large she could no longer contain it. She felt her hands shake and realized the rage would consume her if she didn’t release it. She reached out her hands, which looked familiar and yet other to her—they looked like her mother’s—and she released a torrent of lightning into the floor, causing the house to shake more violently than before.

“Gothel, stop! You’re going to kill all of us!”

The witches could see the earth outside exploding violently, bringing forth a legion of skeletal creatures that swarmed the odd sisters’ house, clambering to get through the doors and windows. The sound of their bone fingers scratching on the windows and wood was terrifying. Their awkward and broken bodies were pouring through every broken window like a plague.

“Gothel, no! Tell them to stop!”

“You will never have the flower!” screamed Gothel. “Never!” She stretched out her hand, grasping at the air, tightening her grip on something invisible, causing the odd sisters to fall to their knees and scream in pain as she brought her hand down in a quick motion. “Keep still, witches!”

“Gothel, please stop this! We don’t want to hurt you!”

Gothel laughed. “Look at poor powerless Gothel now! What was it you called me? Silly?”

Lucinda’s face was filled with pain. She struggled against Gothel’s spell and slowly got to her feet. “Gothel! Stop this at once!” She slammed Gothel with a powerful blast, causing Gothel to fly backward through the large kitchen window and smash against the apple tree in the witches’ garden. The blast scattered the skeletons in every direction, rendering most of them to dust.

Gothel found herself lying in the wildflowers, littered with the remains of her minions. She was covered in bruises and had deep gashes on her arms from going through the odd sisters’ kitchen window. She thought her face might be bleeding as well. She wasn’t sure. She just lay there, staring at the odd sisters’ house as it rose into the sky. She sat up, clutching the flowerpot in one hand and flinging her other hand at the odd sisters, trying to direct lightning at them, but nothing came forth. There was no lightning. There was no magic. She watched them, with their bug-eyed expressions of astonishment, disappearing into the clouds. And from her life.