Well... Now you know everything. What no one dared to tell. What time tried to bury and the wisest preferred to forget. That broken beginning, that long-established spell, that first crack that seemed insignificant... and yet was the beginning of the disaster.

But don't you think all of this was all tragedy. So, now that you know—all that matters, at least—it's time to put the prologue behind you, step through the door, and see for yourself if this all ends as a miracle... or as just another tragedy on the list of stories no one wants to remember.

So...

It all starts in the other side of the city. A beautiful morning, outside the McGee Mansion, in the North of the city. Someone came out of it. It was the embodiment of handsomeness itself. That person was no other than Marcel Lacroix, the most handsome cat of them all in the city. In that beautiful morning, he needed to go to the market so he can purchase something special for his stepmother, Alice McGee (or Miss Alice for short). He had a long sky-blue raincoat, a distinctive Irish hat, snow-gray fur, and eyes as blue as the sea. Familiar, huh?

Just as he arrived at the market, everyone was opening their stalls to start selling products. But something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Marcel realized that behind his back, people were starting to talk badly about him.

"I think that cat is retarded..."

"Very strange."

"His head is in the clouds. I can't believe there are people like that in the world."

"Absent-minded."

"He should get a girlfriend instead of fantasizing and reading books so much."

"Idiot."

"Mogolic."

"He gets too excited. I'm sorry for my indifference, but I associate that with someone who overindulges in sugar."

Marcel did his best to avoid getting into a bad mood. No one would want to see him in a bad mood anyway. But those comments were... half true. Marcel loves reading books so much, he dreams of living in a fantasy world and 'being rescued by a princess,' and he gets very excited. Why? I'll explain this to you later, little reader.

Marcel walked through the market... and there wasn't nothing interesting for Miss Alice, his stepmother. There it was. In front of Marcel, a dead end. High walls, incomprehensible echos, and a shadow that seemed to look at him with too much knowledge… and in the distance, wedged between two damp brick walls, a place that seemed to have been forgotten by time and logic.

"Excuse me, monsieur!" -Marcel said. "I think I've gotten a little lost... I went into ze Marché looking for something for my stepmother, and without realizing it, I ended up on this little street. But… comment dire... There seems to be no way out."

The shadow started running.

"Monsieur! Wait! Don't be scared of me!" -Marcel shouted. He started running towards him.

In the background, wedged between two damp brick walls, a door that seemed to have been forgotten by time and logic. It seemed to lead to a staircase. The shadow even dissapeared, but Marcel thought it went through here.

"Hmm... pardon... this might look like... a bookstore? Because à première vue, it looks more like... comment dire... a furniture store, or perhaps a forgotten sanctuary for broken cups."-Marcel thought to himself.

He pushed the door. It creaked as if no one had touched it in years. Inside, the darkness was dense, almost physical, as if the shadows were on full duty. The stairs led only to darkness, and Marcel steeled himself, going down and down them. Upon arriving, he noticed that the place seemed a bit odd for a bookstore. There were bottles, tables, a cigar-like atmosphere, and a pool table.

Although he didn't know it yet, Marcel was crossing the threshold into the inexplicable.

"Bonjour...?" -Marcel asked, his voice sounding tiny in the emptiness. "Is anyone there?"

The echo responded, but in another language. An older one. Or perhaps it was just Marcel's imagination, already disoriented by the smell of old wood and something else… like bottled nostalgia. That's when he saw it.

A alcohol bottle, sitting alone in the center of a rusty iron table, illuminated by a beam of light that seemed to come from nowhere. The bottle had no label, but it vibrated slightly, as if something inside was waiting to be released. Marcel's mind thought it was a potion, an elixir, or something magical than ever.

Attracted without reason, like an insect to a lamp, the figure approached. He stared at it. And then, without thinking… he was about to touch it. His body leaned toward her, and as he was about to touch the glass, the world folded. As if the bottle were a portal. As if it contained something bigger than the bar. Bigger than the city. Bigger than himself.

"Hey!" -A female voice shouted. "Are you lost, lil' guy?"

Marcel screamed in horror, turning so fast that he tripped on a rug that wasn't there before. The result was a clumsy landing, with a mixture of broken dignity and a bruised hip. The female voice came to him, guilty for making him to be scared.

"Are you okay?" -she asked, approaching unhurriedly, as if this happened every Thursday.

It was her.

Elizabeth Hendricks.

"Yes... yes, I think so, ma chérie... What... what is this place?" -Marcel stammered, as Elizabeth helped him up with surprising strength for someone so thin.

"Are you lost?" -Elizabeth asked him.

"What? No, no, mais non, of course not. I came… because I thought this was a library. You know, because of the élégant-alike shadow… the noir atmosphere… that silence absolu. Very bibliothèque-like, n'est-ce pas?" -Marcel said.

Elizabeth stared at him for a few seconds. Then she smiled cryptically.

"Sure. A library with liquor. A classic." -Elizabeth said, as she turned gracefully and began to walk between the tables, almost floating, as if her feet hadn't quite touched the ground. He followed her, still confused, looking at the bottles murmuring in languages ​​he didn't know existed.

"This is the Marglow Bar," Elizabeth said, as if that explained everything. "A special place. It welcomes anyone who needs to come in, even if they don't always know why. Nobody has visited this place for a very while..."

"Aha… and that nom de plume so… extravagant?" -Marcel asked.

"My ex-partner, Frank, decided on that name," -Elizabeth said sharply. "He wanted to give it a mysterious and mystical tone... It's a shame he's no longer in this world. Everything would be so easy."

Marcel nodded very slowly, as if feeling a great deal of compassion for Frank.

"Pardon of what happened to your husband, chérie." -Marcel said.

"And now that you're here… you could stay. We're looking for someone. A helper. Someone who can clean, keep customers from getting disappointed in us, and occasionally serve drinks. Someone with a heart…" -Elizabeth said.

"Huh? Moi? Mon dieu! I don't even know how to serve coffee without it being a catastrophique disaster! Afterwards, i don't serve for nothing..." -Marcel said.

"Perfect, then you fit in." -Elizabeth smiled again. "Although... I left out one part."

He frowned.

"Pray tell, chérie!" -Marcel said.

"Nothing major. Just that the bar is… let's say… slightly cursed by a vengeful witch. But you don't believe in that stuff, do you?" -Elizabeth said, with a blushing face.

"A quoi?" -Marcel asked.

"Nothing, nothing. So what do you say, little boy? Are you staying?" -Elizabeth said.

And there, standing in the alcoholic heart of the impossible, staring at a woman who was perhaps not even trustworthy, and surrounded by liquors that seemed to whisper his name backward... he made the only logical decision.

"Oui, chérie! I will serve you the best i can!" -Marcel accepted, excited.

Elizabeth held out her hand to him.

In the background, a lamp flickered. Someone—or something—made a toast in the darkness. And the bar, silently, accepted its new employee.

"Welcome to the Marglow Bar. What was your name?" -Elizabeth said.

"My name? Je suis Marcel Lacroix, chérie." -Marcel answered.

"Mine is Elizabeth Hendricks. Nice to meet you. Anyways, you start tomorrow." -Elizabeth said, smilling.

They said farewell, and Marcel left the place. He searched for a quick exit, and he found it easily, somehow. As you've probably noticed, little reader, Marcel uses French words, combining them in sentences with American English. Everyone was insulting him for being "weirdo, peculiar," and having his head in the clouds. Time to tie up loose ends.

Marcel suffers from a mental disorder. Before you associate it with schizophrenia, let me clarify that the disorder he suffers from is known as ASD. Autism Spectrum Disorder. It's a condition related to brain development that affects how a person perceives and socializes with others, causing problems with social interaction and communication.

You may be familiar with this.

Marcel likes to read books. A lot. He likes to imagine fantastical worlds of whatever: fantasy kingdoms, princesses trapped in towers, brave knights, dragons, and ruthless giants. And something important that should never be missing: true love's kiss.

Marcel didn't have a very, very good time in his childhood. He's a cat who immigrated from France to America as a child, with a family made up of his uncles, parents, and his sister. Remember his sister, who will be an important factor.

While Marcel's father (Pierre) was extremely affectionate toward him, the same couldn't be said of his mother. Having been born differently, she despised him, treated him like an object, and abused him. She made him do all the chores around the house.

Marcel doesn't have many memories of his mother. The only things he remembered about her were the hard chores she made him do, his fear of her, and her hatred for him. She mistreated him and hit him like a toy she didn't love much.

His sister... oh, his sister. Her name was Cassandra. She was his older sister, a 14-year-old girl, while he was 9. She resembled his mother more than Marcel's OWN mother. She was the complete opposite: she loved him, cared for him, cared for his well-being, and most importantly, protected him.

This aroused great envy in Marcel's mother. So much so that once, she forbade the two of them from interacting. Even so, they did so in secret, or sometimes, in silence. And so they remained in her house, day after day, week after week, and eventually for many years.

Marcel was very uncommunicative during this period; he spent almost the entire day pacing in his room or sitting in a chair reading a novel. Sometimes he read with Cassandra, and sometimes she read to him. Everything was bliss for them, at least when their mother wasn't involved...

Until that fateful day. Pierre, Marcel's father, was invited to a Mardi Gras party being held in a building. Cassandra tucked Marcel into bed, promising him she would return. She told him one thing: If he missed her too much, he only had to do one thing: look at the bright star in the sky.

Remember this star; it will be so crucial to Marcel's life.

That was the last time they saw each other. Neither she nor Pierre nor his uncles returned. Marcel worried deeply about this. He asked his mother about them, and she seemed to feign kindness and said in a chilling voice:

"They went on a journey... and from now on, you'll be in my care, my son."

Marcel never saw them again. But he worried about his sister, for she was his whole world. Every night, he made a single wish upon the shining star:

"I wish to see her again."