Early morning sun filtered in through the curtains, dappling Agatha's bedspread with yellow patterns. Agatha stood in front of her bedroom mirror, finishing the braid in her hair with a little blue ribbon. Smiling, she twirled a little and admired the new dress her Aunt Celine had made for her birthday. A beautiful dress, perfectly fitting for a newly ten year old girl who had a penchant for wandering and exploring in the woods. Agatha grinned, excitement getting the better of her and propelling her out the bedroom door. 

“Aunt Celine!” she called, nearly bouncing into the kitchen expecting to see her aunt hurriedly trying to hide the birthday cake she’d made. But the kitchen was empty, and cold. The curtains hadn't  been opened, and there was no sign of Aunt Celine having been there at all. Agatha's brow furrowed in confusion as she looked through the rest of the house. Maybe she’d just gotten up earlier than she had thought, and Aunt Celine was still in bed. Worried, Agatha went back upstairs to her aunt’s room and knocked on the door.

“Aunt Celine, are you awake?”

Silence. If Agatha strained her ears, she could make out faint whispers beyond the door, but she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just the wind. She knocked again.

“Aunt Celine?”

The door flung open and Agatha staggered back as her aunt filled the doorway. Celine was a large woman, with kind eyes surrounded by kinder wrinkles. She smiled down at Agatha.

“You’re up early, Agatha, dear.” she said. Her voice sounded strange and distant, like it came from across the room, but when Agatha tried to focus on it the strangeness went away.

“It’s my birthday!", Agatha said.

“I know. Are you excited?”

“Of course, I am! I’m a whole ten years today!!”

Celine laughed and put a hand on Agatha’s back, steering her back downstairs. “You are, indeed. Do you know what you will choose?”

Agatha nearly ran to the table when they reached the bottom of the stairs. On it, several books had been strewn about, pages dingy and overlapping each other. Each one detailed a different magical discipline, and the school they were studied at: Thaumaturgy, Necromancy, Herbalism, Vocology, Essentialism, Elementology, Alchemy – all of these books were spread across the table. The pages were worn, and dog eared, lovingly read and reread over and over to the point they almost looked ancient. Agatha excitedly flipped through a dozen or more pages to highlighted entries and notes written in margins.

“I don’t know! These all sound so interesting and fun, and they aren’t even all the disciplines out there – just the ones near us!”, she said.

“I told you that you could choose a school further away, dear. If that’s what you really want.”, Celine said.

“But then I wouldn’t be able to come home to visit, Aunt Celine. And that’s no fun at all. I want to show off everything I learn!”

Celine had started putting ingredients out on the counter, smiling sweetly in Agatha’s direction. “You talk as if you would never come home.”

“It wouldn’t be as often.”, Agatha said. She touched the Herbalism text gently, almost caressing the pages. “Besides, if I go too far away, I won’t be able to visit Mother anymore. And I would miss her terribly.”

“Oh, my dear.” Celine sighed a little. “Your mother would understand. She attended an Herbalism school away from home. It’s where she met your father, you know. She wouldn’t be angry with you.”

“I know but-“

Celine stepped away from the counter to comfort Agatha, who looked on the verge of tears. “Aggie, sweetheart, it’s alright.”, she said, rubbing Agatha’s shoulders.

“I don’t remember her, Aunt Celine. Her voice, or her face.”

“You were so young when she died, Aggie. No one expects you to remember.”

“I don’t feel her with me. You always tell me she's with me all the time, and I never feel her there."

The tears slid down Agatha’s cheek and splattered across the Herbalism book, soaking into the pages.

“Oh, sweet Aggie.” Celine crouched down, her kind eyes and kind wrinkles looking at Agatha with sadness. “I know it’s hard sometimes, but she’s there. I promise you, even when you don't feel her.”

Agatha nodded, wiping her face of tears and closing most of the books finally. “I know where I’ll go.”, she said with certainty.

“And where is that?”

“Herbalism. Like Mother.”

Celine rubbed Agatha’s back again and smiled before straightening up and walking back to her mixing bowl. “Good, I'm glad! I think you'll do well in Herbalism. You've always been fond of nature."

Agatha pulled the Herbalism book closer to her and happily flipped through it. She'd read the thing at least a dozen or more times, but she never tired of it. All disciplines of magic fascinated her, and she'd been looking forward to the day she could go to school for years.

"Aunt Celine, why isn't there a school for everything?", she asked.

"You should know the answer to that already.", Celine said, laughing as she worked some eggs into the cake batter.

"I want to know if I'm right." Agatha grinned cheekily at her aunt.

"I suppose I can indulge you if you bring me the flour."

Agatha grinned wide, nearly jumping out of her seat and to the counter. “Aye aye!", she said, grabbing the flour from a pantry by the window and bringing it to Celine. 

"Alright, well...", Celine started, pouring some flour into her measuring cups. "You know magic is a living force, something that exists in and around everything."

"Of course."

"There's probably a couple hundred different disciplines, and each one taps into that force in a very specific way. Some can layer over each other, like Medical magic and Herbalism, but others can't - Medical and Necromancy for instance. They're opposites almost, and tap into the magical force in uncomplimentary ways.", Celine explained. By the time she finished, the cake batter was almost done.

"So I was right!", Agatha said excitedly. 

"You were indeed." Celine chuckled. "Alright, before I bake this would you like to try some of the batter?"

"YES!" Agatha covered her mouth with a giggle; she'd said that louder than she meant to.

Celine handed her a wooden spoon sticky with chocolate batter and chuckled when Agatha greedily snatched it up. Agatha licked at the batter and exclaimed loudly again.

“Aunt Celine, this is amazing! It’ll be the best birthday cake yet!”

“Of course, it will, my dear.”

Celine's voice sounded strange again, and when Agatha looked up at her she saw the walls start to waver, as if jostled by some kind of wind she couldn't feel.

“Aunt Celine?”, Agatha said, her own voice starting to sound far away and not her own, as if Agatha sat outside a door listening in on someone else’s conversation. “Aunt Celine, I don’t feel so well.”

“Shush now, Aggie.” Celine’s voice was unfamiliar, warped and guttural as she spoke. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see. Everything will be fine.”

The last word dragged out and twisted itself around Agatha, winding itself around her arms and legs and neck until she couldn’t move. The room started to change around her, melting away to something dark and musty. Torch light flickered over damp walls and Agatha felt her consciousness slipping. She screamed, desperately trying to reach out to Aunt Celine, not understanding what was happening. 

“Darling.”, Celine said in her new, unfitting voice. She bent over Agatha and smiled. Her smile was wrong, was too wide and too big for her face. Her breath smelled like decay when she spoke. “Everything will be fine. Just relax.” Her hand touched Agatha’s hair. “Aggie.” The way she said Agatha’s nickname burned, it ripped a hole through Agatha’s heart and left her breathless.

There were more figures behind Celine, all of them in hoods so Agatha couldn’t see their faces.

“Was this wise, Celine?”, one of them asked.

“She wasn’t meant to know.”, another said.

“It doesn’t matter if she knows.”, Celine barked at them. “Whether her life up to now was an illusion or not is inconsequential to our goal.”

“Aunt Celine! Ple-please." Agatha's voice was quiet and breathy. Something tightened around her neck and made it difficult to speak.

Celine, with her wrong smile and wrong voice, stood up and chuckled. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you everything, since you'll be dead soon." She turned and grabbed a long knife from one of the hooded figures behind her. "Your life has been a total illusion. You've been here, strapped to this altar, for the past ten years."

“No, you said-" She choked as whatever was on her neck tightened again. 

“I lied!” Celine laughed, a twisted and gleeful edge to her voice. "I made up the whole thing, Aggie. You see, you had to believe you were living a normal life to suit our purposes. You're not even a real person, Agatha."

Her restraints were too tight for Agatha to speak, she could only make strangled sounds as she tried to struggle against them.

“You’re just an incubator for power; power that rightfully belongs to the Old Gods and their followers. You’re an egg protecting something precious, and now…” Celine whirled around to face Agatha, the restraints pulling taught to spread her limbs across the altar beneath her back. “…it’s time to crack you open!” Celine raised the knife high and brought it down quick, intending to slice clean through Agatha’s neck.

But Agatha screamed, the sound tearing through her throat to be heard past the tightness of her bindings.

And a bright, blinding light filled the room, burning everything it touched with a blazing white heat.

And then there was nothing.