PROLOGUE

Perhaps my mother knew something that everyone else did not when she told me I had been born into a world not my own. Perhaps that explained why I was so different from my two sisters and my parents—or perhaps it was just something my mother liked to say, because she enjoyed sounding mysterious.

Mama was like that. She had grown up in a small town—a village, really—where the people spoke in whispers of old tales that may or may not have happened, and where even the youngest child knew a magic charm or two to keep away ill luck and the like. So it wasn’t any wonder that Mama was such a firm believer in elemental magic, and those who wielded it. My eldest sister and I grew up listening to her stories of elves and faeries and magic spells, and I’m sure my youngest sister would have as well, had Mama lived a few years longer.

I have often thought that she may have had a bit of faerie in her; perhaps from some long-forgotten bond, passed down from generation to generation. She was certainly beautiful enough to have been one. Her long, golden hair hung in shining waves the whole way to her knees and floated like spidersilk about her perfect face. Her large, brown eyes always seemed to smile even when her lips did not, and her laughter was like silvery bells. She could dance as gracefully as any crafty Fae.

She was tall, slender, and absolutely perfect in every way, so it was no wonder that Father adored her. He himself was a handsome man named Adam, who had thick, curling black hair that was now touched with silver, and bright laughing eyes as blue as the sky. He was very strong in his youth, and even many years later he could still lift two heavy sacks of grain at once without effort. Mama adored him just as much as he adored her.

It was sad when she died. I think the sun itself mourned for her. Afterwards, it seemed to rise not quite so readily, nor shine quite so warmly, since she was no longer there to enjoy it. She passed away just after giving birth to my youngest sister, holding onto life long enough to see her last baby, and name her.

Mama had loved beautiful names. She loved books as well, and so our names came from what she had read. The youngest had been named Journey, and she had named my eldest sister Willow. Such lovely, unusual names, and my sisters grew in beauty so that the names fit them. Willow was the image of Mama, from her shining, golden curls and soft brown eyes to her slender grace, just like the willow tree, appearing frail on the outside, but having great strength within. Her manner was gentle and almost timid; she hated confrontations, but she could argue with the best of them when she set her mind to it, as she’d proven many times to myself and Father in the past.

Journey grew as well, into a most mischievous child. Still, a more adorable little girl one could not find elsewhere. She was like Father, with shining black ringlets and huge, blue eyes that never stopped laughing. She was small and delicate, just like a little nymph, and she had the temperament of a faerie as she was always running wild. It was partly our fault, I suppose. We spoiled Journey quite shamelessly, since she was the very last thing Mama had given us before dying, and it made her all the more precious to us.

I was ugly. No matter what Willow told me, my looking glass always told me otherwise. My hair was not black or gold. It was gray. The same gray that one has when they have reached a very old age. Willow said it was silver, not gray, and that it was a lovely color. I suppose it did have a silvery glow when the sun caught it a certain way, but in my own mind it was always gray, and it hung straight as a stick to the small of my back.

I was tall, even taller than Willow and Father! I was also as thin as a rake. My complexion was not the beautiful golden color that my sisters and father wore. I was pale, sickly looking, and would not darken no matter how long I stayed outside. The most the sun ever did was give me a few pale freckles that vanished again by the next morning. Willow called my complexion porcelain, and said that it was popular to be pale. She wished she was half so white and had no freckles. That was fine for her, I told her once, but at least she did not look like a corpse come to life!

Perhaps the strangest part of me was my eyes. Unlike the rest of me, they were very dark; a deep, midnight-blue-violet that came from neither side of my parents’ families. They were very large. Too large, for a face as thin as mine, and about them they held an otherworldly look, as if I could see into other worlds that did not yet exist. They gave me a haunted look, as if I was more a wandering soul than a young girl. I know that when I looked upon others they became nervous under my gaze and could not meet it.

The other children in the village avoided me, and some cruel little boys even called me names, like goblin, ghost girl and evil spirit. There was even one little beast that would throw rocks at me whenever he caught me alone, taunting me that if I was not careful the devil would come for me and drag me back to where I belonged. The old women whispered behind their backs about me. I knew what they said, that I was an odd child, that I wasn’t right in the head. They tolerated me only out of respect for my dear mother.

It did not help that I was smarter than others my age were. Mama loved books, and she taught me to read well by the time that I was five. I was well advanced in education because of her, and I even attended school for a year, which was nearly unheard of in my village. Girl-children did not attend school, after all. They were made to sit at home and learn how to be ladies and to tend the hearth. Finally, after the complaints of the old women in the village, the headmaster requested quite firmly that I stay at home, despite the fact that I was his best student. After that, I spent more time with my mother’s beloved books than I did with people. Books, after all, could not throw rocks.

So it was rather strange that Mama had given me the name she did. She named me Gabriella. A rather common name, I’ve always thought, though pretty in its own way. Yet it was not a name for one such as I. Something paler, such as "Snow" or "Winter," may have been more suitable, since I had no more color than an ice-laden tree branch. But when Mama looked at me after I was born, Gabriella had leapt to mind. So Gabriella I became; although, by the time I had reached my third year, everyone knew me better as "Gabby."

I had asked Mama one time why I was so different from her and Willow, and she had smiled and told me it was because I had been born under the light of a full moon. This made no sense to me, and I told her so. She laughed and told me that when I was born, the moon had hung low and round in the sky, shining in the window of the room where I was birthed. When it touched my hair (which, she said, had been as black as ebony for a few moments), the locks had caught the moonbeams and held them, and had remained silver ever afterward.

She said faerie music was playing in the forest behind the cottage we lived in—the forest everyone said was enchanted—and that the Goblin King himself had come to dance in the moonlight. That part of Mama’s tale had always made me shudder. I never understood why, but when she spoke of the Goblin King, I would feel a slow dread creep into me, as though the mere mention of his name would cause something terrible to happen! Then I would bury close to her side and hide my face. She seemed to understand, for she never mocked me, but held me closer to soothe me. She always warned me to stay out of the Enchanted Forest, for that was the Goblin King’s domain.

So when Mama died, I was more sorry than most to see her go. Out of everyone in my family, I was the most like her. Now I was alone, for nobody understood me half so well as she did. But it was the year I turned sixteen that I truly began to miss her, and especially her wisdom, for this was the year I realized why the Goblin King had always struck such fear into my heart.