Willow Branch (chapter 1)

chapter one

Amy called to her seventeen year old daughter Willow . She had some good news that just might solve one of the few problems going on in the Branch house.
Sighing, Willow got up, and exited her room to join her mother in the mixing lab. Her mother was wearing clear goggles that magnified her eyes to atleast five times their original size.
"What is it," Willow asked? When her mother didn't answere right away she felt her temper start to rise. She never could figure out why she got so angry over such small things. The anger did however tend to cause alot of stress to build up inside her. Because of this, her shoulders were always tense, and this caused her to be moody most of the time.
When Willow thought she could take the silence no more her mother spoke. It was so abrupt that she nearly fell over backwards. After she had regained her composure she softly placed her hand over her heart to make the tingling feeling that still resided inside her, cease.
Willow took a deep breath and half shouted half growled " Its about time you said something, if you were going to take so long why didn't you call me at this time instead of sooner?
Amy tooked her goggles off, layed them on the desk she was working at, and looked at Willow with a smile. "I just wanted to let you know that I have done some research in the Spirit Archives and I think that I've found the solution as to why you are having so many headaches." Amy reached over and picked up a bag of glowing white leaves. She handed Willow the bag and told her to make sure that she put the bag somewhere safe enough so that not even she could find it.
Willow pondered about all of her previous hiding places, and decided that she had better come up with a new one. She winced as she remembered the trouble that had occured when her sister had discovered her supply trunk that had been hidden in a trap door under her bed. It, at the time, was filled with potions to destroy demons, change the physical appearence, and a mixture of fairy charms and hoodoo bags.
Willow put the bag in her pocket for the time being, she was axious to find out what her mother knew about her headaches.
Amy started to reach for her work goggles. Willow realized that if she didn't speak up now, her mothers nose would burry itself in the obsessive potion creations that she never seemed to tire of, and Willow wouldn't be able to get her attention again until she had finished what she was working on.
Willow marched forward and grabbed the bugeyed looking goggles. She quickly put them behind her back as she stretched the other hand out towards her mother, snapping her fingers a couple of times.
Amy looked dumb founded, she just stood there for a few seconds, her wide eyes staring at the place where the goggles used to be. She reminded Willow of her little sister when she would lose one of her toys, and complain with her favorite phrase. "I swear it was hear a minute ago!"
Willow smiled when she, for the first time since she had come into the room, paid attention to her mothers attire. Amy had on bright neon orange pants that only hung to the length of her knees. Under those she wore panty hoes that were striped black and white. Her shoes were metallic silver that had letters blinking on and off of them . If Willow remembered correctly those shoes were also used as a computer screen. Amy was also wearing a neon blue shirt that only went to
her belly button. The end of the shirt looked as if it had been shredded by some kind of wild beast. She had a thin white lab coat over the shirt. The lab coat now glowed because of the numerous times that magickal ingredients had been dropped on it. Amy had taken great care to not accidently drop the wrong chemicals on the coat as the wrong ingredients mixed tend to blow up or burst into
flames or turn into some kind of acid, or poisen. Amy had black lipstick and green eyeshadow on her face. Today, Amy had her hair black with neon green sripes in it. She had the back of her hair in a long loose braid that reached all the way to her knees. The front part of her hair was free and hanging in long loose curls that also hung to her knees. On her head she had black cat ears that stood straight up. Willow felt pride swell up inside her as she realized how proud she was to have a weirdo as a mother.
Willow walked over and gave her mother a hug. She loved her mother so much, and she let her know that as often as possible. Amy accepted the hug with a light sqeeze.
Stepping back Willow reminded her mother that she had said something about researching in the Spirit Archives, and that she had called her in the mixing room to tell her about the information she had found. Amy's body jerked as she snapped out of her duh moment. A huge smile spread across her face. She started to lightly jumping up and down and while quickly clapping her hands at the same time.
" Your going to get a new power!"
She abruptly stopped her dance of excitement, and quickly walked over to the rectangular counter behind her. While Willow stood there annoyed with her mothers bad habbit of only giving her half of the information she not only wanted, but needed, Amy knelt down infront of a silver safe that was intact to the counter. She placed her left thumb on the highest part of the safe and closed her eyes. A
moment later the part where her mothers thumb had been, morphed into a small computer screen and keyboard. Amy opened her eyes, and furiously began typing her pass code into the system. About three minutes later the computer disappeared and the safe door reappeared. With one swift motion the safe door swung open. Amy grabbed a binder that looked like it had been around since
the beginning of time. While standing up, she opened the binder and walked over to where Willow was standing. She pulled a thin black book out of the binder.
Willow loved when unexplainable things happened. Like the little black book being pulled out of nowhere. The binder appeared to be empty. After growing up in a world where everything is strange beyond reason, Willow had learned that everything could be explained as long as you had the patience to sit back and listen to a very long and very complicated explanation. At the moment though, all she wanted to know was the information that her mother had discover in the Spirit Archive.
With a questioning look Willow took the book from her mothers out stretched hand. Amy didn't say another word. She just took her work goggles from her daughters hand, put them on, and began breaking up some of the same white leaves that she had handed to Willow earlier.
Willow watched her mother for a few seconds later. The work obsessed witch added a few pieces of the glowing confetty to her cauldron, and was just about to add a pinch of fairy dust when Willow decided to go to her room.
Willow was now sitting on her very comfortable bed examining the title of the little black book that her mother had handed her. While doing this she thought back to all of the other times her mother had handed her something and walked away.
"Man I have a strange family, Willow said."
The title of the book was called 'the little black book. Willow rolled her eyes at how corny the title was. She took in a deep breath as she opened the book, with little interest, to the first page.
It was titled ' overwhelming emotion, or hidden power-that is the question. "Oooooh Kaaayy" she said aloud as she scrolled down further.

" Do you have an emotion that flares up in times that it shouldn't?
If you do, then you probably have a repressed power. This
power needs to be released. Because this power is stuck it
can't be used, obviously. After a certain amount of time
the energy of this power can cause major anxiety, and stress.
This leads to frequent head-aches, shoulder-aches, and back-
aches. This stress can leave you feeling drained of energy,
tired, or angry, and you can have an over whelming feeling of
one or more emotions. If these emotions continue they can
eventually consume you there by causing you to do something
unthinkable.
The only way to finally release this power is to mix this potion
on the the three phases of the fullmoon. This potion takes
time and effort from the maker. If you aren't motivated
enough to continue what you start then I suggest that you do
not even begin this ritual. Bad things tend to happen when
magick is started and not finished. "


While sighed, closing the book. She had almost a whole month to go before she could do this ritual anyway so she decided that she would work on it anytime that wasn't tonight. It wouldn't hurt to wait a couple of days..or weeks to start on this. She was very responsible so she always started things in ample time, but not too soon.
The girl leaned to her left. While supporting her weight on her bent left arm she place the book in a drawer that was beside her bed. Her head-ache picked that time to kick in again so she quickly pushed an index finger on both temples. With her eyes closed she massaged her temples in a circular motion. While doing this she thought about how nice it would be to finally be rid of these headaches.
She just layed there for a few minutes more, enjoying the comfort of her blue silk blanket pressed against her aching shoulders. She was about to doze off when her bedroom door burst open.
Startled, Willow flew into sitting position. About that time her fullbody mirror flew off of it's place on the wall, to crash against her bookcase a few feet away. She barred her teeth at her sister who came skipping merrily up to her like nothing had happened.




Eliisi climbed up on the bed, and plopped herself down next to her big sister. She turned to face Willow, but when she saw the look on her sisters face, she knew that she was mad at her for something.
"Why did you break that mirror, you know moms going to send you to time out for that."
Eliisi flinched as the older girl grabbed her roughly by the arm. She tried to pull free as her sister led her into the hallway and left her there. With one loud bang the little girl was alone, rubbing her arm that would surely have a bruise the next morning.
Why did her sister hate her so much? Was it because she had done something horrible and Willow could never forgive her for it? Or was it some other reason, like her just being a big meany with no feelings for anyone, but herself?
With tears in her eyes she walked back to her room and upon entering, she locked the door. Eliisi quickly wiped the tears away from her eyes. She would never let a tear fall for someone like that. She knew she deserved to be treated better, and that some day she would. Until then she would take what life threw her way and would never let it get her down.
Eliisi walked to her book trunk, and scanned the titles.

The Living Dead...
Fairytales, real or fantasy-that is the question....
Dragons....
Magickal Plants...

Eliisi jumped for joy when she found what she was looking for.
"A Little Witches Guide To Not Being So Alone."
She walked around to her purple bean-bag chair,and plopped down as she opened the book to its index. She scrolled down the page until she found what she was looking for. A spell to create your own friend, she read aloud, page 1006.
When she got to page 1006 she materialized a piece of pink lined paper, and began jotting down all of the information she would need to make her a friend.
The first thing it said to do was to write down many personal traits that her friend would inherit upon birth. The second thing it said to do was to obtain a dozen pink roses, fairy dust, a needle, and be prepared to cry. Eliisi scowled at the thought of having to cry for a pot of ingredients.
When she was just about to say that thought out loud, the words on the page went blank. A message began to scroll across the crusty page.

Tears you must cry for the friend whom I bestow upon you,
Never doubt the rain from your heart,
Or alone forever you shall be,
Trust me to lead the way, and forever happy with faults you
shall be!

Just as Eliisi got done reading the message, it disappeared. She tapped her pencil on her forhead as she thought about what she had just read.
When the ingredients for her friend didn't appear, she apologized to the book for insulting its divine intelligence. She smiled as the information she wanted reappeared across the page.
With excitement racing through her little body she finished copying down the rest of the things she needed to know about making a real, living, breathing friend. Immediately after she finished she set to work on preparing the things she would need to make her dream a reality.