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BESSA

By all rights, I should be the villain of this story. I certainly have the backstory and the name, a name horrifying enough to destroy magic and snuff out all hope, like two damp fingers pinching the lit wick of a candle flame. A name not muttered, not even by my mother or father.

Honestly, with my credentials, I should have laced candied apples with sleeping death or lured sailors to watery graves with my voice alone. I should have gained a reputation for stealing firstborn children from lovely, young couples. (Why does one need so many first-borns, anyway? What does one do with them on the road to villainy? Should I be taking notes?)

Villainous villains should do things with great fanfare, always seeking fame and adoration through terror. Villainous villains don’t overthink. Yet, I slunk in the shadows most of my life, and I certainly overthought everything, including love.

Maybe I was one of those villains who didn’t realize they were a villain. Everyone around me seemed to think so, even if I’d never contemplated any of the above acts. Last time I checked, I kept no vials of poison hidden under my lace ruff, nor did I boil frogs’ legs for fun. I didn’t even like cooking.

So, what was my name?

Well, it wasn’t the Boogeyman. Or the Wicked Witch of the North. It was Bessa, the chosen one’s unwanted twin sister. But he disappeared, which was what people called a problem in prophecy-speak.

When the chosen one was born and magic made its brief return, I didn’t rejoice with the rest of my frozen river village. I was too busy being born myself, arriving a few hours after my twin brother, just in time for the magic to sizzle out again. Was it my fault? Perhaps. It certainly wasn’t a good coincidence.

Of course, my birth caused a bit of a shock. The prophecy never mentioned a second kid, and a girl to boot. So my father, the king, did the only reasonable thing.

He left me in the woods in winter and acted like I never existed. It was a story as old as time, but I hoped to give mine a happy ending.