• Where does one begin when telling the tale of the Wicked Witch? At the beginning, I suppose, where the wicked was not so very wicked, very well. We embark on a journey, one of love and betrayal, as all tales of this sort. It was sultry night deep into July, a time when magic lies so thick upon the soft breeze that one’s tongue tingles with each breath. Where if you are lucky and if you look very closely to the wood beyond the way, you might just see the creatures there, dancing like stars among the roots and through the canopy. However, it is in the quaint town, down the lane a bit, where our story truly begins, with a small cry.

    “A Girl! A Girl! I’ve got me a daughter!” Cried a jubilant Alec Wickade as he enthusiastically kissed his exhausted wife’s tawny gold crown and pink heat flushed cheeks. “We, darling, we have a daughter.” Rose Wickade chuckled to her husband as the midwife placed the bundled, crying infant with a cherub face, in her outstretched arms. “Oh my! Look at you, my lovely little one.” She cooed to the child. “Just listen to those healthy lungs! By gosh, she is a beut!” Alec beamed as he stroked the girls light brown-dusted scalp. “You’ll be fending of the rouges yet, love.” His wife said before she began to hum and rock the babe into a peaceful sleep. “That I will, that I will. Sleep now. Goodnight my Rose, and sweet dreams my….” “Angela.” His wife supplied for him. “Yes. My Angel. Sleep.” He kissed them both and silently went to the window chair to keep watch over that which he most prized above all else, his family.

    Now we are going to speed through about two years. Little Angela has cooed her first words, “bah-fly” as one flittered by the window sill, and crept her first unstable steps, with her devoted father’s assistance. Now she has begun to take notice of the outside world.

    “No! Angela, do not go that way!” Rose called to little Angela as the toddler began to chase something towards the wood. The girl stopped abruptly, “but Mama, the but-tah-fly!” She stated as she gestured up at the tall trees looming not 5 feet from her. “I know honey, the butterfly.” Rose answered as she picked the child up off the ground and with a quick glance back to the wood, she began the trip home. Angela began to whimper as she watched the wood pull back away from her. “Mama, the but-tah-flies want to sing to me!” Rose sent her daughter a sympathetic look, “Angel,” she said sweetly, “There will be more butterflies, I promise, but we won’t be able to go on walks anymore if I have to worry about you wandering off into the wood alright?” “O-tay mama.” Angela sniffled. “Now I bet your Papa’s home.” “Papa!” With that and bright smile was plastered on little Angela’s pretty face and Rose knew that she had distracted her for the time being.

    Later that night wile Angela pretended to sleep; her parents were having a discussion in the other room. “I just don’t know Alec. She says they sing to her, that they talk and laugh.” “The child’s just got an imagination Rose.” “Yes she is brilliant, I’m not arguing that. I am just worried about that wood. You know what the old ones say.” “Hog swallow.” Her husband rebuffed. “Those are just tales to scare the youth about town from sneak’n off to the wood to neck.” Rose looked to the wood through the window and sighed. “I suppose Alec. I just,” “You just worry. You are a mother. It’s what you do.” He wrapped his arms around his wife as he, too, looked into the night.

    You see, the ‘butterflies’ did speak to her. They did every night as they sailed into her room each evening to tell her the magic wonders of their wood. Only they were not butterflies, but magical creatures, Fairies and Brownies and such. Some good and some very bad, but Angela did not know the difference. She just wanted to learn all the magic, and learn she did.

    Now we will go on further ahead to Angela during the teen years, about seventeen years of age. She is in love with the boy prince who spends his summers in the village with is grandmother. Prince Jonathan promises Angela the world as he is taken by her beauty and tinkling laughter. He is mesmerized by her way with nature and how she seems to bend the atmosphere around herself on a whim. Tough Rose is delighted by the budding romance, Alec was concerned.

    “He’s royalty Rose!” He stormed around the cottage wile Angela is walking along outside with Jonathan. “His kind don’t just pick some pretty maid out of the village garden!” “Oh, but Alec what if he does?” “Rose, my Darling Rose,” He said much sweeter, ”You know that is not how these things work. At the end of the summer, he will return to the main town and marry his betrothed. He has no choice as we did.” “There has been no announcement Alec. We do not know for sure,” “The king is sending messengers in two weeks to retrieve the Prince.” Rose looked at him blankly. “How do you?” “The traveling peddler told me this morn.” He hung his head, only to snap it up when his wife burst into a bought of laughter. “What the, what are you mad woman?” “You believe that old fool!? Alec Wickade I thought you to be a smarter man than that!” “Woman,” Alec growled. “Oh hush. I do not mock, but really Alec, the old traveling peddler?” “He is as reliable as any.” He said threw closed teeth. “We shall see.” She chuckled as she watched her daughter dance around the prince.

    As the old peddler foretold, come they did. Wile out in the meadow, showing him how she calls to the butterflies, he spotted them, the massagers with their lively aqua and white uniforms. “My father’s men? What has happened?” the prince mumbled to himself. “What is it Jonathan?’ Angela questioned as she watched the men approach the village. “I’m not sure.” Together they wandered into the square. “Where is his majesty, The Prince?” One of the men questioned quite loudly to a villager. The man quivered in fear “Again, Sir, I told you I don’t know.” As the messenger advanced on the villager, the prince stepped forward from the crowd with Angela beside him. “I am here.” He boomed just enough to cause the messenger to step back away from the man. “Sire,” The messenger began. “Why have you disrupted the peace within this village?” “Sire, your presence is required in your father’s court.” He said from a bowed position wile eyeing up Angela. “Why?” Jonathan asked. “John,” Angela reached for his sleeve.

    The messenger, seeing the move, spoke quickly. “For your wedding, Sire, to Lady Jessica, as agreed to by you and your father last summer.” Hiding his smile by bowing his head further. Angela stopped mid action. “Last summer?” She repeated and pulled her hand back. “You are betrothed?” The Prince turned to her, “Angie I,” “Are you?” She asked again, a little more frantic this time. Jonathan reached for her only for her to flinch back. He sighed in defeat and, with the whole town watching, answered. “Yes.” It was then that something broke inside of Angela. Her face crumpled and she turned and ran, ran all the way to the wood, to seek comfort from her ‘butterflies.’ The Prince, knowing that he had to, left, without so much as a backward glance, as Angela watched from her wood.

    Her parents could not find her. She would not answer as they called. She only confided in Nellie, the most violent of the brownies. Nellie talked in soft tones and though Angela began to feel soothed, Nellie was really filling her heart with hate for the prince. “Look at what he did to you,” The tiny razor-like voice cooed, “to you, my Angela Wickade, my Angela, Wicked.” It is there she stayed in that wood, for several years, Nellie feeding off of Angela’s newfound hate.

    Then came that day. This day. Five years after he broke her now black heart, news of the new King’s bouncing daughter reached the town. Nellie, who had been causing mayhem and havoc around the locals, raced back to tell Angela the news. “Yes my Wicked, the prince’s darling wife has produced a lovely pink brat! Hahahahaha. Go and see, Go and see!” She taunted. “I believe I shall.” Angela with a smile, that looked like she had a nail in her thumb. “Brat, Brat, Brat!!! Go and see the Brat!” Nellie chanted as she zipped off into the forest. “Oh I do believe I shall.”