"I'm home!" Amber, the golden-haired and blue-eyed runt, said as she dashed through the front door, slamming it harder close than necessary.

"I'm upstairs, sweety!" Her mom's voice echoed faintly from above.

"Cedric anywhere?" she called out as her head rotated from the left to the right while strutting through the living room.

"Oh, you…" Amber, the 7th grader, stopped when she saw her sister, three years her senior, sitting cross-legged on the couch.

Today, Paisley was dressed in grey yoga pants and a white shirt that almost succumbed under the pressure of a pair of enormous ding-dongs that seemed like they would inescapably cause serious backache problems later in life.

"Love you too, sis," Paisley replied dryly while not looking up from typing on her phone.

"You've seen Cedric anywhere?" Amber asked.

Paisley kept drumming and swiping on the screen of her phone.

"I've asked you some–"

"I heard what you said," Paisley snapped.

Amber ceased talking a few patiently awaiting seconds before saying, "Well?".

Paisley's green eyes peeked over her phone, radiating deep disdain as they zeroed in on Amber. "Do you actually need my help for something so trivial as knowing where someone is? Can't you just use your clairvoyant look or something?"

Amber sighed. There we go again.

"You know I'm not able to," Amber said curtly.

Paisley scoffed, returning her attention to the screen of her phone again. "Guess you're not such a prodigy after all."

Paisley and Amber have never lived on friendly terms with each other. Their hatred towards each other only worsened when Amber's latent powers, inherited by their mother, started to manifest – a most fearful yet good-hearted witch.

Paisley, who was rather lazy than tired, was always delighted to know that there was a great chance that one day the powers of her mom would also manifest within her. A thing like that usually occurs around the ages of 10,11, or 12. However, when Paisley woke up on her 13th birthday and realized that no magical spark had occurred within her, she cried out in her mother's arms.

"Do not weep, sweety. There is still hope. Perhaps you're just a late bloomer," Her mother had tried to comfort her. Even though she had little faith that it would ever happen.

Then, on Paisley's 14th birthday, when a whole livingroom full of family members and friends cheered for her when she blew out all the candles of the big cream pie in front of her, she looked perplexed when one of them lit up again, showing a tiny licking flame. Then another lit up. And another. Until all of the candles lit up, making the cream pie burn just as bright as it did before Paisley blew everything out. Amber's twinkling eyes peeking at her from beyond the line of family members caught her attention.

"I have powers and you don't," Amber had said with a sardonic grin.

That was the worst day in Paisley's life.

She was devastated when she discovered that it was virtually certain that she would never have the highly convenient sorcery abilities that would put her above human labor. Worse still, her kid sister, Amber, did have those abilities, so it seemed.

And the brat even had the audacity to showcase it in front of their family on her birthday!

Their mother, Carol, however, wasn't entirely dissatisfied that only her youngest daughter was gifted with sorcery talents and not the eldest. She loved them both and knew them to be sweet girls. However, temperament they could be at times.

Carol couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something was brewing beneath Paisley's act of innocence – some dark tendencies she could not entirely grasp.

Carol had never said it out loud, not even to her husband, but she was afraid that Paisley if granted too much power, could raise some severe hell if the wrong levers were flipped in her head.

So, from that perspective, it seemed only convenient that fate skipped Paisley over.

On the other hand, it only flared up their sibling rivalry even further – making Carol's job as a mom even harder than it already was.

"Thanks but no thanks!" Amber walked off, reacting to her sister's unwillingness to help her. "I'll go check Dad out in the study. Perhaps he is pleased to see me, unlike others in this house."

"I strongly doubt anyone in this house is ever pleased to see you." Paisley said, "But for your information, he ain't there. He's hanging out in his Pod."

"Again?" Amber took a swift turn towards the kitchen instead.

"Again. And I wouldn't disturb him if I were you unless you want to have a run-in with Mom. In that case, then be my guest." Paisley's voice called out.

A cleansing mist of Zen-like music, consisting of tunes you often heard with Tibetan monks, washed over Errol's brain, gently guiding work-related stress to the drain. His state of mind soared to an altitude where it was untouchable from sticky negative thoughts. It was pure bliss. And he could drift on it for–

"Whoah!!" Errol was tipped out of his reclining chair and slammed his head against the floor. He looked up – with teary eyes while rubbing the upcoming bruise on his forehead – to the dark ceiling as it cracked open and bellowed, "Damnit, Carol! I thought you said–"

Amber whistled a joyful tune as she walked up to a shelve in the kitchen where an egg, the size of a mango, stood above it – black as a night with no stars. Her hand reached out eagerly to pick it up, not so gently. Her finger flipped a small switch attached to the bottom. Then the egg split open on the top.

"Amber?" Errol's squinted eyes needed some time to adjust to the flood of bright daylight pouring in through the crack in the ceiling. He'd expected to see the monumental face of his wife glaring down upon him. But the contours his brain registered matched with his cheerful daughter instead.

"Hi, Dad! Are you doing one of your sessions again?" Amber waved and showed a smile full of joy.

"Sweety, hi, hey, uhm… I thought I told you not to grab my Pod when I'm in it."

Amber looked crestfallen. "You're angry with me."

Errol sighed. "I'm not angry with you, darling. It's just–"

"I've warned her not to do it, Dad!" Paisley's gigantic face appeared above him, looking over Amber's shoulder with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Mind your own business, skank! Or I'll set your hair on fire!" Amber seethed, threatening to use her still underdeveloped sorcery abilities. Her hand containing the Pod with her shrunken Dad in it trembled with anger.

"You wouldn't dare!" Paisley fumed.

"Watch me!"

"E-Easy up there, ladies! Please!" Errol held on tight as he was all jumbled up in his carefully constructed miniature oasis of tranquility held in Amber's unsteady hand. He sighed in relief when Carol's voice boomed over them all, reprimanding her daughters.

"Pack it in, you two! Give me the Pod," Carol reached her hand out.

"But I –"

"Now, Amber!"

Amber handed over the Pod to her mother. "Stop sniggering!" Amber breezed at Paisley, who stood grinning behind their mother's back.

"Now, get upstairs and tidy up your room," Carol told Amber. "It's a mess there."

"But what about my me-time on the couch?" Amber whined. "We always do tea and cookies when I return from school."

"Sorry, honey. Your choice to disturb Dad has deprived you of that privilege."

"But mom! That's not fair!" Amber stomped her foot on the floor, slightly tremoring her father's Pod.

"Honey, please. We'll talk later, okay?"

"Fine!" Amber walked off, defeated. "Stop laughing!" she screeched when Paisley made faces at her.

"And you," Carol pointed a finger at her other daughter. "go sit on the couch right now. I want to have a word with you in a sec, young lady."

"A word with me?! What did I do?" Paisley whined. Amber looked over her shoulder and granted her sister a payback-laughter with a piercing finger.

"In three seconds, Pais. Three. Two. One,"

"Alright! Alright!" Paisley walked off, defeated, while mumbling some indiscernible words.

"Everything okay, dear?" Carol combed a lock of dark curls dangling in front of her comely face to the side to look at her shrunken husband cowering in the Pod in her hand.

"Feisty ones, aren't they?" Errol gave a faint chuckle as he looked up at the cinema-screen-sized face of his beautiful wife looming above him.

Carol replied with a rueful chuckle. "Of the worst kind. Okay, ready to be enlarged again, hon?"

Errol shook his head. "Better go check out Cedric first. His punishment has been long enough now, I think."

Carol's look churned into one of pure guilt. "The punishment! Oh, that poor boy!"

Errol's Pod got roughed up again when his wife hastily placed the Pod back on the shelve. "Easy, please! There's a tiny person in here!" Errol screamed as he rolled through his Pod.