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Annika had what one would call a unique childhood. For one, she didn’t grow up with children her own age. In fact, she didn’t know any children her own age, but she did know how to read and write. She knew her times tables and the infinite space of galaxies, but she also knew of worlds unknown. Places only a few humans have seen. She knew witchcraft and spellwork, shadow magic and combat skills. She learned to create friends from shadows and had developed a deep love for the place so few could survive in. 

[center]The Everdark.[/center]

A mystical place between space and time. A part of the world and yet completely separated from it. It was strange and confusing. There wasn’t much Annika understood about it, but she knew it breathed and lived. Sometimes, in the moments of stillness, she thought she could hear the air around her breathe and would slow her own breath to match its inhale and exhale. She loved it here. This strange little inquisitive place.

Annika sat on the porch of the home she shared with her father, Jack, reading one of the books he had written about the magic in the Everdark. Even though Jack Hawthorne had told her he wasn’t her biological father and was hell-bent on helping her find her family, nothing could change the knowing that Annika had developed. Jack was her father; even if he was rather unconventional. 

“Dad, what about this one?” Annika untangled herself from where she sat and bounded back into the house to look for Jack. She held the book open on a page about shadow manipulation and creation, feeling drawn to the power and the spellwork. She often felt the Everdark shift to create shapes and unseen creatures around her. Maybe it was a sign. 

The ten-year-old girl tucked her dark-brown hair behind her ear as she peered into Jack’s office, seeking out the brilliant purple eyes and black mess of hair that was a part of her father’s signature look. If Jack had never told Annika that she had been adopted, the dark-skinned girl would have figured it out quickly. She and Jack were near complete opposites. What with his light complexion to her tanned, his sharp features to her more rounded ones, not to mention the eye colour and different textures of hair. It had been glaringly obvious to Annika that Jack was not related to her, but blood relation mattered very little to the girl.