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The Wizard's Daughter- Part 1
Preface:
I was sitting in the apple tree in our front garden, age 5, swinging my feet and sucking on a grape Popsicle. There was a teeny bit of a breeze, the sort that you only get in July, and I was in a hurry to finish my melting Popsicle before it fell. My hands were sticky and the sun was bright.
Then out came Mama, brilliant, beautiful Mama, smiling her radiant smile. She looked ecstatically happy. Her hair was whisper- light and I remember thinking, vaguely, that she looked like pure sunshine. And she was my pure sunshine. She was coming out to see me, not James, not Martha, not Papa, just me. I grinned and waved wildly down at her.
She gave me a little smile, but it wasn’t as big as before- more like an afterthought. She stepped out into the ring, the one she had made with Papa, to do magic in, and time stopped for her to wait. Soon Papa and Martha came, looking happy and babbling on about some experiment. I did not understand. I usually didn’t.
They held hands, and poof, gone. If I hadn’t lived with this my whole life I would have been scared.
They were gone, all together, in sync, a nice little family. Except t for me. I was always the exception.
Chapter 1:
Time and magic. Hard concepts to grasp. One minute you think you have them, you hold them in your hand, telling you their secrets and then- and then, they are lost. For how do you measure time and magic? How do you say, magic is here, or time works in this way? And how do you know when you have found it, the elusive answer?
I have had a lifetime to ponder these questions, while I waited for the answers to come to me as they had my family, as they had the one I loved. But they never did. Fate is funny that way.
?????????
I was 1 when I first noticed that they were different. I had a feeling- the sort of feeling that I could not describe until now, until I am letting it all out.
I am normal. Accomplished, maybe, but average. My family, on the other hand- they were wizards. Not the Disney sort. The magical, interesting sort, the sort I most longed to be.
I saw them making potions. They looked so happy and so peaceful, that I just knew that they loved what they did, what they were. They loved me; I knew this. But this first time I saw that I was not important compared to their magic. I was jealous for years, until I finally understood why it had to be this way.
I was never meant to be like them. I was not worthy; it was that simple.
I learned that I could do great things. I could do graceful fouettés and breathtaking leaps, I could get great marks on projects and look pretty when I felt sick and act cool when I was nervous. I knew that they knew that I could do lots of things. But I could not, could never, be as good as them, because I would never be able to do magic. They could, I couldn’t- it was simple. I did not belong, not yet.
And so I waited to be like them- I waited to deserve to be like them. I did all I could, wished as hard as was humanly possible. I danced until my feet were bloody and my muscles were dying, in hopes that it would make me worthy of being a wizard.
Most of all, I waited for the truth. And the truth did not come.
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Can't wait for the next part!!!
