Melanie's Witch Series Part 10: Melanie's Childhood Part 1

Melanie’s first remembrance of something magical happening was when she was four years old.

She was out with her mother grocery shopping and she felt agitated at not getting what she wanted at the store checkout. She remembers thinking she should throw a fit to get what she wanted; she closed her eyes, and in a moment reopened her eyes and saw that everyone except her mother and her were frozen in time. Her mother got down close to her face and gently said “You cannot have everything you want in life. Things do not make people happy, love does. She hugged her daughter tight and in a split second of being in her mother’s arms she released time and let everyone go back to normal.

Melanie did not understand what happened, or how she made it happen, but she knew she made it happen. When her and her mother came home they unpacked the groceries together and talked. Her mother avoided the subject of what happened in the grocery until she put Melanie to bed. While tucking her in at night she said “Do you know how special you are? What you did today at the food store is magic. Your great-grandmother was the last lady in our family who could make people stay still.” It was hard for her mother to explain at a level Melanie could understand, but Melanie knew it was something exceptional about her and her mother was happy about it. Melanie knew after this freezing of time at the grocery store that she was a special child and she had something someone else in her family had. This made her happy.

Her mother warned that all people in the world did not like magical people and perhaps she should try and refrain from becoming upset while she was out of the house. To try and think happy thoughts if she felt anger building up inside her. Her mother did not say anything bad would happen, but she got the gist of it. Doing magic should be performed in a safe home environment. She talked to her mom till she fell asleep. She was dreaming of her great-grandmother, whom she never met, within minutes of falling asleep and felt connected to her. She had only seen family photos of her, but instantly she felt at ease in her dream and conjured up spells in her dream with her great-grandmother. She figured doing magic in dreams was safe.

When Melanie was ten years old she asked her mother about magic, their family, and asked about spells. She had refrained from stopping time again in public, though a few times the house was frozen in time and the pets sat frozen. She got angry as any little girl did, so it came out at home. Her mother sat down with her at the yellow square kitchen table, poured two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, and began to tell her more of her family’s history. Little by little centuries of stories poured out of her mother. Melanie asked her mom if she could do magic. She said that she was not included in the family magic. Sometimes it skipped a generation and it had skipped her, but she knew the minute Melanie was born that she had the gift. Something about the twinkle in Melanie’s eyes, when she first looked at her mother, told her she held the family magic.

Melanie’s mother went on to tell her that magic, even for good, attracts evil with it. That when someone performs magic it is like shining a light on themselves and evil follows that light. Evil does not want good magic to exist, so it tries to put it out. Melanie’s mother knew the horrors that killed her great-grandmother, but she did not want to scare the child. She simply said “Magic comes at a cost.”

Melanie wanted to know about spells. Were there books she could read? Someone she could talk to about the family spells, other than her mother? Her mother told her there were books and she was old enough they would come to her. The books would appear on her nightstand, in her backpack, or anywhere else they would feel would be a safe spot to approach her. Her mother also talked of magic items; a magnifying glass, brooms, silver boxes, and more. That everything in this world is not what it seems. For the next three years Melanie waited for the books to appear to her and she kept an eye on everything in their house. Perhaps these items would speak to her one day, but for now she waited impatiently on a book to arrive and tell her what to do next.

 Photo by pixabay.com

Happy Haunting

xo

Debbie