DIARY OF AN EX-WITCH

Exile

I fizzled.

Just like that, on a random Saturday. I couldn't use my wand to toast my bread.

That's how I knew.

I was always like this, but in time my magic began to fade and it became harder to hide. Eventually, once I was nearly all out of juice, word got around and I was officially exiled from the magic realm.

In the weeks leading up to my exile, my father and I ate in silence. Other than the occasional grunt announcing the end of dinner, of course. I'd watch him run fishbone fingers through dulling gray hair. I found it relatively upsetting that he wasn't proud of me. After all, I was one of (if not the first) witches to be exiled from the witch's world. Scorn and mockery aside, that had to count for something.

At the end of those dinners, I would float into the kitchen and search the drawers quietly for a wand while he sat, hands folded in anticipation as if it were a test.

"We should throw the ones that don't work anymore out." I offered, holding up one of the chipped, scuff-marked little wands.

"There's still a little magic left in them." He tried, his beady eyes boring into me.

I held the wand tightly in my hand. Maybe my reliance on training wands was the first sign that the world of magic wasn't meant for me. To my father's disappointment, I never properly manifested as a witch, relying on training wands and tricks to get through school. The thought of school wasn't all spoiled, as I still smiled at those easier days of decorating these wands with stickers. I remember the day we first were given training wands. I sat in the back of class with my friends, and we took turns drawing little designs on them with ink. Everyone began to replace their wands with real, manifested ones. Everyone except for me. One by one I watched my classmates outgrow me. Then, the isolation began as the witches and wizards who once fought over who got to decorate my wand next, considered my wand to be nothing more than a child's toy.

The training wands rattled within the old, decaying drawer like stale batteries. I swirled the candy-colored plastic wand in the air, and with a flash of light, the plates returned to the sink one by one, drowning each other in the sink. In those weeks of sour dinners, I never broke eye contact with the man. Not until that very last day, when there was no magic left, and the plates were abandoned at the small table we used to share. The house was quiet in those last few weeks as I counted my days, meticulously preparing my bag.

On the other hand, the rest of Clover Hill was unusually chatty whenever I came by for groceries. Obviously, word had gotten out about my exile. I didn't realize until I began to see the headlines in the papers myself. I walked the same, grass-woven path every day, so I had the pleasure of seeing the headlines:

"She Lost Her Magic—Will You Be Next? Read to Find Out!"

"Fizzled?! Lillyhomme Academy's First Failure!"

"Teen Witch Banished to Human World After Losing Magic!"

"Is Fizzling the New Plague?"

I didn't even blame the gossiping or fear-mongering. To be a magic-user you must possess magic. To live in the Endless Wood, the home of all witches and wizards, you must be a magic-user. Elder magic-users lose their magic at the end of life, but they were elusive and respected enough for the community to stay "hush-hush" about it to protect them from being sent away. Most elderly magic-users spent most of their time lounging in their castles and cottages, so it was much easier for them to hide their lack of magic. Unfortunately, the guilty smiles of the townsfolk led me to believe I was not given the same mercy.

Though, I was forgiving. It was one thing to hide such a condition at the end of life in the privacy of one's own home, but at seventeen? For the rest of your life? What would one call a magic-user with no magic? Was I even still considered a "Witch"? Unfortunately, according to the Western Magic Association, and the letter my father received in the mail, it seems that those questions weren't worth digging into. I was to be thrown out with little warning, and my banishment was made known throughout the Endless Wood.