The Girl and the Sunbeam

I didn't always live in a jar. I had a family once. My mother was a beautiful human being, with wild golden curls and eyes like a striking post-rain sky. My father smelled like smoke and... father. My brother laughed at everything, and my dog was like that of a fairy tale... and that was what I was. I'm straight out of the bedtime stories Mother tells us. I'm magic.

To the person reading this, it must be in the future, for I've not yet found a way to the past. Imagine a time before yours, where magic is feared and 'witches', born with power, are burned. When I was born, Mother tells me a sunbeam trickled through the window onto my face... but it was midnight. Within my first year, I found I could turn my hair colors, have flowers bloom in winter and make the rain go away. Imagine my father's fear in hiding what his sweet, precious girl could do, his fear in keeping me a secret from the neighbors and the nobles. I had no idea that most pumpkins didn't grow to five feet on their own, or that starting the fireplace with my bitty fingers wasn't commonplace. If I didn't fit my favorite dress, I simply made the dress grow with me.

On the positive, my family never went hungry, for I could make beans grow from the dirt floor of our cabin, but on the negative... the nobles sent knights through the village once a month on witch hunts, and I was forced to hide in the crawlspace, lest I accidentally sneeze out glitter or something to give me away. My parents did so well, keeping my magic hidden. I grew, played with the neighborhood children and fought hard to keep my magic in, but I slipped up once, at ten years of age, and that's when the accident happened.

There was a boy, with thin, slanting and coal-black eyes that matched his hair. We were playing together one afternoon, when he threw his ball to the other side of the creek.

"Go to get it!" He yelled and laughed, and so I began to wade through the creek to the other side, but the other side was thick with prickle bushes. Nonplussed, I simply sent the bushes back down, tucking them back into the soil like babies. They didn't hurt me. I stepped on the shore, retrieved the ball and waded back to the boy. He stared at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, and I didn't understand. All I'd done was put away the bushes and got the ball for him.

I wiped my hands down my muddy front and the dirt was swept away as if by some invisible river. I held the ball out to the boy, but he stared at it, ran away and screamed the one word that placed me in my glass prison: "WITCH!"

He yelled it at anyone who would listen, and I chased after him through the streets.

"Witch! She's a witch! RUN!" I needed to do something, or bad things would happen.

He was fast, but my magic was faster. I threw my arms out and he became a golden ray of sunlight. He's still there today, if you want to go see him.

The villagers tied me, and I couldn't escape without hurting someone. Night fell, torches were lit and the nobles were alerted. Everyone in town gathered around the post to which I was tied. Mother's eyes had a pink look around the blue parts and Father's vein on his temple was pulsing as he held my brothers shaking shoulders as he cried, because there was nothing to laugh about. The nobles arrived on the backs of tall white mares and they came to me.

"They say you are a witch. Is this true?" A short and round man asked me.

I shook my head at them from my perch high on the post.

"No! I am not. Witches hurt people and use magic for bad things. I do not."

"You are indeed magic then?"

I hung my head. "Yes, sir."

My brother hiccupped.

The noble squinted his eyes at me and looked toward the docks, where ships come in.

"Then if you pledge to help us, you may live."

They then took me from the post and took me from my family. They built a nice stone tower on the edge of the beach for me, had me shrink myself and placed me in a jar on the top of the tower. Now I use my magic to bend the moonlight at nights, to alert ships of the rocks and reefs, keeping people safe every evening. I never aged since then, and it has been a very long time since I have seen people who weren't tower guards. I saw my family only once more, when they all boarded a boat destined for a place they called "England".

When night comes, there are three sources of light in the village.

The moon, the boy... and me.