Back when I was a kid, my parents died in a car accident – I was 7 and in second grade. I had been staying with a babysitter at the time, an elderly lady named Emma McCarthy. She had three cats and was the first person I had met that had “powers”. When the social workers came to take me, Emma signed all the paperwork to become my legal guardian and I went to live with her.
I should back up a little and mention that by the time I was in kindergarten I had already read all the children’s books in our local library and was begging and cajoling the librarians for books from the “grown up” side of things.
At Emma’s house, when she babysat for me, I would read all the books she had laying around the house. I always asked first, and was surprised when sometimes she’d say “not yet, not for you quite yet” and the book would simply not be there when I looked for it.
It became a sort of game, because I would of course start looking for it – there’s nothing like “forbidden fruit” to motivate a kid to do something. LOL
One time I concentrated so hard that I heard all three of her cats make weird little mews, and the book I was looking for plopped onto the table beside the couch. Emma came running in, and I expected to be scolded but instead she just smiled and looked at me with a mixture of pride and dismay. The cats came in and sat at her feet and she said to me, “Watch this.”
She made a small movement of her hands and the book floated up over the table. It just hovered there.
I was delighted.
“Can you make it come back down to the table?” she asked.
I looked at it and felt a sort of flutter in my chest and the book slowly floated down to the table.
“Wow”! She said, and her cats all mewled at the same time, like chattering kids.
After we danced around a bit and were somewhat silly, Emma sat me down and explained that we were both witches, and that there were many different kinds of witches. She told me she thought I was an Air witch… I was just as adamant that I was a Book witch.
As it turned out I am both.
Leave a Reply