Vanessa Through The Looking Glass

Magic came from her fingers, flowing like the winds that bring the first flurries of snow over a leaf-spackled autumn ground. There was no telling what would come of it, but for once in her life, she didn't care. All she knew was the magic itself and that she needed it. She needed the magic desperately.

She could not hesitate and could not falter, for at any moment the magic could spurt suddenly, dry up, turn off, sputter and ebb and die, leaving behind nothing but the dreary, brown world that had neither born her nor raised her but that she now inhabited -- had inhabited now for years.

There were moments of weakness, when her fingertips felt as if they might burst and it was all she could do to encourage herself onward until the very last of it was done...until she had no need of it anymore, if only for the moment. She could not doubt herself. To second guess would be deadly. The magic, and she with it, must express themselves as one. It would have to be her magic, too. There are many different kinds of magic, as wise people and children will tell you, but the best magic -- the kind that not only sustains and inspires but creates anew and blossoms wildflowers of fire in the soul and the imagination -- is not borrowed but born within each of us, a separate kind of magic that is as individual as a fingerprint and just as complicated. To tap into it is ecstasy. To lose it is madness. To never know it exists is to never come to life. This magic is electricity within us and just a spark of it can leave us twitching for the rest of our lives. This magic likes other magic. It feasts on it like a cannibal, devouring whole chapters of Carroll, endless pages of Baum, of Tolkien, books of Rowling, worlds of Lewis. It is the descendent of da Vinci. It was nursed by fairies and ghosts, who told it bedtime stories of bridge trolls and bandaged its scraped knees with King Arthur. But it is not these magics. It eats them. It digests them. They become a part of it, but it is more than these universal flames. They are ineffable, our magics, as near and dear to us as our own souls. Best when shared, but often neglected, abandoned, rejected in the name of logic and reality. As if the whole point of inner magic weren't to color the mundane and soften the cruel that comes with what is real and logical.

It is a great shame that so often the magic goes unseen, unknown, unshared.

But this is who I am.

And now maybe I can get some sleep.