The Council, A Witch's Memory by J.C. Isabella

gate, listening to pure silence emanating from the woods. Leaving the gate open, I took a dirt trail, one I was very familiar with, and focused on my breathing.
    In a few minutes I would be with Henry. I wouldn’t be scared or feeling like I was about to panic. What happened to me earlier today was a freak thing. It wouldn’t happen again.
    As I walked I knew there was something else I had to do when I saw Henry.
    I had to tell him how I felt.
    I hadn’t thought about doing it when I was talking to Pepper in the diner. I’d been too scared. But I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself anymore for fear of ruining our friendship, because what if I had drowned? Then Henry would have never known how I felt. Or what if he met another girl and she was bold enough to tell him her feelings? I would then loose the chance I to tell him that I loved him.
    I loved him.
    My heart wasn’t my own. It hadn’t belonged to me since the fifth grade when an overconfident boy told me we were going to be friends, weather we liked it or not.
    He lived just a mile away, past the abandoned mill behind my house.
     
    I was too shy to do anything more than give a small smile as I saw a boy emerge from the side yard of my foster parents house. He hopped the gate as if he did this everyday.
    I later found out he cut through the woods, and our side yard, to get to the bus stop on my street.
    The boy had a head full of sandy brown hair. It stuck out every which way. His skin was tan as if he spent a lot of time outside, and his striking green eyes made me gulp as his gaze locked with mine.
    It was my first day of school. I felt nervous. I didn’t know any of the kids in town and hoped he was nice. That he wasn’t the kind of boy to tease the newbie.
    “ You’re the new girl,” he said in a different accent. He didn’t appear surprised to find me waiting for the bus.
    I blinked. “Yeah, where did you come from?”
    “ What do you mean?”
    “ You talk different.” I smiled. “It’s interesting.”
    “ I’m English. My family moved here from London about a month ago.”
    “ Neat,” I toed the dirt with my sneaker, relieved he was kind of new too. “Um, what grade are you in?”
    “ Fifth. How about you?”
    “ Same.”
    “ Do you know you look like Strawberry Shortcake?” He smiled a goofy lopsided grin.
    “ Who?” I’d never heard of her before. Casting him a sideways glance, I bit my lip. “Isn’t that a dessert?”
    “ I thought so too when I came here. But all the girls at school love her. They have the folders and pencils and stuff. The guys at school like superheroes, except I think they’re stupid.” He laughed. “My father could beat up all the superheroes.”
    I shook my head, “If superheroes were real no one would be able to beat them up.”
    “ My father could. He has better powers,” the boy argued.
    “ Your father can’t have powers, there’s no such thing.”
    “ Don’t you believe in magic?” his tone rang out incredulously, like I’d told him Santa wasn’t real.
    “ No,” I snipped. This kid had problems, mental problems.
    “ You should.” He grinned, “I do.”
    I noticed he had a soccer ball under one arm. “Do you play sports?”
    Tossing the ball into the air, he bounced it from one knee to the next. He was pretty good, except I wasn’t about to compliment a potentially crazy kid. No telling how he’d react.
    “ Yep, I’m the keeper…I guess you’d call me a goalie.”
    “ How many times have you been hit in the head?”
    He frowned, catching the ball and sticking it back under his arm. “Why?”
    “ Only someone who is brain damaged would believe in magic.”
    “ It’s real.” He glared at me. I decided that if a fire ever burned bright green, it would look exactly like his eyes.
    “ It’s not real.”
    “ Yes, it is,” he countered in a hard tone, making my heart hammer.
    I decided he needed to be put in his place and shouted, “Fine, be crazy!”
    “ Fine, I will!”