Seven Years

Seven Years

by Elais

...She's a little girl with nothing wrong

And she's all alone

A little girl with nothing wrong

And she's all alone...

(Norah Jones - Seven Years)

Alittle girl with a blue dress was looking at the sea. She was about seven years old, maybe older, maybe younger. It was actually the very first time she was seeing the sea. She was looking at it with her big brown eyes, eyes filled with wonder and amazement. Like any little girl. But she wasn't any little girl. One day, she would be someone wonderful, powerful and respected. Someone loved by other people than her parents.

The little girl took off her shoes and walked bare footed on the beach, burying her feet in the sand. She walked to the sea. It licked her feet and it made her laugh. The wind made her very long brown bushy hair dance. Spreading her arms, she began to spin on herself. She spinned and spinned and spinned, very fast, making her head dizzy, wetting herself with the water, drenching her pretty blue dress.

Eventually, she fell in the water , her butt hitting the sand first. She had water to her waist. Had her schoolmates seen her fall, they would have said she would immediately get up and be angry. In fact, they would never believe she had spinned bare footed in the water, letting herself fall and not moving an inch. They thought she was bossy, a bookworm, a nerd not worth talking to. Children are so cruel with other children.

The little girl was clever. She knew she was bossy at times, and more clever than the average child of her age. But she couldn't do anything to it. When she tried to be nice, the others at school made fun of her anyway. She was lonely and desperately needed friends, but it was hard to let people in when the others had hurt you so often. So she stayed alone. Day after day, week after week, month after month, she was always alone. Her parents were worried but she told them it wasn't that bad, that she did have some friends, even though she never invited anyone at home. She had once had a very good friend, but she had moved away and the loss the little girl had felt had been huge.

Nothing was wrong with her. She wasn't weird or strange or an alien like the other kids at school said.

Nothing was wrong with her, but she felt that she was, somehow, in an indescribable way, different. That she was made to be someone important later... that this very life was not the one whe would live forever... that she was expected, somewhere else, anywhere... Sometimes, at night, she would dream of owls and castles in Scotland, of a red-haired boy and a black-haired one, and when she'd wake up, she'd have this strange sensation that it wasn't completely a dream... Castles and owls existed, of course, but she had never seen an owl and had never been to Scotland. She didn't know any red-haired boy that fitted the description her mind would draw of the boy who haunted her dreams... As for black-haired boys, she didn't know any with a strange scar on his forehead... They were only creations of her mind, what else could they be? Yet, she had this weird inner sensation that she knew these boys and the castle she often dreamed of... That she was connected to them, somehow...

The wind slapped her face, bringing her back to reality. She rested on her arms. She closed her eyes and listened to the sea. She felt so peaceful. At that very moment, nothing mattered, not even the names she was given at school. Nothing mattered but the wind and the sea. Nothing mattered but the smell of the sea, and the feeling of the wet sand under her palms. Nothing mattered but the cries of the seagulls and the clicking of the sea. She had never felt this alive, this happy. She got up and started to spin agin on herself, this time with her eyes open. She saw the water twirl around her, falling from her wet dress. She spinned and spinned, looking down at her feet and at the sea, then up at the blue sky. She felt like she was flying. She felt like she was free. No, indeed, nothing else mattered but this feeling inside her, the promise of better days. She knew life wasn't easy, as young as she was, but life would prove her right again, many years later. But she had faith. And she knew that even if she fell, it was alright for her to, and that, eventually, she would get up again. And be stronger. She knew that no matter what happened, she would always be strong.

She fell again and laughed out loud, splashing water all around her, playing with it. She did not know it yet, playing in the water as any seven year old little girl, but the dreams of castles, owls, red and black-haired boys would subside as the years would go by, until finally disappearing. She did not know she would forget to their very existence, four years later, as she would receive a very peculiar letter delivered by an owl, telling her she was a witch and that she was to go studying in a castle in Scotland. And she did not know that four years later, a black-haired boy with a strange scar on his forehead would become her best friend along with a red-haired boy, who would not only be a friend for her...

But that, my friends, is another story...