The Stick in Lilith's Hair

“It’s easy,” Ursula said. “You just need to concentrate harder.” 

“I am concentrating harder,” Lilith said through her clenched teeth.  She brushed her black hair away from her big coffee-hued eyes.  She was exhausted and she was done trying.  Concentrating harder was not the problem.  Lilith’s sisters received all the natural ability, leaving Lilith with the short end of the stick. 

Lilith couldn’t get her pinky finger to change texture or color.  Lilith couldn’t move a feather an inch off the table.  And she couldn’t accurately come up with what Magda was going to make for lunch. 

“Let’s face reality.  I don’t have any natural abilities,” Lilith said.

“No, you just don’t apply yourself,” said the black cat soaking up the sun pouring in through the bay window.  The cat leapt off the window seat and shifted back into Lilith’s sister, Agatha.  Agatha had been changing form since she was a baby.  The first time it happened, their mother went to change Agatha’s diaper, only to find a python snake instead of her daughter.  Their mother was relieved when Agatha turned back into a baby seconds later.  First, relief because of a snake not eating her baby.  And second, that her baby girl got her natural abilities so soon. 

“You have some natural ability.  I can see it in your future.  You just need to try harder,” said Glenda. Glenda had precognition.  No one was sure when her powers came in, but it became apparent when Glenda began talking.  She was always telling her parents what was going to happen rather than what had happened.  When the sister’s would play card games when they were younger, Glenda would always win.  She always knew what cards her other sisters had. 

“Perhaps you will discover your powers by mistake,” Ursula started.  Ursula was older than her two older sisters when she discovered her abilities.  She discovered her abilities over a plate of peas when she was nine years old.  She stared at them pushing them around her plate and then they started moving without needing to push them with her fork.  She then figured out how to feed them to the dog without Magda seeing.

“They will come soon enough,” Agatha said.

“Dinner is ready,” Magda’s voice called from the kitchen.  Since the sister’s mother and father worked tirelessly at the Witches guild, they were not home much.  It was Magda that kept the sister’s studies up and managed the house.  Magda had worked for the family since Lilith was a baby.  Lilith couldn’t remember a time when Magda wasn’t around to help.

The sisters exited the room swiftly at Magda’s call, leaving Lilith behind.  

Lilith stared intensely at the pen on the table she was trying to move.  But the pen wouldn’t budge.  She stared at the pen until she heard Magda call her by name from the kitchen.

Later that evening, Lilith brushed her teeth, shut her bedroom window, locking it tight, and climbed into bed.  She sat in bed thinking about her powers or rather, the lack of powers.  She was now eleven, which made her two years older than Ursula was when Ursula levitated that first pea with her mind.  That made Lilith the oldest of her sisters to get their power.  Just because Lilith was the youngest of her sisters didn’t mean she should receive the short end of the stick.

After hours of worry, contemplation, and planning, Lilith’s eyelids felt heavy.  As her eyes closed, her mind wondered.  In a deep sleep, she dreamed about foreseeing her sisters beating her in the bathroom in the morning.  She dreamed about being able to butter her breakfast toast with her mind.  And she dreamed about turning into a raven to fly to school. 

When Lilith woke, before she opened her eyes, she knew it was all a pleasant dream and nothing more.  She held her eyes tight, wishing to get back to sleep and fall back into her beautiful dreams, but then she felt a breeze.  It wasn’t the same type of breeze she felt with her window open.  She remembered locking the window shut.  The breeze covered her body.  She couldn’t imagine where the cool air was coming from. 

Her bed did not feel like the cotton sheets covering the soft mattress she had woken up on every day of her life.  It felt as though she laid on a million little pebbles.  

When Lillith opened her eyes, she knew what was different.  Where she expected to see her bedroom wall with posters of her favorite bands, she saw a treeline.  A deer was drinking from a river and stopped when it saw her.  

Lilith sat up and brushed her face with her hand, and sand fell from her face and into her lap.  Instead of her sister’s chatter, she heard the lapping of water.  The air blew through her hair and she wished she had known how she got there.  

Lilith stood, baffled by the situation.  She twirled in place, trying to determine if this place looked familiar.  She took a step toward the trees and felt the smooth pebbles in between her toes.  She decided that walking into the woods would not be ideal for her current footwear.  She turned to walk down along the water’s edge.  

As she walked, she took in her surroundings. The river was narrow and calm.  The air was cool and carries a faint scent of freshwater, and she could feel a soft breeze on her skin. The river was peaceful and although she did not know how she got here; the calm subsided the panic.

She then looked up into the woods and saw a face.  The face was covered in hair, had a short snout, and two ears poking out on top of its head.  A baby bear.  Where there was a baby bear, there was sure to be a mother.  At that Lilith spotted the mother.  The mother stood in warning to Lilith and gave out a loud roar.

Lilith took a step back. The mother bear returned to its four legs.  It took less than half a second before the bear began to charge at Lilith.

“I want to be home.  I want to be home.” Lilith closed her eyes and chanted. The sound of the bear’s roar disappeared first, then the lapping of the water disappeared, and Lilith’s hair sat on her shoulders. 

When Lilith opened her eyes, she was back in her bedroom.  The band posters hanging on her bedroom wall were clear as day.  She could hear her sisters yelling at each other from the study, debating on who had the better ability, no doubt.  They were always arguing about who had the better ability.

Lilith was unsure of what had just happened.  Did she imagine the river and the breeze and the mother bear?  Or did she just teleport? 

Lilith walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror.  She reached up and plucked a short narrow stick a few inches long from her hair.  Lilith stared at the stick and a smile grew on her face.

Lilith ran down the hall with the stick still in her hand, “Ursula! Agatha!  Glenda!  I didn’t get the short end of the stick after all!”