As I stood in the town square with a crowd full of paranoid, violent skeptics closing in around me, I felt fear for the first time in my life. Until this point, I’d flown effortlessly under the radar. I wasn’t the witch I was accused of being, I was actually well- everyone. I was born a shape shifter, and could transform my physical appearance to be entirely identical to another person at any given moment. It was fun as a kid to be able to hide from the adults, or converse with them without being patronized. It had gotten me out of more inconveniences and dangers than I could count, but now, with so many eyes on me, I couldn’t shift. If I did, it wouldn’t matter what the technicality of my supernatural existence meant- they would see the magic and set me on fire. No one knew why I was like this- in fact most people didn’t know at all. The one person who did know, who I thought I could trust, stood in the crowd. She hovered near the back with a pained look on her face, as if her presence there somehow hurt her more than it hurt me. I imagined that’s what her explanation would say if I lived long enough for her to provide one. Just when I thought my life was over, the ground began to shake. At first it was barely enough to disrupt someone’s balance, but it quickly escalated to an earthquake like no one had experienced before- certainly not in Massachusetts. Cracks in the ground like spiderwebs began tearing through the earth, and the screams from the crowd pulled the focus away from my trial. This gave me enough time to escape, but as I ran over to Lucy and stopped in front of her I couldn’t move her. There was a look in her eyes unlike I’d seen in anyone else. Her already fair skin was like that of ghost, and her green irises were faded to a translucent almost white color. I screamed her name and begged her to run with me, but it was as though her mind was elsewhere, and it was irretrievable. By the time the crowd had mostly cleared, and the sky was a deep shade of charcoal, her voice passed quietly through her lips:

“Go, now. This is your only chance. I’ll find you.”

Her next words were so quiet I almost couldn’t hear them:

“I love you”

I stared into her eyes for as long as I could, both hers and mine shining like glass marbles. Even amidst the chaos, I was sure they’d seen what she could do, and I couldn’t leave until I knew she’d be safe. I focused all of my energy on her, placed my hands on her shoulders, and pictured the mayor in as much detail as I could imagine. I watched her transform, as the sharp wind pulled her long golden hair into the shorter style belonging to the man responsible for ripping this town to irreparable pieces. Leaving her ripped my soul into about as many pieces, but I believed her words, and knew we would meet again. So I turned, and I ran, leaving my home forever.