What Once Was A Game

The day I first believed in real magic, I was playing just like this. Alone as always, the cornfield softening the outside world into silence, gathering pebbles to place in a careful circle around an old coke bottle full of milk dyed black. I don’t remember the exact moment when I realized I wasn’t alone anymore. 

It was more of a slow growing awareness, an inkling turning to certainty until I finally stood up from digging a particularly pretty pebble out of the ground and said “You can come out now.”

She revealed herself then, a grey, long bodied weasel with a small, thoughtful face.

“How could you tell I was watching you?” She said without moving her mouth.

“You’re not the only witch in this field.” I said, bluffing.

“I’m not a witch at all.” The weasel spoke without moving her mouth again, then sniffed the dyed milk. “But you will be.”

“What do you mean?” I said, my throat tightening with want.

But the weasel, bored, loped away from me and my circle of pebbles.

“I am a hungry animal, not your teacher.” 

She disappeared into the corn. When I knew she was gone, I approached the milk myself and sniffed. It smelled like nothing but dairy and old sugar, not yet transformed.