I was brought here when I was younger. I remember it entirely too clearly than a seven year old should. It was the weirdest thing too. One night my father and I were on our way home from the pizza place and it was storming really bad. The rain was coming down heavy and the road was barely visible through it. I remember the sky lit up and the faint cursing of my father and then I remember a spinning sensations and then there had been a loud noise. I remember blinking blood from my eyes, waking up to my dad shaking my shoulders forcefully.

He had looked so worried. The first wrinkles by his eyes had finally begun to show after that. I felt bad because he had been really young when he had me, not even out of highschool. But I was his world and he was the only world I knew. He told me my mom was an angel and while he sat there and shook me, he had me swear I couldn’t go see her. I very distinctly remember him picking me up and carrying me through thick woods and for some reason I remember seeing almost ripples in the air. Almost like someone threw a stone into the water escape it seemed to shatter reality. At the time I had no idea, but now I know it had been a portal. But I don’t even think he realized the difference in the world. I did though. When we walked through it was still raining but the trees looked different. They were too green for the crisp fall that had recently set in. The air smelled different too. It wasn’t until the morning he knew something was wrong.

I can distinctly recall him becoming angrier and angrier saying we were lost as we trekked through the woods. Then night fell again. By then he was certain we were very lost and when I tried to tell him we were somewhere else he said it was from the stress of the accident and he needed to get me to a doctor. Half way through the first night we stopped. That was when he began to realize we really were somewhere else. Or considered it. You see, he studied astronomy while in school and since it hadn’t been all that long since he had graduated he figured he could guide us with the constellations. The first thing he found wrong was you could see nearly every star in the sky creating several milky ways. Then he was even more certain we were somewhere strange when he couldn’t find any constellations we knew. That was the night I’d first seen my father cry. He held me tightly and apologized profusely about getting us in this situation. I think I told him it was okay but I don’t completely remember either. We fell asleep on the cold ground beneath a willow tree.

I had a dream that night, it was the weirdest dream I’d ever had. It was my mother telling me to trust in what was happening. That things are meant to be and despite what you think you have no control. She made me swear to remember the willow tree, remember the power and beauty it holds but also to remember the danger it can be in torrential situations. When we woke, we weren’t alone. It was scary waking up to find people watching us. It wasn’t just any people. I called them angels but my father called them other things. They were all in white cloth. Their hair ranged from fair to nearly ebony. They were all sorts of races and all sorts of sizes. There was no pattern amongst them but they were complete harmony in all ways.

My father was afraid at first but soon he grew to know them. They weren’t fighters so he fought for them. They raised me to be one of them though I wasn’t born into them. I held no magic, or at least I never thought I did, but they claim I did. I always thought of it as enhanced clarity. But here I am now, you are living proof that I might have magic. Despite my 53 years thinking I had absolutely nothing special about me aside from being in the right place at the right time. But here you are, right in front of me. Thank you for that Willow, I will aid you in any way I can.