She could not remember when the certainty had formed inside her. It felt like it had been there forever.
‘I am a witch …’
She had always known it deep down in her being, and not for a second did she ever doubt it. She was, Caille the witch.
Only, sadly, Caille did not go to a wonderous school for witches, she was enrolled in an Educate Together in the depths of North Dublin. The school was great, and Caille learned loads in it, but it did not teach her anything about being a witch, about discovering her skills or finding her gift.
In her spare time, Caille devoured all books she could find about magic, about witches, about spells, and the more she learnt, and the more she grew, she became puzzled about the lack of witches around her. In books they seemed to be everywhere!
It wasn’t possible that she was the only witch in her neighborhood. It was such a large neighborhood, filled with everything and everyone you could ever imagine, for sure there must be some witches somewhere! Caille could not be persuaded otherwise!
As you would expect Caille’s favorite holiday was Halloween. She loved the dressing up, the mysticism of it all, the general feeling of joy and closeness to the magical world she so much loved.
On Halloween, people actually seemed to believe her when she said she was a witch, they did not smile patronisingly at her or make fun of her frilly, dark dresses.
Caille was a strange child with extremely loving parents, who were firm believers in allowing her to develop as she would, without imposing any of their expectations on her. As long as she was healthy and happy, they were satisfied.
So, without the pressure of choosing a career or having certain results in school, Caille did the minimum necessary, while, in her free time, she would try and test and work hard to find her witchy craft.
As a teenager, Caille would go walking in the woods looking for spirits, she would make spells under the moonlight, she would hold rituals by fast-flowing waters. Caille did everything she read a witch would do, but for some difficult-to-understand reason, Caille did not see results to her witchcraft.
As a young adult, Caille felt hurt by the strange looks people would give her on the street. In a world so accepting and open, she felt like an outsider, and what was even more difficult was the fact that, she could not prove to them that she was a witch; she could not show them the extent of her gifts, because she just was not able to find them.
A girl saying she is a witch is amusing, a teenager saying she is a witch can still be tolerated, but a woman dressing up as a witch and actually believing she is a witch is quite difficult to understand.
So, Caille found herself in her mid-thirties without any qualification, with very little money and with no other specific knowledge than the certainty that she was a witch in a world where anyone could be anything provided they could afford it.
Fortunately, Caille could still live at home with her parents and so she could pursue her quest for her witchy gift.
All her life, Caille had had a very sensitive sense of smell, so she loved perfumes, anything scented, and she had this uncanny ability to recognize only by smell plants, condiments, and aromas in the world around her. She could even smell people! And not because they smelled bad, but because each person has their own smell, only humans are not very good at sensing it.
In her rituals Caille often used candles and all sorts of fragrant powders. And it happened that, one day on a very brain foggy morning Caille, exasperated by her difficulties to focus, set herself to make a candle that would help her meditate and clear her mind.
Caille mixed beeswax with sage and rosemary powder, added a drop of peppermint oil plus a dash of bay leaf for insight. After a quick nap, once the candle had settled, Caille lit it and sat with it, meditating and allowing the fragrant scent to envelop her senses.
To her never-ending delight, Caille found that the candle worked a treat. Her brain fog lifted and her mind felt clear and tranquil. Success! Caille told herself while enjoying the perfumed air of her room.
What she did not know though, was that her parents had some neighbours over and they too were helped by the scent traveling under the door, down the stairs to the open-plan living room.
Everybody in the house felt relaxed and happy, clear-headed, and found solutions to issues they were struggling with for some time.
At first, it was difficult for them to know the source of the support they got, but then one thing led to another, and they all agreed that Caille’s candle was the source of their newfound state of well-being.
Soon Caille was bombarded with requests to make candles for this, that, or the other. With her extensive knowledge of plants and aromas, it was easy for Caille to create the candle needed for any request. It was a nice earning occupation that allowed her to focus on her studies and development.
Caille had customers from the whole wide world, and they were all convinced that there was something wonderfully magical about her. Caille loved helping people and she was grateful that she was able to do it using some of the knowledge she had found while working to find her gift, which, for some reason, proved so difficult to find.