To go home, you usually will use that door over there." I looked where Trom gestured and saw empty space.

"What door?" I asked.

"Oh, sorry. Until you go through your closet door for the first time there won't be a door there."

"So then what do I use now?" I asked.

"You use that door." I looked and this time what he showed me was a door-only it looked like a pet door.

"Is that an oversized pet door?" I asked.

Yeah, well, what are you going to teach me next...how to take over the world?” I asked sarcastically.

“Good idea!” Sampson exclaimed a little too enthusiastically.

“No, bad idea!” I stressed.

“See? You are learning,” Sampson said.

A dragon for a familiar!" Trom exclaimed.

"That's what I said to her or close to it anyway," the dragon said.

"You're supposed to be helping me make you my familiar," I said to the dragon.

"Yeah, I know; I meant for that to sound better than it did," the dragon replied.

A black cat crossed my path, and I stopped to dance around it widdershins and to sing the rhyme,

Ou va-ti mistigri?
Passe sans faire de mai ici.

I looked into her eyes, and saw my own staring back, the same peculiar shade, pale grey, flecked with yellow, rimmed with black. Now I knew the nature of her debt. It had weighed on her conscience for fourteen years. I was looking into the eyes of mother and I knew that I would never see her again.

You know about witches, wizards. You can envision dragons, even if you presently think you are above believing in them. You doubt magic, but you have a word for it. Isn't that a strangeness that wears at you? All these things that you know all about, but you think you are above. Did you used to be able to shape the spell children use to find lost things in the grass? Did you always know to look at the sky, at stars, when you make your wishes? Who taught you the things your soul has always known?