Do you believe?
My belief in magic started at a very young age. Call it an overactive imagination, a desperate need to create a world where I had control. Either way, I’ve believed for nearly my entire life.
I can pinpoint the moment it all started, standing in front of our old neighbor’s house, staring down at planter boxes overflowing with greenery.
The memory is so vivid—this first visualization of something not easily explained.
A snake. Red with black and white stripes (or black with red and white stripes, however you want to describe it) slithered out of the plants and moved along the edge of the planter box. All I could do was stare down at it, completely in awe of its beauty--which is mystical in itself because snakes terrify me.
To this day I will still swear that the damn thing had a crown on its head. A shiny golden crown, gleaming in the sun, red velvet at the base.
Naturally, I told everyone—my mom, grandma (my brothers were too little at the time or they might have believed me) -- but they all chalked it up to my imagination. They believed I’d seen a snake, sure, but not one that was actual royalty. But even now, in my thirties, I can still picture it there, slithering in the box, golden crown on top of its black and red head.
So yeah, I believe in magic. I believe it’s everywhere around us, even if we can’t necessarily see it.
It’s in the brightly colored flowers returning each spring and the fresh dew drops coating the grass in the morning, undisturbed by the rest of the world. And most importantly, it’s in the way we love. The ability to give over part of ourselves, entrusting it completely to another.
This collection is close to my heart for so many reasons. It’s the intro to every single magical story I’ve written, including my first ever published book, Tethered Souls. But perhaps the main reason I care so much for these stories, is that they will show you magic can be found even in the most hopeless of times.That if we always look for the magic there will be hope, even when the darkness threatens to swallow you whole.
All you have to do is remember.
There is magic.
There is love.
There is hope.
So as you head into this collection, embrace your imagination and prepare for a literary journey unlike any other.
Happy reading.
-Jessica