maddie

She was only five when her grandmother took her to the lady with the big, funny looking cards. She remembers little about the visit, except for the lady – she was very pretty in an oddly elegant, black way – and the smell. It – the lady’s home – smelled like candles, colorful candles, if colors had smells, and, at that age, the little girl thought they did. She never did ask her grandmother why they visited the woman, nor why her grandmother looked so sad when they left. When she tried, as she got older, her grandmother would tell her that she was imaging things, that they’d never visited the woman. But the image was too sharp to be something she just dreamed. Finally, one day, when she was 14 and telling her grandmother about the boy she “loved,” her grandmother took her in her arms and held her tight. “Love isn’t everything it’s made out to be,” her grandmother said in a soft whisper. The girl’s name was Madeline and she was unfathomably beautiful.