An American Love Story by C. S. Moore

entered. “And there’s no opening, so you must be magic.” Anticipation blossomed across her face as she continued. “I’ve heard about magic. It can save you from bad people or sometimes grant wishes. I’ve tried to use it before, on my door, to keep out people who want to hurt me. Mine never worked, but yours does. So you must be an angel,” the child concluded.
    Amanda thought of the little blind girl standing in the doorway, waving her thin arms and chanting an incantation, a spell of protection. She wished the spells had worked, but she knew better.
    I wouldn’t be here if her spells had protected her from evil .
    This young girl had been hurt so badly her soul had been torn away from its rightful place inside her body. She was trapped in her past, trapped by the man who had corrupted her soul, and maybe she’d died here. Perhaps he’d murdered her in the end. But she wasn’t here in this Scar because of her death. She was here because of her life.
    Flipping back to her first lesson at the Hovel, she recanted, “ Scars are left when a spirit cannot move on from a singular event.”
    This curly haired girl may have lived to seventy or she could still be alive today, just a shell of a human being walking and talking. But her spirit had never left this moment, this room, this place.
    Amanda pushed away the painful thoughts before they overcame her. “Well, I wouldn’t call myself an angel, but I do know magic and I am here to help you.” She gently placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, making the child flinch away reflexively. “Your name, do you remember your name?” she asked.
    â€œKaedin, my name is Kaedin,” she whispered.
    â€œWow, that’s a beautiful name. Did you know that your name means spirit?”
    Kaedin shook her head.
    â€œMust mean you have a lot in you. My name is Amanda.” She held out her hand in a greeting before dropping it quickly, the girl couldn’t see it and therefore couldn’t shake it. Amanda looked around the room. It was easier to counsel when you knew the year. She couldn’t tell much by the furniture or the rags thrown on Kaedin but noticed a paper lying on the table. It was dated ten years ago. Kaedin would be about her age, if she was still alive.
    Taking a deep breath, she cleared her mind and went through her usual checklist, although she knew this would be anything but routine. Counseling was sure to be different with the leach demon clinging to the Scar so strongly, but she couldn’t guess how as all she was taught about her current situation was to not be in it. Amanda didn’t know if it could hurt them, but then she thought of what would happen to this sweet spirit if she did nothing. That’s what Kaedin would be, nothing. The demon couldn’t possibly do more harm than that. So she decided to follow normal procedure.
    â€œSo, Kaedin, tell me how to help you.”
    The child’s face once, devoid of color, brightened a little. “Can you really save me? Are you even real, or did I make you up? No one never ever helped me.” Tears pooled up and began to fall freely from her sightless eyes. “No one ever helped me, because no one ever loved me.” Her little hands brought the pillow back up to her face to absorb the salty tears.
    Amanda choked back tears of her own, wanting to be strong for the weakening spirit. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through. You should never think that. You are pretty easy to love, you know,” Amanda said soothingly as she gently took the pillow away and lifted up the broken girl’s chin.
    â€œLook, Kaedin, I can do anything you ask me to do,” she said. Amanda held out her hand and closed her eyes, calling on light. When she opened them, a bright ball of light danced in her hand, bursting with color and bringing life to the dingy room. Lightning and rainbows, bright and flickering, every