Mirabella, White Witch in Embryo

The feeling never left her
not throughout her childhood
that she'd have to walk on eggshells all her life.

Her mother's stress was at the back of it.
One wrong word or one false move
and mum was off again.

Inevitable therefore
that at the moment she became
a newly-hatched probationer,

member-of-the-coven witch,
she would resolve
to ride on the damned eggshells for a change.

Arranging eggshell transport was a cinch:
Page 5, The Witches' Handbook -
already covered in her training -

but controlling levitating eggshells... now
that was very different. We're speaking here
of Volume II, Spells Intermediate.

Almost at once
the landscape had become
a mass of broken eggshells.

Discombobulated
by the air's low hum -
Earth's magnetism in the service of

a trainee witch -
Darkness, her dog,
quick to sense his mistress

less than fully in control,
let his pain be known,
and howled incessantly.

Marabella, to her lasting credit,
refused to take the short cut, and
remained a white witch to the end.

Not Brilliant White, perhaps,
no dazzling gloss to blast your eyes,
more your eggshell finish.

..............................................................

Image prompt by Tess Kincaid at Magpie Tales