Now it was Monday and she was back in the classroom. The only thing left of Friday night’s adventure was a lightness in her heart. Her smile came more easily as did her patience. She took the moment of quiet while the children were at recess to tidy up the classroom. She went through the aisles, picking up trash and straightening desks. A bottle of glue had overturned on one of them and she stopped to clean it up.
“Oh Allie,” she laughed, thinking of the messy blonde angel whose desk she was cleaning, “Will you ever make anything without making a mess?” When the desk was clean again, she screwed the cap back onto the glue and opened the top of the desk to put the bottle away. That was when she saw the pouch. Soft green leather with a bit of gold ribbon knotted at the top made this particular pouch unmistakable. There was even a hint of glitter pressed into the leather.
She tried to remember where she had left this one, but came up blank. The pouches had been placed at random. She couldn’t remember the specifics of any of them. She only knew that this particular pouch should have been three cities away in some other child’s desk or pocket, not here, in her own classroom. Not that there was any harm in it. It was just strange. Serendipitous, Justice would say. Maybe it was a sign that the Goddess had acknowledged her actions. Maybe it was nothing. She had just lifted the lid of the desk to place the pouch back where she had found it when a voice startled her.
“Miss Samantha?”
Two big blue eyes peered out at her from beneath a tangle of blond hair. If this wasn’t serendipity, she didn’t know what was.
“Allie,” she said, surprised, “shouldn’t you be at recess?”
“Miss Erica said I could come talk to you,” Allie said quietly, “Oh, you found my pouch.”
“I saw it while I was cleaning,” Samantha said, handing the pouch to Allie. “Where did you get it?”
Allie toyed with the ribbon that tied it closed.
“I found it at the store when I was visiting my daddy,” she said. “It’s for wishes.” She looked down at the pouch and her expression was troubled. Samantha had been around children long enough to tell when one needed to talk. With another child, she might have directly asked what was wrong, but Allie was different. As messy as she was with her art projects, she chose her words carefully and only spoke when she was ready. Samantha knew better than to push her.
“Want to tell me what you wished for,” she asked instead, keeping her tone light and kneeling so that their faces were nearly level. Emotions flickered across Allie’s face too quickly for Samantha to read them. Abruptly, she straightened, turned her face up to Samantha’s and pulled up the sleeve of her shirt up to her elbow. Beneath it, the skin was an ugly purple color just starting to yellow at the edges of the bruise.
“Oh, honey,” Samantha said, fighting tears at this clear sign of abuse. Allie’s eyes were dry but her voice trembled.
“There’s more,” Allie said. “It wasn’t the first time.” She gripped the wish pouch in her fist as though it could save her from the one who had hurt her.
“Did your daddy do this to you,” Samantha asked gently. Allie nodded and this time there were tears in her eyes.
“I don’t want to go back.”
Samantha straightened, composing herself so that her voice would be steady.
“You know that no one should ever hurt you like this,” she said and Allie nodded. “And because you showed me this, I’m going to have to make a phone call. Then someone is going to come and talk to you about this. I know that talking to someone you don’t know about something like this is hard and a little scary but if you tell them what happened, we can make sure that it never happens again. This is a big thing, Allie. It’s more than a little wish pouch can handle.”
“I know,” Allie said, surprising her. “That isn’t what I wished for.”
“What did you wish for, then,” Samantha asked.
Allie smiled a little and set the little pouch on top of the desk. “I wished to be brave enough to tell.”
–
Brinna Blaine is a writer, pagan and sometimes artist from Texas. She makes mead, writes fantasy fiction and spends too much time online. She is a firm believer in serendipitous magic. You can find her at www.brinnablaine.com and on facebook.



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