Chapter One

A young woman, looking about twenty, pulled the coat tightly around her skinny form as she hurried down the busy London street, braving the cold to get to her destination as quickly as possible. A few people turned their heads to look at her, long black hair, pale skin, lips red despite the cold, but no make-up, a few stray snowflakes dusting her eyelashes and cheeks.
With her thick, fawn coloured jacket, black boots, black pants, and white shirt- all clean and ironed nicely- she looked every bit the young business woman, but there was something else about her. Something about the way that her eyes burned with intensity- pitch black pupils, iris' pale amber and changing with the light; now slightly purple, now slightly green- something about the way her jaw was set firmly and decidedly as she hurried to her unknown destination, that made people feel she was somewhat more than she seemed. And she was.
She turned a corner, opened a door in the wall and climbed the small narrow staircase to a small, narrow corridor. She turned, left, then right, then continued straight ahead till she came to an inconspicuous looking wooden door with a sign on it that read "Matthew Smith, Personal Biographer, Confidentiality Guaranteed".
She took a deep breath, knocked on the door, turned the handle and entered. Once inside, she noticed the green carpet, small sofa in one corner, a photo of the ocean on the wall to the right of the door, and desk in front of the sofa. There was a computer on the desk, and a number of stray papers. Behind the desk was a comfortable looking chair, and sitting in the chair was a young man, maybe twenty-five or thirty, Matthew Smith presumably. He had short blond hair, with a fringe that seemed to flop over his face refusing to behave, blue eyes and was clean shaven. He was dressed in business clothes- black pants, a white shirt with a tie and a jacket slung over the back of his chair.
He looked up and smiled "Hello, I'm Matthew Smith. And you must be.." he glanced down at a paper on his desk. "Willow Chandler?" He gestured to the sofa. "Please, take a seat" Willow closed the door, and sat down on the sofa, fidgeting just a little, as though nervous. Matthew Smith pulled the keyboard a little closer to him, opened a program or something on the computer and smiled at Willow again. "Ok, now, obviously you would like to record you personal history." She nodded. "Well, I'd like to say 'go ahead, you can start now' , but as a proffesional there are some things I have to go through first. This paper is the confidentiality agreement. Basically, it just means that we both agree and understand that whatever is said in here will not be found out by someone else from me. If you choose to tell, thats your business" he passed her a piece of paper, which she read, signed, and passed back to him so he could sign it, which he did. She seemed a little happier after this was done, and spoke to him finally "Thank-you. I'm sorry, I've been very rude I should have spoken a little sooner. I have absolutely no idea where to start. This isn't exactly a normal life story..." Matthew nodded "Thats ok, alot of my clients are a little confused to begin with. Try starting at the beginning of the story you are trying to tell." He put his fingers on the keyboard and waited for her to start.
"I was about five when it started. I took a candle off my birthday cake. It was a very nice cake, as I remember. A round sponge cake with a river running down one side and a beautiful weeping willow leaning over it, all done delicately in icing. I was very pretty then, I'm told, but the weeping wouldn't start till later. The candles were shaped like little animals. A dog, a bird, a fish and a bear, but it was the cat that caught my attention. It was beautiful. Back delicately arched and tail with a slight cock to teh right, it seemed to call to me. 'I am dreams, grace. I am the leader. I am life, nothing can beat me' it seemed to be saying to me. When it began to melt, I couldn't stand it, so I reached out one small hand and plucked it off the cake, staring into the flame intently, hypnotised by the flickering, ever changing element. But my parents weren't too happy about that, they were afraid I might get burnt. 'Don't play with fire, Willow' my mother told me as she put the cat back on the cake. That's what started it all. If she hadn't said that simple line I wouldn't be in my current position. But she was just trying to look after her daughter. The effect was far from what she would have wished, from her good intentions. A witch, they said. But they know nothing. Those words have never left my mind since they were uttered, and as of that moment I began to think far too deeply for a young child."
Willow closed her eyes as she sank, still speaking, into a whirling vortex of pain, love, hate, precious memories and some memories she wished she could forget, in an effort to recount the history of who she was. Who she had become. Matthew Smith continued to type, as fast as humanly possible so he wouldn't miss anything. He knew she was practically in a trance, this had happened before with his previous clients. They were seldom able to recount in as much detail afterwards. One chance was all he would get.