I’ll always remember the look in his eyes when I emerged from my prison for the first time. He caught sight of my reflection in the large foyer mirror and spun around so fast that he almost lost his balance. As he stood there, frozen in shock that I’d escaped, his one hand was clenched around my baby brother’s shirt collar. The other was balled up in a fist, ready to deliver a beating to a child who could never defend himself against someone so big, so imposing, and so cruel.

In that instant, my feeling of victory was replaced with only one emotion.

Rage.

He locked me away because he couldn’t hurt me as much as he did my baby brother.

He hid me in there, not just to torment me, but to stop me from being around to shield the weak little boy.

He cast me aside to take me out of the equation.

In my blinding fit of anger, I hurled toward him and he let go of my baby brother to fend me off.

“Go hide.” I needed him to hide in our mother’s room. Once the smaller boy was safely gone, I fought with every ounce of strength, pounding on my older brother with one bunched fist after another, kicking his shins, shoving my entire body weight against him to let him know I’d never stop fighting him until my very last breath.

But he was still stronger. Still bigger than me. And enraged—furious that I’d gotten free, furious that I’d managed to hurt him, even a little.

He got my arm and neck into a wrestling hold and squeezed so tight I could barely breathe. My vision blurred as I slipped closer to the edge of unconsciousness. My legs were still kicking whatever I could reach as he dragged me across the foyer and up the wide wooden staircase to the second floor. I knew what was coming next. He’d gotten away with throwing me down the stairs twice now, and I was sure that for this third time, I wouldn’t be so lucky. Sharp edges, bones, and gravity didn’t mix well.

But a knock on the front door saved me.

He was smart enough never to let anyone see what he did to us. That was how he got away with so much. The absence of credible witnesses enabled him to blame it on us. He could call us clumsy, or rowdy, or careless little kids who hurt ourselves at every turn.

 A random neighbor’s visit saved me. She stopped by to see if Mother was well enough to catch up on some of the local church events. When she saw my bruises, she asked who’d done this to me. I knew better than to give her a straight answer. My family was too powerful to feel the force of justice. She could have reported my injuries to the police, Child Protective Services, to our priest. None of it would’ve mattered. Our family had a way of making legal problems go away. Wealth and influence made it possible for us to suffer under the weight of a ‘good’ family name. Reputation imprisoned us and kept our pain hidden.

My refusal to reply to the neighbor saved me from more beatings that day. It also inadvertently ended my time locked up in that prison. He was so angry about the fact that I’d freed myself that he rushed upstairs to figure out how I’d unlocked it. I regretted my mistake then. I’d forgotten all about my makeshift tools on the wooden floor inside. Once he saw the twig and toy soldier’s bayonet, he took them out to the garage and broke them into little pieces with a hammer. He didn’t dare break Mother’s butterfly hairpin, though.

He probably had no idea that I’d just used it.

That it was the key to everything.

He didn’t need to know about the countless tries it took me to get out of that prison.

But finally, that day, it worked. I’d wedged one edge into the top of the keyhole and slid the bayonet underneath. The hairpin was narrow enough, yet strong enough to anchor down the slender tip of the bayonet, and when I shimmied it around, one tumbler lifted and dropped. Then another, until it was open.

That was my first ever act of magic.

Except, after he broke the twig and bayonet, he stuffed the end of two plastic toy arrows into the keyhole. Wedged them in so tight that no one could get them out. Of course, it meant he could never lock me inside ever again. At the time, I’d thought it was a good thing.

Not long after, I realized how wrong I was.

He found other places to imprison me. Places that I couldn’t get out of fast enough.

That first prison could’ve kept him from my baby brother.

After everything, I still had the butterfly hairpin. I kept it hidden under a loose board in my first prison just in case he found a way to dislodge the broken arrows in the keyhole. The day I finally ran away, I took the extra time to sneak in, just to find that hairpin and take it with me. That little thing was the only item I valued in our massive house that I could escape with.

I had nothing left.

Nothing and no one.

Nothing but that pretty little butterfly hairpin from Mother.

The means to spread my wings and fly far away.

My key to freedom.

My key to discovering magic.

My key to everything that followed.