The White Witch told me she was a witch who lived in that country.
It was my first time seeing a being known as a witch. Apparently, that’s what people were called once they developed their magical abilities and they received a star-shaped brooch from their teacher.
She invited me to stay at her estate.
“May I see you use your magic?” she asked as she handed me a wand.
There was hardly anything in the parlor of her mansion—just the barest furnishings of a table, a sofa, and a bookshelf—but even someone as ignorant as me could see that the furnishings were of good quality, and it was obvious that she lived an affluent life.
And so I carefully channeled some magical energy through the wand, making sure not to accidentally hit anything.
Light came from the tip of the wand.
“I see.”
She shook her head and told me that was enough, and then asked me, “Now then, would you tell me your story?”
My story.
“…Where should I start?”
I figured she probably wanted to know the sequence of events that led to me being chased by the soldiers and the criminals. I was stumped as to where exactly to start my explanation.
She smiled gently at me as I hesitated.
“Anywhere you like,” the White Witch said. “As much as time will permit, as much as you feel like telling, talk to me about whatever you like.” And then, because it seemed like it was going to be a long story, she brought over several plates of cookies and macarons, as well as some tea.
I talked.
I told her everything that had happened before I got there.
I told her my oldest memory of being buried in the ruins by the seaside. I told her about how, the next thing I knew, I was living in the orphanage. I told her how life in the orphanage was stifling, and boring, and heartbreaking, and how I had been certain that I wasn’t normal, and how I had fled. I told her about arriving at that kind village when I first set out on my journey. I told her about how after that, after flying across the plains for several days, I had encountered the caravan party and made my way there.
“A lot of people helped me before I got to this place.” During my journey, the old woman and the others in the village, as well as the people in the caravan, had all treated me with kindness. “I thought that being friendly to people in trouble was normal.”
While I was traveling, I had thought normal people lived their lives doing good things. Like all the people who had shown me kindness, I had also wanted to be kind to other people.
The White Witch asked me, “Are you traveling because you want to become normal?”
“……” I couldn’t answer her. “I still don’t really understand what normal is.”
The world was brimming with things I didn’t understand.
I had thought that if I could live kindly and treat people well, like those others had done for me, that that would be a normal way of living, but…
As a result of that thinking, in the week since I had entered this country, a group of men had taken advantage of me, and I had quickly lost everything.
“Is it not normal to extend a helping hand, to be nice when someone you know is struggling before your eyes?” I asked the White Witch.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know whether it’s normal or not, but as far as I can tell from hearing your story, I have no doubt that in this instance, your way of handling things was foolish.” The woman admonished me in a gentle tone of voice. “You mustn’t offer help solely out of a desire to be kind, without looking at the sequence of events that led the other person to wind up in trouble in the first place. You’ve got to think about what will happen after you help them.”
Kindness had to be something you did in consideration of others; it couldn’t be something you did for your own satisfaction.
That’s what she told me.
I wondered whether that was what it meant to be normal.
I thought about it while I was listening to her speak so earnestly. The White Witch must have been able to tell exactly what I was thinking.
She opened her mouth to speak again.
“This normal that you keep talking about—to put it another way, we can call it common sense. And common sense doesn’t have a definite form to it. It takes a different form for each person. By way of example, take these plates,” she said as she picked up a cookie.
“There are several different plates on the table, and they may look the same, but the pattern is a little bit different on each one. Common sense is much the same. It may seem identical, but it’s a little bit different in each person,” she said.
“For example, don’t the cookies and macarons served up on a beautiful plate look delicious? But if this plate was dirty and misshapen, would they look just as delicious, I wonder?”
I imagined it. Then I shook my head.
“…They wouldn’t.”
“Exactly,” the White Witch agreed.
People’s knowledge and experiences were built on top of their common sense, and if their version of common sense was peculiar, then the way they viewed their knowledge and experience would be different, too, she told me as she waved her wand and lifted all the cookies up off all the plates.
“And unfortunately, there’s no correct answer as to which plates are clean and beautiful and which plates are dirty and misshapen.”
“……”
I lowered my gaze.
To me at least, the plates that were left behind on the table looked like the kind of thing that anybody would say was beautiful.
“The people I met before coming to this country were good people.”
The old woman and the others who had been living in the small settlement and the members of the family caravan had all treated me, a complete stranger, with kindness. I felt certain that if I could be more like those kinds of people, I could become a normal person.
“Were they really? It doesn’t seem that way to me.” The White Witch simply shook her head. “For example, the lady who gave you that robe you’re wearing right now—do you really know who she was?”
“…?”
“Once, there was a mage in a country nearby here who killed her own husband. The mage was arrested and spent ten years in prison, after which she completed her rehabilitation into society. But the fact that she’d murdered her husband kept her at a distance, robbed her of her place in the community, and she fled from the country. The robe you’re wearing is the very same robe the mage wore at the time of the incident.”
“……Eh?”
“It sounds like you also encountered a family-owned caravan on your journey. From your perspective, how did they seem?”
“How did they seem…?” I was confused and at a loss for words, but I still managed to squeeze out a few words in reply. “They seemed…happy.”
“Did they? By the way, they came to this country once before, but they faced harsh criticism from the citizens here, because they were abusing their children. The people felt bad for the kids, who were forced to work from a young age and never given the opportunity to get a proper education.”
And so, unable to stand the criticism they faced, the family left, fleeing the country, she said.
“…But…” At least, those people had treated me, a complete stranger, with kindness. They didn’t seem like bad people at all. Not to me anyway.
I hung my head, and she nodded.
“People who seem good from your perspective may seem very bad from another angle. That’s what I’m saying.”
In other words, she was telling me there was no such thing as one correct version of “common sense” or one true version of “normal,” no matter whose perspective you looked at it from.
“As far as I can tell from what I’ve heard, your common sense hasn’t completely developed yet. You simply copy the behavior of the people around you who seem normal and naturally treat them as if they are decent people.”
Then the White Witch put her wand away.
The cookies that had been floating lightly in the air all fell down to the table and broke.
“…Well then, what am I supposed to do?” I asked. I wondered what I could do in order to acquire this common sense she was talking about. “What can I do to achieve normalcy?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I only knew that I was ignorant. Other than that, I knew nothing.
I pleaded with her, desperate for any help I could get, and she simply shook her head and answered, “I wonder? That’s something I don’t really know either.”
Then, smiling gently and kindly, she continued, “So why don’t you join me in my studies?”