One day, the young princess is out in the woods, once again trying to make her powers manifest. She concentrates every speck of attention on that branch over there, squeezing her eyes shut as she wills the branch to come to her.

When she opens them again, the branch is right where it was before. She kicks it. Maybe if she tries with something even lighter than a branch, even Mom and Dad have a hard time with heavy things and they're grownups, maybe that branch was just too heavy for a seven-year-old. 

She looks all over the forest floor, searching for a very small and light leaf.

There's something on the forest floor that's not a leaf. It's not any kind of plant. It looks like dark fabric.

She walks over. Looks at it. Pokes it with a stick.

The object seems to be made of felt, black dappled with a glittery bronze that shimmers and shines in the sunlight. As she moves it with the stick, it becomes clear that it is hat-shaped. Wizard hat-shaped.

A wizard hat! In the middle of her forest! Someone must have lost it, they probably miss it, it's so beautiful they must miss it so much —

She should give it to her parents, they know all the wizards in Elmia. They'll know whose it is.

She picks it up. It's really pretty with all the shiny.

She feels a strange urge to put it on.

Huh, so she does. Even though she just found it in the forest so it probably has squirrel pee and mold on it, she really wants to try on the pretty hat. 

She puts it on. It's too big for her, so it slides over her eyes and makes the whole world dark. 

It doesn't look shiny on the inside, just dark. And it smells kind of bad, just like she thought it might. She should probably take it off again —

Hello, child.

Aaaah! It talked! Inside her head, but still, it talked it talked it talked, hats are not supposed to talk —

She grabs the hat, yanks it off her head, drops it on the ground, and backs away quickly.

The hat stays on the ground, not moving or talking. It looks just like a normal hat that someone dropped in the forest.

She stares at it intently. 

After about ten minutes of no movement, her panic has quieted down, a little, and her curiosity wins out. She walks, slowly and cautiusly, toward the hat on the ground, ready to jump back if it tries anything.

It doesn't appear to.

She reaches the hat, and keeps staring. She's never met a talking hat before, and the curiosity is burning inside her, imploring her to find out more. But at the same time, she wants nothing more than to run home and hide and be safe with her parents.

You know, if she runs home and tells her parents everything, she could probably get one of them to come here and help her figure out the hat. Then she could get her answers and feel safe.

Once again, she feels an urge to put on the hat.

She must be braver than she thought, because curiosity just won the debate. She'll stay in the forest and investigate the hat herself. It still hasn't moved, after all, so it's probably not that dangerous. Maybe the only thing it can do is talk to whoever's wearing it?

Then she'd have to put it on to find out more.

She gathers all her courage and puts on the hat again.

Hello again.

She's prepared for it, this time, and doesn't yank off the hat in shock. Instead she tries to sound brave and commanding and not scared at all as she asks, “How does... What are you?”

A wizard made me. I served him for years. Now he's dead and I'm all on my own.

None of these sentences are lies. They're not the whole truth, either.

"Wow, wizards can do anything. I hope I'm one." 

You do not know yet? How old are you?

He knows the answer already, of course, but the girl needs to believe this was a chance encounter.

"I'm seven."

If you're seven, and you haven't manifested yet, I think you do know the answer. It's no.

"I'm... B-But dad said I'm just late, that I'm... he said it's like a dahlia, the flowers don't show up until midsummer, but then they come and they're really pretty... I know I'm late but I have to be a wizard, my whole family are!"

She's crying, now, and hugging herself. The too-big hat is still covering her eyes, but that's not a problem when all she wants is to look down at her feet.

Flowers. What a stupidly sugar-sweet metaphor. 

You're not a dahlia. You're a human. A magicless human. But I can help you with that.

"You... you can?" She's still sniffling. "How?"