He opened his palm, and in the center sat a single match. He grabbed the match with his other hand and scraped it against his denim pants leg. The match caught flame and flickered between us.

“Even a small amount of light chases away shadows. What can threaten this light?”

“It’s just a small flame,” I said.

“Then let’s make it bigger!” He swept his free hand around the front of the match, blocking it from my vision, then opened both hands so his palms were spread out like a tray. There in the center where the match had been hovered a ball of light.

I gasped and stepped back.

The ball was a perfect sphere the size of a baseball, slowly rotating in the air. Eli had turned a match into a ball of flames. But not like yellow or red flames I’d seen before. It almost looked electric to me. Like a powerful light bulb without the glass.

“Bigger light,” Eli said. “Nice?” He smiled at me over the turning sphere.

“That’s . . . that’s impossible,” I croaked.

“Yes,” he said in a playful tone. “If I were just a boy.”

I looked past the brilliant light sphere into his kind eyes and felt my pulse begin to slow. His face was filled with knowing and peace.

“Impossible,” he began again, “if you were just a girl. But if you’re the light of the world, then not so impossible.”

I shifted my eyes back to the light, drawn to its surface. I wanted to reach out and touch it, to let my fingertips feel its power.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“It’s safe?”

“Of course.”

I stepped closer, losing myself in the wonder of it all. Usually it was me sharing wild stories with children; now a child was sharing one with me. Only this one was real. Right?

Eli watched as I reached my hand out. I could feel the warmth, but more, I felt it drawing me closer, closer, like a magnet drawing steel.

The moment my fingertips touched the sphere, they began to tingle just under the surface. And then, without warning, power swelled and shot up my arm and down through my body—into my lungs and deeper still into my very bones.

I gasped. But I wasn’t afraid. It was comforting. Warm but not hot. Powerful but not painful. For a split second, I felt certain that the light and I were one. I belonged to it and it belonged to me. It was in me and I was in it. And in that moment, I wanted to fall deeper into the light and forget the rest of the world.

“Now tell me,” Eli said. “What can threaten this light?”

What blots out light? I dropped my hand and looked at him. “Darkness,” I said.