The boy had a tendency to wander.

Alphonse Wingates always did have the extraordinary ability to get lost in thought quite literally. Today, though, instead of finding himself in an unfamiliar place, he had wandered to somewhere quite familiar.

The orphanage.

The place was closed down now and the rusted iron gate had long since ceased to be locked. The gate creaked as he stood there before the imposing old gothic-style house. Ivy vines had almost overtaken the brick walls. Dust cloaked the stained wooden door. Windows had broken in the wind or by children's thrown stones. The path of once beautiful pebbles that led to the home were sinking into the ground as if soon they would be gone forever.

Alphonse had first come to this place when he was very young. It had been after the death of his father that had left him with no willing known relatives to claim him. The scar from the accident had just begun to fully heal when he passed that gate for the first time. It would be years before he would leave again.

His hand traced the lines of the scar across his nose without thinking. It hadn't all been bad, after all.

He had been so frail for quite some time after the accident and he would watch the other boys play in the field listlessly through the window wishing he could join in.

His caretaker at the time had noticed the boy's wishful sighs. She promised to bring him to the park the next day.

Alphonse didn't know what to expect. He hadn't been outside in what felt like ages. He had managed to get himself quite excited by the time his wheelchair was rolled out into the brisk air.

The park was close to the orphanage and it wasn't very long until he got there. Spring hadn't quite started yet. But there were still a few buds here and there attempting to defy the weather.

Alphonse remembers it being magical. To be outside made him feel alive again. It almost made him forget too.

He remembered it fondly now. His first sight of the old shrine. It was unlike anything the child had seen before.

It was worn, but well-kept with a majestic red arch that almost faded into the sun. He didn't know it at the time, but it was a type of Shinto shrine that someone had constructed. It may have been small, but it might as well have been a palace to him.

He thinks of the old man now. He doesn't remember where he came from or if he had been there that day or some other time.

What he does remember is that the old man was the nicest he'd ever met. He gave Alphonse a white piece of paper with a ward on it. He had explained how it could scare off spirits. Alphonse was delighted like only a young child who still believed in magic could be. That encounter had sparked a love of Japanese culture within him.

Alphonse remembered what it was like to think the world had magic in it. It was so much simpler then because the magic wasn't real.

Now he knew it really was real.

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