"This girl is not of this world", people would often say when their eyes alight upon Aamira. Not because of how she looks (although her clothes are rather odd), but because of how she looks at them. No one could really quite explain, but those who stare at her could not help but feel the fire in her eyes. And they have to look away.

A day never goes by without the townsfolk talking about Aamira. Sometimes incredulent, sometimes sympathetic. Quite a few would rather not have her around, or so they say, but a few expressed that they quite liked her eyes--despite the uncomfortable feeling that they cause. Aamira's eyes she inherited from her mother, and with that she also inherited the isolation that is the price of such beauty: shiny marbles bearing a flaming golden color, with tiny flecks of the lightest brown.

Aamira shuffles from pavement to pavement--frequently looking into the shops, but never going in. She stares at the people going in and out, and listens to their bustle, never saying a word. In fact, no one could ever remember hearing her speak. Shopkeepers always want to turn her away, saying she scares the customers, but Aamira's eyes reduce their admonitions to incoherent stutters.

No one knew how come she was so silent, or how her eyes got the wise, weathered look they had. She cannot be more than eight years old, and yet her aura is that of a person who has lived a hundred years. Indeed, some of the wiser tenants of the village often wondered what answers her eyes held, what secrets she kept in her heart. For inspite of all the attention she gets from her people, her fragile body exudes a certain loneliness.

No one knows where she went, or when exactly she left. Some say she went to another town, but a few (children, mostly) say she flew through the stars. Sometimes people see her dancing with the grass, but she disappears the second they turn back to get another look.

A few say they're quite glad. But then, when their own eyes play tricks on them, like eyes sometimes do, they look in the mirror and they see Aamira's eyes embedded in their faces.

And they convince themselves that it was just a trick of the light.