I didn't like Batman Returns. It was dark and strange and that latex body suit that Catwoman wore looked dreadfully uncomfortable. Aunt Amanda told me if she had known about the Penguin's gory death scene at the end she wouldn't have taken me to see it at all. (Though actually I'd thought that was kind of wicked!) Nonetheless I returned to Amanda's house in a thoroughly ambivalent mood—not happy with the way things had gone and still somewhat out of my element, but elated to be spending the summer away from London.

 

The house was full of darkness when we returned. I crept back up the stairs to the guest room where I would sleep, all the while hearing the trilling of birds and chirping crickets outside. My room was just to the right once I reached the top of the staircase, with a bathroom across the hall, and I brushed my teeth and prepared to get some sleep.

I tossed my sketchbook on the bed and kicked my sandals off, then lay down to read from the pocket testament my mother had given me for the trip. It included the Pslams and Proverbs and after a while my eyes glazed over until I came to this verse:

 

The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment.

 

Something about it just clicked and the gears in my mind started turning. What truth was it talking about, I wondered? A nagging sense that I needed to admit something to myself wouldn't stop badgering me. I got the feeling again when I read a little farther and saw:

 

Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

 

“What truth, God?� I whispered. I read a bit more but just found passage after passage of Solomon pointing out the obvious. I wanted to know something that wasn't obvious—what Truth was I in denial about?

Frustrated, I flipped ahead and into the gospel of John, where my eyes immediately fell on:

 

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

 

I looked up at the ceiling. “Not funny.�

Deciding I had enough to mull over, I put the testament on the nightstand by my bed and pulled open my sketch book and began drawing. I drew a girl in flowing robes with hair down to her waist. Her right hand was clenched tightly but held nothing. The space there looked empty, so I drew her a little stick to hold. And she didn't have a face at first, so I started sketching her a face. When I was finished, I squinted; it looked like me. For some reason this satisfied me, so I put the sketchbook down and got up and went to the bathroom.

Before I made it to the toilet, though, I looked out the window in the bathroom where I could see the four greenhouses. There was an odd point of light down the hill there, and as my eyes focused I could tell it was a person—it was Aunt Amanda—heading towards the greenhouses. She had a torch or something. She walked up to Greenhouse Four—the burnt one—and as if specifically to pique my curiosity, she opened the door and went inside. It was still on my mind when I went to sleep.

 

0000

 

When I got up the next morning, I must admit I spent a good ten minutes staring at my sketchbook. The image I'd drawn of me in the robes looked different somehow. The lines that made up her robes were lines that I did not remember drawing, and I could have sworn her hand had moved a few degrees.

 

Then again, it had been late...

I finally wrenched my eyes away from the sketchbook and headed down to the kitchen where Amanda had made some eggs and toast and poured me a pitcher full of a thick orange liquid.

“What's this?�

“Pumpkin juice,� Amanda said. “Try it, it's good.�

“Really?� I took a sip and it was.

After breakfast, she took me out to her garden where she taught me how to use a hoe, then she took me inside Greenhouse One where she taught me how to care for her trees, some of them rare breeds imported from South America. She sold them to eccentric rich people who used exotic trees as status symbols.

Greenhouse Two, I learned, contained her flowers, which were absolutely beautiful, with shades crimson and violet, azure and viridian, sometimes running together in the same flower, creating an array of colour that took me by surprise every time I went inside.

The third greenhouse contained medicinal plants not native to that part of Britain, though Amanda said she didn't know how many of them had actual medicinal properties and how many of them were just junk science masquerading as folk remedies.

 

The next several days went on in this manner, with me getting up earlier than I normally would during the summer and then going to bed earlier too because I was just so tired, all the while hoeing and digging and sweating like Amanda had anticipated. It was work to be sure, but I had good company, and was enjoying myself, for the most part. Though, even with the unusual amount of exposure to the sun I was getting, I still managed not to tan. I did develop a brown dot near my right eye that might have been a freckle, though.

 

At night before I went to sleep I tried skimming my testament for any idea on what I was supposed to learn about the Truth, but nothing was clicking and I began to think that I had just imagined the entire 'truth' thing, or just happened to light on similar verses as a coincidence. That night I dreamed that me—the little me in the long robes—was standing over my bed laughing at the sleeping me and pointing her little stick. I didn't know what she was laughing about.

 

On the fifth evening, Amanda and I sat in the front room drinking hot cocoa and talking about the relative length of dragons and whether a dragon or the USS Enterprise would win in a fight. I was rooting for the dragon because even proton torpedoes are nothing compared to mithril scales and claws so sharp they make steel akin to tissue paper. But Amanda insisted that dragons weren't so tough, and if you set your phasers to stun, you could stupefy them long enough to attack their eyes, their only weak point. I told her that my dragon had prepared for such an occasion and bought a pair of goggles.

Amanda, I thought, was about to concede defeat to my infallible logic when a knock came at the door. “I've been expecting someone,� she said, tipping her sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes.

“This late?� I asked. It was almost eight o'clock.

“You know how my more eccentric customers can be,� Amanda said, getting up and answering the door.

In walked a man in an incredibly ugly brown business suit with what I thought at first was a leather attache case. He had greasy black hair and a long hooked nose, an unpleasant glare that declared his superiority on his face.

“Ms. Vanir,� the man said coolly, “I'm here to pick up my order.�

“Ah yes,� she said. “Michelle, this is Mr. Snape. He's a.. er, Chemistry teacher at a school in town.�

“I suppose you're looking forward to the holiday,� I said, reminding myself to tease Rupert when I returned home about how late into the summer his school terms lasted.

 

“Quite,� Mr. Snape said curtly, his eyes never leaving Amanda. “My order, please.�

“Yes, of course,� Amanda said, a trace of nervousness in her voice. She glanced over at me. “Michelle, in Greenhouse Three there's a small box behind the door when you first go inside. Will you please get that and bring it to me?�

I shrugged and pulled on my sneakers, then headed out and trudged down to the greenhouse. Inside I found the box like Amanda had said and hefted it back up to the house. But when I went inside, both Amanda and Mr. Snape were gone. I put the box down by the door and headed into the kitchen, looking around and finding nobody. I went back outside and shouted for them, but got no answer, so I headed back down to the greenhouse. It too was empty. I was exasperated and beginning to worry, and had taken two steps away from the door of the greenhouse when there was a prickling sensation at the back of my mind. Something had moved in my peripheral vision just as I'd turned my head away... but when I tried to turn and look I found unbidden fear making my neck turn slowly.

 

When I finally managed to wrench my head around, there was an enormous brown dog ten paces to my right, fangs dripping with saliva as it stalked closer, growling.

 

They tell you that you have a 'fight or flight' response, but they forget the third option: freeze. That's exactly what I did. I stood rigid, staring at the dog and too frightened to move as it stalked ever closer, sniffing at the air and licking its lips hungrily. It sniffed my hand, my fingers inches from its nose.

 

The paralyzing overload infecting my brain started to clear, and locomotion suddenly returned to my legs. I took off, darting around the far side of the greenhouse and down its length, the dog close behind barking repeatedly. I stumbled forward and fell face down, only managing to roll over onto my back because of the utter terror pounding through my heart. The dog snapped its jaws at me and I kicked it in the face, driving it back slightly. It seemed almost mush when my foot hit it, though, like the dog was made of sponge. I managed to crawl backwards until I ran into an old engine block in the yard that had collected years and years of rust. I used it to climb to my feet and took off running again, this time rounding Greenhouse Four and darting back across the far side towards the house.

There's no way I can make it up the hill on two legs faster than that dog can on four, my brain told me.

 

Shut up and try, responded my survival instinct.

 

I hadn't gone far when the dog pounced on me, rolling me forward again end over end, my neck and shoulders painfully rammed against the ground. But this time its momentum carried the mutt from hell so far forward that it managed not to keep me pinned, and I leapt to my feet and ran for the nearest door I could see.

This happened to be the door to Greenhouse Four.

Despite the decade of rust the door burst open easily and I crashed inside, running into a table and knocking over a bunch of plants.

 

...Plants?! demanded my brain?

 

Killer dog! my survival instinct retorted.

 

But my brain immediately overrode my survival instinct and went into full curiosity mode. Inside the greenhouse, there was no sign of the burn damage, the open hole in the roof, or the decade of disrepair. It was lavish. It was huge. Bigger on the inside than on the outside, I estimated. And covered in plants, many even more exotic-looking than those in Greenhouse One. Some of them moved to the sound of music emanating from an old record player in the backg while others seemed to be producing a rhythm of their own.

 

Killer dog? my survival instinct reminded.

 

I walked farther into the greenhouse, stepping over vines and finding a huge, gorgeous pink flower in the back. When I approached it turned and I heard an unfamiliar voice coming from that direction.

 

Oh, forget it, declared my survival instinct. Just get eaten for all I care.

“Amanda!� said the voice through a thick French accent. “Back so soon, are oui?�

 

My eyes must have been as wide as saucers; the flower petals opened up. And there was someone inside it. A tiny little person, hair as pink as the petals hanging down over her chest, rubbing her bare arms with water pooled inside the flower.

“Oh my!� she said. “You are not Amanda. What is your name, leetle girl?�

I didn't answer. I just turned and ran. I ran as hard and as fast as I had ever run, even harder than I had ran when the dog was chasing me. I burst back out of the greenhouse, the dog immediately resuming its pursuit. I didn't care. I ran.

The dog bowled me over again, this time managing to pin me down before I could get up.

I probably wet myself. I don't really remember now. I just remember fangs. Fangs and Amanda's voice.

 

“RIDIKULUS!�

 

The dog popped out of existence, replaced by a tiny kitten on a unicycle, hovering over me harmlessly. It mewed.

I was shuddering as I climbed to my feet and saw Aunt Amanda, standing a few meters away holding a thin red wand, a scowl on her face and her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, her violet shawl hanging off of her in the same manner that the robes Albus Dumbledore had worn to my home the previous year had hung off him.

“Michelle, are you okay?� she asked.

“St...stay away from me!� I cried, turning and darting up the hill. As I hit the rear entrance a loud crack resounded in the kitchen and Amanda just appeared out of thin air in front of me.

“Michelle!� she cried. “Stop, you're going to make yourself sick!�

 

I could sense the truth in her words. I could feel sweat pouring off of me, I could feel the gut-wrenching anxiety tearing in the pit of my stomach. But my need to run, to survive made me ignore the sudden manifestation of my teleporting aunt.

 

I ran through the house, up the stairs, and slammed the door to my guest room shut, locking it behind me with both the knob lock and the slide lock. I ran towards the window because I felt sick to my stomach, and opened it just in time to avoid making a mess of the old wooden floors. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and staggered backwards, collapsing into my bed, and I looked down and stared at the drawing I'd done the night I got there.

The drawing of me, waist-length hair, witches robes, holding a magic wand.

I collapsed on the bed and starting bawling, mumbling incoherently that God would save me or strike me dead or cause me to wake up and find this was all a nightmare. And I kept crying and heaving on my bed until it seemed like there were no more tears inside me.

A gentle knock sounded against my door. I didn't answer it.

Amanda's voice, sweet and reassuring called through. “Sweetie, I'm sorry. I was trying to ease you into it. I didn't mean for this to happen.�

“Go away,� I said dully. I didn't want her to go away. I wanted the witch that used to be my Aunt to vanish and the real Aunt Amanda to return.

But then all the strange memories slid together and the Truth I'd been missing hit me in the gut so hard I thought I'd throw up again.

There was no real Aunt Amanda. There had always been Amanda the witch.

The Truth was out.

If this was being set free, I wanted to go on being a prisoner.