And then she shows up, stepping out from behind the bear like wandering around in the woods with a giant bear is the most natural thing in the world to be doing and hello, where’s yours?

She looks like a little girl, eight or nine years old, barefoot and dressed in a baggy green-brown shirt and Capri pants. Her face is sweet and open, her thick blonde shoulder-length hair spilling out from under a loose rusty-red cloth cap that trails off down her back to a point at its end. But I’m not ready to take appearances at face value. This is the otherworld, so she could be a thousand years old and only wearing the shape of a young girl with innocent eyes. Unless you’ve got a built-in magic detect-o-meter like Joe does, there’s no way to tell.

And the really funny thing is—funny strange, not funny ha ha—is that I feel like I’ve seen her before only I can’t remember where. I just have the feeling that the memory’s not a good one.

“Don’t be scared of him,” she says. “He’s just a big old teddy bear.”

“Right.”

The bear looks no less menacing and grim, but I feel a bit of hope at her words. I mean, she’s standing right beside him and he hasn’t mauled her, has he?

Except then she says, “It’s me you should be scared of.”

Nothing changes about her. The innocent eyes don’t suddenly show red coals glowing in their depths. Her features don’t go all dark and broody. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t doubt her for a moment, though I can’t begin to explain why. Instinct, I suppose.

“If I’ve done something wrong . . .” I begin.

She gives a merry little laugh that makes me shiver.

I’ve always hated those movies where little kids are possessed by some powerful spirit that makes them do horrible things totally out of keeping with their true nature. But now, it seems, I’m stuck smack dab in the middle of one.

“Maybe everything about you is wrong,” she says. “Maybe those ferns and plants you’ve been tramping on are my feelings. Maybe I’m allergic to your pheromones. Maybe I’m offended by the way that light in you shines so bright.”

Again with the light. I’m tempted to look down at myself, but I know I won’t see this light everybody’s always saying I give off. I never do.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I say. “Really. I had no idea I was trespassing on your private territory. I’m just lost.”

“No, you’re not. I found you, didn’t I?”