At first, she seemed to float home. Later, she found it difficult to remember the details of that walk. Sensory information was overwhelming to her. The colours were vivid, cubed. Smells and other sensations conspired to fill her to bursting; at times she feared she would literally explode from the built-up pressure of information overload. When the buildings began to show signs of decay, she knew she was getting closer. She found herself beginning to tremble with reaction. She needed a bed to hide in, to curl under the covers and make the world go away for a while, just until she could sort through her new self.

She felt like a jumble, a kaleidoscope, a jigsaw in which the pieces came from different puzzles. Now she knew she was crazy, but she didn’t concern herself with that fear now that the reality had manifest. All she wanted to do was be alone with her mind and emotions, but she feared it wasn’t going to be easy.

Her steps slowed as she approached the home. It seemed she had been gone for months, and she began to fear that no one there would know her, that there would be no place left for her. A worrying thought struck her. Quickfoot—Father James—was still over there, on the other side of things. What if they had been gone for years and years? As far as she could tell, nothing had changed, but she didn’t know the city well enough to be sure of that. When she saw the familiar door with its flaking coat of grey paint, she had to stop and lean against a wall while the rush of relief swept through her, leaving her shaken.

Climbing the stairs, she had to cling to the rickety guardrail, slowing her steps, breathing deeply. It’ll be okay, she told herself. Everything’s going to be all right. Part of her mind said, No, it’s not, everything is wrong! But the Snowpepper part said, brightly, Of course, it’ll be okay! This is so fun!

She felt herself stretched dizzyingly between the two parts of herself, the frightened part, and the exhilarated part. She used to think she knew herself pretty well. Her accustomed set of reactions still occupied as much space in her mind as ever, but now Snowpepper’s presence was jostling her, stretching her, forcing her to expand, and it was terribly uncomfortable. New rooms were opening in the familiar small house of her mind, expanding her sense of self in ways that she didn’t at all like.

Snowpepper was still high from the novelty of being alive in the world, and Sylvie didn’t want to rein her in yet. Let her have her fun. But she foresaw the need to get in control again. It was her life and she had to make it conform to the kind of person she wanted to be. She wasn’t some ditzy faerie. There was no room in the real world for Snowpepper’s way of being.

When she opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped into the Home, she gasped, a shocked grunt as though she’d been struck a heavy blow in the chest.

“Mom! What are you doing here?”

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