Adele lay her hand on her daughter’s arm. “Sylvie? Sweetheart, are you all right?”

When the girl turned to look at her, she was startled by the brightness of Sylvie’s eyes; normally a clear grey, they sparkled like crystal. Her face was alight and animated; if she hadn’t known who she was, Adele would never have recognized her daughter, who was normally so composed.

“Oh, I’m fine, Mommie, I’m wonderful!” Sylvie said in a breathless rush. “Isn’t everything just so lovely here? Oh, I could just hug the whole world!” The strange young woman who seemed to be her daughter leaped from the park bench to twirl slowly in a wide circle with her arms outstretched. “Hello beautiful world!” she shouted joyfully.

“Sylvie!” Adele cried, plucking at her sleeve, trying to pull her back down to the bench. “What on earth is wrong with you? Asafel! Please help, Sylvie is acting crazy!”

Asafel faded into visibility in the air in front of Adele. “Don’t worry, Adele,” he said, “Let the child go. I know it’s disconcerting,” he explained, “But this is a phase she must go through. She’s going to seem rather childlike for a bit, but when this is over, she will be more fully herself than she has been since the age of three.”

Adele tried to assimilate what Asafel was telling her. “Age three?” she said, “Why, that’s when Sylvie had that terrible head injury! She never was the same after that…she changed, she became so frightened and serious, not the same happy little girl at all. It broke my heart, I remember. Are you saying that whatever happened to her then is somehow now being reversed?”

“Exactly so. She will answer to the name Snowpepper now. I’ve given Sylvie’s dominant personality leave to surrender control for a time; the poor thing has been in rigid charge of herself for far too long. In the meantime, you’ll have your happy little girl back, quite as she was before the accident. Larger, of course.” Asafel’s smile managed to be both gentle and sardonic.

Adele’s eyes widened as she looked at Snowpepper, who danced on the sidewalk, spinning about and hopping with first one foot then the other, with a grin of pure childlike delight on her face.

She paled, her right hand going to her mouth. “Oh, my. Asafel, people will notice, they’ll wonder… what if someone calls the police, what if they want to take her away? She’s behaving so strangely!”

“No, they won’t. In this part of town, people get away with behaving just about any way they want to.” Asafel gestured toward a woman across the street who paced back and forth talking and gesticulating to herself. “Don’t worry, Adele. Sylvie will be fine, I promise. Now, it’s time to return to the house. There’s someone there you ought to meet.”

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