the niche

The niche is where I live now with seven other children and it always smells of lilac. It is located up and up on the farthest pink-speckled cloud in Neverland, half-passed over to the Wood Between the Worlds. Schooling starts tomorrow and I couldn't be more nervous anxious to earn my daemon which everyone seems to have already. Goofy is my room-mate and his daemon is an owl; always muttering disagreeably about how a little girl such as I mayn't belong in the niche. That it's golden gilded sorting hat had made a mistake, and I should be back on the mainland sipping tea and blissfully bantering with other unwanted children. I pay them no mind. Mickey is Goofy's best friend and his daemon is a cat; we avoid each other for no reason at all. Mick's the one who started called me Minnie when I first arrived and even now I cannot remember my name from before.

My teacher's name is Mrs. O. She teaches Spanish but isn't very good at it. After our first lesson on greetings she soon gave up and gave us all chocolate covered pretzels with strawberry icecream, each child receiving a bowl with his or her name engraved neatly on the front. Mine was pink and 'Minnie' was inscribed in yellow roses. School isn't so bad, not with Mrs. O teaching us. But she does cry a lot, when she thinks we arn't looking.

Hours days years later something is terribly wrong in the niche. Goofy and I are arguing politics as we usually do in the evenings when the walls start to tremble and shake and his eyes go wider than I've ever seen them. The natural sunlight that has always lit up the nitch starts to dim and sputter into blackness.

"Something's wrong on the mainland. Stay here."

But of course I don't. I remember a long, long time ago Goofy and Mick and a few others with daemons had to leave for days and it was the absolute worst time being stuck at home with no one to terrorize. Who cared if I hadn't gotten a stupid daemon? I'd certainly not be left behind this time. Never again.

Tiptoe-ing through the chaos, keeping as still as a shadow while the lights flicker and my heart races at the prospect of adventure. Goofy turns left and I mirror his movements. We meet up with Mick and Daisy and Don and they silently join hands and start chanting. At the last possible moment I break their chain, throwing myself into the fire starting to crackle beneath their feet. I hear a hiss and the niche starts bending at the seams.

[image from I've stolen a garden]