The first thing Everett felt was warmth seeping through his face. Not intrusive or overbearing, just a pleasant sensation of gentle heat. The next sensation he felt was the prickle of soft grass underneath and around him.  He heard birds singing in the distance, and crickets chirping in the grass. He opened his eyes and was momentarily blinded by sunshine, and had to take a moment to let them adjust. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and took a good look around him. He had been laying in a field of long grass about knee height, each stalk swaying gently as a calm breeze blew from behind him. The sky was clear, with nary a cloud in sight, and the sun bathed the field in a golden glow. Far in the distance, the field was surrounded on all sides by thick pine forests and mountains beyond. In the center of the field, about a hundred meters away, was a tall hedge, circular in layout.

He stood up and dusted himself off, and in doing so noticed two things: for one, he wasn’t wearing any clothes, and two, his body was . . . blurry, almost. Not exactly blurry, but more like it was extremely difficult to maintain focus on it, as if his body and his eyes were similarly polarized magnets, repelling each other.

Okay, weird.

He put a step forward and felt that the ground was soft and easy on his feet. Taking another step, and seeing no further hazards ahead of him, he slowly made his way towards the hedge.

As he neared it, he became aware of just how large it was, easily twenty meters tall, with a diameter of one hundred meters or more.  Just before him, an arched doorway was cut into the hedge. He stepped through, and beheld a massive circular garden inside.

It seemed to be laid out in a pattern composed of concentric circles, with progressively taller fences and walls separating each section, like layers to a jawbreaker. The foliage directly surrounding him in the outermost layer was short and pleasant--flowers and small bushes mostly--but deeper into the garden it looked to get taller, denser, and wilder. Daisies made way for sunflowers, which were in turn replaced by honeysuckle vines, and then rose bushes, and so on, in and in. Towards the very center, just over the top of a formidable stone wall, was the tip of a pine tree, peeking out.

Looking around him, he saw the pathway turn and follow the perimeter of the garden in a counterclockwise direction. Whatever this place was, he felt that it was very important not to trample the flowers, and thus began to walk along the pathway.

He passed beds of petunias in every color imaginable: reds, blues, purples, pinks and yellows, even ones he thought were impossible, like black or striped brown. Each step he took further into the garden, the flowers got more and more dense, until the path was scarcely a foot wide. Walking along, passing each of the hundreds of flowers, his vision shimmered and rippled, and he started to see something before him that looked nothing like the garden.

He stopped, and the image vanished.

All was quiet. The faint song of a sparrow could be heard in the distance.

Hesitantly, he resumed his path, and the vision before him sprung to life again. He recognized it as a memory, one he’d nearly forgotten.

He saw himself as a child, pushing and shoving his way through a dense patch of bushes. The sun was beginning to set, and he knew he needed to be home for dinner soon, but didn’t know how he had gotten so lost in the forest behind his home. Sybil sat on his head, staring wide-eyed at all the tall trees around them. She wasn’t old enough to talk or really even do anything yet, so most of the time she just clung to him and watched the world go by.

After wrangling his way through another bush, he shoved aside one last branch and saw Rose for the first time.

Rose, as she would be later named, was a beautiful barbie doll with matted auburn hair and half of her left arm chewed off by a dog. She wore a pretty red skirt and a blue jacket over a plain t-shirt, and was covered head to toe in mud flecks and bits of leaves and pine needles. She lay there, caught in a blackberry bramble, her perfectly painted blue eyes staring into his soul.

Everett had never felt so conflicted in his short little life.

He . . . needed her, but had no understanding why. Everyone would make fun of him, he knew, but he just couldn’t shake the desire to take her home.

She was perfect.

He pulled her out of the bushes, and something deep within his little heart swelled with joy at holding her. A smile slowly spread across his face, until he was grinning from ear to ear.

He hugged her as tightly as he could, and stuffed her under his shirt.

Rose became his favorite toy after that, and also his greatest source of shame. He cleaned her off with the backyard hose and did his best to untangle her hair, storing her up in the broken treehouse, out of sight. In the months afterward she was always the main character in his pretend adventures, and never lost a battle. She was strong, but compassionate too. She could tell funny jokes that would make all the other toys laugh. He would sneak into Julianne’s room sometimes even to see if he could find some more accessories for Rose to wear, although he always felt like she looked the best in her skirt and jacket. Eventually, he worked up the courage to bring her down from the tree and into his room.

A few days later, he saw his mother, carrying Rose, walk up and present her to Julianne.

“Found this, is it yours?” she asked.

“Ew no,” Julianne said, her nose crinkled in disgust.

“Okay, Jimmy must’ve brought it inside then. That puppy’s gotta stop stealing other kids’ toys.” His mom walked towards the trash can.

Everett wanted to say something, to shout out, to scream, “No! She’s mine! Please don’t throw her away!” But he couldn’t even open his mouth. Shame and fear had paralyzed him.

Rose fell and landed at the bottom of the trash can.

The memory faded, and Everett shook his head a little. Surrounding him on all sides were petunias, the hedge to his back, and a waist-high wooden fence painted white, with a cute latch gate, stood before him. He saw no bearing whatsoever on where the entrance to the garden was, and the sun’s direction had changed.

What a weird place.

He had mostly forgotten about Rose; she was an unusual anomaly amongst his toys as a kid. He had loved her probably more than any other singular toy he had at that age, but could never explain why. Unlike any other toy, she was the only one he felt embarrassed to have, and he never dared show her to anyone else.

Why would the garden show me her again?

He popped the latch on the fence and it opened with a slight creak. Stepping through, he was surrounded by sunflowers of all shapes and sizes. Some had large heads that drooped from the weight, others were smaller and had many flowers per bush. Seeing one particular sunflower that was laden with seeds, he plucked a couple and popped them into his mouth.

Walking along the trail again, having to push aside an occasional sunflower out of the way, his vision began to shimmer once more.

It cleared and he saw himself, walking slowly past the playground of his elementary school during recess. It was the first day of third grade, and his best friend, Kyle, had moved to the east coast that year. Placed in a class full of strange new faces, and no friends at all whatsoever, Everett was absolutely sure he would be playing alone at recess, forever.

“Hey you!” a high-pitched voice called out, and he looked up.

A small group of girls stood clustered together out in the field, their pixies similarly grouped. He recognized McKenzie, a girl who had been in his class in previous years, as the one who had called out to him.

“We’re playing Crack the Whip,” she said. “You wanna join? You look kinda sad over there.”

“M-me?” He gestured to himself.

“Duh. Of course you! You playing or what?”

He hesitated.

“But, I’m a boy . . . don’t I like, have cooties?”

“I guess you’re a boy, but like only barely. Plus your pixie’s a girl, so that makes you cool with us.”

He didn’t know why being called barely a boy made him feel so happy. He looked up at Sybil, who still hadn’t learned how to talk yet, but could at least understand most conversations now. She looked back at him, smiled, and shrugged.

“Al-alright, I guess,” he said, timidly walking over to the group. “How do you play?”

“Everyone holds hands, and the person on the end tries to pull the line as hard as they can around in a circle. The person on the other end has to hold on as long as they can!”

And so for the rest of recess, they played together, both humans and pixies forming their own chains and whipping them around with reckless abandon. Everett had never had so much fun before in his whole life.

He loved getting thrown around and around until he couldn’t hold on anymore and would go flying off into the grass, and then getting up and having a go at being the lead of the chain. He’d add in zigs and zags beyond just running in a circle, which would amplify down the line until it reached the kid at the end who’d go flying off with a ‘snap’, and soon everyone was doing the same. But the moments he loved most of all were when he was in the middle of the chain, holding hands with a girl on both sides. At those moments he felt a wonderful sense of solidarity, of similarity to the girls around him, and a whole-ness that filled him with happiness and warmth deep inside.

Eventually, the bell rang and the group had to run back to the school, everyone covered in scratches, bruises, and grass stains from head to toe. Everett had found his friends for that year, and for many recesses afterwards he joined them in whatever shenanigans they could come up with.

Everett’s vision returned and once again he found himself in the garden, surrounded by sunflowers and completely disoriented. Directly in front of him was an archway leading to the next layer in. Stepping through, his nose was confronted by a pungent sweet smell as he entered a lattice tunnel, every inch covered in honeysuckle vines.

This place sure was showing him some strange memories. Did it just pick them at random?

Deep in his heart of hearts, however, he had an uneasy feeling. Based on the conversation he’d had with Meredith last night, the weird feelings he’d felt all day, and what he’d seen so far in the garden, he knew something was up. He had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew what it was, and even worse, he would rather he didn’t.

Walking forward, he felt the now familiar sensation of entering another memory.

Everett had graduated from the phone book and was now sitting at the table like a big boy. He had just finished his grilled cheese sandwich and was covered in crumbs, with a drop of tomato soup still on his cheek.

His mom stood by the phone, tears streaming down her face.

 

He stopped walking.

His vision returned to the tunnel and his nose filled with honeysuckle once again.

“No, not this one!” he yelled out to the garden. “Please not this one!”

No response. The pungent smell of the flowers was starting to feel oppressive and sickening, and the tight space of the tunnel now felt claustrophobic.

He briefly entertained the thought of turning back, of just forgetting everything and going home. He knew though that if he didn’t confront it, here, now, Sybil’s life would be in danger, and to run would be to sentence her to even more pain or even death. Not only that, but he personally had to know. He’d crossed the point of no return, and there was no going back to the way things used to be now.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and continued walking through the tunnel.

 

“Hey mom, isn’t daddy supposed to be back from work by now?” Everett had wiped off the tomato soup from his face with a sleeve and stepped down from his chair. He looked up and noticed the tears on his mother’s face.

“Why are you crying, mommy?” he asked, tugging on the sleeve of her blouse.

She looked down at him like she barely knew him, and her face looked hollow. Something about her eyes didn’t look like his mom’s anymore.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” he was feeling worried now.

She slowly pulled him into an empty hug from which he felt no warmth, tears still silently running down her face.

“Sweetie,” she finally said, in a voice that didn’t quite sound her own, “daddy isn’t coming home today.”

“So tomorrow then? He’s coming home tomorrow?”

“He’s not coming home at all, honey.”

“Why not?”

She looked into his eyes for a moment, her expression strained.

She broke down into sobs, and pulled him into a hug that nearly crushed his ribs.

“I . . .” her voice trembled. “I d-don’t know.” She sniffed. “I have n-no idea.”

Everett stood silently as his mother clinged to him, weeping. He didn’t understand. Dad was going to come back, right? Didn’t he want to be here, at home? What about all the times they had played together, and when he’d take them all on trips to the park? His dad loved it here, why did he leave? Had Everett done something wrong? Is that what it was? He didn’t feel like he had done anything wrong, and yet daddy didn’t like him anymore, so he had to believe it was something he’d done recently to make daddy hate him.

At that moment he realized what it could be. He didn’t feel like it was wrong, actually it had felt really good at the time, but he just knew it was what had made daddy leave. Two days ago he had snuck into his parents room and tried on one of his mother’s dresses and a sunhat. He proudly strutted out into the living room, dress dragging behind him, and announced to his parents that he was ‘just like mommy now’. His mom had snorted in laughter, standing up and ushering him back into the room to change, saying that ‘boys didn’t wear dresses’.

His dad didn’t say anything at all. He didn’t even smile or frown. He just looked blankly at Everett before turning back to his book.

It didn’t make sense, but Everett was now absolutely sure this was the reason why his daddy had left.

Standing there, with eyes beginning to water, his mother clinging to him, Everett made a silent promise to never pretend to be a girl again.

 

Everett collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, chest heaving, sweat forming on his face and neck, his cheeks soaked with tears. Covered in dust and dirt stuck to his moist skin, he coughed violently, before pulling himself to his hands and knees. He dry heaved, but nothing came out. His vision blurred and he nearly passed out again. He heard soft footsteps hurrying towards him, and then felt a hand placed gently on his back.

He looked up and saw Sybil kneeling beside him. She was big now, roughly his size, but instead of looking like a young adult like all pixies did, she looked younger, like a teenager about his age. She honestly looked like she could have been another girl at his school, that is except for the fact that her skin from head to toe was a pale aquamarine that glowed faintly, her short hair was stark white, and her wings had grown proportionally and were now roughly the size of a miniature car. They refracted and split the light from the sun into a mesmerizing array of colors, and Everett wondered why he had never noticed how pretty they were before. Seeing her like this was surreal for him, and he realized he hadn’t ever actually paid attention before to what she really looked like underneath the glare of her own light.

“Hey there,” Sybil said, a mixture of concern and relief written on her face. “What happened? How you holding up?”

Everett plopped onto his butt and sighed heavily before coughing.

“Shit, that was rough,” he said.

Sybil sat cross legged next to him, folding up her wings.

“Yeah, and from the looks of things further inside, it only gets worse.” She gestured to the doors in front of him.

Everett only then noticed his surroundings. He and Sybil sat on the apex of a dirt and stone bridge, extending over a stream that acted as a moat, separating the outer rings of the garden from the inner ones. Behind him was the honeysuckle tunnel, and ahead was a stone wall, close to ten feet tall, surrounding the perimeter of the inner garden. A heavy set of wooden doors, opened slightly, served as the entrance to the next section. Through the crack between the doors he could see a dark path, surrounded by roses that looked almost menacing. He felt a twinge of fear and gulped, knowing whatever was coming next was not going to be pretty.

He felt Sybil’s hand squeezing his. He looked up and saw her smiling at him.

“Boy I’m really glad you’re here,” he said, squeezing her hand back.

They sat that way for a minute while Everett caught his breath. Finally they slowly got back on their feet.

“Gotta ask,” Everett said, as Sybil helped pull him up. “Where you been though? Did you start off inside the garden?”

“I can’t go beyond the moat,” she responded, dusting herself off. “Since this is your dream or vision or whatever, and since I’m only linked to you through your inner subconscious, that’s the only place that I can explore.”

“Isn’t the whole garden my subconscious though? That’s what I thought.”

“All that other stuff was outside influences, like memories of your friends and family. In there is all of the deep shit that comes from just you.” She peeked through the heavy doors. “Gotta say though, your inner subconscious is fuuucked up.”

“What’s inside?” He asked anxiously. “Did you . . . see what it is I’m looking for?”

“Are you kidding? I took five steps in there before I freaked out, left, and just hung out on the bridge until you got here! That place is freaky.”

She went silent for a moment, blushing.

“But now that you’re here, it’s  . . . um, well . . .” She grabbed his hand. “I’m just glad you’re here too,” she mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

He smiled. Holding hands, they both stepped through the wooden gate.