Morgan Berry’s mother had always wanted a daughter and when she gives birth to a son, she simply dresses him as a girl and treats him as she would a daughter. When he’s picked on and teased at kindergarten, she homeschools him herself.
Morgan is eight when his mother brings home a new beau, a no-nonsense man called Dennis O’Rourke. He compliments his new ‘daughter’ on how pretty she is and when his mother doesn’t correct the man, Morgan flees the room in embarrassment.
Naturally, Dennis eventually discovers Morgan isn’t a girl. From that moment on, he barely acknowledges Morgan’s existence and is, in fact, openly hostile to his cross-dressing step-son. On the eve of Morgan’s eighteenth birthday, Dennis, now an alcoholic, bashes his stepson until Morgan loses consciousness.
Morgan wakes up outside. He has no idea how he came to be under a tree on top of a small hill beneath a starry sky. He’s trying to work it out when he meets Reginald Batt, of the Big River Batts.
Morgan and Reginald become inseparable and together they experience worlds of wonder and awe. Morgan is shown sights he could never have imagined and in the process he learns many things about the world, and about himself -- the most important of which is a revelation indeed.
I found a grassy spot by the tree trunk to lie down then spent a good hour or so just staring up at the night sky. Many thoughts meandered through my mind. Some stayed a while and I pondered them in great depth. I wondered why we were here in the first place. What was the purpose of our existence? Was there any purpose at all? And if we had a purpose, did every living thing have a purpose? I wasn’t thinking of purpose as in the purpose of a carrot is to be eaten or the purpose of a cow is to give milk. And be eaten. I wondered whether they had any spiritual significance. And if they didn’t, why were human beings any different?
I confess, I did think of my mother and Dennis. I wondered if she missed me. Thought of me? I knew Dennis couldn’t care less, but I hoped the anxiety of waiting to be arrested for what he thought he had done was eating him up. As far as they were concerned, I was dead. He had beaten the life out of me and together, they had dumped me in a field somewhere. Both of them had committed a crime and I hoped they were living in terror of spending the rest of their lives behind bars. Especially Dennis.
Eventually my thoughts began to disintegrate and I dissolved into nothingness. There were no dreams, just ... nothingness.
I was awoken the following morning, not by the sun, which was quite high in a blue, cloudless sky by the time I became conscious, but by the sound of a girl calling a name.
“Rosamond! Rosamond!”
I opened my eyes as the girl, wearing a simple white dress, decorated with embroidered flowers, and wearing her hair in twin braids, appeared from behind the massive trunk of an ancient tree. I stood up, ready to greet her.
She gasped. “Please don’t hurt me,” she said, her eyes full of fear.
I was a little offended. “I have no intention of hurting you.”
The girl’s expression became friendlier. Her body relaxed, though she kept her distance.
“Who’s Rosamond?” I asked.
At that moment, Reginald leapt from the branches, flinging half a dozen dead leaves into the air as he landed.
The girl screamed. She turned to run.
“Wait!” I shouted. I walked towards her, smiling, my hand held out. “He’s my friend. Can we help you?”
The girl, who looked to be about the same age as me, perhaps a year or two older, turned back round to face us.
“The boy’s right,” said Reginald, marching right by me. “We’re all friends here and if we may assist you, you have only to ask.”
The girl took a step back, her expression morphing from fear to mere apprehension.
“I’m looking for my sister, Rosamond. She went missing last night.”
Reginald walked a circle around the girl, who turned with him so she was facing him at all times.
“Where did you last see her?”
“At home, just before she left to gather mushrooms in the forest.” The girl looked as though she were about to burst into tears. “I know that something horrible has happened to her.”
Reginald went to hug the girl, though his hands passed right through her. He shrugged. “Oh well,” he said, matter-of-factly. Then more seriously. “Perhaps she simply got lost.”
He walked back towards me.
“She knows this forest as well as I do,” said the girl shaking her head.
Reginald looked at me. I looked at him. Then both of us looked at the girl.
“I know,” I said. “How about we help you look for her?” I realised then I didn’t know the girl’s name. “What’s your name?”
“Helen.”
“We can help you, Helen. Would you like that? We’ll help and when we find her, we’ll bring her home.” I was only too pleased to have something purposeful to do.
Helen’s face lit up. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
Reginald was grinning. “Of course, we would. Now you run along home and we’ll locate the whereabouts of your Rosalind for you.”
“Rosamond,” I whispered.
“Your Rosamond,” Reginald said with a bow.
“My family and I would be ever so grateful. We live just over the rise,” said Helen pointing. “But I’m not going to give up looking. My parents are elderly, but they’ve offered to do my chores while I search for my sister.”
Reginald nodded. “Then we should commence at once. Come on, Morgan.” He turned to me. “You’ve already had more of a lie in than is proper,” he whispered.
He waved at Helen, who looked much cheerier than she had at any time since the three of them had been together.
“Come on, Duchess. You’ve rested long enough, as well.”
Duchess materialised to one side of them.
Helen screamed again.
Reginald and I turned to find the girl wearing a nervous smile and breathing deeply, her whole body heaving with every breath. Her eyes were riveted to Duchess. She gave us one more tentative wave, before turning on her heels and hurrying out of sight.
“Where are we going to start looking?” I asked.
Reginald contemplated his answer. “Wherever she is, she’s not in this forest.”
I looked quizzically at him. “How do you know?”
“Spirits can sense these things. You’ll find out.”
I’ll find out? I looked at him as though he’d gone mad. “Hopefully not any time soon,” I replied.
We mounted Duchess and started moving through the forest.
