I visited Aunt Elma every year, usually in the summer time. She lived in a chateau in the French countryside. As a child she would take me boating on the river and tell me that she made the moon cry a tear and how she kept it in a bottle. When I asked her how she had made the moon shed a tear, she went silent for a few seconds and changed the subject, so I did not ask again. Sometimes, if Aunt Elma was in the mood, she would bring her fishing rod and catch some fish for dinner. She was rarely in the mood and we ended up having some sort of soup, which I was always grateful for. ‘Eat up’ she would say ‘the more you eat the more you will grow’. Whatever I didn’t eat I would feed to the mice that scuttled and shared the space. The mice were friendly and I spoke to them often and they told me of their culture. Aunt Elma did not understand their ways and would shoot them with an air-rifle and then feed them to the cat. ‘No Aunty, NO!’ I would shout. ‘They are my friends.’ She caught me in the act of feeding one and wounded it with a pellet, took it by the tail, dangled it over her mouth and proceeded to bite its head off. ‘I will have no feeding of vermin here’ she would scream and then send me to bed with no supper for three nights. I would sometimes have very bad dreams and in the morning, I had often wet the bed. Aunt Elma punished me by making me sleep outside under the stars the night after. I would lay under a tree pink as roses and be serenaded to sleep by the twit twooing of the owl that resided there.

Mushrooms wide as rainbows circled the tree.

‘’Don’t ever eat the mushrooms’’ Aunt Elma would tell me ‘’ Cause if you do, you’ll go blind.’’

But I did and would have such pleasant dreams and wake up dry as a daisy. She would never have known if it wasn’t for me floating outside her bedroom window one night. I do not recall the incident but Aunt Elma told me I was possessed by some other worldly magic and that she was deeply upset that I disobeyed her. So upset in fact she went into a coma for 3 months. I don’t think she has ever truly forgiven me… Since the coma she was less inclined to punish me for any behaviour she deemed unruly. And so, when Aunt Elma was fast sleep and the night was full, I would sneak...