Amber McBride: ... necklace. White shirt. They confiscated my black one. White pants. My black ones had too many pockets. White shoes that showed too much dirt. Gloveless, bookless, dirtless and moonless. Feeling less, less, less.

This is the thing. Sometimes it gets bad. Roots mingle with a strange soil and you don't trust your hands with your skin. Sometimes that means you are admitted to a hospital to be watched and watched and watched and watched, to talk and talk and talk and talk, to sometimes break.

It's like Grandma said to me when I sat legs crossed like cherry stems at the edge of the forest where toothy fog had already begun to seep into the soil. "Hoodoo is real, which is in Fae people too. Fairy tales are real. Magic is real, but careful, Whimsy. Sometimes your own mind will unroot you."

This is what I think. I am Whimsy. I am magic just like my name, but I am not whimsical anymore.

Prologue.

Hospital, the Whimsy girl.

Ashe child. A child loved by the supernatural and glittering with magic. In Hoodoo, Ashe is the magic in all things.

Outside my hospital window.

It's cloudy inside me and outside the window with bars and netting that basically yell, "Don't even try escaping."

It all started with a three-day hospital stay. Then Mom and Dad, Jill and Jack, moved me to a private facility for extra care. For two more weeks, 14 days.

Day one. Busy schedule from 7: 00 a. m. to 7: 00 p. m. Day two. Same thing with an evaluation and new meds. Days three, four, five, six and seven. Same schedule, less hazy on the inside and outside.

Here's the thing. My hands have not handled the earth in seven days, which is a different kind of sadness.

It's 6: 00 a.m. and I wake from the usual nightmare that even sleeping pills don't dull. The one where I try to play the goddess and make dead things more alive. The one where a shadow crams dirt down my throat and twigs replace my hands and some Ursula has taken my voice, so none of my spells stick to the air right.

I look down. My palms glow amber golden on account of the full moon. It's strange to still glow, days after, perhaps, maybe, wanting to die.

Car, silver like a broadsword.

In the distance, an engine purrs. And my feet hit the ice cold hospital floor thinking Mom and Dad might be here early for their visit.

Beyond the window with steel netting, a large gray owl and a smaller white one sit perched on a slim tree limb looking wiser than even the stories claim. I worry the branch might break with their weight, but then again I worry about breaking a lot.

The parking lot is dim and I watch the horizon gently run golden fingers through the darkness. It looks difficult, the night departing and the day arriving. I imagine them begging to hover together in this moment forever and fairytale ever, never wanting to fall out of touch.

The engine revs closer. I spot a silver car, the same hue as a broadsword, backing into a parking spot. The door swings open and a boy with mint...