Once upon a time, the house was an elegant mansion on the outskirts of Auckland. They had allowed me to furnish my bedroom and living room the way I wanted. I could never decide on one style for my place. It’s a mixture of playful, elegant, bohemian, and cozy. Lots of oversized cushions lie scattered on the wooden floorboards and on my bed in a symphony of warm red, yellow, brown, and orange colors with sprinkles of purple and pink. I love warm colors. I can lay here for hours and get lost in my books.
A huge grandfather chair is standing in the corner of my room, covered in burgundy upholstery, surrounded by shelves filled with books. Lots and lots of books. They are my friends. There is a large table in the middle of my room. It’s home to my most treasured possessions like art projects, books, maps, pens, stacks of paper, and my computer.
This was a good place, a safe place I hate to leave. I wipe the tears with the back of my hand and sink into a pillow. If only I had someone to talk to. A friend. Someone who knows the real me, not the person I portray to the world. The real me with warts and all.
I reach for the old family bible in the bookshelf hoping to find something. What? I don’t know. Maybe a friend? Don’t people feel comforted finding a connection to God? The Bible is not the first place I would usually go to in search of a friend or kind words.
People in my life wielded God like a sword, threatening me with damnation and hellfire every step of the way. But maybe there’s more to find? Millions of Christians can’t be wrong, can they?
I read through the familiar pages at the front of the three-inch-thick leather volume. It chronicles the history of my great-grandmother’s family from the time they left Germany in 1874 and landed in Hawkes Bay together with a group of Swedish settlers. My great grandmother passed the Bible on to her daughter, Clara Douglas, who passed it on to my mother, Sarah Wright.
It was a sad history. The women of my mother’s family had many children and only a few of them made it to adulthood. My mother had ten siblings, and only she and her sister Amanda survived. So many deaths in just one family. I can’t imagine the heartache and sorrow the families must have lived with. The last two entries were of my mother’s marriage to Eugene Seagar and my birth.
I’m leafing through the pages of the Old Testament until I come to the story of Abraham and Isaac. How often had my father told me this story? Was it to scare me? If so, mission accomplished. The God of the Old Testament petrifies me. Always has done. He is cruel, unforgiving, bloodthirsty, and unjust. I turn the page but the words in front of me dance off the page when I hear the door slam downstairs. Not much longer and they’ll take me away.
Am I the sacrifice God demanded from my parents? I am too bad. That’s what my parents always said. Too sinful. No matter how hard I tried to do the right thing, I was too a lot of things. How can a three-year-old or four-year-old child be sinful? It doesn’t make sense. I hear a tune in the back of my mind.
Ring-a-ring o’Roses a pocket full of posies
I look down on the scars on my arms. For most of them, I don’t remember how they came about. Some come with an image of a hand wielding a sharp razor blade.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
I must be like one of those cars that are damaged so much they end up as scrap metal rather than being fixed.
We all fall down.
The book slips out of my hands and lands with a loud thud on the carpet. The leather dust cover loosens and reveals a piece of paper that peeks out from the spine. I freeze and hold my breath. My blood is hammering in my ears. Like a puppet on a string, I bend down and pick up the book.
I pry the brittle paper from the spine and unfold it. Air whooshes out of my lungs as I finally remember to breathe again. The big, bold letters of the document dance in front of my eyes, form words, and, like a couple dancing the minuet, drift apart again before I can grasp their meaning.
The last thing I remember is someone putting a warm blanket around my shoulders.
That’s nice. I needed that.
Chapter Three
Ama: 17 November 2015, The Tree House
I pity people who don’t have an inside house. By inside I mean, inside your mind. A castle or fortress that only exists in your head. To go there you only have to close your eyes. Our inside house is a tree house. In it, Ama rules. Ama, that’s me.
I have a set of non-negotiable rules for our tree house. After all, it’s our home, our safe place. You’ll find it on no map and there is no street leading up to it. You may say it’s make-believe. Maybe so, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less ideal for us. It keeps us safer than any outside house ever could, because nobody but us can enter. There is enough disorder in our outside world that we have no control over, so we have a few simple rules that are law here:
Number one: there is no fighting in here.
Number two: respect for each other.
Number three: during a lockdown, everyone stays in their room.
It looks like we are about to employ rule number three soon. Sky, Lilly, and Phoenix have called a meeting and are waiting in the common room for us.
Our common room is in the center of the tree house and sits on top of the huge trunk, like a
