I expected that there would be something different about my house, but at least it was somewhere familiar in all this strangeness. I knew the way home, so there was no problem finding my way through the woods.
No problem until I got there, anyway. I stepped out of the forest into my own backyard and discovered that it wasn't my house at all. It looked like my house, from a distance. But as I got closer my heart sank. It looked like someone had once seen a picture of my house and decided to paint it from memory. All the details looked just a little bit wrong. And my house didn't have a picket fence around it. Or a giant flower garden. Or vines growing up the walls.
There was a girl in the garden, flitting between the flowers. She was wearing a frilly, old-fashioned pale green dress and looked like she'd never come into contact with dirt. I shoved open the gate and strode up to her. The girl turned and I found myself looking into my own face.
It took me a moment to realize that the comparison was superficial. In every detail she and I were different. And she was beautiful. She had the face that I always wanted, the face I could never even pretend to have. I decided that we really looked nothing alike. But at first glance the resemblance was uncanny.
We stared at each other for a minute. I recovered enough to ask her "Who are you?"
"Oh, it's you," she said, frowning at me, "Shouldn't you have crutches?" Confused, I just stared at her. She tilted her head to one side. "Who brought you here?"
"No one brought me here," I said, "I came on my own."
She didn't seem to be able to frown for very long. "Ah. Someone must have tricked you into coming, then."
"Not really," I said, but she wasn't listening to me. She was walking around me in a circle, staring at me. I snapped, "What are you trying to do?"
"I have to say that you're a disappointment," she said. "I was expecting someone who was at least a little presentable."
"I'm so glad you care," I said. "Who are you anyway?"
She started giggling. "You really don't know?" She had my laugh, the one I hated. "I was sure that was why you were here. I am the real you. You're just the fake."
I stared at her. "I'm pretty sure I'm real."
"Of course you're real," she said, "But you're not you. I'm who you should be."
I took a step back. "I think I should be going."
She looked serious for a moment. "It'd be better if she didn't find out that you were here. You'd better leave," she said, like it was her idea. Opening the gate, she pointed to the woods. "I don't know how you got here, but you'd better go back for now."
"It was a tree," I said, "And it doesn't work anymore."
"You're probably just doing it wrong," she said, tossing her hair. I'd seen that exact gesture before, in my mirror. "You'd better leave before she catches you."
It felt like a retreat, but I still didn't want to stay here any longer than necessary. Everything about that place felt familiar, but so subtly wrong that I had to concentrate to remember what my real memories were like. I had to get out of there.
I turned as I left the garden, "I'll be back," I said, more to make myself feel braver than anything else.
"I'll bet you will," she said, in a tone that suggested that she was used to having the last word.
