[Part One] Chapter 1: Touriga Drive

I live in a magical garden at my grandparents' house, surrounded by fairies and gnomes. It's here, I am home and homesick all at once as I wait for my mother to return for me.

When I'm not crushing herbs to make medicine for the fairyfolk, I'm battling the evil witch who lives in the shed. The only person strong enough to make the wicked things scurry into their burrows when my world becomes too bottomless is the keeper of all magic: Grandma. She is the Queen of the fairies, and my light of safety.

But one day, the witch finally finds a way to destroy me. She will go after Grandma and pour blackness into her mind. It isn't clear what's happening at first--we just think Grandma is becoming forgetful--but then I know. The witch will steal her memories one by one, until there is nothing left.

And I become the girl without a name.

That light of safety flickers and threatens to go dark forever, along with my magical world. If Grandma can't remember the things only she and I shared, what if they never happened? What if everything was all a dream, and she never truly loved me at all?

In this story, I share my childhood perspective of losing the woman who helped raise me to Alzheimer's Disease--along with the buried truths that could help me defeat the witch once I'm an adult.

If only I'm brave enough to seek them.