Though it might have been wiser to heighten the suspense and wait, I could not resist the temptation to post some of what I'd written so far for the upcoming One Winter's Eve contest. I think, however, that some explanation is necessary.

First, although I don't explicitly state it, my main character Joey--later Ivy--McKinnon has cerebral palsy. He is also incontinent because of it, as I myself am--which is why you'll see a reference to being in diapers, though he is eight years old. I didn't want to veer into fetish territory, so I don't linger on the details when he's being changed. It just seemed a good way to one, establish the relationship between him and his caregiver, and two, introduce a family member with whom he's having trouble--namely his older sister Bekka.

Joey's caregiver is Latina, who peppers her speech with the occasional Spanish phrase, and is the only person, at least at the beginning, to know about "the Girl inside him", as Joey calls his more feminine tendencies (about which he is in extreme denial at the beginning, despite obvious signs). In his mind, he does not do feminine things, the Girl makes him.

If the story has a theme at all, it's about a family in denial--the mother's denial that her youngest child is anything but "normal", Joey/Ivy's denial of his/her gender issues, and the sister's denial--if not outright cluelessness--of the damage she is doing to her younger sibling. It's a family that's broken, and it takes a massive snowstorm to fix it....

So without saying any more, I'd like to present the opening paragraphs of my story....

PROLOGUE

Sometimes, infinite power can be found in a single word. Joey McKinnon uttered such a word, one warmer-than-usual morning in December.

Then wished, with all the faith a small child can muster, that he could reverse time and prevent himself from saying it at all.

Until, that is, he discovered how one little word can change lives, in ways undreamed of by the wildest fantasies.

Confusing? Perhaps it might become clearer if one takes a look at what he said:

"Me an' the other girls learned how to ice skate...."

Not very grammatical, admittedly, but then he's only eight. The problem is precisely that Joey was a "he"--at least in the eyes of most folks around him--and he said "Me and the other girls." Had he not included that single word in a moment of breathless excitement, the sentence might have passed muster on that playground full of children, if not in an English textbook.

As it was, the poor kid just entered the doorway to hell.

Ironic, when one considers how the day started....

It was going to be a great morning. The Girl knew it. She knew because her host--whom everybody knew as Joey McKinnon--felt happy, and The Girl couldn't remember the last time he shared such a feeling with her.

Mostly, he only allowed her to feel angry, or sad. That was the deal, from the moment she first woke up inside Joey's mind. But this was too good, too wonderful a feeling for Joey to keep to himself. So it spilled over the barrier: first in dribs and drabs, then in a steady stream, then a full-out flood, crumbling away a portion of the barrier with it.

The dirty, almost feral child with the matted, wavy hair stared at the scene in front of her, her green eyes wide with astonishment. Something, somehow, created a crack. A narrow crack, to be sure, but a crack nonetheless. The barrier had been there so long, she'd accepted its presence as an inviolable law, like "water is wet." But now the impenetrable wall had been breached, for the first time since the beginning of her exile. If something like that could happen....

Then anything was possible.

Closing her eyes, The Girl took advantage of the new pathway to focus on Joey's memories, evoking half-remembered images from a time in his childhood outside his conscious mind. Instantly, the rocky, monochrome landscape transformed; colors--some garish, some incongruous, some quite beautiful--spilled over the void like paint onto a child's coloring book. Groves of violet trees with yellow leaves sprang from what had been barren promontories. A strip of beach appeared, alongside a narrow inlet, beyond which stood the remainder of the barrier. Warm sunlight beamed down upon her from a purple sky, while magenta butterflies flitted about, sometimes deigning to land on The Girl's hand.

Next, she set to work on herself. A vortex of primary colors surrounded her, evaporating the grime from her body and fabricating a yellow sundress to cover her previously naked form.

She basked in the warmth, let it envelop her like a hug, giggling as the surf lapped at her toes. She ran up and down the length of the shore, sometimes doing cartwheels, sometimes skipping. She climbed to a perch on a nearby rock, chewing a strand of her hair as she stopped to consider what this might mean, and why it happened now. Regardless of what, or why, however, one thing became immediately clear.

Nothing, or no one, could restrain her now.

Today was the last school day before Christmas break, and she knew from scanning his mind that her host didn't even have to spend the morning in class. He and his friends Aimee, Sarah, and Moira won the charity drawing, and had been picked to go on a special field trip- a free skating lesson for disabled kids at the Petit Ice Center in Milwaukee, followed by lunch downtown. That was good enough. What made it even better was that they were the only third-graders picked to go.

But best of all was Aimee, Sarah and Moira. When they were around, The Girl knew she'd be free to come out and play.

Whether Joey liked it or not.

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"C'mon, sweetie, rise and shine. We gotta get you ready for your trip this morning, and the clock's ticking...." A sharp rapping on the handle of the wheelchair next to the bed soon followed.

Joey's head turned toward the familiar voice, which both he and The Girl knew belonged to his caregiver, Sonia. The Girl felt his joy at seeing the middle-aged Latina--all the more intense given the crack in the barrier--and knew Joey loved her. His smile, if only for a moment, brought broad splashes of primary colors, crayon-box colors, to the far horizon of the realm to which she'd been involuntarily exiled.

But The Girl loved Sonia most of all, because Sonia knew she was there.

" ¿Cá³mo está¡, niá±a linda?  ¿Dormiste bién? You sleep good?" Joey nodded, his eyes having turned the deep, iridescent green they became whenever he, or The Girl, became really excited. Placing a plastic tray of water on the wheelchair seat, Sonia handed him a wet washcloth to remove the remnants of sleep from those eyes.

However odd it might have appeared to the casual observer, The Girl inside Joey liked being called "niá±a linda"--cute little girl--and reluctant as he was to admit it, so did Joey himself. That is, in those rare moments when his defenses came down and he let The Girl exert her will just a little. Sonia was the only adult on earth with whom Joey ever dared share his little secret--the Girl inside him--so that little term of endearment became a symbol of the emotional bond they had with each other. It made Joey--and The Girl--feel quite special.

The Girl had never seen her own face--having no flesh-and-blood body, she lacked a reflection--but at times like this, she felt cute, even beautiful. As for Joey, the eight-year-old had heard the "too pretty to be a boy" line so often that The Girl started to take the brunt of his embarrassment to protect him.

Although she knew her words would go unheard, she couldn't help but attempt to add gasoline to the fire by whispering, Told ya....

Embarrassing though it may have been for Joey, those onlookers understated the truth. He possessed a face that looked as if it consisted of 75% green eyes, and eyelashes even Sonia would have coveted as a girl in Guatemala. Below these was a button nose with just a faint dusting of freckles, and below that, a pouty and surprisingly delicate mouth. All of which was framed by wavy strawberry blond hair just long enough to cover the ears.

However, The Girl--because she held Joey's less-desirable emotions--usually sabotaged any efforts by his mother to shear his hair to the scalp, flailing and screaming until both the barber and his mother could convince Joey to take off just a little. Though normally unable to leave her little realm on her own, threats to her or Joey's person--whether real or perceived--were a necessary exception. The Girl always got him in trouble that way. That, unfortunately, was the downside of their little bargain.

"You ready to go on your trip today?" Sonia said with a smile.

Joey practically bounced to the edge of the bed, "I sure am. I get to stand up in a walker and skate on the ice, and we're all gonna do face painting. I wanna be a cat...." Putting his "claws" in the air, he makes an exaggerated hissing sound.

"OK, calmate, my ferocious little kitten..." Sonia interjects, laughing. "Maybe we ought to take care of that diaper first?"

"WHERE'S MY LIP GLOSS?"

Ah, Bekka. If the town's tornado-warning siren ever broke, they could use her for a backup.

An auburn-haired girl of about twelve burst through the doorway. Her face still had enough baby fat to pull off innocence, but judging by her current expression, one could be forgiven for thinking she could commit a murder and stuff the body in her book bag. Pushing her way past Sonia, she snatches up a small cylinder on Joey's desk next to a small white hand mirror. "I KNEW you had it, you little freak! If you slobbered all over this, I'm gonna take your chair apart and spread the pieces from here to Chicago! And there's the mirror I've been looking for all week!!"

Taking a quick sniff of the air, she wrinkles her nose. "Ewww. Don't tell me the freak messed his pants again...." The faint, impatient sound of a horn cuts her rant short. "Great...NOW I'm late...!" Turning toward Sonia, she remarks, "Looks like the fun's all yours. I'd help, but gotta go...."

Sonia put out a restraining arm. The penetrating glare coming from her eyes gave Bekka enough of a message that moving even an inch more was not a good idea.

"Why, good morning to you too, Bekka dear. I'm so glad you could help me with Joey!" The irony of those words was, of course, so thick even a slightly mentally-challenged paramecium could have caught it, though she seriously doubted Bekka's ability to do so. "You're not going anywhere yet, princess, so it looks like you won't miss out on 'the fun' after all...." With that, she thrust the container of wipes into Bekka's hand.

"But...but the bus...I--..I do hafta go...."

"Then your little diva self will have to walk, no? It's a great day for it--it's beautiful out there...."

Joey's green eyes, which moments before had been so bright with anticipation, lost their luster as Bekka wiped his bottom--a little too roughly, but he didn't even flinch. The Girl, however, did, perceiving his discomfort as an ugly orange flash in the virtual sky. Joey refused to look at Bekka, but he could imagine the expression of disgust on her face--and knew it wasn't just from the disagreeable task she had to do.

"Y'know, freak, I oughta show these to your little friends so they can see what a baby you are...." Bekka said as she taped the clean diaper in place. The resulting glare from Sonia, however, instantly evaporated her smug expression.

"OK, go...go! I think you've done enough...." Sonia said, shaking her head as she put a pile of clothes on the bed. With a grunt of frustration, Bekka gladly complied, stomping out of the room as quickly as she'd entered. The sound of her whining to her mother about needing a ride grew fainter as she headed down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. But just barely.

Inside Joey's mind, The Girl shivered, rubbing the sides of her ethereal body as the virtual wind gathered speed, and all color drained away. Jagged, rocklike formations sprang up from the pristine landscape like stalagmites. No, don't get mad now, please....please don't! I don't wanna feel mad! Not today!

NO!!

Her scream reverberated across the expanse, bouncing off innumerable tiny facets, echoing back to her from infinite directions. She rocked slowly back and forth, head down, knees drawn to her chest, until the sound faded away. Her pupils dilated; her pulse would have quickened, if she had one. A searing pain tore across her body from her shoulder to her abdomen, leaving a welt-like, lightning bolt-shaped streak where it passed.

Through clenched teeth, she scanned Joey's memories for more pleasant thoughts, settling on an image of Katie, Joey's rag doll when he was two. Instantly, an exact replica of the toy, down to the tiny rip in its left arm, appeared.

In a span of time that could have been thirty seconds or an hour--The Girl had no way of judging such things in her realm--rays of sunlight poked through the metallic gray clouds, and color once again filled the landscape. Only when the purple sky once again came into full view did the child's anger and fear dissolve into mist.

And if The Girl had her say, it would never return.

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"Joey? Joey, look at me, little one..."

Joey slowly turned his head to meet Sonia's eyes. His face was a mask, inscrutable, but Sonia had known the child long enough to see the hurt in it. Stroking his cheek, she asked, "What's wrong, child? Dime que pasá³..."

Not having the vocabulary to express the full range of feelings locked within his mind, Joey could only mumble, "Nothin'...."

Sonia raised an eyebrow at his answer, but guesséd at the underlying cause of his mood. Bekka....

"Might it be because of these...." Sonia said, patting the package of diapers on the dresser. "Or maybe The Girl inside you that took Bekka's things?"

Joey nodded, still expressionless.

There's nothing wrong with having to wear those diapers, little one..." Sonia said softly. "Your muscles don't work right, so you can't 'hold it.' That does not make you a baby, no matter what your sister says...." She takes Joey's small hand into her much larger one and smiles. "You know, I used to have to change a grown man, eighty-five years old. And I'm not sure, but I think that's quite a lot older than you...." She punctuated her final word with a tweak of Joey's nose, making him giggle in spite of himself. "And as for having a girl inside you--well, there's nothing wrong with that either, as long as she isn't a girl like your sister...."

That made The Girl shudder a bit, but Joey's laughter obliterated the last of the gray, filling her world with magenta, lilac and mauve. To her, they were all just different kinds of purple, and she loved purple. She twirled in the vastness as colors, pretty colors, danced around her....