1

Amelia Pond was a nutter, in the most positive sense of the word. To see the world through her eyes was to see a place full of wonder, imagination, insight, and brilliant possibility.

That was what people who liked her thought.

People who did not like her thought that she was odd, irrational, difficult, and perhaps just a bit dangerous. Mad Amelia Pond, destined to live in a cottage full of cats deep in the dark woods. Singing in tongues. A favourite broomstick hanging above the door. Cackling a bit.

There was a part of her that enjoyed the image of herself as an aged crone, frightening young children. However, life did not follow the rules of legend, not in her experience, disappointing as that was.

Just the same, Amelia did not see things the way other people did. As a child, it had been seen as encouraging, touted as creativity, the sign of great art to come, perhaps. But as she'd got older and her fancies had persisted, Aunt Sharon had become worried. People without expertise in psychology or psychiatry (but doctorates in shoving their noses into other peoples' business) had thrown around words like 'attention deficit', 'obsessive compulsive', 'autistic', even 'manic depressive'. Each psychiatrist—and there had been several—had a theory of their very own to explain the enigma of little Amelia, but there was, in Amelia's own opinion, only one person who had ever got it right.

Of course, if there was one thing that all the psychiatrists agreed upon, it was that the Raggedy Man was not real.

Over time, Amelia had never been cured of anything, except perhaps her habit of truthfulness. There was no point in telling people what was true if they weren't going to listen, so why waste her breath? If Jeff's gran didn't want to know what had really happened to her dog, then she didn't deserve to know.

By the time Amelia had finished school, she had had no fewer than four different psychiatrists, and a general diagnosis of dissociative disorder, combined with half a dozen other mental maladies. She had numerous courses of medication, most of which she had never actually taken in good faith after her aunt had stopped hovering over her with the pill bottles. It wasn't entirely out of rebellion; anti-depressants made her feel nauseated and sad, anti-anxiety medication made her anxious, and antipsychotics kept her from seeing things that were there. She continued to pick up her prescriptions from the little chemist's. She had a large box with smaller boxes inside to divide the dosages, and she was very careful to let somebody see her take her pills at least once every week. Different people, different days of the week. She had a whole rota set up.

Amelia Pond had two friends in all of Leadworth—which, given its size, was not an entirely unimpressive percentage of the per capita. One was a girl, Melody Zucker. If Amelia was considered mad, she was considered psychotic. Melody wasn't odd the way Amelia was, but she delighted in causing trouble, and running circles around people. She performed abysmally in school, but she was definitely the smartest person that Amelia knew.

The other friend was a boy named Rory Williams. He was quiet and thoughtful, and most people considered him a bit bungling and hopeless. His mother was dreadfully worried every time she saw her precious son with those girls. Mrs. Williams' attitude towards Amelia was magnanimous but mostly pitying. She was downright terrified of Melody. The two of them together only spelled trouble.

The thing was, bad as Melody (Mels) could be—she enjoyed pranks with high collateral damage—she very rarely dragged Amelia or Rory along. Rory, who hated to be in trouble, appreciated her courtesy. Amelia scolded Mels the moment she returned from hijinks. Mels always laughed and shrugged off their concerns, usually before consuming most of the food in the Pond house and getting Amelia into trouble with her aunt. Amelia usually got out again by explaining that Mels had been hungry, and it was only fish fingers, anyway. It wasn't as if Mels' foster family ever came to her rescue.

Amelia had exactly two friends in the world; the fact that they also happened to be the only two people in the village whom people looked upon as equally or perhaps even more hopeless than she was… Well, maybe that meant she wasn't very nice. Amelia didn't see the point of nice. Nobody else was, not really, even if they appeared so.

Except Rory. Maybe it wasn't because Rory did as she told him, even when he disapproved, or that from the time she had come to this sleepy village at the age of seven, he had been the only person who hadn't told her that her stories were childish, or too frightening, or worse, not real. She liked that he listened.

Amelia didn't see the world the way that other people did. Everyone knew that. She saw faeries in the garden, or raggedy men wearing green in the woods. She saw Nick Greenlake burying Mr. Timmet the Pomeranian under the amaryllis in his mother's garden, despite the fact that she had never been to the Greenlakes' house. It had been in his guilty eyes, clear as if somebody had pressed 'play' and set the story to chilly music. When she was thirteen, she knew that the butcher was having an affair with the young woman behind the post office counter. The morning of the day Mrs. Poggit died, Amelia saw the old woman staring at her through the window of her aunt's house, a glassy and vacant look in her eyes.

That kind of thing had got worse the older she got. She didn't stop seeing faeries—they were big and nasty, and they liked to nick Aunt Sharon's cucumbers—but there was more and more to see. People's secrets, people's pasts, people's futures.

After the incident with Mrs. Poggit's son, she kept most of it to herself. The day of the funeral, Amelia very solemnly told the grieving fifty-year-old that she'd seen his mother's fetch right before she'd died. He'd become furious, cursing her in the churchyard, calling her names, the very least of which questioned her sanity. It had been all anyone in the village had talked about for a week.

Aunt Sharon had gone about in a state of martyred shame: 'Oh, poor me! Alas, my barmy niece has embarrassed me yet again! Such a trial! But I soldier onward! My brother's child, my cross to bear.' Mortified and desperate to avoid the staring and the whispers and, worst of all, the pity, Amelia stayed home from school. She was fourteen years old, skinny, with big feet and ginger hair, taller than all the children her age. An awkward place to start from, that age and those features, but to add on the burden of her… imagination. It was unfair. Her life wasn't magical, it was miserable. She didn't ask to see things, she just did.

After three days, Rory had come to the house with the blue door to see the mad girl. Amelia didn't answer the doorbell, or the knocking. It wasn't until he started chucking pebbles at her bedroom window that she dragged herself out from under the covers.

"Go away!" she shouted down from the window.

Weedy little Rory with his mop of hair and his big eyes looked up at her. "You weren't at school again."

"I'm not coming out."

"I've brought your homework for you." He held up a bundle of books and papers that he'd carried all the way here.

"Then I'm definitely not coming out." She abandoned the window and flopped down on her bed to sulk.

His voice came faintly. "Can I come inside, then?"

"No!"

There was a short silence, then Rory called, "Do you want to play Raggedy Man?"

Amelia flew back to the window in a rage. She leaned out and shouted, "Why would you think I would ever, ever want to play that ever again? Go away!"

Rory put the pile of books and papers down on the grass. "I thought it might cheer you up," he said, sheepishly.

"I'm too old for games."

"Okay." Why didn't he just go away? "Mels got detention again today."

Curiosity overrode anger and mortification. "What happened?"

"She kept pretending to talk to Mrs. Poggit's ghost."

Amelia's insides hurt. "Why?"

Rory shrugged. "Don't know. It was a bit funny, though."

She glared down at him. "You and Mels had a fine time, then," she said icily.

His eyes went wide with chagrin. "No! I didn't— She wasn't making fun of you! Honestly! She was making fun of Mr. Poggit."

"Is that what you thought? You are so stupid, Rory Williams, you and your stupid… face!" She closed the window with a slam and retreated to the safety of her duvet. She screwed up her eyes and tried not to cry. He was so thick. Of course Mels was making fun of her. Mels made fun of everyone. He didn't understand girls. It was different with girls: the only thing worse than an enemy was a friend.

A few minutes later, she heard a thump and a crash coming from downstairs. Leaping from her bed, Amelia scurried to go see what it was. (One time a faerie had broken into the cellar. It had been trying to steal a tin of beans. She'd fought it off with a frying pan.)

She slid past the living room, the combination of socks on the polished wood floor making her even clumsier than usual. She had to grab the doorframe and pull herself back.

There was a tangle of boy on the floor in front of the window. Heaven knew how he'd managed to get it open, let alone climb in, but the fact was that he had. Rory Williams had just broken into her house.

Amelia stood over him as he tried to get himself free of the long white curtain. It was a comical display; every move he made seemed to make things worse. At last, Amelia gave up on superiority and bent down to help him.

"What are you doing?" she demanded as she slid the curtain out from under his arm.

He avoided looking her in the eyes. "I wanted to explain…"

"So you broke in? I could phone the police, you know."

Fear flashed across Rory's face. "Don't! My mum'll kill me!"

She stood and folded her arms. "Give me one good reason."

"Amelia…" he begged. "I promise, Mels and I weren't making fun of you."

"I don't believe you."

He got to his feet and rubbed his elbow—he must have smashed it on something. Amelia glanced around the room and saw that one of the lamps had fallen over, and there were pieces of white glass on the the floor next to it.

"She thinks I'm mad," Amelia said, not daring to look up from the lamp. "Everyone else does."

"I don't."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Liar," she accused.

Rory stared at her, eyes wide and honest. Amelia locked her eyes on him, like she had with shifty Nick Greenlake. Rory blinked once, but he didn't flinch.

There was nothing on his shoulder, no flash of memory in his eyes, no grimacing beastie, or shame, or glimmering and tantalising view of things to come. He was simply Rory.

"Okay," she said at last, grudgingly. She couldn't argue with facts when they were standing in front of her. Rory Williams was the genuine article.