A Wrinkle in Time

Funny story: I was once afraid that the people who have taken me in for this month would turn out to be axe murderers.

Now, I have arrived in this house, in the outskirts of a tiny town that is itself the outskirt of a larger city. I have scratched their pigs on their heads. I have chuckled at their multiple chickens. I have played Duck-Duck-Goose with their two small daughters at least seven times today. They have fed me lemon cake.

If they're going to axe murder me, they're sure off to a terrible start.

These people are at once relaxed and archaic. Chelsea and Mel may live in an old pub -- seriously -- across from a still - running church and a defunct one-room schoolhouse, but it is a nice old pub. It has three-foot-thick walls and a big white kitchen with clean tiny European features. It is heated by coal fires, stoked by the boy, who is a solemn charming ten-year-old with a knack for being mildly injured by his science experiments; his sister, fourteen, is a dreamy picky eater who likes to tell tales.

I hesitate to draw conclusions, but I might be living in the farmhouse from A Wrinkle in Time. If I disappear, know that somewhere I'm battling a giant Irish brain.