It was autumn, an afternoon golden and crisp, and they walked hand in hand by the house with the lollipop trees and the peppermint-striped door.

An old woman beckoned with an apple green finger, and the boy and the girl had been warned, but they were hungry, and the house smelled of gingerbread and cider.

Inside was a fireplace, orange crush flames rolling and leaping, and sleeping and dreaming on a china blue pillow, was a cat black as midnight named "Snowglobe".

The boy turned to the woman. “We're hungry”, he said.

Pie's good today. Apple crumb.” A waitress with jeweled glasses handed the boy a menu. “Here ya go, Sugar”, and she gave the girl a laminated list of the daily specials.

A man in a maroon jacket said, “Pie's good. Meatloaf's terrible. Don't get the meatloaf.”

“You need to hush,” the waitress said, laughing. She looked at the boy, and the girl. “You want some pie?”

“Yes ma'am”, said the girl.

The waitress sliced into a mile-high confection of apples and honey and buttercrumb topping. “On the house”, she said, shaking a can of DreamWhip.

It was evening and winter and morning-glory purple, amber moonbeams shot through the sky like searchlights.

They walked over stones and squealing things darted, they walked past dark trees that beckoned with evergreen fingers.

“Keep walking,”, the man in the maroon jacket said.

The boy and girl walked to the apricot dawn, then a wind began churning and crystals were turning, the cat arched its back and shook its black head.