Free City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams

could hardly see that there was a house there at all. The first time she had seen it-helping Ophelia Weiner look for her runaway cat Dickens-she had thought it was just like something in a fairy tale. When she came back later and walked up the twisty gravel driveway, she had almost expected it to be made out of gingerbread. It wasn't, of course-it was just a little house like all the others-but it was still a very interesting place.
    And Mister Sellars was a very interesting man. She didn't know why her parents didn't want her to go to his house anymore, and they wouldn't tell her. He was a little scary-looking, but that wasn't his fault.
    Christabel stopped skipping so she could better appreciate the crunchy feeling of walking down Mister Sellars' long driveway. It was pretty silly having a driveway at all, since the big car in his garage hadn't been moved in years. Mister Sellars didn't even go out of the house. She'd asked him once why he had a car and he had laughed kind of sad and said it came with the house. "If I'm very, very good," he had told her, "someday they may let me get into that Cadillac, little Christabel. I'll close the garage door real tight, and drive home."
    She thought it had been a joke, but she didn't really get it. Grown-up jokes were like that sometimes, but then grownups seldom laughed at the jokes that Uncle Jingle did on his net show, and those were so funny (and kind of naughty, although she didn't know why exactly) that Christabel sometimes almost wet her pants from laughing.
    To find the doorbell she had to push aside one of the ferns, which had practically covered the front porch. Then she had to wait a long time. At last Mister Sellars' strange voice came from behind the door, all booty and soft.
    "Who is it?"
    "Christabel."
    The door opened and wet air came out, along with the thick green smell of the plants. She stepped inside quickly so Mister Sellars could shut it again. He had told her the first time she came that it was bad for him if he let too much of the moisture out.
    "Well, little Christabel!" He seemed very pleased to see her. "And to what do I owe this enchanting surprise?"
    "I told Mommy I was going to Portia's to play Otterland."
    He nodded. He was so tall and bent over that sometimes when he nodded like that, up and down so hard, she was worried he might hurt his skinny neck. "Ah, then we can't take too long having our visit, can we? Still, might as well do it up right and proper. You know where to change. I think there's something there to fit you."
    He rolled his wheelchair back out of her way and she hurried down the hall. He was right. They didn't have very long, unless she wanted to risk having her mother phone Portia's to hurry her back to the peas. Then she'd have to think of a story about why she didn't go play Otterland. That was the problem about lying-if people started checking up, things got very complicated.
    The changing room was, like every room in the house, full of plants. She had never seen so many in one place, not even at Missus Gullison's house, and Missus Gullison was always bragging about her plants and how much work they were, even though a little dark-skinned man came two times a week to do all the clipping and watering and digging. But Mister Sellars' plants, although they got plenty of water, never got clipped at all. They just grew. Sometimes she wondered if they would fill the whole house someday, and the funny old man would have to move out.
    There was a bathrobe in just her size hanging on the hook behind the door. She quickly took off her shorts and shirt, socks and shoes, and put them all in the plastic bag, just as Mister Sellars had shown her. As she bent over to put the last shoe in, one of the ferns tickled her back. She squealed.
    "Are you all right, little Christabel?" called Mister Sellars.
    "Yes. Your plant tickled me."
    "I'm sure it did no such thing." He pretended to be angry, but she knew he was joking. "My plants are the best-behaved