Before the law was passed, young psychologists in training used to analyze other impoverished students. These days, people sent us off to diagnose the homeless, a large proportion of American homelessness being caused by mental illness, and the new liberal government being very intent on helping them.

I voted for a congresswoman supporting such a bill. I hoped it wouldn’t be too hypocritical to curse actually having to carry it out. It was January, for goodness sakes, and here I was in Minneapolis, shriveling up inside a Gore-Tex parka and trying to apply Chapstick with numb hands.

My quarry for today was a young woman I had dubbed Shopping Cart Girl. At least, she might have been young, but it was hard to tell, since she was so wrapped up in layers of rags. My guess at her age came from her slight figure and smoothness of movement.

I saw her sleeping on this street two days ago. Not much to go on in terms of psychopathology: muttering, gesticulating, and pushing a jittery-jattery shopping cart full of sealed paper bags. If I discovered anything illegal in there, I would have to turn her over to the police.

After half an hour waiting inside my car – even with the heat turned up I could feel my body fluids crystallizing – she stumbled past. She was a little over five feet tall, dressed in a long gray cloak with a hood. A buttoned flap hid her mouth and nose. All were streaked with musty green, rusty brown, and gusty red stains. Had she been involved in violence?

Trying to act casual, I stepped out of my car and quietly followed her. There wasn’t anyone else around, and I needed there to be in case we had an altercation, so I simply tried not to lose her until she walked out to a larger street.

I saw her spot a patch of spilled oil, iridescent in the chilled morning light. She bent down and touched it, then rooted deep in the folds of her clothes, producing a match. Striking it, she set the oil aflame and warmed her hands by it. From sickly poison came crackling freshness. She gave me what might have been a coy glance, then rattled forward. I noticed that she had eyes so dark it looked like she had no irises, merely huge pupils. As if she could see much more than I could.

I enjoyed the brief burst of heat from the burning sidewalk, but worried about it hurting someone, so I smothered it with some mud. I regretted getting my new gloves dirty.

Shopping Cart Girl resumed muttering, and by straining my ears I could make out some words. “My life will be forever autumn,” repeated several times.

When I got closer, I softly asked, “Could I have a word with you?”

“One gets sick of apples after a while,” she said.

I would have raised an eyebrow had my eyebrows not been frozen. “Miss, I would like to help you.”

“Death is not the worst thing. Not wanting to live is.” Her voice lilted through the air, with a slight accent, Scottish perhaps.

“I’m with an organization that can get you a place to stay, and medicine to make you feel better, and help with whatever you need.” I didn’t like this. She was walking towards a darker, narrower alley.

“Hist!” she declared at the mouth of the alley. She touched her palms to each other, and then placed them pointing out, as if touching an invisible wall. Then she walked through, and I dove right after her.

The first thing I noticed was that it felt twenty degrees warmer. The sky above was blue with only a few wisps of clouds, exhalations of the beyond. Then I saw the trees…

Trees?

Their leaves were gold and scarlet, and they were at least eight feet tall. Great spiral staircases of brass led to their tops. Buildings of brick and wood clustered about them, sharing the space. The road was strewn with bronzed leaves, and the air smelled of cider.

About two hundred people were looking in my direction, some on horseback. For a moment I reddened, but then I realized they were looking at her. She had flung off her ragged coat, revealing a burgundy velvet tunic and supple leather leggings. Her short hair was a midnight cloud of darkness, curling around her face. Upon her forehead was a circlet of gold.

“The Lady has returned!” shouted the people. They cheered and clapped. I noticed all looked swarthy, small, and dark-haired.

“I missed you all,” she declared. A man about her age rushed to her, and they embraced.

“What have you brought for us?” they clamored. “Does the other world have great gifts or great dangers?”

After kissing the young man, she pulled the brown paper off the packages in her cart that now seemed profoundly out of place. “Both. I have brought you some great gifts, and will tell you of the dangers soon.”

She held up a sack and lifted out packets of seeds. “I have grains that will give us better yield in the perpetual harvests of Autumn.” She spoke “autumn” with a capital A.

Then she extracted a huge pack filled with pill bottles. “They make magical elixirs that stop the causeless sorrow, save eyesight, and promote healthy bone growth.”

“Thank you, dear Lady!” shouted many.

Then she showed them the newest Ti-83 calculators, the kind that ran on solar power. “I have learned how to use these tools, and they help us manage accounts in the palace and the marketplace.”

“Who is that?” the young man asked, finally spotting me.

She looked at me and smiled. “This woman wanted to cure me of madness. I thought she should learn something today.”

“I-I-I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I thought you were just a homeless lady.”

“Of course I am the Homeless Lady,” she said, with a trace of being condescending. “In your world.”