Excerpt:

Chapter 1

It was a gray day, the sort of day where clouds hung in the sky like an iron blanket over the world, casting a dark light over everything. I guess most people don't like that sort of day, and in the past I hadn't liked it either, but now I did, because on gray days I went to my castle. It used to be to cheer me up, but now it had gotten to the point where just the thought of going to my castle made me happy.
My castle wasn’t really a castle. I don’t know, you’ve probably guessed that.
But it looked like a castle, gray stone coming out of the beautiful grassy foundations, stuff that you could climb all over and feel completely at peace with. It was also part of a drainage system, one that wound past my neighborhood, by the side of the jogging trails in the woods.
That was beside the point, though. Really, it was my castle. And whenever the day was gray and felt too gloomy, I got out of the house, even if it looked like it was about to rain. Even though my castle was—technically—a drainage system, it didn’t get too bad unless it started really pouring. Unless it started pouring, though, I could hide inside the one part of my castle that was underground, a pipe that went underneath a hill and connected two parts of the system together. Other than that, the system was basically a series of giant water troughs, open to the sky pouring down on them. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that sort of thing. But I always loved climbing up the sides and walking down the center, along a thin stone wall, daring myself to look down as I pretended I was a graceful gymnast on a balance beam, or an acrobat on a tightrope, strong and beautiful and above all, not afraid. And that was why the drainage system was my castle—my castle free of fear.
I’m sorry. I’m afraid I got off topic. I was talking about the pipe. The pipe was the only part that wasn’t open to the sky and the rain, and I definitely considered it the center of my castle. The throne room, if you will. If it was gray and I went over there and it really did start raining, I would run into the pipe and sit down (the only way I could fit in there, especially as I got bigger), and then I would listen to the rain and look at it hitting the ground only a few feet from my hand, which was laid down beside me on the cool concrete floor of the pipe. It was wonderful. I felt so safe…and so regal, at the same time. I was a queen, a queen in my castle free of fear.
I discovered this throne room of mine when I was nine years old. Up until then, I’d been afraid of everything. Fire. Dogs. Bugs. People. Toasters. You know.