The label on the bottle reads ‘There be a witch in here. Let her out and there be a peck of trouble’. But Mike is always trying to emulate his impulsive sister or his responsible brother. Then his friend Lee swears he sees something fly out of the bottle, and Mike decides to open it again. Out flows an extraordinary tableau – a Fire King astride a stallion, and a beautiful woman in a bower of flowers – the archetypes of Yin and Yang in terrible conflict.
Mike, seeing that he can tip the balance, throws his lot in with the king. When things go wrong in the real world, Mike returns to his vision, to find that the Fire King has wreaked havoc. He changes his allegiance to the Lady – and sinks into a deep depression. Slowly he learns that the answer lies not in choosing the power of fire or of water, Yin or Yang, his sister’s or brother’s way – but in the eternal dance between them.
