Because stories are like spells. They don’t work properly unless you tell them out loud.

So I flip back in the journal to the beginning of the story. “Okay, Gram,” I say. “For you.”

I clear my throat.

“‘Once upon a time,’” I start, “‘there was a humble cottage that sat halfway between a village and a great wood, as if it could not decide to which it belonged.’”

I tell my story to the Spinney, just like I’ve told so many before. The way I look may be different now, but my voice is the same as always.

And as I speak, I feel something strange happen. A breeze ripples through the treetops, and all around me, I can sense movement. I feel the familiar sensation of eyes—many eyes—upon me. Except this time, I don’t mind. This time, I smile.

Because if I were to look up, I am sure I would see a gnome popping her head up from the patch of moss closest to me. Others would appear next to her as they work their way out from their burrow, all of them resting their pointed chins in their little palms.

I would see the fauns arriving soundlessly, settling themselves in a graceful ring around the sycamore’s trunk.

And a rock in the middle of the stream, unrolling itself into a forest troll, its heavy eyes blinking ever so slowly.

The fairies drifting to the ground in the falling yellow leaves, twinkling inside them like dewdrops.

And Gram, sitting by the stream in her long cotton dress, her face lifted toward the sky, listening.

All of them gathering for one last story.

All of them waiting to hear the end.

Ivy’s new friends insisted that she eat and drink before setting out to meet the witch. The fauns took her to a comfortable den, the pixies lit a fire to warm her, and as she ate, the others told her stories of Gran and of how she had found Ivy as a baby by a stream and how Ivy had filled every corner of her wild heart.

Then they left Ivy once more, so she could think of a plan to banish the witch.

“How can we defeat her, Shilling?” Ivy wondered, curled under a knotty blanket given to her by the gnomes. “What do we have that she doesn’t?”

She glanced to the corner of the den, where the crutch Gran had been carving when she died rested against the twiggy wall. Except when Ivy looked at it now, she saw that it was not a crutch at all, but a half-finished sword.

Ivy knew then what she must do. She knew Gran had left her the sword so she could fight this battle. She borrowed a knife from the elves and set to work at once, whittling the wood into a sword, finishing what her gran had started.