Once upon a time, there was a small cottage that sat halfway between a village and a great wood, as if it could not decide to which it belonged. And inside the cottage lived a girl named Ivy and her grandmother, whom she called Gran.

Ivy had lived with her grandmother ever since she was a baby, and her grandmother had lived in Poppy Cottage since any living soul could remember. Ivy loved her grandmother more than anything in the world, and she loved the cottage second-best.

There was not always enough firewood to stay warm nor food to stay full, but even on nights when they were hungry and cold, Ivy and Gran were always in good cheer. They huddled close together and Gran whispered the stories of olden times, before magic had been stamped out and magical creatures driven to extinction. The more Gran spoke, the warmer Ivy’s cheeks felt. The more her belly seemed to fill, even if she had only a crust of bread for supper.

Each day, Ivy and her grandmother walked in the great forest, where Gran collected herbs and leaves that she made into remedies to heal the villagers of their aches and pains. As they went, Gran taught Ivy the names of all the plants and trees that grew there until she knew each like it was her own.

Some days, they walked so deep that Ivy forgot there was anything beyond the forest’s borders, and she emerged from its shadows puzzled to find Poppy Cottage standing just where she’d left it that morning.

The villagers whispered dark things about the forest, but it held no fear for Ivy. And yet, she sometimes saw things there that she could not understand. One instant, her grandmother’s skirts would brush against a dead cottonwood tree, and the next, its branches were covered in tender green leaves. Towers of dappled foxglove bells blossomed wherever she walked. And if Ivy and Gran happened to shut their eyes in a bed of ferns, when they awoke, a red fox would often be curled up next to Gran, its pointed face resting in her lap.

Sometimes Ivy awoke in the night to see her gran treating the forest animals by the dim light of the cottage’s fire. She dressed their wounds and gave them remedies, just as she did for the villagers in the daylight.

If Ivy didn’t know magic to be gone from the world, she might wonder if Gran had a drop or two running in her veins.

Perhaps it was that magic that strung the days all together, like holly berries on a winter garland, into one long, ripe ruby afternoon. Ivy felt certain it would go on forever and ever, and she and Gran would be together always.

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