But as I dust myself off and look inside the sycamore hollow today, I feel my heart leap. I’m sure the journal isn’t quite at the angle I left it. And sitting atop it is a new pencil, freshly sharpened.

I grab the journal and skip breathlessly over to Throne Rock. I nestle myself into the nook of the cool boulders and turn through the pages, impatient to find out what happens next in the story.

Ivy ran across the clearing and burst through the door of Poppy Cottage, Shilling galloping beside her like a shooting star.

Inside the cottage, Gran sat upon a stool by the little fire, whittling something that looked like a crutch. She looked up in surprise as Ivy rushed in.

“Gran!” Ivy cried, running to her grandmother and flinging herself at the old woman’s feet. She laid her head in her grandmother’s lap. “You’re safe!”

“Of course I am, child,” said Gran. But her face looked pale in the meager firelight.

“The woman in the white cloak,” said Ivy. “I saw her leave. Are you all right?”

“I am,” Gran replied. But a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

“What did she want?”

“Dearest Ivy,” said Gran, setting down her whittling. “There is so much I wish I could tell you.”

Ivy shook her head, confused. Shilling whined. “What do you mean, Gran? Why can’t you tell me?”

Gran smiled. But her breath rattled in her chest.

“Are you sick, Gran?” Ivy asked, noticing how her grandmother’s color seemed to be fading further, like the sun fleeing the evening sky. “Did the woman in white do something to you?”

Her grandmother lifted a cold hand to Ivy and brushed it against her cheek. “I am an old woman, my girl. It is time I take my leave of the world.”

Ivy clutched at Gran’s skirts. “You can’t!” she cried. “You mustn’t!”

“You are strong,” said Gran, passing the half-whittled crutch to Ivy. “You are ready. Be well, my girl.”

Gran took one last breath that seemed to go on forever, and then in an instant was gone.

Ivy and Shilling tilted their heads up in unison. Their howls pierced a hole through the moonless night.

20

I don’t go back to the Spinney on Friday afternoon, or even over the weekend.

By the time I finished reading the new chapter, hot tears were burning down my cheeks.

And the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d been betrayed. It was my story, after all. It was supposed to be something to take my mind off my problems. A fairy tale that started with “once upon a time” and ended with “happily ever after.”

I had to watch my grandmother die, but Ivy was supposed to save hers. Wasn’t she?

I’m still stewing about it on Monday, when I arrive at school late from my light treatment.