“Because it’s magic, of course. Full of the charmed folk. But they’re very shy, you know. Imagine if you told someone, and they told someone, and before you knew it, crowds were stampeding through here, holding up their phones and trying to take pictures of the poor fairies and fauns. The creatures would have to leave, wouldn’t they? There’s hardly anywhere left for them to go these days as it is.”

My eyes grew star bright, my heart flew higher. “Fairies?” I asked. “Are there really fairies here, Gram?”

“Of course there are,” she said. “Look—they’ve already left you a welcome gift.” She pointed to the hollow in a huge sycamore tree. I tiptoed closer and peered in.

“It’s a book,” I said.

“So it is,” Gram agreed.

I blink, and Gram is gone. Boomer and I are alone in the glade. I glance over to the towering sycamore tree, the dark hollow. After all this time, the book from that first day is still there, but I can’t bring myself to open it and look inside. Not now.

Instead, I get up from my bed of moss and climb to Throne Rock, two big boulders covered in yellow lichen that grow together in the shape of—you guessed it—a throne. And I clear my throat.

Before, I wasn’t sure why I needed to come here so badly, other than to feel close to Gram. But now I know what I need to do. I need to give Gram the kind of funeral she would want. The kind she deserves.

“Charmed folk,” I call, “citizens of the Spinney, I ask you to gather around me now in honor of this most solemn occasion!”

For a moment, all is still in the glade. Then Boomer’s ears perk as something stirs from a patch of jewelweed.

And as I wait for them to come—the fairies with their soft-beating wings and the fauns walking on hooves silent as time itself, the elves with sparrows burrowing in the nests of their dark hair and the gnomes with their pointed hats pressed to their chests—tears begin to spill down my face.

Here is something you should know about Gram.

She wasn’t just my grandmother. She was my very best friend.

3

Even though I feel really tired, I can’t seem to sleep.

That happens to me sometimes. My brain feels like a carousel, spinning around and around and bobbing up and down, and the longer it spins, the harder it becomes to sleep.

Tonight, memories of Gram twist and whirl in my mind.

There’s picking blackberries in the meadows Gram and baking oatmeal raisin cookies Gram and sitting by the fire reading Gram and throwing balls in the river for Boomer Gram.

All those memories make me feel like I’ve lost a thousand different people instead of only one.