by Ali Standish
I considered this. It did seem to make sense that if there were such a thing as the charmed folk, they would live here in Lanternwood, a place that seems forgotten by time.
“If they’re all in hiding, how do you know they’re here?” I asked.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I used to play here as a little girl, too. And one day, I came across a fairy who had flown too close to the stream.” She skimmed her paint-crusted fingers over the water’s surface, and the stream seemed to skip at her touch. “Her wings had gotten wet, and she was drowning. So I plucked her from the water and wrapped her in fern fronds to dry.”
“Was she okay?” I asked.
“She was,” Gram said. “And very surprised, because almost nobody can see fairies and other charmed folk anymore. They’ve all forgotten how.”
“How did you see her, then?”
“Well, they say it takes one to know one, don’t they?” she mused. “Perhaps I could see her because I have a drop or two of magic running in my veins, leftover from long, long ago.” She gave me a little wink at this. “Anyhow, the next time I came back to the wood, the fairy queen was here in the sycamore hollow, her ladies-in-waiting holding gifts of honeysuckle nectar and buttercup jam. It was her daughter, the princess, I had saved, you see. The queen told me that as long as I kept their existence a secret, I was welcome to the wood anytime.
“After that, whenever I came here, I would find that the fairies had left me something in the sycamore hollow. In time, the fairies themselves came out to join me in my games, and then the other creatures began to emerge from their dens and burrows, too.”
I looked down at the book I had just found, the one Gram said the fairies had left me in the sycamore hollow, trying to decide whether or not I believed her. “But haven’t you broken your promise now?” I asked suspiciously. “You told me the secret.”
“Ah, but only because the fairy queen herself gave me permission.”
“Will I be able to see them, too?”
Gram cocked her head. “Why don’t you try? There, look. There’s one just over your shoulder.”
I spun around, but all I saw behind me was a stubbly holly bush. “Where?” I demanded.
“Right there,” Gram said. “Just look for a moment. See what could be. Look through your eyes, Emma, not with them.”
I screwed up my face and stared at the bush. But it was still just a bush. I closed my eyes and let my mind fall open, like a book.
And then I tried again.
Gram and I never could quite agree on what the fairies looked like.
When I saw them, they had wings spun from spider’s silk and clothes stitched from flower petals and leaves.
When Gram saw them, they had butterfly wings and hats and tunics made with bits of thread and spare buttons they had managed to pluck from unsuspecting humans who wandered too close to the forest.
It was part of their magic, she said, that they appeared different to different people.
Today, though, no one appears at all. It’s just Boomer and me, alone in the glade. I didn’t really expect anyone to answer my call. I’m starting to think that the charmed folk were only ever real because Gram said they were.
Now that she’s gone, they’ve gone, too.
I slide from the rock to the ground and walk softly over to the sycamore hollow to pull out the book inside. The very same book I found that first day in the Spinney.
It’s stayed dry enough out here over the years, because the hollow is deep. But inside its leather cover, its pages are soft and worn. I open it to the first page, on which are written a few spidery words:
The Spinney Chronicles
And underneath, in my terrible second-grade handwriting:
BY: EMMA TALBOT AND GRAM
I flip through each page, watching my handwriting get smaller and neater as the years go by. Gram’s handwriting, meanwhile, never changes.
This book is a record of all the afternoons the two of us spent in the glade together with the charmed folk. The first stories are devoted to the fairy clans. Then come the ones about the elves, and then the forest troll, and after that the gnomes.
Whenever we finished a story, Gram would tell me to read it to her in the glade. “Stories are like spells,” she said. “They never work properly unless you tell them aloud.”
Whenever I told one of the stories we’d written, all the charmed folk would gather around to listen as I read from my perch on Throne Rock. They loved to hear stories about themselves, Gram said. And after I was done, I would run around the wood with them, all of us acting out the story I had just read while Gram watched and laughed. The charmed folk love make-believe, too.
That’s how I remember it, anyway.
Three-quarters of the way through the book, the pages go blank.
The empty sheets sting my eyes and claw at my throat.
Gram and I should have filled this whole book together. The idea that the pages will stay blank forever now is unbearable.
There is still a pencil nestled in the journal, and I find myself picking it up. It feels good in the crook of my thumb. Like it belongs there.
I’m not ready to go back home, but I don’t want to be here in the Spinney alone, either. I want to be somewhere else entirely. I want to climb into the journal and the world that Gram and I created and never, ever leave.
So I begin to write.
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.
7
When my alarm goes off on the first morning of school, Boomer lets out a small groan and burrows deeper into the covers as I drag myself out of bed. Today is my first
day as a seventh grader. First day at a new school. I should be excited, but all I want to do is stay right here with Boomer.
In the bathroom, I study my face in the mirror. There are dark circles under my eyes. I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple of nights. And is it just my imagination, or are the spots on my elbow getting bigger?
I look away but not before my stomach does a belly flop. At least school will give me something else to think about until my appointment.
Back in Gram’s room, which I have now officially taken over, I glance at the tower of new books sitting on the bureau, but instead I grab The World at the End of the Tunnel and drop it into my terrible pink backpack.
“Emma!” Mom calls. “You’ll be late for your bus!”
“Coming, coming,” I mutter, shooting a last jealous look at Boomer, whose nose is still twitching with dreams.
As I’m passing Gram’s studio, I hesitate. I haven’t been inside since before she died. I don’t want to see the paintings that she was still working on, that she’ll never get to finish now.
I push the door open, though, and instead of looking at the paintings, I search the floor until I find what I’m looking for. The old leather satchel that she used to carry her paint supplies in. The leather is frayed and splattered with paint, but it’s still a million times better than the backpack I already can’t believe I let Mom buy me. Quickly, I dump all my school supplies and books out of the backpack and transfer them into the satchel.
This way, I’ll have a little bit of Gram with me.
I grab one of her old cardigans that’s hanging on the back of the door, too. It’s not cold enough for sweaters yet, but at least the spots on my elbows will be all covered up.
I race down the stairs, brushing past Mom. “Emma! What are you—”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m going to miss the bus!” I say.
“Well, have a good first day, sweetheart,” she replies. I just have time to hear her sigh before I whip through the door.
The bus stop is right outside our house, and I reach it as the school bus is pulling up. Gloria waves from outside the village hall, where she’s weeding the garden beds. “Knock ’em dead, Emma!” she calls out. I shoot her a quick smile, hoping no one on the bus heard.
As I walk up the stairs and tell the driver my name, I start to feel all wobbly. I’ve never felt this way on the first day of school before. Is it because it’s a new school? Or because I’m still thinking about my spots?
The front seats are mostly occupied by kids who are squirming so nervously, they must be sixth graders. I hope I don’t look as anxious as they do. In the back, there are two boys, both wearing headphones, who look up at me and away again. And in the middle are two girls sitting next to each other who stare at me. They seem like they might be seventh graders, too. They’ve painted their nails the same color blue, and one of them has the exact backpack I dumped a few minutes ago. She starts whispering to the other, and they giggle. I take a seat two rows in front of them and on the opposite side of the aisle.
The bus pulls away, passing Morning Glory Cottage and Ruth’s house and Professor Swann as he walks past the graveyard. Past the leafy orchard and Briar Hollow Lane, and suddenly we’ve left Lanternwood behind. I feel a nervous twist in my stomach, like there’s an invisible string connecting me and the village, and the farther away we go, the tighter it pulls.
Relax, I tell myself. It’s just school.
A few minutes later, we turn into a neighborhood where some kids who definitely look like eighth graders get on and go straight to the back of the bus. Behind them walks a girl with strawberry-blond hair that’s perfectly straight. When she looks at me, I can tell she’s wearing mascara, but not because she’s done a bad job putting it on. She drums her fingernails against each of the seat backs as she walks down the aisle. The nails are painted blue.
“Edie!” calls out one of the two girls who stared at me earlier.
Edie’s eyes fall on Gram’s bag, laid across the seat next to me, and her eyebrows arch before she moves on. The bus jerks forward, and she gives a little screech of laughter that’s echoed by the other two girls.
At the next stop, there’s only one girl waiting. She’s got frizzy red hair and an impressive collection of freckles, and she keeps her eyes on her shoes as she walks. When she glances up at me, I smile—to let her know she can sit with me if she wants—but she has already looked away again. She takes an empty seat behind the sixth graders.
A few minutes later, we’re pulling up at school, where the assistant principals are waiting inside to sort us all into our homeroom classes. Kids rush around me, laughing and calling out to one another.
I squeeze the strap of Gram’s bag and pretend it’s her hand.
Once I have my homeroom assignment, I burrow my way through the crowds straight to class, where Mr. Owens, a bald man with a walrus mustache, checks my name off his list with a sleepy sweep of his hand.
By the time I’ve been to math and health, I don’t feel so nervous anymore. Instead, I feel bored. It seems like every teacher has memorized the same first-day-of-school speech about citizenship, hard work, and “building a strong school culture.” My thoughts start to drift back to my skin, and I make myself think instead about the story I started, the one that’s waiting for me in the sycamore hollow.
It felt so good, writing in the journal again. The thing is, I have no clue what to write next.
When I first got the journal, I told Gram I didn’t know how to write a story on my own, so we always wrote them together. I would write a chapter over the weekend, and when I went home for the week, Gram would read what I had written and write the next chapter, until we finished the whole story together.
I think about Ivy and her gran all through social studies, but by the time the bell rings, I still don’t have any good ideas.
Thankfully, there’s only English left before lunch.
In the first stroke of luck I’ve had all day, my English teacher actually seems to be an interesting human being. She doesn’t look that much older than Lily. She’s wearing trendy glasses with frames too big for her face and chunky leather boots.
“Cool bag,” she says as I walk in. “I’m Ms. Singh.”
“Emma,” I say, smiling for the first time all day. “Cool boots.”
Behind me, I hear a familiar laugh and turn to see Edie walking in. I sit down, and to my surprise, she takes the seat next to me. Her friend with the pink backpack has followed her in and sits down on her other side.
“I like your bag, too,” murmurs Edie, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Where’d you get it? The dumpster behind the Salvation Army?”
“Must have been right next to that ugly sweater,” her friend adds.
I feel my cheeks go hot as they both start to giggle. “No,” I say. “They were my gram’s.”
Edie opens her mouth to say something else, but before she can, a new girl slides into the seat in front of me. “Vintage,” she says. “Nice.”
She has dark curls and a wide smile, and glasses like Ms. Singh’s.
Edie shoots me a last smirk. And I think maybe I was right to be nervous about today.
8
Ms. Singh hands out our syllabus, and I flip through it, scanning for all the titles we’re going to read this year. Some of them I don’t recognize, but some I do. There’s one by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote all the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Gram’s favorite Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“And we’ll be doing lots of reader’s theater,” Ms. Singh is saying. “So brush up on your elocution!”
“Electrocution?” yelps a boy in the back, whose name is Austin, I think.
A few other boys giggle.
“Elocution,” says Edie. “It means pronouncing things clearly.”
Darn. I was kind of hoping Edie would be an airhead. It would make it easier not to care if she made fun of me.
“That’s right, Miss . . . ,” Ms. Singh says.
“O’Shea. Edie O’Shea.”
O’Shea. O’Shea. Why does that name sound so familiar?
I whirl halfway around to look at her. She can’t be, can she?
But she has the same wide brown eyes, the same confident gaze, as the man Mom was talking to in the bookstore the day she took me shopping.
“O’Shea like Arnold O’Shea?” I blurt before I can stop myself.
She studies me coolly. “Yes,” she says. “He’s my father. But I don’t like talking about him at school. I don’t want people trying to be my friend just because my dad is famous.”
The way the corners of her lips curl with satisfaction tells a different story.
I blink at Edie for another moment before turning back to face Ms. Singh, cheeks burning again. I don’t think I would want to be friends with Edie if her dad were the King of England.
“I’m sure everyone here will judge you on the merit of your character, Edie,” Ms. Singh says. “Not your father’s job. Now, moving on.”
She assigns us to write an acrostic of our names, which is a poem where, for each letter of your name, you describe yourself with a word or phrase that starts with that letter. Then we have to share.
The girl who said she liked my bag offers to go first. “I’m Fina,” she says.
“F: From California
I: Imaginative
N: Not a morning person
A: Adaptable.”
A few people whisper excitedly when she says “California,” and when Fina is done, Austin calls out, “Gnarly, bro!” in a terrible surfer accent.
Since she volunteered to go first and I’m sitting beside her, I have to go next. “I’m Emma,” I say.
“E: Easy to get along with
M: Messy
M: Moved here this summer
A: Always reading.”
Fina smiles and nods at me, and Ms. Singh says, “Wonderful! A reader!”
I also came up with another one while I was waiting for everyone else to finish their first. One that I’m not about to share with anyone.