One day, as she was working in the garden while her mother rested from a headache, she wandered into the rose patch—a special section filled with different varieties of roses: pinks and reds, whites, and even one that looked purple. She and her mother could never quite figure out how one particular rose bush looked so violet in the sunlight.

The little girl giggled and patted Needle’s trunk. “I think the tree heard me.”

Up and up and up the butterfly went, until it reached the very tippy tops of the trees.

“I thought I belonged up here,” she whispered. “But now I see I belong in the in-between.

“You are a listener too, child. The tree chose you for that.”   Elspeth blinked. “Chose me?”   “You hear what others forget. You believe in what breathes beneath the bark and behind the veil.”

The moment her fingers met his, the rooftop fell away in a swirl of stars and wind. Her shawl fluttered like wings, and her skirts rippled,.

"Foxes don't talk," she said automatically,...The fox's whiskers twitched in what might have been amusement. "And humans don't lose their shadows—unless the fair folk steal them."

Lyra’s head snapped up, her eyes, usually so veiled, flashing with a desperate hope. She moved to the bars, her fingers clutching them, knuckles white. “They… they bought me,”

But Eilis saw the flash of fear in her mother’s eyes when the baby turned its golden gaze toward her. That evening, when this unusual creature refused to nurse and remained silent even as her mother sobbed over it, Eilis watched her father place protective herbs above the doorframes.

With the last reserves of his strength, Bramble zipped beneath the shelter of the Queen Anne’s lace just as the rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour.

Still, the drought was testing even Amaryllis’s enduring confidence. She fluttered from bed to bed, watering with dewdrops gathered in acorn caps, whispering to the dry soil, encouraging earthworms to dig and aerate.

Nettie meets a young man caught by the fey. Will she set him free so they can be together?

Mary and Cindy Lou meet two fairies, much to their delight.

"Sally," May scolded, landing lightly on the branch the squirrel stood on, its texture gnarled under her tiny feet...