Bloom and Bough

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.

“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.”

"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."

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.