Fable held her breath. She had snuck into town just long enough to find out what the heck was going on, and she would sneak back out again as soon as she was satisfied. In and out. Nobody even needed to know she had ever been here.
She quickstepped across the dusty road and ducked behind a barrel of dry goods. On the other side of the barrel, she could hear the rhythmic creak of a rocking chair.
There was a burst of noise as a door opened across the street and a crowd of men with sloshing buckets and thick blankets emerged. Fable glanced left and right, and then hopped hastily inside the barrel to hide. Her heart pounded. She felt excited, but also silly—it wasn’t as if any of those men cared one fig about her. The hiding spot was full of hazelnuts, which rattled as she sank into them. She waited as the sound of voices faded away.
Gradually, Fable realized the rhythmic creaking of the rocking chair had stopped, too. There was a little wooden groan and then the shuffle of footsteps. Don’t look inside the barrel, Fable thought, tensing as if sheer force of will could conceal her.
A wrinkled face appeared in the circle of light above her. “Hello, young lady,” said the woman. Her eyes twinkled. She appeared neither startled nor angry to find a child nestled among the nuts.
“Hi.” Fable smiled weakly up at the face.
“Have we met?” the woman asked, squinting as she surveyed the girl in the barrel.
“Um. I don’t think so,” said Fable.
There was a pause as the woman considered her.
“I’m . . . not supposed to be here,” said Fable.
“I should think not,” the woman agreed. “You’re the wrong shape entirely for a hazelnut.”
“I’m hiding.”
“I won’t tell,” said the woman with a wink.
The hazelnuts shifted slightly as Fable relaxed. “I’m Fable,” she said.
“Hello, Fable,” said the woman. “My name is Margaret.”
“I like your hair,” said Fable. “I like how it’s all white and sort of swooshy.”
The lady gave a little chuckle and the creases around her eyes deepened. “It wasn’t always so white. It used to be as dark as yours, if you can believe it. Are you sure we haven’t met?”
“I’m not from here.”
“Mm. You must remind me of somebody I used to know.” The woman settled back into her chair as Fable climbed gingerly back out of the barrel.
“I’m sorry I sat on your hazelnuts,” said Fable. “I didn’t take any. Promise.”
The woman looked out over the street. “You’ll miss a whole lot, you know, hiding away.” She took a deep breath. “Quite the show lately. The iceman let some children ride on the back of his cart on Saturday. I assumed that was the highlight of the week. But then there was all the excitement with that Mr. Hill fellow a few days ago, and I thought for sure that was the topper. The whole town has been talking about monsters and giants ever since. But now here’s this.”
“I don’t like Mr. Hill,” said Fable. “He cut down a tree my mama really liked.”
“That grand old oak? I was sad to hear about that, too.” The woman looked out over the rooftops and fidgeted with the end of her necklace.
“Why were you sad about it?” said Fable. “It wasn’t your tree. It was a forest tree.”
“Mm.” The woman’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Fable. “I was a little girl once,” she said at last, “if you can believe it. Long before the white hair and the wrinkles, before I got married and moved away from my daddy’s farm. I was Maggie Roberson back then.” She smiled and reached behind her neck to unclasp her necklace. She held it out for Fable to see. “I know you young people call me Old Mrs. Stewart these days. I don’t mind. Everybody seems young lately. But I keep a bit of little Maggie with me still.”
The necklace was nothing more than a thin chain that ended in a polished green stone. Fable held out a hand, and the woman let it rest in her palm. The gem was smooth and almost clear enough to see through—cloudy white with a spray of dark green veins spreading out from the center. It was pretty, but Fable had seen countless like it. The narrow path leading up to her grandmother’s old cabin was lined with scores of them.
“I used to have an imaginary friend,” the woman said, watching Fable’s fingers as they turned the stone around and around. “I just called her my lady. She lived in the woods behind our farm when I was very young, and whenever I went picking berries or playing near the forest’s edge, I would invent songs to cheer her up.”
“Why did your imaginary friend need cheering up?”
“You know, I can’t for the life of me remember,” said the old woman. “But that is an excellent question.”
“I’m good at questions,” Fable said.
The woman smiled. “One day I made up a song about finding rubies and emeralds and buried pirate treasure, and the next morning, a whole pile of these was waiting for me in my favorite tree.”
“Are they valuable?”
“In their way.” She smiled and held out her hand. Fable returned the necklace, and the woman slid the chain back around her neck. “Moss agate. They used to say it was good luck for gardens or babies or new beginnings. I scooped them out of that old oak tree and carried them up the hill in my skirts. My brothers and I spent a whole day hiding them around our field. We thought it might make the crops grow better. This one I kept for myself, though. It reminds me to have courage to try something new from time to time.”
A tingle went up Fable’s back. “You found those in the Grandmother Tree?”
“The Grandmother Tree? I like that. Yes, I found them in that old oak. My brothers never
