I only ever visited her once, on a sunny springtime day. But I remember everything.

They grew alongside daisies and cosmos, their backs just touching the stone walls of the small cottage in the woods.

I saw it in the rearview mirror. Just a flash, a pop of reflected sunlight. But something made me stop and turn around.

Every year she’d bring a basket full of mums in colors good enough to eat.

She wore a gingham apron when she worked, blue and white squares across sturdy cotton fabric worn soft by decades of washing.

Pixies keep what’s theirs.

A very small girl stood on top of her dresser, knocking on the jewelry box as if she expected an answer.

At first, she thought it must just be her mind playing tricks on her.

Betty found the little crown in a bed of zinnias, of all places.

There was no oath, no collection of words that could say everything he wanted to. So, he was silent.⁣