Cori pushed aside a curtain of ivy behind the rose bushes and found a tiny oak door half-buried in the earth. She knelt and pressed her ear against the wood, hearing a faint hum like a bee trapped in a jar.
The door creaked open to a forest where blue flowers pulsed with soft light and the path wound between trees like ribbons. Cori stepped through, her sneakers sinking into moss that shimmered silver under her weight.
A silver fox appeared between two glowing trunks and spoke in a voice like wind chimes: 'The garden sleeps because three stones hold its dream — find them before the last light fades.' Cori frowned, glancing at the dimming flowers, then followed the fox down the path.
At a fork in the path, three stone locks stood embedded in an ancient tree trunk, each carved with a different symbol. Cori traced the symbols — a moon, a drop of water, a seed — and arranged three found stones on the ground in the same order. The locks clicked open and a warm glow pulsed through the forest.
The fox led Cori to a crystal pedestal at the forest's heart, now dark and cracked, its light stolen by a shadow that slithered into the roots below. Cori knelt, picked up a fallen stone, and wedged it into the crack of the pedestal, holding it steady until the crystal flared bright and the shadow recoiled with a hiss.
The fox bowed its head. 'You solved the riddle of the stones, but the true answer was courage — you stayed when you could have run.' Cori smiled, her hands still warm from the crystal, and followed the fox back to the tiny door.
She stepped through the door and found herself back in her garden, the ivy swaying gently above her. The flowers at her feet glowed faintly blue, and she sat down beside them, watching the light pulse like a slow, happy heartbeat.
The flowers at her feet glowed faintly blue, each pulse matching the rhythm of her own quiet breathing. Cori closed her eyes and listened to the garden — the rustle of leaves, the distant hum of bees, the soft whisper of the ivy above the tiny door.
