Chapter 25
Ruby woke up with sunlight in her eyes. The sun set early these days, but it never seemed to rise any later—or at least it never felt like it. For once, though, the day was bright, and the dried flowers around the cottage were colored so intensely that they almost didn’t look real.
She looked around groggily, her memories mixed for a moment.
Then she remembered that she was in her grandmother’s house.
Her back was stiff and so was her neck. She’d fallen asleep in the chair by the fire, and Gran hadn’t woken her up to put her to bed.
Gran’s cottage looked the same as it always had. There were dried flowers everywhere, adding color to the place in a way that was unheard of in a villager’s home.
The long nights threatened the flower business, but that seemed to only have made
