A Different Fairytale

Growing up, whenever Effie visited her grandma for sleepovers, she would be read every fairy tale from every book her grandmother could get her hands on. She told each story as if she had lived it herself, whether she was a massive dragon or an itty-bitty lizard. She described the kingdoms and forests as if they were her home, painting every castle, village, and winding path so vividly that Effie could almost see them.

As the years passed, so did her grandmother's health. Sleepovers slowly turned into hospital visits, and the fairy tales that her grandmother once read so effortlessly became too heavy and exhausting for her. So Effie took over, sitting beside her hospital bed for hours whenever she could, reading every story they had ever loved together.

Then, one day, her grandmother suffers a particularly severe heart attack, and it seems like she'll never leave that hospital bed.

Desperate to cope with the realization that her grandmother may not be with her much longer, Effie reads her favorite fairy tales over and over, hoping that somehow she can delay the inevitable. But what happens when she falls asleep beside her grandmother's bed, quietly singing the old lullaby her grandma always used to chase away nightmares?

And what if the reason her grandmother described those magical kingdoms so vividly, like they were familiar, was because they were?