• A gang of children sits on a porch on a sunny day around an old rocking chair. In the rocking chair sits an old woman. She sits and knits squares of bright wool. Red, green, blue, yellow, even sickly looking orange and lavender coloured squares, she puts them in a big sewing box to the chairs left -She will later use these squares to make a patchwork blanket for a beloved grandchild dotingly. - She has a soft round face with wrinkles mapping tears long ago shed and dazzling smiles long dimmed. She looks kind and very much like the stereotypical grandmother figure, plump, white and grey hair and an air of flowery scents surrounding with just a touch of old person, someone you’d bet had cookies and treats in a jar somewhere and would spoil you rotten, if given the chance. Gentle eyes shining dimly with remembrances of youth, move between watching her hands work and the children around her, vigilant, so they can’t scamper off or cause trouble, but calm.

    “Hey, Grandma, tell us a story.” requests the eldest of the children brazenly.

    “Hmm, a story you say, uh, but there are so many stories I could tell…”

    “One with action.” piped in a younger one.

    “One with love and … and heroines.” asked a girl (one of the minority of the group)

    “No, one with hero’s and fighting, grandma.” argued one of the boys pulling the girls pigtails lightly, not hurting her but annoying her greatly.

    “I wanna have a pwinces storiee,” chimed Sally, the very youngest of them all.

    “Very well children, a story with hero’s and heroines, princesses and love. Let me think, Sally come here, love.” gestured the old woman while placing her knitting momentarily to the side. Sally got up on wobbly child’s legs and carried her doll with her, to stand before the old woman’s chair. The old woman stretched her arms outward while leaning forward slightly in her seat and picked Sally up gently, to cradle in lap and bosom.

    The remaining four children move closer also, one just turning around, the others having to get up or crawl. There were six of them in total on that porch, five children ages ranging from two to eight, and the old woman who’d lived eighty summers. It seemed as if the old woman was the Pied Piper, drawing the children to her with a sweet promise of adventure in the form of her story. The children sat transfixed, their little games of marbles and blocks a distant memory. How they loved grandma’s stories.

    “Today, dear children, I will tell you a story of a group of rather mismatched heroes” she sang out in her clear ‘story telling voice’ for them all to hear. “This story only came to an end a little while ago, in fact.”

    “So it’s a real story?”

    “Yes, Alice, love. It’s a real story of a hidden world.” smiled the old woman.

    “As in a world of magic? Is magic even real?”

    Chuckling softly the old woman replied, “Yes dear, a world of magic and beasties, but don’t fret they won’t harm you. There aren’t many of them left now and they fear us more than we fear them, it’s best we don’t mingle too much.”

    “Could we meet them?”

    “Only the very lucky, or unlucky meet them and then you have to know what to look for. Otherwise you’d mistake them for us. That’s one of the ways they hide you see. And what would you do if you did meet them? How do you know if you haven’t already? Your neighbour, best friend or teacher could be one of them, maybe even your great uncle.”

    “But I don’t have a great uncle.” claimed Alice desperately.

    “That wasn’t the point, dear.”

    “Oh.” Alice’s face reddened as the other children giggled. She tried to hide her embarrassment by laughing along but it even sounded half hearted and forced. Eventually the children quieted until one of them snorted and even louder laughter reigned.

    A soft breeze picks up just outside on this sunny day, a wind chime tingles softly in the distance. The old woman leans back in the rocking chair, the little girl on her lap following in suite. The laughter comes to a soft stop at this movement, gazes fixed once again on the grand storyteller.

    “Now, now children. I thought you wanted me to tell you a story?”