Briar Rose was 6 years old and her Aunts had given her a poppet for Christmas. She had yellow yarn for hair and blue button eyes and a brown dress and Briar Rose named her Lily.
And they had a white Christmas, and it got whiter and whiter, it even covered the door. So Briar Rose and Lily were stuck inside all the time. But that was okay, Briar Rose had someone to play with, her new friend Lily.
After playing skip and jump and some other games, Briar Rose decided it would be a good idea to show Lily the whole cottage, so she could get to know her new home. She started with her room. She thought the bed was really nice, it was part of the tree, and she could stay warm by pulling the curtains around.
She had drawn plants and flowers on the posts to remember Spring by. Briar Rose loved Spring, she felt so much better when it was Spring. And she opened every draw and door and even under the bed so Lily knew all about her new home.
And then she wanted to show off the kitchen, but her aunts were working on dinner and arguing over what to make again. She wasn't sure why, Aunt Merryweather did all the cooking and she made what she wanted anyway. So Briar Rose left the kitchen for later.
She went to each room and showed Lily everything. It took all day. While her Aunties were arguing over what to make for dinner, they snuck into the auntie's room and she found a long, thin box under Aunt Flora's bed. Inside they found three white sticks. Briar Rose and Lily decided to sit on the bed, to figure this out. It was something new.
Pulling one out, it started to throw off sparkles. "Oh, isn't that pretty, Lily," Briar Rose asked. She waved it around and more sparkling came out, then she gave it a jab. A burst of green light shot from the end, bounced off of the mirror and came right back and hit Briar Rose in tummy. The force of the magic made her slide off of the bed and fall down with a thump behind the bed.
After a while a little blond curl peered over the edge of the bed followed by some purple eyes and then a cute button nose. Catching her breathe she carefully looked over the edge of the bed, the wand was sitting quietly on the covers where it had fallen when she dropped it. Using just two fingers she carefully dropped it back in the box and slide the box back where she found it with her foot.
"I think we'll look at some other part of the cottage, shouldn't we, Lily?" said Briar Rose. But she wondered if she would get a sparkly white stick, when she grew up.