On what I thought should have been our last evening together, Holle and I sat together by the fire reading. She seemed quite content, though I could hardly keep still. It seemed like ages before she spoke.

"I suppose, my dear, you'll be wanting to go home soon?"

I hardly knew what to answer, not wishing to seem ungrateful, but desperately missing my mother and anxious to return to her, sometimes imagining her coming home after a long day to a cold, empty house, sometimes fearing lest any misfortune should fall upon her in my absence. These feelings had been growing stronger each day, and as I was then hardly more than a child, being only thirteen, when Holle suddenly put her arm around me, I could hardly help bursting into tears.

After a few minutes, she stood, and taking my hand, she said with a strange smile, "I think it is time that I show you something."

She led me to the front door of the house and bid me open it. As I did, I saw to my shock that the sun was shining, though I had been sure it was nine o'clock at the earliest. I turned to look at Holle but found she was no longer at my side.

"Come out into the sun, my dear," she called, suddenly appearing in the field.

I came, speechless and breathless with wonder. The world was still and silent before me. There was neither wind nor frost, but the tall grass bent and stayed as if frozen in place. Far above, a single bird hovered unmoving, with wings outstretched.

"What do you think?" Holle asked, suddenly by my side again, and laughed at my thoroughly bewildered expression.

"What is this?"

"This is why I brought you here. This is a moment."

The last word was spoken in a tone of breathless exhilaration, and as I looked at her, I saw that, while not exactly young, she did not look half so old as she had before.

"Who are you?" I asked, quite forgetting my manners.

She laughed lightly. "You might call me a fairy godmother, which would make you a fairy godmother in training, though that really is a fanciful way of looking at it. I am simply an ordinary woman, who was once an ordinary girl, who was given an extraordinary gift, which I would now like to share with you.

"Simply put," she continued, "I have the ability to stop time. We are now in a single moment, a time without time, I like to call it. Or if you imagine normal time as a straight line, you might say that in this moment, our timeline is running perpendicularly. Do you understand?"

I wasn't sure that I did, but I nodded anyway.

"Well then," Holle continued, "the rules are simple enough. In this time without time, we do not age, we can get by with only a little food and sleep, and, though we might live indefinitely in a single moment, because time must inevitably move forward, we cannot stay forever.

"It is possible to stop time completely so everything is frozen in the moment, or selectively so some people or things remain unaffected. I have pulled you into the moment now, but you saw that I also pushed you out, when I slipped past you out the door. You'll find that a very useful trick at times. Conversely, in this state it is also possible to essentially speed up time, so water might boil or plants might grow apparently instantaneously.

"I don't know exactly how it all works," she admitted, "but if you are a good girl, kind and generous and selfless, like a true fairy godmother ought to be, you will find that things work the way you want more easily. But if you abuse this gift, beware lest it be taken away at a most inconvenient time."

We stood in silence a little while as I considered her words. Finally, I asked, "What day is it?"

"The very day you left, a little past three. The first hour or so after we left your home passed normally, but since then we've only spent a few minutes here and there."

Though I still missed my mother, I felt somewhat relieved at this, knowing that she had not yet greatly missed me.

"What would you do if you could go home now?" Holle asked, as if she understood a little of what I was thinking.

"Clean the house," I answered quickly. The moment the words left my mouth, I felt foolish, but Holle smiled encouragingly and waited for me to continue. I thought a moment.

"If I really could do anything, and I suppose with enough time and the right tools I almost might, I'd like to fix our roof. It always leaks a great deal when it rains. Then I would sweep the chimney, and dust and sweep and scrub the house from top to bottom, and do the dishes and laundry, and wash the windows and air the rooms."

"Very practical. We can't count on miracles to save us from everyday drudgery, but it certainly makes it easier, when we are not constantly racing against the clock. What else?"

"I'd sweep the lean-to and sharpen the saw and ax and cut enough firewood to last weeks, then weed and water the garden, and then I'd find Mama and help her with her work. And I'd visit all the houses in town, and perhaps the other towns as well, and help everyone, so no one would guess who had done it."

"And then?"

"Then...perhaps I would come back here and finish the lessons."

So that is precisely what we did.

With Holle's help, some borrowed tools, and all the time in the world, the roof was entirely replaced, the house cleaned, the dishes and laundry done, the lean-to filled, and the garden weeded, watered, harvested, and allowed to grow some more. Then we moved on to the other houses in the neighborhood, the church, and the schoolhouse, and then the next town over, and the one beyond that. It was a great deal easier said than done, yet still easier than I would have supposed, and I was extraordinarily pleased with the results.

When the month was finally up, I returned home early on the appointed day with a great deal of packages and parcels. Mama was so overjoyed to see me that she hardly noticed them at first, but when she did, she quite reminded me of a child at Christmas. Holle has sent a chest full of tea and coffee, herbs and spices, dried meat and cheese, honey, jam, and bread, yarn and fabrics and thread, soap and candles, and books and paper and ink.

After that, Mama didn't have to work so hard, her health and spirits improved greatly, and I went back to school. Word of our good fortune travelled quickly throughout the neighborhood, and our position in society rose significantly, so that many people who had quite shunned us before now greeted us most cordially in town.

Though Holle had told me she would return on occasion to check in on us, it was a year before I saw her again.