The Magic Blanket

There is a cabin in the middle of the woods. Inside that cabin is simple. There is a bed, a fireplace, a chest, and a rocking chair. In that rocking chair, sits a woman. The woman sits in this chair all day, and sometimes most of the night.

You see, she crafts. She creates magical blankets from materials that come from the chest. The chest is the real magic though. When she needs a material, she simply thinks of what she needs, opens the chest, and there is the thing she needed. When she is done with her blanket, she puts it in the chest and closes the lid. The chest then whisks the blankets away and leaves them where they will be found by people who need them.

She makes all kinds of blankets, crochet, knit, quilt, whatever mood possesses her in the morning is what she makes. She does this every day, with little rest and no days off except exceedingly rare occasions.

This day was like all the others. She sat in her rocking chair. Today’s blanket was a quilt. As she put each piece together with loving fingers, her thoughts ran to the woods outside the cabin, as they often did.

She looked out the window often and could see the green leaves and grass, the brown bark of the trees. She would sometimes stand on the porch to feel the sun shining on her face, but never left the porch. She missed the feel of the grass under her feet.

You see, this cabin, this calling, was both a blessing and a curse. She was able to work on the most amazing blankets that were a great blessing for those who got one. But she was not able to leave the cabin. For if she stepped off the porch to feel that grass that was so tantalizingly close, she would not be able to go back.

In fact, if she did leave, she would only be able to feel the grass for a moment before she disappeared. Many hundreds of years ago, she made a deal with the faeries. She would be given this cabin and everything she ever needed. She would live forever. If she never set foot off the porch. In exchange, she made these blankets, which had always been a passion for her.

Lately though, her thoughts were returning to the outside world more and more frequently. She had most everything she needed here. She had food and drink, warmth and cool, everything for her craft. The faeries even came to visit her ever so often. But she was lonely and missed human companionship.

A plan began to form in her mind that when the fae came to visit again, she would ask one last favor of them. One that would benefit what their task was for her, and her as well.

The day came that she saw a pair of wings fluttering at the edge of her clearing. With wings came another faery who came on foot. They had never given her their names so in her mind, she always called them wings and feet.

She set her sewing down and went to the edge of the porch to greet them. She waited for them to come closer so as not to need to yell.

“Greetings!” she said, with a smile on her face, as they approached. They smiled and waved in return.

Amiena and Roteiri were their names. They had been her friends for as long as she’d been here in this cabin. How long that had been was hard to say. Almost as long as she could remember. Her old memories were fading and her life before the cabin was slipping away as the days went along.